John Crewe · Vehicle Director

Yes, those bigger guns are designed to take on larger ships. Is putting them on smaller ships a problem? I don't think so. We have ships like the Ares that is a single-person ship with a very big gun designed to take on larger ships. We want there to be a wide range of gameplay styles, but what we don't want is, we always refer to it internally as the Jesus ship, where it's the best. Every ship owner wants their ship to be their ship. They want it to be the best handling, the most damage output, the strongest health. But whacking a pair of great big guns on a ship doesn't make it instantly better than another ship, because we balance it alongside, not mentioning any ships in particular, the handling and the armor. Brain's failing. So the Meteor, which I'm guessing is probably the source of this question.

Jared Huckaby · Host, Community

I remember for the week before it released, everybody was on fire because it was supposed to be the most OP ship in the world and was going to destroy everything. And then people got their hands on it and they're like, oh, I guess not.

John Crewe · Vehicle Director

Like I said, it's balanced around what it has. It has those big guns. They're tuned in a way that makes them not particularly effective against light fighters and small fast-moving stuff, but better against larger ones. It doesn't have the shield and health to take hits. Its handling is great in a straight line, but not angular. And we have all these different options: if you want to play a certain way, there's a ship for that. But there's not like A beats B, C beats A in every single category.

Ben Curtis · Vehicle Art Director

And I think from my side of things, hopefully we're building a universe that has space for all sorts of different ships, be it little single-seaters with big weapons, or be it big haulers and cargo stuff with no weapons. I think we're building a pretty wide-reaching game, or at least I hope we are. And I think as long as it doesn't break player immersion, as long as it doesn't break the enjoyment, I think there's a massive amount of space for a variety of ships. And as long as they're all balanced, which, as John says, there's loads of different levers and strings that the clever people can pull to make sure that the ships work with each other and we're not making something that's really overpowered. But purely from a visual side of things, I think as long as it's believable, I think there's room for all sorts of fun stuff. At least I hope there is.