The RSI Galaxy is a great ship (currently ~$300) and the loaner is an Anvil Carrack which is (currently $600). The Carrack is one of the biggest and best ships for all around activity, but no pilot guns.
Origin 890 Jump ($900) for luxury and is the biggest in-game ship you can buy.
Hammerhead ($700) is the largest combat/gun ship currently, with the Polaris coming out soon.
Reclaimer ($400) is the largest industrial salvage ship.
Absolutely can’t wait until my Galaxy is flyable, still hoping for it to be here by the end of the year
And I have "played" it multiple times for a short while over the years myself. Anyone saying it is perfectly playable in its current state is a liar and part of the cult. It's a glorified half broken tech demo.
And yes, it is vaporware, because there's so much feature creep that it will never see the light of day. They constantly completely re-write systems, often times systems that have been already re-written a couple of times. A lot of newer systems don't fit in well with previous systems or other aspects that are now very much outdated, which means they have to redo them too (like various ships). It's a constant redoing of things that have been done already. All while the major tech needed for what they claim to aim at is still not really there. And all of this comes on top of them adding completely new features instead of focusing on fixing & finishing what's already there.
Nobody's mad that didn't throw money in the pit. It's just a funny story that never seems to end. Every year they don't have a finished product, the joke gets funnier.
I don't have a horse in this race, but it's the perfect counterpart to companies like EA Games where unfinished games come out because developers had to meet an arbitrary deadline. Star Citizen is right at the other end of the spectrum and you see what happens when there are no deadlines and the product is never finished. I would love to play it, but my backlog is so big that I can afford to be a patient gamer. I have about 35 years until I retire and if version 1.0 is out by then I'll be happy to take another look.
What you mentioned is actually a comment I just made, but in favor of it. It's just like konami and kojima, they gave him the boot because he's a perfectionist and would take forever (but make an amazing game at the end). I see this as the same kind of thing. It's taking forever but I have absolutely no doubt it will come soon™
Server meshing is the last major tech absolutely necessary for star citizen to run, for you to not be falling through floors, for box missions to work, etc. it's all server issues caused by the fact that there's only one server running everything for 100 people. Once server meshing is completed (early next year, a partial implementation is coming this summer) they can then move on to the already discussed "1.0 release."
It's actually coming much sooner than these ignorant lazy fools who write these articles would have you think. SQ42 is literally in the final polishing phases and during their big citizencon event this year they're more than likely to announce its release date.
On the bright side though, they are consistently updating the game. I don't play, but several of my friends play it all the time, and to them it definitely seems to be worth what they paid.
People are still falling through elevators and delivery missions are still bugged to hell four years after I quit for those reasons, but hey, they have beards now! 😂
"A lot" is an interesting descriptor, especially when comparing loud easily defined groups with quieter more subtle groups.
Its the difference between those animals that puff themselves out to five times their normal size and those that prefer not to be seen at all. Are there a significant portion of the first as compared to the second, just because you see them more blatantly?