I share my thoughts occasionally through comments but I rarely create threads of my own. When I do it's because something has really bothered me enough to speak out, which usually results in a wall of text. My apologies and thanks in advance for anyone who soldiers through it. Most games have their official launch and with it comes a host of content for players to sample. Star Citizen is an odd case in that we're playing it as it's being developed, with content on a drip feed and never in a 100% functional, finished state. I'm sure we all look forward to the day where we can board our preferred ship of choice and know that everything about it functions perfectly, and the game we'll interact with through it also works. I say the "game", rather than the current feeling of playing around in a tech demo. Whether we're talking about a fantasy game where old armor is eventually made obsolete by newer armor, or a space game that brings in newer models of existing spaceships much like car manufactures do in the real world, I don't necessarily have an issue with the tools players use evolving over time. But, to me, this is something that should not start happening until players have had some time to enjoy a game's official release. As we have been recently reminded, the Live servers are a testing platform, and so this is not a completed game where in-game time should be progressing yet in a way that renders player-owned assets obsolete. That is a progression tool for the domain of finished playable games, not pre-Alphas. I don't want to get into a debate about what a pledge is or isn't. When a new ship concept is released, I doubt most backers think "that's a pretty picture.. I think I'll reward CIG for this fridge-worthy drawing by giving them $500 in additional funding". I doubt even CIG believes that. When a new ship or concept image is released, people spend money on it believing the finished product will eventually give them an advantage in an area of the game they have an interest in. Players are buying starships like Gacha enjoyers purchase weapons/characters, or how Diablo players buy mounts/armor-cosmetics. I hate that vehicle sales are even used as a funding model, but that ship has long sailed (..or not, if you're one of the countless ships still stuck in a 10+ year backlog). There are players who've backed Star Citizen and then walked away hoping to return to a finished game someday.. players who do not play it very often or at all because it's not in a finished state. Turning to the Hornet as an example, it was one of the first ships shown to players, and those who purchased it and set this project aside believe they own the "UEE Navy’s premier carrier-based fighter". They will eventually return to this game and find out what they actually bought is a relic that is a shadow of a newer Hornet. I can't imagine how angry they might be. For that matter, none of us have even gotten to enjoy the original Hornet in its final, balanced, gold-standard state within a completed version of Star Citizen. And none of us will ever get to enjoy it in the form it was originally intended to fill, because going forward it will instead be forever (negatively) balanced against what is now the newest version of the Hornet instead of being allowed to shine as the one and only Hornet. That is why the recent FAQ claiming the older Hornet series will eventually reach gold standard is of little comfort - it will always be a shadow of its original intention. And how can we be excited by the prospect of the developers spending time on a now-retired Hornet line when they already have an insane backlog of ships to work on? I understand that it must be incredibly frustrating for CIG to have to revisit older ships repeatedly to raise their standards so they can function properly within the game's intended design. But sympathy should not be confused for sharing in the blame. CIG chose to design and sell ships before they had a firm understanding of how their game would work and that is why they're stuck with so many outdated ship designs. It's a mistake that will take a lot of work to fix, but it is wrong to expect players to shoulder the responsibility financially. We already paid for these ships believing CIG knew how to make them properly, and trying to re-sell fixed versions of these ships to the same players is simply shameful. MK2 versions of ships should not exist yet, nor should they exist until a reasonable amount of time has passed following Star Citizen's 1.0 release. And even then they should only be obtainable through in-game means because CIG promised that the ship sales would stop once the game went live. At least that would slowly start to counter the harm to gameplay brought on by using ship sales as a funding method. The Hornet MK2 was a mistake, one that seems too late to take back. I'm sure it padded the financial numbers nicely, and in that way probably doesn't feel like a mistake to CIG, but it came at the cost of really performing a disservice to the community that helped fund this game. CIG's intention to remake and resell the entire Hornet line is just compounding that initial mistake. The existing ships (all of them, not just the Hornets) need to be fixed, not repackaged and resold as newer versions. It is truly embarrassing that CIG would ever take the latter route, and the decision to do so burns my trust in a way that makes me regret ever backing this project. That's how all of this has left me feeling. Please just do the right thing with this. It may not be the most profitable thing in the short term but this community has given you so much funding already, money that has supported the livelihoods of so many in your company for so long now. We should not have to beg that you have our backs on this journey too.