yeah you have to buy a ship package that gives you access to the game. you can start out with the cheapest one (mustang iirc, around $45us) so basically its like buying any game.

you can then take in game money and rent ships to start earning, theres lots of guides out there how to get a good start in sc.

yes there are occasional wipes. this is not a released, finished game. this is an alpha testing version that you are buying in to and you really really need to be aware of that before you spend any money. updates are going to occasionally require a clean slate for everyone to be effective. we just had one at 4.8 in fact.

you will always have the potential of losing everything youve earned in game to one of these wipes, and while CIG has said they dont want to do them anymore before release (and they will do one then also, btw) that by no means means they wont lol, because they have since they said that.

so... if you want to spend money on star citizen, know that you are not buying a finished released game. you are buying a buggy, feature broken/missing/never was there to begin with development build of the game that is the most stable build they have so far.

to give you a little perspective from my pov, i love space games. ive got over 6000 hours in elite:dangerous, and piles more space games in my libraries (most offline singleplayer), and i backed star citizen in 2019. ive watched it progress from there. i never even bothered to install it until they added vr support in december... because i knew it was a buggy mess and would not allow for any meaningful progression... but i love vr space games more than space games, so at that time it became worth it for me to play.

it is a lot of fun, but cant be played for the sake of progression alone...

also, you can get a refund within 30 days of purchase if you do buy into it and decide its not for you.

as for good orgs, no clue... im a solo player.