At the end of final art you would think the ship is built, but there's still the last phase, flight prep. [What does flight prep involve?]
John CreweVehicle Pipeline Director
Yeah. So, as you say, once a vehicle gets to final art, that's a fantastic portfolio piece, but it's not a game-ready asset. Certainly not for our game, because that's what we call the 100% pristine model. That's what you see when you spawn that vehicle. We then need to do all the damage setup. So that's the UV2 wraparound, so when you shoot it, you see the little burning of the textures and seeing the hull underneath. That all needs to be set up, all the shield setup, all the optimization, LODs, all the stuff that isn't really glamorous to do, but is essential to get that vehicle to work in game.
starfarer.space · Star Citizen Live: Making Ship Up