Will ships that originally had thrusters that appear designed for rotation, like the Freelancer and Caterpillar, eventually see them used for VTOL? Or is the expectation that they will not perform as well in hover mode as other ships that have had their rotating thrusters implemented?

It's case by case. We were looking at the Freelancer the other day. It's not as simple as just making those engines rotate like the Cutlass, because the Freelancer actually has its landing gears built into those rotating thrusters, and when they then rotate, there's no way to land when it's in T-Rex mode. You can't land because the landing gear are pointing out to the front of the ship, so you'd have to go out of it to land, which, if you could land without it, why would you do it? And the other big thing is that when it would be rotated like that, there are actually no thrusters pointing forwards and backwards. So you'd go into hover mode and you'd lose all ability to stop. So you'd be coming down without your landing gear out. So that would be quite a hefty...

I think I remember that original Freelancer commercial where the engine is rotating and turning into a little T-Rex. It was definitely a striking visual, but as it comes down and it's landing, right before it lands, it switches back to the other mode and still somehow manages to float down. It seemed a little bit like have your cake and eat it too.

I don't think the Caterpillar ever had...

I don't know, considering it's this long and those engines are just at the back.

Yeah, it's got a significant amount of thrusters underneath it, all down the center axis of the main part of it, almost tri-thrusters in that they do 45 and down, so it has enough thrust under there to counter it.

That's not to say that we're sitting here saying that Freelancer thrusters will never rotate. It's just that right now there are a couple of challenges inherent to them.