Will folks ever be able to buy the old models [of reworked ships]? Some folks maybe even prefer the old versions of ships.
TL;DRNot currently: reworked ships replace the old ones one-for-one because updated systems like components and damage no longer support old models, though aged ship versions are wanted in future.
Not with the current updates. It's a one-for-one replacement for the ones we're working on now: the Cutlass, the Aurora, the Constellation. In the future, we absolutely want to have ships that age. So there would be the 2948, 2949, 2950 over time. So we're kind of looking ahead to that. But right now, the idea of updating ships isn't just, "Oh, it's cool to do this." It's totally essential to where we're going with the game. So the old ship just would no longer be functional.
As we update ship systems and the way that we build the ships.
Yeah, I mean, it comes down partially to a gameplay reason. Components need to be supported, or ship items need to be supported on these ships, and not all of the old ones do, which is part of the reason why we have to update it. And then damage is a big part of it. The way we do our damage is completely different than the way the old models were. And at a certain point, you kind of have to just cut off the way we used to do it and bring everything in line.
I think the one exception is the Constellation, which in the fiction, there is a Mark III Constellation that's the old design, but we don't actually have it in the game. A lot of people see this and they go, "Why are you throwing out this work?" But that's not actually how it works. You just normally don't see all the iterations a model or a system goes through in game development. So this is a completely normal practice in that regard.