Any news about the Banu Merchantman?
TL;DRThe Banu Merchantman isn't on the 2018 ship schedule because the team is under-resourced; it will be scheduled once resources free up, and no date is given.
The Merchantman. So a little bit of bad news in that it's unfortunately not on the active ship development schedule for 2018. Last year we did commission an external artist to do some concept art for us, which was delivered and we approved. And we're just under-resourced at the moment to be able to move it into the 2018 schedule. So as soon as we get those resources freed up, we'll begin to schedule working on it and get it released to the community as soon as we can. And I'm sure that when we do get those resources freed up and start working, you'll definitely inform the community about when that's available.
Yes, you can be sure the very first Ship Shape when this happens will be me running around the camera.
It's happening! Obviously, we're working on as many ships as we can at the moment and we're just booked up. And since so many resources are required to get ships in the game, we just have everyone working at 100% capacity.
You mentioned that we did do some outsource concept work last year. We've actually shown those images. You saw those images on Around the Verse last year when we did features on the Banu and the Banu Defender. We wanted to flesh out more of the Banu style guide when developing the Defender. You guys have seen everything that exists for the Banu Merchantman at this time. So like Kirk said, when its time on the development wheel comes up, you can be darn certain that I'll be right there on a Ship Shape telling you guys.