Seems likely: More of the assets and systems being completed for Squadron 42, out of context so as to not spoil the story. I'd really love to hear how near CIG feel SQ42 is to completion, and whether the remaining work seems to be straightforward, or whether it requires existing assets and systems to be significantly reworked. I wonder if there's any chance at all of them saying when they expect to release it, but I'm not holding my breath. I think we will definitely see something of Pyro - it really ought to be out this year, after all. And yes, something new and big for the distant future, likely announced near the end of the event (so beware of spending all your money too early!?). Sundry other ships that are really variants of existing ones or are needed to make SQ42 feel more alive, but arguably weren't meant to be a player's daily driver in SC and are made available because why not - in something like the way that the Cutlass Steel was.
Possible but don't bet on it: For ships, I'm not expecting the BMM to be ready yet, but I'd love a further update on it, especially on plans for the experience of operating it, populating its shops, and how its gameplay loops work. The Corsair and/or Vulture could be flight ready by Citizencon 2952. The Apollo vehicles would be great, since there can't be much gameplay missing for those now. Nyx and other systems? UI updates to the star map/radar, which we know has been in development for quite a long time now. I'd love to hear some improvement to the inventory UI being announced, as I think it is really inconvenient and user-hostile at the moment.
Wish list but very unlikely: Work starting on the Endeavour or Pioneer (including owning plots of land)?! Server meshing and the persistence system nearing completion? Exploration gameplay being fleshed out? How much (of our) investment in terms of time/money has been and is likely to be discarded as a result of CIG reworking systems, assets, ships and core engine features that have become outdated.
Don't suppose this will ever be highlighted, but it does cause some discomfort* to think about money we invested almost a decade ago having been used to create features that have been replaced.
I'm an ex software dev/current IT architect, working for a big software company. I have some professional understanding of agile development, iteration and incremental improvement in software - though not specifically games. Agile development is absolutely the right way to end up with the product we actually want by the end of the project, instead of the product we were able to imagine back at the start of the project. I appreciate agile is not designed for efficiency so much as for the best end result (so we should hesitate to complain about it being inefficient, up to a point). But what is considered good enough to release commercially seems to be moving on - both in scope and in terms of what is the state of the art vs other games - at a rate that is not much slower than the rate at which SQ42 and SC appear to be moving towards completion. I think CIG are closing the gap between the two, but I'm not currently sure how fast. I'd appreciate some reassurance on that front, before investing more money in the project.
