You earn two lucre instead of freeing a ship from the warp.  So, you can potentially buy 2 ships out... however, the ships you buy out return to colonies, rather than being added to the encounter (unless it's the defense buying the ships and adding them to the targeted planet), and lucre is only spent in the Planning Phase.   It's a small distinction, but of course the ship you normally release in Regroup can always just go right into the gate. 

The reason I shy away from allowing players to buy ANYTHING with lucre is because of tracking all the costs.  We just keep it simple... one lucre per whatever, and no limit to how much you can spend.  But all you can buy are cards and ships, and not anything from the Reward deck.  It's called the Reward deck for a reason! 

Instead, we have a lot of new aliens (and soon Cosmic Stars or Lucre Reward cards) that let you spend lucre on other things.  So, instead of letting all players spend lucre to add points to their encounter, we have an alien whose ability that is.   I think limiting the general use of lucre allows for more interesting lucre aliens (and would likewise allow for more diversity in reward cards or other kinds of effects, like moons, etc). 

I never played or heard of Lucre until now, I am a new player. Lucre is an awesome idea to have some kind of currency in the game, but it doesn't make sence to add it anyway when their is already reward cards introduced. If Lucre is pushed for a new expansion, i think cosmic tokens might take place. I guess if a third is introduced, I honestly think FF would come up with something totally differnt not introduced in previous cosmic editions. like crimhead said before, I didn't realize the glowing globes in the upper left corner of the destinay cards, i think it's a misprint, but is their a possibility in the new Hazard deck to do something with the flash? Seeing this could do something more in a brand new deck. I was thinking at first Lucre was a type of alien, or what I thought, an alien with a whole new deck of cards exculsive for use! I can imagine if new aliens are produce, they would be the best the in whole game.

It has been confirmed since the base game was released that those "flashes" are for Hazards.

Lucre would not be done with Cosmic tokens for the same reason Grudge doesn't use Cosmic tokens.  It would be too easy to mix it up with Cosmic tokens used for other purposes.

Adam said:

uhh, sorry about my english, i just re-read the cosmic conflict expansion page in quote what I've misread... FF said..

"Harzards are special game-aletering condtions that brings exciting effects to your Cosmic Encounter experience. Special Destiny Cards, drawn during the destiny phase, displays a "hazard warning" in the upper left corner; this indicates the hazard card should be drawn."

.. why did i miss that?