I'll share a few of my thoughts, just to get the ball rolling. But feel free to say anything that comes to mind. 1 - From the way the devs are talking about the flight model, it sounds like we're beyond the stage of making major changes. This is just my impression after hearing hundreds or thousands of utterances relating to the flight model one way or the other, so I don't have an exact quote to really prove it. Your mileage may vary. But as much as people keep repeating (rightly), that "It's still Alpha," it does sound like there are no major changes planned right now. And given that this game is so complex, compared to a more arcade-like space sim like Star Conflict, the consequences of making major changes are increasingly expensive and difficult. For example, the devs talked about how they've been trying to model turbulence, drag and lift in order to give atmospheric flight the right "feel", and how additional changes were needed because the original physics simulation that we saw at GamesCon allowed the ships to move in a way that was realistic given the parameters, but still came off as looking wrong due to the extreme parameters (i.e. insanely powerful thrusters). In other words... if the devs make major changes to the vector / maneuvering thrusters 6 months from now, it has an increasing number of potentially unintended side effects. They may try to fix an issue in the balance of dogfighting, but this has a huge impact on the gameplay of large battles, general transportation, racing, how ships behave when damaged or under different conditions (e.g. storms), how ships behave when empty versus fully armed and loaded with cargo, and so forth. So I feel a bit more skeptical that major changes to the flight model are coming, unless there's a massive negative reaction from the players. Whether that's good or bad, I haven't really made my mind up about yet. 2 - I hope everyone gets access to the PTU as quickly as possible, because I get the sense that there's little transfer of feedback from the General forum to the devs (which is understandable, to some degree) and it seems like they may not be getting the feedback they need from the PTU already. One dev mentioned getting feedback like "Driving this bike is not fun", and even in the General forum, I feel like this completely undersells the articulate and educated responses that I see in certain threads. So clearly there's a large number of people capable of posting valuable, specific and concise feedback. I hope the devs get that feedback in relation to the flight model as quickly as possible, given that the window for big changes appears to grow smaller and smaller as time goes on. 3 - It seems like the devs working on the flight model are approaching things from the perspective of engineers and players, first and foremost. I wonder how much they think about the impact of visuals and sounds when considering whether the atmospheric flight model feels authentic to the players. For example, if you could hear the many small maneuvering thrusters and VTOL thrusters of your fully loaded Starfarer working overtime as the ship strains to make a safe landing, and feel the bass from your subwoofer rattling your gaming desktop as your ship attempts to slow down or accelerate, it would have a big impact. If you could see the massive heat waves coming from thrusters, and see the massive clouds of dust and debris generated by the ungodly amount of thrust it takes to make your Constellation hover above ground, it would have a big impact. I'm sure this will be added at a later stage, when more artists get involved, so I'm not too worried about it. But the lack of auditive and visual cues does have an impact, so a lot of criticism in regards to lack of realism may come partly from this "problem". TL;DR - 1: I think the flight model has come a long way, and we're unlikely to see big changes in the future. I'd be happy to be wrong about that, although admittedly I don't have a clear sense of what needs to be done. But as the game grows more and more complex, it becomes harder and harder to make big changes. 2: The devs need more good feedback from PTU players, it seems to me. 3: A lot of the "unnaturalness" of atmospheric flight may come from the lack of auditive and visual cues. Seeing ships hover with perfect precision would perhaps be perceived as less unnatural if you could see, hear and feel the amount of force required to make this happen.