I know there is a lot of consternation over the coming flight model changes, with many of us voicing our deep concern and apprehension on the direction of the game. I do have a suggestion, however, that hopefully will make sense after a little background. In my view the main point of contention is IF Star Citizen is meant to be a simulation or not. When I talk to people about this game, I always describe it as "An experience you cannot have anywhere else" and I have heard this echoed by other players in and out of the game. We all run into bugs and say 'man, I would quit over this but it's an experience you cannot get anywhere else so here I stay'. I believe that the core of that experience comes from the fact that instead of creating a simplified game model like other games, they have spent over a decade developing complex systems that meld in a fully "sandbox universe" - one where the joy comes from both scripted gameplay AND from the immersion into a universe that feels weighty, realistic, and lived in. Like Jared often says, they want to go to the EDGE of real, then make it fun. In my view, that means the CORE of Star Citizen is a Simulation that makes sure that reality doesn't get in the way. For many of us Star Citizen has, until now, done a great of only bending reality when it comes to things that are already in the "fiction" side of science fiction setting. I.e. you re-spawn because of magic alien orbs, we have shields, anti-gravity, and wonka-vaders that break the laws of physics so you don't have to wait for long elevator rides (Which used to be a thing!). But you also can jump in and out of your ship, the ship will drift in six degrees of freedom, and you're immersed in a reality that makes sense. Space feels real, and interacting in space feels like an extension of the systems, as it should. They even spend a lot of time with animations to immerse you touching and feeling items to the point they are making physical all objects and cargo. It's real enough to feel right, but the existing 'fake systems' like tractor beams, IFCS, and other helper-systems keep it from being overly difficult to use. Additionally, while the universe had some hard speed limits in the old model, those limits were generally high enough to not be 'in your face' UNLESS you were engaging in combat or racing. For the vast majority of gameplay, which contains all the OTHER loops except space combat, this model worked very well. HOWEVER that brings us to master modes. I believe the problem with master modes is that it 'chops up' that 'reality' experience and removes the basic feeling of freedom that made Star Citizen so compelling. You now have to 'sit' in quantum mode listening to the engine hum with beacons popped up in order to move "normally" through space - which we intrinsically as humans understand should let you accelerate to uncontrollable speeds and should continue to move if nothing stops it. Having these hard-changes to the universe - instead of the ship or the fictional parts - if feels greatly unhinged and wrong. For instance, you would expect you could be able to accelerate to your top speed, shut off the ship, and coast through a situation difficult to scan for to break a blockade. I truly believe that kind of 'lateral thinking' is why a sandbox universe, with systems instead of invisible walls and limits, is so compelling - and why adding fake limits that break the reality of the universe are counter to the basic premise of the game so far. Now I have played MM throughout the entire time it spent in Arena Commander and have through the time it has spent in EPTU. In Arena commander, it was basically just an oddity because besides being slower without changing modes the "normal" pilot didn't really notice much difference. I was optimistic that they would just realize it was a failure and discard it before bringing it to the PU, or would find a way to make it work without making it feel inauthentic and wooden. They have shown they can take a broken system and turn it into something fun in the past, but they have equally shown they can take something that works and make it worse. (Wheeled ground vehicles, for instance, are IMPOSSIBLY broken after the last 'rebuild' and remain that way today). When I first started in the recent EPTU, however, I found that it completely broke the central thing that has kept me attached to this game: "The Flight Experience". Over the next set of patches they have slowly reduced the 'switch time' - which has reduced the impact slightly (it becomes annoying, but not as breaking, if you can just switch to NAV mode and mostly ignore it) but is still much less fun to interact with than the previous model. That said, that last bit which makes it 'palatable', also caused combat pilots to start switching modes during combat. So the combat has just returned to what it already was with a different cast of ships and weapons, and the rest of us are here with this extra mode and loss of control we don't want. By any metric, this means the entire Master Mode attempt has already deeply failed even before it launched into the PU, just as the two mode-switching attempts failed before (I have backed since 2012 and knew of one, but another forum user pointed out that there was apparently a third attempt at this that also was reversed). I implore the team to remove Master Modes from both squadron and star citizen and WAIT for the rest of the armor, damage, and power changes to make it into the game before revisiting the flight model. It's arguably the most important thing in this game as the glue between areas, and shoe-horning it into a game mechanic like this cannot succeed. We've tried before, and the later we do this the worse the reversal will be. (And the worse NOT reversing it will be). I would rather wait a bit longer for Squadron 42 and have them share a proper flight model than get this one in that experience. If squadron launches with this flight model I expect it will reduce my enjoyment - just as I enjoyed Fallout 4 but can't stand Starfield. The difference there is the feel of the universe. All that said, I do have some suggestions on how we could accomplish the same thing while avoiding breaking the simulation once Master modes is properly reverted: I suggest instead of 'switching modes', you could ramp power requirements for systems based on speed. (the components are the easiest non-real elements you can control in this setting with lore). Shields, for instance, would be EASY to Lore away that they don't work at high speeds because we have no idea how they should even work. The only thing we know that does things at distance is magnets, and we know that magnets affect each other with speed and change power based on distance so it would be a 'reality adjacent lie' that would 'feel' right to anybody using it. If you say they are forced to draw massive power when moving fast or they would pop fuses in either the shield generator or just overload the power and cause the ship to misbehave. That would force smaller ships to slow down - and allow larger ships, with more power, to have additional shield protection at slightly higher speeds because they have more power to fill it with their large reactors. This would also allow people agency on how they want to do things - AND make a good engineer that can control your power requirements EVEN MORE important during combat. It also would keep the universe FEELING real, while forcing combat to slow down because you're removing shields over a certain speed. That would lead to interesting dog-fighting mechanics of dropping shields so they can go faster, and charging shields slowly for an attack run. This is just ONE option among MANY. The core thing, however, is that you should manipulate things that are 'not real' so that you don't damage the reality of the world. You can create 'ship modes' that do this, but you should NOT change the UNIVERSE to ENFORCE a ship mode. In this context, the main failure of Master modes is NOT that it slows down ships, or even that it shuts off shields - it's that you cannot choose to move in space like you intrinsically know you should move in space without it. You just can't do that. Things a human would easily detect so you should avoid: - Add a speed limit to the universe, or attempt to balance ships by top speed. - Create limits on the ship that are counter to reality - like ships slowing down in space without a counter force. Things you can easily get away with to accomplish the same thing: - Create a special combat computer mode (SCM mode, for instance) that limits your speed to avoid overloading your power requirements. There's no reason you can't add this mode as long as it's an opt-in operator mode that is meant to help you. This would let fighter pilots who want to push the limits use the tuning of their ship to push the boundaries - and fail massively when they push the Gs and the shields pop, adding an additional layer of depth and skill to combat. HOWEVER, for new or inexperienced pilots, they could use this special mode like 'training wheels' to make sure they can still fight properly - which would use the IFCS to force them to stick to normal speeds. - Adjust the power requirements so that you literally just can't run shields/weapons at the same time as a quantum drive because it takes a ton of energy. Then they would have to drop weapons and shields to spool the quantum drive manually which would have agency. By not taking away the user's agency, you maintain the illusion of a fully free universe by controlling what can be done. That is the Star Citizen model: Create a system so that the universe can spin around it. Taken to the edge of Real but made fun. Please, I ask you to keep the original dream alive - reverse out Master Modes and either tune the old model or revisit it later when more systems are ready. Thanks, and good luck!