Not as representatives of CIG or your teams, but as you personally: why do you make spaceships? There's a lot to this game; it's not just spaceships. What drew you to spaceships?

They're so complex that, for me personally... every single one feels like it's a puzzle that needs to be solved. And solving that puzzle for me is really satisfying, to put it bluntly. It's why I like doing the layouts of ships so much. Does it make sense to put a corridor there? Why does it not make sense to put a Jefferies tube in anything? Why does this ship need a rework?

For me, it started a very long time ago at my former job at a former company. I was sat there one day and a colleague reached out to me and was like, I'm working on this project with someone I can't talk about, and he's trying to put a one kilometer long spaceship in our engine with a full interior. And I was like, that's impossible. There's no way that could work. And he's like, well, here you go. Here it is. And I was like, oh. It is possible. Cool. This seems like a fun thing. And then some months passed and then I ended up here.

As an old backer of the game long before I worked here, for me it goes back to just the sense of adventure of going to space. That's a very fundamental driving feeling behind being interested in spaceships. And then the second level, which makes Star Citizen particularly interesting to me: I'm also a physics nerd, and the realism and physicality of the game and how things work is just unbelievably satisfying. So you get this double hit of the sense of adventure and wonder of going to space, with this feeling that, oh, this can actually work. And it's just so satisfying. It just feels really good.

I mean, I've been a longtime fan of sci-fi and space games and space stuff. And coming to this company was a really exciting opportunity for me. And I had a really great time working on props and weapons. To be honest, I'd been on the props team for a very long time and I kind of fancied the change, and this opportunity presented itself to me. And I've always really admired visually the spaceships in the game and how they work functionally. I find it just amazing. So for me it was a chance to renew my passion in a way. When you've been doing the same thing for quite a long time... don't get me wrong, I love props, and that team was so fun to work with. But starting something new again, it's exciting. I feel like I've got a lot of challenges and things I need to learn again, which is a feeling I haven't felt for a while, if that makes sense.

Oh, they're just the best looking thing in the game, aren't they? I mean, I'm pretty simple in that way.

I think for me, I grew up watching Red Dwarf on VHS over and over, and then watching Star Trek and Star Wars. And I think, like you said, that sense of adventure is a big draw for the project. When I first saw what Star Citizen was, I was making racing games and that side of things. The vehicle art being inspiring is one thing, but I don't think I'm lucky enough that I will make it into space. So this is as close as I can get. My kids might, if they're lucky. Star Citizen for me is a game that I really want to play, and I want to have that exploration. Playing Star Wars Galaxies and those other games, the big MMOs and exploration, that to me is just a huge driving factor, the exploration of the game. And also, I told my sister that I was going to go and make spaceships, and she thought I was going to go and make real ones. And I'm like, no, Sammy, I make video games. I do not go from making cars in racing games to actual real life spaceships.