Although it's reassuring to see CIG being responsive to the community's concerns about the upcoming CCU changes, their statement about developing gameplay based on the numbers of ships players own during alpha is a terrible idea and is a very concerning issue for Star Citizen development. We're at a stage of alpha development where we don't even have a properly balanced and functioning combat system. We have absolutely no idea what the gameplay will be like for many combat ship roles including dropships, boarding/EVA, torpedoes and so on. We don't even have properly fuctioning turrets despite the fact that many ships will rely heavily on turret firepower. What exactly do any of the current combat ship numbers tell CIG at this point? If we have 100 Super Hornets for every 1 Retaliator that doesn't mean that the Retaliator isn't a "popular" design that players want to use in the game, it just means that the Super Hornet is currently functioning in the alpha while the Retaliator isn't. The Retaliator has been badly neglected and has no current role or gameplay to test in the alpha due to the lack of torpedoes, turrets and capital ships to fight, not to mention that many players are unhappy with the fps-level interior layout. Does this mean that neglected and underdeveloped combat ships like the Retaliator, Redeemer and so on will have to wait even longer for proper development? It's even worse for all the other ships because none of those other non-combat professions exist in the alpha build yet. We have no trading, exploration, salvage, mining or any other non-combat activities and yet CIG has sold players several purpose-built ships for these roles. The idea that the numbers for these ships will tell CIG anything of any value is ludicrous becuase those ships don't exist yet and they fill roles that don't even have basic gameplay mehcanics yet. It's even worse for ships that have multiple roles that are dependent on additional modules or have a highly specialized niche function, like the Endeavor. Is CIG only going to develop adequate research gameplay if enough players buy the supercollider prior to launch? Are we only going to see adequate development of the Vanguard's E-war suite if there are enough Sentinel BUKs in players' hangars? This situation is a massive problem for players who backed these specific concepts when there was an EXPRESSED INTENT during those sales for CIG to devleop those ship concepts and roles in the game. That is literally the ENTIRE POINT of the concept sales according to CIG, they are done specficially to develop the concept ship and the associated gameplay. Has CIG misled us on what the purpose of those concept sales were? They were NOT described to us a way for CIG to simply keep collecting funding only to turn around several years later, look at lower numbers of certain neglected concept ships and then NOT adequately develop those concepts just becuase the ship numbers have dropped after players finally CCU/melt them out of frustration. The entire time we have been told by Chris Roberts that he has a grand vision for the game and is working hard along with the CIG team trying to realize that vision. Devleoping gameplay based on how many ships players own is literally exactly the opposiite of having a vision for the game. It's basiclaly saying that there is NO PLAN for how the gameplay or how the persistent universe should be balanced. What's even worse is that the game universe would never function properly if it were based on player numbers or activities as it will be predominantly NPC-driven. CIG has also said that certain industries and economic activities in the peristent universe will be driven ONLY by NPC background activities and this will obviously need a far more complex approach to gameplay balance than you could ever determine from player ship numbers. How could CIG possibly balance this adeqately if they're currently developing content based on the numbers player-owned ships? How could that possibly result in a self-sustaining and balanced background simulation in the persistent universe when players can't even directly influence or control core aspects of the background simulation that they will need to design? This makes me think that we won't actually see a proper bakground universe and will just have random missions "generated" for players in a way that is entirely arbitrary and is not directly related to any type of background "simulation" at all. These issues have made me very concerned that Star Citizen will end up being launched as a "minimum viable product" with only the combat activities adequately developed and other features neglected or missing completely. That would be a terrible situation for the game and would mean that essentially we will not see the persistent universe as anything other than a glorified combat sandbox. Up until this point I had trusted that there was a clear vision for Star Citizen, a plan that would ensure that the end product that was being devleoped would provide a fully developed, realistic and balanced game universe. What they've told us is literally the exact opposite of that vision.