Using Master Modes in the PU is radically different than in Arena Commander, wherein players only had SCM and NAV modes, and there wasn’t much point in using NAV mode because the arena maps are relatively small. However, now that Master Modes are in the PU in the 3.23 ePTU version, players have to deal with all the different “Operator” modes and their new key- and button-bindings. There are at least 6 modes: NAV mode Flight NAV mode Quantum Travel NAV mod Scan SCM Guns SCM Missiles SCM Scan Every ship has those 6 modes. Certain ships also have Mining and Salvaging modes, with various sub-modes for each. And in the future, there presumably will be additional modes for Refueling, Repairing, Rearming, Datarunning, Boarding, etc. All of these different modes are unbearably tedious and un-intuitive to use! Especially the delay when switching from NAV mode to SCM mode, during which you cannot cancel and switch back. If you pressed “B” by mistake — easy to do after years of Quantum Travel muscle memory — you have to WAIT the 5+ seconds for the progress bar to fill before you can do anything! I know this is a new change and there will be learning curve and eventually we’ll get used to it… But this is different. All of these different flight and combat modes are not going to be easy for new players to understand, especially the type of players who have played Starfield, No Man’s Sky, Elite Dangerous, Star Wars Squadrons, or classic combat space sims like Wing Commander, Freespace, or X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter. Those games didn’t have a half dozen different modes. The most complicated system those games had was the classic Power Distribution management between Weapons, Shields, and Engines. Star Citizen has the Power Triangle and it’s simple enough — although there are players who don’t bother with it. Despite that CIG has raised nearly $700 million in crowdfunding, I guarantee that CIG is banking on mainstream players, who haven’t bought into Star Citizen yet, will buy in when SC “1.0” is released. Those mainstream gamers will not enjoy all of the flight and combat modes introduced with “Master Modes” because it’s radically different than the space combat sim games they’ve played — especially the idiotic decision to disable shields and weapons in Nav mode! Segregating the ship’s various functions into separate modes seems incredibly dated… as if it was the 1980’s when game controllers and joysticks only had a few buttons. I wonder… Is CIG doing this to accommodate the limited number of buttons on gamepad controllers, because they plan on porting SQ42 and/or Star Citizen to game consoles!? Regardless, switching between the different modes is clunky and un-intuitive. Star Citizen didn’t have these modes for the past 8+ years of the playable Alpha, and everyone was fine with that. Master Modes doesn’t feel like positive progress in Star Citizen’s development, it feels like regression — like there’s a fundamental problem with space combat that CIG hasn’t been able to fix, and Master Modes is being used to disguise and excuse it (ahem: Desync a.k.a. Low Server FPS). I believe that Master Modes will kill the chances of Star Citizen being a mainstream success, because both critics and gamers will hate Master Modes, and for legit reasons. Normies will fixate on Master Modes the same way they did to Starfield’s excessive Loading Screens. Star Citizen is supposed to be a seamless experience, but Master Modes is the opposite of that! TL:DR version: Master Modes = “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature!”