I received an email a couple days ago giving me elite status and an extra 15000 coins. Since I stopped playing 5 hours after the shipyard downgrade released, decided to bite the bullet, upgrade to the latest version and give it another spin. Here's the conclusion:
Logged in without a hitch, proceeded to the marketplace where I selected yet another support cruiser which I just hate playing with (no choice here since it's not on the path of ships I actually want to go towards).
So far so good, I spent 24000 coins (a shitload if you ask me, based on the grind you have to go through) And didn't have enough credits nor xp to upgrade it. Also the tech tree is as confusing as ever.
With my ship being bare bones, I clicked the matchmaking button, a bit eager to see the changes.
The matchmaking took a little over 2 minutes and I was in... Dang the wait, I'm actually a bit excited to see the changes.
The game started and the feelings I had when I quit playing 5 hours after the patch was released, came back. The map is too crowded and seeing all those bars and names on the screen immediately gets confusing. You've got no where to fly, to hide and go support your mates. You've got a corvette up your a&& to which you're an instant kill.
Finished the game with a defeat and I was the last on the board... Defeat the game spat in my face.
And then... "In maintenance " was the middle finger.
It was my first and last game in veteran and I won't even bother playing recruit. I've been checking the forums daily to see any new changes and will continue to do so because I loved this game before this shipyard monster came to light. Don't know unti when though if the maps are so crowded and confusing to play.