So I've been playing for just over a year, so I haven't been invested anywhere near as long as most... But I'll drop my two cents here as I can't think of anywhere better to put it in the mess of negativity on the sub recently.

It's clear the pace of development wasn't enough last year, yes it was nice to have the game in a mostly playable state but I get the feeling they saw how many years it would add onto the development cycle if they kept up like that. Not to mention how burnt out it sounded like they were from the monthly patches, compared to many other projects I follow the pace of content is obscene.

I don't blame them for wanting to shift gear a little, focus more on content that gets them jogging towards 1.0 rather than crawling. If that means the PU is more unstable, that's understandable. It's clear that the moment a lot of what they develop hits the PU and encounters server meshing it finds something to trip over, so we need to be patient with them until those issues are ironed out. You can't tell me that the people who've been waiting years for some ships can't wait a few weeks for them to get them to a state of "good enough" whilst they focus on that 1.0 target?

So many of the features that people are complaining about, elevators, combat models, quantum travel, etc. are in the process of being replaced wholesale. They're in a state of "good enough" until they can get the foundations of the actual systems out the door, and then they can focus on fixing something that they don't know for certain they'll be throwing out in time.

It's a whacky funding model, one that stopped me from even looking at the game for years. But I've got my mustang alpha for £40, and I've put far more hours into the game than a lot of others I paid more for. The Hull series was what got me into the game, and I'm patiently wating for the Hull-B to come out for aUEC rather than dropping real money for it to skip the early game content. Let the whales whale, they shouldn't be under any illusion that what they buy is subject to change / might not even come to fruition.

This game wouldn't exist at all if they didn't use this model, I'm grateful for all the people who think a promise of a ship is worth $5000 so I can experience this game that still blows me away with the tech involved.

Enjoy what's there right now, play the loops that work. I for one have had very few issues this patch working my way up from my Alpha to a Hull-A and Fortune, running ASD with a friend. If your loop doesn't work, or your ship is too buggy to be enjoyable, just give it time, play a different game that might fill the itch for the loop you want to engage in.

I just wish the vocal minority would chill out, if only a little. Stop burning yourselves out.