So spare the snarky, "its a useless NFT/jpeg yada yada, no shit its trash" comments because we all know that at this point. Lets assume there is an actual game releasing for topic sake. We need some real clarification on these ship/gear tiers. Are these tiers a strait stat upgrade across the board or a give and take? I feel like the thousands I've spent is for nothing more than starter trash since CitCon (yes something is better than nothing I get it). If it is a strait stat upgrade, I have some questions because I haven't had any reason to spend notable amounts of new money on this game since. What tier are the ships we pledged for? Assuming tier 1 from the IAE master mode video. What part of a strait stat upgrade tier system supports the idea of a skill based game pitched to us all these years? How will this system be healthy for the game when it promotes real money transactions to acquire the best components and gear to gain advantage? How will this balance players and orgs from dominating whole systems/loops from sheer stats alone vs strategic game play? Does some one skilled like Avenger 1 in a tier 1 ship have a chance to destroy an average pilot in a t5 ship? Due to slow motion master modes its just a DPS race while your ship acts like a turret and so far I'm not seeing how skill will save even the more strategic pilot due to the stat disparity unless the t5 guy is Forest Gump. We are backing this dream on pure faith and speculation at the moment and these ships are not cheap, why is everything that's pledged for not strait up lvl 3 LTI insurance if this is the case going forward? (I'm aware of honoring the old LTI/warbond from the past) We are pledging hundreds and thousands for this BDSSE dream, so why not respect your backers with proper flair and insurances? We are taking a massive monetary leap of faith, with out any notable dividends. As of right now, T1 ships and insurance sound like hanger trash. The deal feels extremely bad for the amount of money being spent on jpegs. Lets be honest, this long running demo is a barren wasteland with out anything to do but the same bugged T0 repetitive loops. After 14 years, CIG should be grateful anyone has stayed around this long with how much controversy and drama that has plagued this game and it should be in the form of top tier insurance on anything pledged for starters. After the recent marketing debacles what does CIG have to counter my thinking that we wont be sold a tier upgrade token or something similar in the future? This tier system feels like a massive slap in the face and 180 degrees from the idea we've been sold for the past 12(corrected) years. I didn't back this game to run on the eternal hamster wheel of gear grind like in World of Warcraft. Stats in most cases should not over rule intelligent and strategic gameplay in a SIM.