CIG really? Why even have a hover mode on the space bikes if they can fly in gravity / atmosphere? It kinda defeats the purpose. I expected a very fast nimble ship that could hover and maybe I could control the vertical height to an extent to try and avoid a rock that wasn't too big... but fly? NO, just no. In higher gravity environments / atmosphere they should not be able the fly. The maneuvering thrusters seem to be too weak for that. In micro-gravity or hell even something like 0.1g environments I'd be ok with it. Maybe something on the hud lights up when you are in a low enough gravity environment to indicate you can indeed "fly" now... but 0.2g+ should be stuck to relying on the GravLev tech. If unclear the idea is that the tiny maneuvering thrusters could have a large enough effect to push it though space and to turn the ship while hovering in higher gravity environments, but those would NOT have enough thrust to make it fly. I mean CIG how much are you going to push this idea of tiny thrusters having so much ridiculous amounts of thrust they can make something like that fly? It's bad enough with the thrusters on the bigger ships like that. It's totally not suspending any disbelief I may have. At least with the larger ships I can see this exception being made somewhat for the sake of game-play. I don't see the same thing with the space bikes. What is the point of this change? You might think, to traverse a canyon? Ok, so why not just allow it to use some afterburner fuel in an upward / forward direction as a boost to allow somebody to get over it (because it was said we can control the GravLev hover height to an extent)? No need for an outright flight mode. Another problem is if they have full flight, then they would actually be able to leave the planet if you think about it. Gravity and atmosphere is strongest at ground level, if they overcome it down there nothing is stopping them from just flying off. Also, you don't burning up from LEAVING a planet, only from atmospheric entry. They may even be able to come back down into the atmosphere if slow enough to not burn up on entry, depending on how strong their thrusters were to overcome the gravity pulling on them. However, I wouldn't expect the to be able to do that. Could they not just have a flight celling? No. Why? It's simple, the reason planes or helicopters have a flight ceiling is because of the type of propulsion they depend on, I.E. lift and jet engines / propellers. By using jet engines and propellers /rotors, you run into the problem that as you go up into the atmosphere it gets thinner and lose the air density required for lift and the oxygen required to combust jet fuel. The space bikes essentially use rocket engines (required for space flight). So there's nothing logically from stopping them to go into space at that point. It makes no sense. I have heard the ideas of the thrusters overheating... and while that might work in 1g.. what happens then in 0.5g? Wouldn't the thrusters then have an easier time in half the gravity? If so.. at what point do they not overheat? At that point they should be able again leave the planet / moon. The benefit would be you could fly using the grav-lev device to travel indefinitely as long as your power plant worked and you could avoid weather obstacles, etc. However, one would think the drawback to using a space bike over a ship should come from having to avoiding obstacles like bigger rocks, trees, buildings, cliffs, etc. Essentially I thought, like many others, we were getting "speeder bikes" from star wars more or less. Speeder bikes have to actively avoid obstacles, if they didn't you wouldn't have had the scene in Return of the Jedi where they are flying through the trees.. they would just fly OVER them. If you could just fly over them, why wouldn't you? We expected something along these lines: https://pwner.net/images/resources/285/star-citizen-alpha-3-0-ground-vehicles-285.jpg I'm pretty disappointed with this in atmosphere "fly" mode. Before anyone responds with December 7th's ATV.. YES I saw it and this was pretty much my response. I was already afraid they were "flying" but that ATV confirmed that's exactly what they were doing (aside from a few bugs causing it to fling into the air while in hover). Also to anyone wondering yes I own a Nox. So yes I want them to essentially "nerf" my Nox because it doesn't feel right. It makes the hover mechanic of the space bikes obsolete and also makes you wonder why you'd even bother with snub craft unless you just have to "really" go from ground to space or back.... and it doesn't match the original pitch of the concept of the space bikes they told us. The original concept they had, for example, from the first space bike they announced, the Dragonfly (straight from the ship matrix): " The Drake Dragonfly is the perfect snub ship for anyone looking to live on the edge. With nothing separating the pilot from the dangers of space, the Dragonfly is as much an adventure as a ship! Dual-mode conversion allows the Dragonfly to operate on the ground or in space, and a rear-facing second seat means you can even take a passenger! This black model is Drake's standard production version." Notice it says DUAL mode (nothing about flying in an atmosphere or gravity environments, just hover and space flight). Also note it says "operate on the ground or in space". One might assume the two modes are ground and space then. Yes? Nothing about FLIGHT (as in atmospheric or gravity environments) mode. We want them to be "hovering" ground vehicles CIG (while in a not super low-gravity environment). Not jet bikes. Also, another note, straight from the Q&A: "Q: Will the Dragonfly be able to fly in a planetary atmosphere to some degree even though it can’t transition to space, or will it be landlocked to its ground mode while on a planet?" "A: The Dragonfly would NOT be capable of atmospheric flight. When on a planet’s surface, it would just be operating in its ground mode." Link: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/engineering/15389-Q-A-Drake-Dragonfly-Part-I So what gives CIG? Who agrees with me? Should they be allowed to fly in gravity environments or not? (post was edited for clarity and expansion on ideas - Jan, 5th, 2018)