Star Citizen: Cargo Cult Community

[dsmart]

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 12-01-16 ON SA BY BEER4THEBEERGOD


Thanks to Eldragon for the awesome headers and pixel art.
 
Current Game Status: Fucked
[video type="youtube"]223HFmhtOOY[/video]
 

What is Star Citizen?
Star Citizen is a PC space simulator being developed by Chris Roberts and Cloud Imperium Games.
 
In the early days of PC computing, back when processing speeds were measured in Mhz and video cards were unheard of, Chris Roberts released a game called Wing Commander. It was wildly popular and opened up the space simulator genre. The franchise spawned numerous spin-offs and sequels, including Privateer and the greatest piece of cinema in the history of mankind. Years later Roberts produced Freelancer, an attempt to recapture the space simulation genre, but delays in development led to a poor product and Roberts ultimately leaving the PC gaming industry. That last part is probably something people should have paid more attention to.
 

On Directing Wing Commander:
I needed a producer that could do more than just do a good deal. I needed someone to help me on the set, to tell me, "hey, Chris, I know you want to do these 10 things, but we only have money to do 5 things really well. So let's pick what they are and knock them out of the park and cut the others." This is what a strong creative producer does, and its what I've tired to for other directors I've worked with over the last 10 years.

In October of 2012 Chris Roberts returned with a kickstarter for another space simulation. His original goal was to demonstrate enough public interest to encourage outside investment. Many months and tens of millions of dollars later Star Citizen has become the most successful crowdfunding project ever. The original funding goals have long since been surpassed, and Star Citizen is being funded almost entirely by pledges. Goons alone have pledged over $250,000. The primary motivation behind the pledge goals has been early access to a wide variety of starships, most of which still don't exist.
 
There are actually two games, both in the same universe. Star Citizen was described as a persistent world massively multiplayer online game featuring combat, trading, and exploration similar to Privateer or Freelancer. Squadron 42 was described as a branching single player and drop-in co-op multiplayer campaign game similar to the Wing Commander series. Both will feature incredibly detailed and realistic models thanks to the CryEngine 3 game engine. In contrast to other space simulators such as Elite or No Man's Sky, Star Citizen is focusing on a scale that vastly exceeds anything else. In reality the scope changes as a function of funding, the schedule changes as a function of scope, and the game is constantly getting more money so CIG has no reason to actually make a game.
 
Great! I'm a basement dwelling manchild with thousands of dollars to spare! Where do I throw my money?
Don't.
 
No Really This Looks Awesome!
Do not spend a fucking dime on this project. Do not fund it. Do not support it. Do not waste your money. The game is being mismanaged into the ground by a narcissistic "visionary" who is strangling the entire project with his utter inability to delegate or share creative control. CIG is hemorrhaging talent thanks to a toxic work environment and terrible business practices. They already have multiple times the original asking price and have only provided excuses. At this point any money you spend will not be refunded and there's no guarantee that anything you purchase will actually be playable. 
 

Star Citizen's Scope, Schedule, and Funding are Inextricably Linked[/url]
 
Many backers have been frustrated with how CIG has treated them, seeing ugly signs in the failure to show Squadron 42 at CitizenCon and recent sales that encourage the use of cash over credit. This should be particularly disconcerting as funding has been CIG's rubric for determining how scope should expand from the very beginning, and Chris is on record saying that should funding stop tomorrow they would have enough to complete the full game. In the early days of the Kickstarter CIG was up front about what the stretch goals did; they enabled the game to be created.
 

The purpose of the higher stretch goals is to ensure that the game-as-described is finished in the two year time period. We intend to build the game that Chris Roberts described at GDC Online regardless, but without additional funding we are going to have to do it one piece at at time, starting with Squadron 42, rather than as a single larger production. With more funding we can include more ships, systems, unique locations, animations, and cinematic sequences.

This made perfect sense in the early part of development. Nobody was really sure how much money the community would provide, and the only way to properly scope out the game was to gauge user interest. Once the game was fully funded to the original asking price of $23M (including fees) things changed. In the $19M letter Chris explained CIG's plans for moving forward once the game was fully funded. This would establish the foundation that would guide CIG for years to come, and by all appearances continues to guide them.
 

Finally there is one very important element – the more funds we can raise in the pre-launch phase, the more we can invest in additional content (more ships, characters etc.) and perhaps more importantly we can apply greater number of resources to the various tasks to ensure we deliver the full functionality sooner rather than later.

Even now, three years later, Star Citizen is still in the "pre-launch" phase. As funding continued to expand CIG was forced to offer more and more features and content. For the most part these expansions seemed benign relative to the amount of funding coming in. New ships, new weapons, more information on systems, a space plant, but what wasn't fully explained was that the scope of the game was still expanding beyond these seemingly innocuous additions. This was revealed in June of 2014, around the time Arena Commander was finally being played by backers after a six month delay.
 

The additional funding continues to expand the scope of the game and make what we’re doing possible… but it’s becoming more and more difficult to quantify that with more stretch goals (and to explain that to the rest of the world, which likes to focus only on how much money we’ve made.)

The important thing to take away from that statement is the difficulty Roberts has in explaining why the scope increases. At this point Star Citizen was funded to the level of $46M; *twice* the original asking price and still CIG was expanding scope. This continued until December when the stretch goals stopped with the enhanced modularity goal. Many backers assumed that when the stretch goals stopped that it also meant that the scope would also stabilize. To my knowledge CIG has never said that they would stop expanding scope. At the $65M mark Roberts explained that instead of offering new features or rewards at milestones, they would instead explain features.
 

Of course, $65 million isn’t the only milestone we need to discuss in this letter. Starting with $66 million, I want to start focusing everyone on the level of detail and immersion that everyone’s support is enabling. So instead of always having a feature or a reward I want to share a deeper view into an element of the design that has been enabled by your continuing support.
 
This doesn’t mean we won’t still occasionally reward backers with in-game content (flair, UEC, ship upgrades and more types to come!) or propose new ship types to celebrate major milestones but I would like the focus to be more about the amazing game that you are all enabling rather than the amounts we have raised. The real story is that with a community and the team sharing such a passion for making something special, with all of your continued support we have an opportunity to make history.

This dovetails perfectly with Robert's problem of quantifying scope through new stretch goals. Instead of promising more he would simply talk about what they were thinking. December of 2014 is notable because at this point the original scope and schedule of Star Citizen had the game being delivered. Backers were largely comfortable with this because the original TOS gave CIG a twelve month grace period before refunds would be offered. A month later the BAFTA presentation would declare that Squadron 42 would come out in Fall 2015, reinforcing the notion that even with the expanded scope the game would largely come out on time. It would take another seven months for CIG to finally change this, and they did so in July of 2015. Around this time backers were complaining because both Star Marine and the social module were well behind schedule and CIG had failed to provide a reasonable explanation. After all the game was less than six months from release, right?
 

You all know that already; you’ve lived that. You’ve seen Star Citizen evolve and start to come together. You’ve watched our atoms form molecules, our modules form a real, playable game (that you can boot up and play today!). There are people out there who are going to tell you that this is all a BAD THING. That it’s ‘feature creep’ and we should make a smaller, less impressive game for the sake of having it out more quickly or in order to meet artificial deadlines. Now I’ll answer those claims in one word: Bullshit!
 
Star Citizen matters BECAUSE it is big, because it is a bold dream. It is something everyone else is scared to try. You didn’t back Star Citizen because you want what you’ve seen before. You’re here and reading this because we are willing to go big, to do the things that terrify publishers. You’ve trusted us with your money so we can build a game, not line our pockets. And we sure as hell didn’t run this campaign so we could put that money in the bank, guarantee ourselves a profit and turn out some flimsy replica of a game I’ve made before. You went all in supporting us and we’ve gone all in making the game. Is Star Citizen today a bigger goal than I imagined in 2012? Absolutely. Is that a bad thing? Absolutely not: it’s the whole damn point.
 
Will it take longer to deliver all this? Of course! When the scope changes, the amount of time it will take to deliver all the features naturally increases. This is something we are acutely aware of. How do we balance the mutually conflicting wants of the community; to have this hugely ambitious game, but not wait forever for it?

This represents a significant shift in attitude. Instead of funding being used to expand the game in the original schedule, it's now expanding both scope AND schedule. The expansion is, in the words of Chris Roberts, "the whole damn point." This is reinforced in the infamous letter that Chris Roberts sent to The Escapist.
 

When reaching for the stars there are bound to be a few bumps and delays on the road. You’ve covered games for a long time. You know that games, especially big complicated ones always have hiccups and are frequently subject to unforeseen delays. We aren’t even at the three year mark of full development (we didn’t open up the first development office in Austin with 15 people until February 2013). Projects of half our scope frequently take four to five years.

Notably Roberts argues for leniency based on the pace of development, which stands in stark contrast to the original discussion about how CIG was moving forward that Roberts provided in an early interview.
 

We’re already one year in - another two years puts us at 3 total which is ideal. Any more and things would begin to get stale.

At this point Star Citizen has been funded to over five times the original asking price. Throughout development CIG has constantly reinforced their position that the scope is a function of funding. Originally the scope was constrained to the original schedule, but that changed in July of 2015 so schedule could expand with scope. Since scope is intrinsically linked with funding, and funding continues to expand, so does the schedule. I've heard many backers argue that Star Citizen's progress is reasonable when compared to other games of similar scope; the problem with this statement is that it ignores the fact that Star Citizen has no scope or schedule, only funding. I've also heard many backers argue that earlier backers are impatient or self-entitled because they want to rush the game. The truth is that early backers were told to expect the game to be finished on time thanks to all the funding, and it was only until nearly a year after the game was originally due that CIG declared that the expanding scope would justify an expanding schedule.
 
Why does this all matter? Because right now CIG is actively encouraging more funding, and in doing so is actively encouraging the scope (and therefore schedule) to expand even further. They may not realize it, but backers are paying to delay their own game. Whether or not they are comfortable with this choice is up to them, but they should be making an informed decision. More importantly they are making a decision that impacts everyone else who has funded this game regardless of what those backers wanted. Personally I was happy with the scope of the original game; it's why I paid for it. I was also comfortable with the expanding scope during the stretch goal days because CIG had made the promise that the schedule would be maintained. Now I don't know what I'm getting, and I don't even know when I'm going to get it.

 
There is no schedule. Nobody has any clue what to expect. Star Citizen is delayed indefinitely.
 

*Indefinitely
/ˌinˈdef(ə)nətlç/
Adverb
 
Not definite, especially:
a.  Unclear; vague.
b.  Lacking precise limits: an indefinite leave of absence.
c.  Uncertain; undecided: indefinite about their plans.

[tIMG]http://i.imgur.com/m22s8B5.png[/tIMG]
(Blame Cpt Underpants)
 


(Blame Doink9731)
 
This list is out of date and full of bullshit dreams from over a year ago, but Eldragon's pixel art is awesome so fuck it.
 

P-52 Merlin
The Merlin is the "parasite" ship attached to the Constellation. It is also being sold as a standalone vessel that has no jump drive and no Q-Drive. What that means is that unless you attach yourself to another craft you will never be able to leave whatever instance you happen to be in. It is tiny, it is fragile, and it's hilariously overgunned for its size. Unfortunately CIG seems remarkably opposed to allowing players run pocket carriers so the actual utility of this craft is largely up to debate. Like most CIG products it is a concept looking for a purpose.
 

RSI Aurora
This is, for lack of a better word, the "starter" ship most people expect to get after they've earned enough credits in game. It has the advantage of being incredibly flexible; an Aurora can easily be turned into a fighter, a merchant vessel, an explorer, or something in between. While not the fastest, most powerful, or most heavily armed it is a great way to get involved in the game. There are five known variants; the Essential, Marquee, Clipper, Legionnaire, and LX. Of the variants available the LN is probably the best, as it has two additional weapon hardpoints that otherwise are not attainable.
 

Consolidated Outlands Mustang[/url]
The Mustang is another rookie ship designed to compete with the Aurora. The manufacturer making it isn't named after the creator of the game so it's pretty likely that it will suck. It is the crotch rocket to the Aurora's sedan, featuring limited cargo space and less armament in exchange for light weight and upgraded engine power. I imagine it will make an excellent suicide ship. There will be five variants of the Mustang, including the Omega racer which is only available if you get a "Radeon Gold Pack" along with a game package. Assuming you don't have the other games that come with the package it's actually the cheapest way to get Star Citizen.
 

Origin M50
Origin is sort of like the BMW of space ships. They make high end craft that are a step above the consumer grade stuff like the Aurora. A pure racer, the M50 is basically an A-Wing. Low mass, big engines, and a modicum of firepower. Supposedly the M50 will be the fastest ship in the game. The M50 will be one of the primary craft law enforcement uses in the Star Citizen universe, replacing the aging Avenger. The design intent is to evoke the image of a luxury sports car.
 

Aegis Dynamics Gladius[/url]
The Aegis Gladius looks like the Hornet from the original Wing Commander series; lightly armed and armored but very maneuverable. A single seat light fighter, the ship is described as an aging design that has been constantly updated much like other Aegis offerings such as the Avenger and Retaliator. The version that could be purchased is a former military craft that's had classified material removed to make room for a jump drive and civilian grade weaponry. This craft is certain to be heavily featured in the early stages of Squadron 42.
 

Origin Jumpworks 300i
The 300i is a sexy looking one person craft that is a good consideration if you're willing to pay a bit more than the Aurora. Their performance matches their appearance, with better engines and a power plant and slightly better weaponry than the baseline Aurora. They are capable of holding cargo as well, although not as much as a dedicated Aurora. There are three options available at different prices. The 300i is the basic model. The 315p is the exploration variant and includes an upgraded engine, tractor beam, jump engine, and jump scanner. The 325a is the fighter variant and includes missiles, a mass driver, and a "custom weapons system" that we have no idea what it means. It should be emphasized that the only difference between the 300i, 315p, and 325a are the gear that comes standard (and is insured with the craft). You could make a 325a out of a 300i with the right upgrades. There is also a limited edition 350r racer variant that is equipped with two thrusters and a larger power plant.
 

Aegis Dynamics Avenger
A former patrol craft, the Avenger is another flexible option that's an alternative to the 300i. It's heavier and less maneuverable than the 300i or Aurora, but can hold as much cargo as a customized Aurora. It's also fairly well armed. One curious feature of the Avenger is the nose mounted cannon that supposedly can hold a weapon that's far larger than any other single seat fighter. We don't know much about this, but it's been compared to the main cannon on the A-10 Avenger. The Avenger model includes a cargo bay that can fit several “passengers” in upright pods. There is also a trainer variant that has room for two pilots.
 

Anvil Gladiator
The little Bomber Bro, Anvil Gladiators are carrier based torpedo bombers. These two-man fighters feature a rear turret, decent cargo space, and a large missile bay. Some independent crews apparently replace the turret gun with a tractor beam for salvaging. Made by Foundry 42, the Gladiator looks like an absolute beast. It can carry up to 8 torpedoes, or a variety of other configurations in the bomb bay.
 

Anvil Aerospace F7C Hornet
The F7A Hornet is the premier fighter of the UEE Navy. Anvil Aerospace has released a civilian variant of the Hornet known as the F7C. Billed as the best single person fighter in the game, the Hornet has the firepower to dominate the opposition. The basic model includes a cargo box that can hold a small amount of cargo and more guns than the Aurora, 300i, or Avenger. Advanced models include the F7C-S which is a recon variant that sacrifices speed and firepower for a reduced signature and other stealthy features, and the F7C-R Tracker Variant with a massive radar replacing the cargo box. All of the F7C Hornet variants will be able to add on a canard turret that isn't available yet. As with the Origin variants the F7C, F7C-S, and F7C-R variants only differ with respect to their components. There is also a F7C-M “Super Hornet” limited variant that is better armed and shielded.
 

Vanduul Scythe
Originally a limited run of about 300 Scythes were sold for $300 each; now they go for over $1500 on the gray market. The reason for this is because they will be the only Scythes that will have insurance on them. Ever. In terms of stats they look like TIE Fighters that ram people. Big engines, low mass, incredible maneuverability, paltry shields, and a giant fuckoff ramming blade. Ben Lesnick has described it as the Star Citizen equivalent of the Dralthi, meaning idiots out there are paying thousands of dollars to fly what is essentially a trash mob ship. CIG also just released the Glaive which is basically a Scythe with two giant fuckoff ramming blades.
 

Drake Cutlass
Drake ships are known for being flexible, inexpensive, and easy to repair. This makes them ideal for piracy, and supposedly law enforcement will take notice of players in Drake ships more than other brands. With a large cargo hold, lots of guns, and room for a second crewman it's the smallest ship that will reliably be used for boarding other craft. It also comes standard with a tractor beam and docking collar, which are critical for those efforts. Three variants are available; Black, Red, and Blue. Unfortunately players who expected an actual pirate ship will be disappointed to discover that CIG ended up balancing the Cutlass somewhere between a 300i and a Hornet, with the most powerful version being a fucking cop car. It's also slower than most other ships. CIG is currently in the process of redesigning the whole thing so don't melt it just yet.
 

MISC Freelancer
The Freelancer is a two person freighter that looks like it will be ideal for mercantile and exploration efforts. With more cargo space than the other ships piloted by one person, it's also the heaviest. It has the biggest shields and power plant but is also the largest and heaviest. Weaponry is surprisingly impressive, with four main guns and a rear turret plus a pair of missile mounts. There are three variants. The MAX version doubles the number of engines and widens the ship to hold more cargo, while increasing the power plant but reducing the number of missiles and shield power to do so. The DUR version is for exploration and sacrifices cargo capacity for more efficient engines and other features intended for exploration. The MIS version is a limited combat model where the cargo space is completely replaced with the ability to carry up to 50 missiles.
 

Aegis Dynamics Redeemer
In the first half of 2014 CIG ran a "reality show" competition called "The Next Great Starship" where sixteen teams competed to design a ship that will be implemented into the game. The show was lampooned in the beginning but featured some very talented artists (at least one who has already been hired by CIG) and the final four ships were particularly impressive. The winning ship was the Aegis Dynamics Redeemer by Team Four Horsemen. Like all the entries the ship is a multi-crewed vessel with two turrets and room for cargo or an assault team. While the model is clearly done, CIG has a lot of work left to integrate the vessel fully into the game and there is no timetable. It's pretty likely we'll see the other contestants, especially since the Top 4 are based on different manufacturers. 2nd place was the Origin AX 114, 3rd place was the Anvil Pheonix, and people generally consider the Drake AC-240 to be the 4th place entry.
 

RSI Constellation[/url]
Explicitly described as Chris Robert’s favorite ship, the Constellation is billed as something akin to the Millenium Falcon. With lots of guns, a big cargo hold, Itano Circus levels of missile spam, a snub fighter, and the most ridiculous thrust:weight ratio in the game it looks perfectly primed to be the ultimate Mary Sue. However worrying about this sort of thing is silly and everything will be fine. There are four variants. The Taurus is the basic transport model and is the cheapest multi-crew ship available. The Andromeda is the multi-function model and includes a snub fighter, the P-52 Merlin. The Aquila is an exploration variant, complete with a rover. The limited variant is the Pheonix, and includes leather trim and your own personal pimpmobile.
 

Aegis Retaliator
Like the Caterpillar and Constellation, the Retaliator is a multi-crew vehicle. Unlike the other ships, the Retaliator is designed for one thing: war. A massive bomber, this vessel is designed to launch huge payloads at capital ships. It is also sexy as fuck. Goons have developed a major affinity for the Retaliator, and the “Bomber Bros” have one of the largest collections of Retaliators in the game. According to the lore many of these craft have been repurposed for other tasks thanks to custom modules that fit in the bomb bays. Possibility exists that it may have a RETRACTABLE. BEAM. GUN.
 

Xi'An Khartu-Al
Xi'An fighters are designed to be incredibly maneuverable. They accomplish this by having no main thruster, and instead use an array of maneuvering thrusters that produce thrust equivalent to what a main engine would do on a different ship. These ships are also oriented vertically, like the mothership from Homeworld. The Khartu-Al is a Xi'An light fighter modified to be usable by humans. It looks to be roughly equivalent to the Hornet in terms of protection but with less armament.
 

MISC Reliant
The MISC Reliant is the third starter ship, although at $50 without a package CIG has indicated it's more of a "Tier II" starter than some scrub tier plebe ship. I guess the same is supposed to be said of the 300i and Avenger now too. CIG sold several thousand of them since they were the latest offering to include LTI. They're the smallest ship that is crewed by two people, are the smallest ship that has a turret, and are also non-combat (utility) oriented with slow speed and a large cargo hold. Variants include a "Researcher", a "News Van", and a "Skirmisher" variant that throws all the "utility" bullshit out the window. Also it rotates.
 

Drake Herald
In Star Citizen information does not travel faster than the speed of light. Instead communication buoys jump from system to system at a steady ready, slowly disseminating information. People who want to communicate faster than that hire info runners, which are souped up racing ships equipped with ultra high end communications and encryption gear. Their job is to get from point A to point B very quickly, and the Drake Herald is the first example of this. Preliminary stats suggest a ship that is incredibly fast but poorly armed and armored.
 

Anvil F8 Lightning
Originally the Anvil F7A was billed as the ultimate space superiority fighter. Then CIG created the FC7-M SUPER HORNET that featured two guys and even better stats. Now CIG has upped the ante even more with the F8 Lightning, which was (briefly before it was taken down) described as a next generation super fighter. The description and initial stats suggested a ship that had a huge amount of forward firing weaponry while being better shielded and more maneuverable than the F7A. Knowing the Wing Commander trope this will probably be the ultimate fighter craft that players fly in the end game of Squadron 42.
 

Aegis Vanguard[/url]
Because CIG can't seem to go fifteen seconds without releasing something that screams power creep we now have the Aegis Bulldog Vanguard. Roughly the same size as the Aegis Redeemer, this ship is labeled as a "bomber-destroyer" that sacrifices maneuverability for speed and forward-facing firepower with stores and fuel that enable it to travel long distances without refueling. The combination of significant firepower and small crew requirement (only two people) suggests it might be rather effective in instance-based warfare that are limited by either people or ships. There are two variants; an electronic warfare ship (Sentinel) and a light torpedo bomber (Harbinger).
 

Drake Caterpillar
Displaying the same benefits as the Cutlass, the Caterpillar is billed as a modular craft that can easily be customized to suit a variety of tasks. It is a multi-crew vehicle similar to the Constellation, but with a focus more on boarding. Chris Roberts has explicitly said that the Caterpillar will be the best at boarding and taking over capital ships. There have also been indications that the Caterpillar will be able to act as a mobile repair center for other ships.
 

Crusader Industries Genesis Starliner
When backers voted for a passenger liner as a stretch go they passed over options such as a recon craft or a minelayer. Thus the community gets what they deserve with this $400 space train that's shorter than a Merchantman. Imagine Euro Truck Simulator in space where you play a minigame to drink coffee and your cargo will bitch because the space VCR is broken. Who knows WTF the variants will be. Something about a race touring ship, or a boring cargo ship, or a hunter killer.
 

MISC Starfarer
The Starfarer is a purely mercantile vessel designed to transport massive amounts of fuel in tanks contained beneath the engine. Slow and poorly armed, Starfarers are expected to be logistically critical as a in-space refuelers and transport ships. It is also huge, at nearly twice the length of the Retaliator or Constellation. Two versions exist; the regular tanker one and a military "Gemini" version that is armored and better armed and probably better in every way save fuel capacity.
 

MISC Hull Series
Literal space trucks, the MISC Hull series of ships are basically giant bulk haulers. There are five options; the Hull A, Hull B, Hull C, Hull D, and Hull E. They range in size from small starter ships to massive bulk freighters longer than a destroyer. Because nobody in their fucking mind would buy a fucking space truck in a game about starship pew pew (okay your average backer would but still), CIG has gone batshit insane with emphasizing the flexibility offered by using cargo pods. Apparently you can add shields, get more guns, use smuggling containers to hide contraband, or turn your Hull E into an orbital defense platform. The reality is that these things are still fucking space trucks, if you're dumb enough to fly one outside of safe space without an escort you will get murdered, and CIG will say anything to sell pixels to nerds.
 

Banu Merchantman
The Merchantman an alien mercantile vessel that sacrifices some of the cargo space of the Starfarer for superior engines and firepower. The lore says that these ships are prized commercial vessels, passed down from generation to generation, and can easily be converted into smuggling craft and blockade runners. Currently described as having a massive cargo capacity, second only to the Hull C.
 

Anvil Carrack
While not much is known about the exploration aspect of the game (aside from the fact that jump hole navigation is supposed to be perilous and about as difficult as Battletoads), CIG was surprised at how popular exploration was among the backers and intends to put a great amount of effort into that part of the game. The Carrack appears to be a large craft (about the same size as the 890 Jump) with the majority of its focus on exploration thanks to an advanced jump drive and high level computer system. It also comes with a rover and a scout ship, but isn't terribly well armed. Supposedly the design will be very modular with a large number of bays that can be swapped out.
 

Origin 890 Jump
This multi-crew ship is a luxury yacht. Presumably like anything owned by the 1% it will be extravagantly expensive, grossly overpowered for whatever task it's actually used for, and incredibly impractical. It has a small hangar bay to fit a pair of small ships, and comes with its own runabout that you shouldn't use if you want your ship to be there when you return to orbit. According to CIG luxury craft are basically intended for socializing, which is hilarious when you think about the socially awkward super spergs who would buy such a thing.
 

RSI Orion
The RSI Orion is a massive ship intended for mining operations. Much like the Reclaimer it is a multi-crew ship that is very large, poorly armed, slow, and basically designed exclusively for one task. The cargo pods rotate which is pretty cool. Like everything else in SC, mining is expected to be skill-based (unless you pay NPCs to do the work for you) and there will undoubtedly be hordes of pubbies eager to shoot rocks. Like the Reclaimer it includes an on-board refinery for melting ore into something easier to transport.
 

Aegis Dynamics Reclaimer
The Reclaimer is described as a salvage craft. This might make it very helpful for cleaning up after a battle or for assisting in "rescue" operations. It looks like it will be well protected but lacking in offensive weapons and is described as being designed for "deep space" salvaging. Info from the concept sale indicates a massive ship three times larger than a Constellation that is loaded with salvaging drones, reclamation equipment, multi-function turrets, and a manned cutter for EVA operations. This is clearly not a combat ship. It has a giant arm on the front that can be used to grab ships (with people inside it) so it can shove them into its butt to be melted down for scrap.
 

Aegis Idris
The Idris is the second largest player-owned starship in the game, and is also the smallest capital ship a motherfucking frigate. There are two variants; a military version (Idris-M) and a civilian one (Idris-P). The military variant has heavier armament but otherwise the ships are the same. The Idris includes a hangar capable of holding fighters with room for at least 2-3 Hornets or Gladiators. Other ships will also fit in the hangar.
 

Aegis Javelin
Twenty Five Hundred Dollars. That's how much it's going to cost to have the largest player-owned starship in the game. Specifically that's how much it's going to cost for the hull because Javelins will be sold stripped of their military hardware as a "starting challenge" for concierge-level super spergs. If you're comfortable spending enough money to provide 11,363 meals to starving children then what you'll get is the largest, most powerful capital ship available without stealing one from the UEE. Stats aren't even out yet but it looks to be huge, incredibly well armed, incredibly well protected, able to support fighters, and yet STILL NOT A REAL THING.

[Motto]

I see the 600i is missing  :smuggo:

[dsmart]

I see the 600i is missing  :smuggo:

Yeah because they make that shit up on the fly.