Many backers have pledged for concept ships that aren't done yet. Where are they?asked by [Uncredited]
TL;DRRoberts says ships are very detailed and slow to build with a limited number of vehicle artists, so Squadron 42 ships take priority, though all ships will be completed and schedules will be shared.
[86-minute special with Ben Lesnick - Summary Transcript]– Part of the issue is all our ships are incredibly detailed and incredibly complicated– Seeing the concept at first(which takes a lot of time creating the 3D model and conceptual design) is just the tip of the Iceberg– when it gets to modeling and putting it in engine there is a huge amount of work and iteration which goes between the artist, the designers and the animators to get all the features working, to make them functional inside and the spaces work.– The Constellation rework's been going for about 6 months, the Retaliator took 8 months, and lots of that was refining systems, finding ways to reduce draw calls, etc...– Considered outsourcing but it's too complicated due to the back and forth between departments– 14 people on staff are dedicated vehicle artists.– Looking to hire more hard surface modelers.– With that number of resources and the amount of time ships take you have to have a level of priority and for us it is Squadron 42.– Squadron 42 is definitely going to be there before the full PU, so it has been taking priority because there is a lot of ships to build there; the Vanduul ships, the UEE Navy ships and some of the aux ships like Starfarer, Herald the Cutlass. The Idris, the Bengal, they're huge ships, and they take a long time. 5 or 6 working on the Idris right now.– Just posted on the forums a schedule for the ships– All ships will be completed but the priority moves about depending on Squadron 42 and the persistent universe.– They are feathering in persistent universe, Squadron 42 ships that involve other kinds of game play that are important because they want to experiment with kinds of game play in future versions of Arena Commander that won't be just about combat but things like mining and cargo.– When they get multicrew, they'll look into prototyping gameplay that'll happen in the PU, like one person flies a cargo hauler, a few more people flying escorts, and then the other team's pirates trying to stop them.– That's the longer term plan for Arena Commander.– They'll try to keep everyone up to date with the ship schedules more too.