Star Citizen’s Next Wave of Ships: 2026 Roadmap, Capital Ship Naming, and Future Systems – A Full Breakdown

IAE 2955 might officially belong to the RSI Perseus, but the latest Star Citizen Live quietly did something much bigger: it sketched out the shape of Star Citizen’s ship lineup and supporting systems heading into 2026.

From long-awaited capital ship naming to the last remaining concept ship, from new manufacturers joining the 2026 release slate to AI blades, mission 2.0, and the return of Origin, the show packed a surprising amount of concrete information into the banter.

This article breaks down everything revealed, what it means in-game, and how pilots can start planning their fleets ahead of time.

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A Quick Primer: What This Star Citizen Live Covered

This Star Citizen Live episode brought together members of the vehicle content team to talk openly about:

• How capital ships like the Idris, Polaris, and other large hulls are being brought online.

• The current and future state of ship naming, especially for capital-class vessels.

• The final remaining concept ship from the original crowdfunding era – a mysterious battlecruiser.

• A high-level list of manufacturers that have ships planned for release in 2026.

• Hints about new vehicles and ships like the Kruger “Stingray” and future entries from Graycat, Origin, Gatac, and more.

• How upcoming systems like AI blades, mission 2.0, engineering, crafting, and base building fit into the bigger picture.

Throughout, the devs were very clear: 2025 was intentionally quieter on new features so they could get foundational systems in place. 2026 is where a lot of that work is meant to start paying off.

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Capital Ship Naming: Idris, Polaris, and Why It’s So Hard

One of the most interesting segments focused on ship naming for capital-class vessels – a topic that has lingered for years.

The devs explained that:

• The current system treats the name as a fixed-length string (up to 32 characters) that sits on the exterior of the ship.

• Whether you name your ship “B” or “BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB”, the system reserves the space as if you used the full length. Visually, that means short names can look a bit odd.

• The serials and names don’t currently react to paints. A white font looks great on a dark “Black Hole” style scheme, but swap to a white paint and the name can disappear into the hull.

• Right now, font and colour are fixed, with no per-paint overrides.

From the content team’s point of view, this “works” technically, but they’re not happy with the quality bar. They want to:

• Allow paints to override serial number styles and colours, or

• Make the serials “smart” enough to adjust automatically to the hull colour.

• Introduce dedicated lighting for ship names and numbers – think of the way the Enterprise has its name picked out by little spotlights along the hull.

On the backend side, it’s even trickier:

• Ship naming is a manual, wave-based process because of the sheer number of ships and players.

• Names must be unique and profanity-checked, which means a human approval component is still needed.

• They have to generate batches of eligible owners, roll it out in waves, let people claim names, and review them – all of which adds up to a huge amount of platform-side work.

The takeaway: naming is here, but not yet where the devs want it to be. They see it as “feature work” that needs to be made more scalable, smarter, and better-looking before it can be rolled out more broadly and reliably to all the big ships.

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The Final Concept Ship: The Long-Teased Battlecruiser

One of the biggest lore-and-fleet bombs dropped during the show was about the “battle cruiser” – the last remaining concept from the original crowdfunding campaign.

Key points:

• The battlecruiser is described as the final concept ship from the original crowdfunding era.

• The team reiterated their intention to never do another traditional concept sale again, except for this one final promise.

• It’s positioned as a giant, military-style vessel, clearly aimed at the upper tiers of fleet warfare.

• The devs strongly hinted that its reveal would come at a major military-themed event – the kind of place where unveiling a huge warship would feel natural.

No manufacturer was named, and no hard date was given, but we now know:

The battlecruiser is real, still planned, and reserved as the last hurrah of the original concept ship era.

For fleet planners and collectors, that’s a signal to watch future military events closely.

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“Will There Ever Be Enough Ships?” – The Answer Is No

When asked whether there’s a stopping point where Star Citizen will have “enough ships,” the response was blunt:

No.

The devs described Star Citizen’s lineup as a matrix of ship sizes, roles, and manufacturers, and they made it clear that:

• Every cell in that matrix does not yet have a ship.

• They don’t just want one option per slot; they want multiple choices so players can pick based on taste and brand loyalty.

• Some players don’t like RSI, some don’t like Drake, some don’t like other manufacturers – and the team wants each player archetype to have meaningful alternatives.

They also pointed to alien races and ships as an area with huge untapped potential. There’s even a race in the lore – the Kak – that has never had any in-game ships yet, despite being part of the universe for years.

The message is simple:
Star Citizen’s ship lineup is nowhere near “done”, and both human and alien fleets are expected to expand for a long time.

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Docking vs Hangars: Perseus, Apollo and the Pain of Ports

Another practical topic that came up was the difference between docking ports and hangar landings for ships like the RSI Perseus – and how frustrating things can get when the game insists on one over the other.

Highlights:

• Right now, ships with docking ports can find themselves forced into docking behaviour, even when trying to request a hangar landing at places like Orison or various space stations.

• Docking itself is buggy and unreliable enough that it can make using these ships a chore.

• The RSI Apollo’s rear opening is technically a docking collar: a small and large one combined. It could function as a dock for ships and stations.

• However, the devs deliberately chose not to set it up as a docking collar in-game yet, because that would have forced all those docking bugs onto Apollo owners every time they tried to land.

There’s a clear desire internally to:

• Separate docking requests from hangar requests, so nav flow is more predictable.

• Fix the docking system so that ships like the Perseus (and future command-module ships) aren’t trapped in a frustrating loop every time they try to get permission to land.

It’s a quality of life issue that the devs themselves openly find annoying — and one they want to address once the relevant feature work slots in.

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AI Blades, PDTs, and Solo Players in a Multi-Crew Universe

The conversation also touched on AI blades and their relationship to things like the Greycat MDC’s PDT (Point Defense Turret).

Key points:

• AI blades are still very much intended, not abandoned.

• The PDT on vehicles like the MDC is effectively an example of a blade-controlled turret in action.

• The team acknowledged that the current implementation has limitations and that getting blades to behave the way they ultimately want requires more foundational work, not just quick tweaks.

• They’re adamant that Star Citizen should never leave solo players behind.

Even though Star Citizen is an MMO:

• The devs stressed that there should always be room for solo players and smaller crews.

• Systems like AI blades and future NPC crews are meant to give solo captains of multi-crew-capable ships the tools they need to be effective without a full human crew.

For pilots eyeing ships like the Perseus, Galaxy, or future command-module-capable hulls, this is an important reassurance: the long-term design includes support for smaller or solo groups, not just org-sized flotillas.

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Mission 2.0, Multi-Crew Rewards, and 2026 Feature Work

A big pain point from the community is that multi-crew gameplay often doesn’t feel worth it. Payment is split, and there aren’t many missions that scale rewards meaningfully with crew size or ship capability.

The devs tied this directly into the upcoming Mission 2.0 refactor:

• The current mission system has hard limits on what it can reward and how.

• For a long time, missions could only really reward a single type of payout (like credits) without more interesting item, progression, or ship-centric rewards.

• Mission 2.0 is a ground-up refactor designed to unlock things like:

  • Better multi-crew-aware payouts,

  • More varied reward types,

  • Missions that actually encourage using the right ship for the job rather than just the cheapest meta option.

They framed 2025 as a year where a lot of work went into behind-the-scenes refactors, with 2026 positioned as the year where those systems should start surfacing as visible gameplay.

Alongside missions, they namechecked:

• Engineering gameplay on the horizon.

• A crafting tech preview, leading towards base building.

• Improvements to scanning and radar.

The overall message: 2026 is expected to be much richer in actual feature delivery than 2025, driven by the refactors that have been quietly underway.

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“Fix the Game First” – How Parallel Teams Actually Work

The devs also tackled a familiar criticism head-on:

“Why are you making new ships instead of fixing X?”

Their answer:

• There are nearly a thousand people working across Star Citizen and Squadron 42.

• The people fixing netcode, 30Ks, freight elevators, or core bugs are not the same people building the ARGO Mole, Perseus, or new light fighters.

• These are different teams with different skills, running in parallel.

They gave the example of a dedicated freight elevator strike team that has been working continuously since “Race for Stanton” to harden that system and clean up edge cases. Those engineers are able to stay focused on that because:

• Content teams continue to add events, ships, and reasons to log in, keeping the game alive and engaging so the more technical teams can keep working without the project stalling.

It’s not a simple “fix this first, then build ships later” trade-off. It’s multiple teams working on multiple fronts at once.

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2026 Ship Manufacturers: Who’s Getting New Ships?

One of the most valuable segments for fleet planners was when they ran through the manufacturers with new ships planned for 2026.

They explicitly named:

• Drake Interplanetary

• Roberts Space Industries (RSI)

• Aegis Dynamics

• Anvil Aerospace

• MISC

• Kruger

• Gatac

• Origin Jumpworks (explicitly called “back” with another ship)

• Graycat (with a new ground vehicle)

• Grey's Market

This list refers to ships planned to be released in 2026, not just “being worked on.” They also clarified:

• There will be roughly as many ships released in 2026 as in the previous year (around the high 20s).

• Some manufacturers have multiple ships coming, not just one.

• There are additional manufacturers with ships in development that may not necessarily release in 2026.

For anyone loyal to a particular manufacturer, that’s a strong hint to watch the roadmap and events closely across next year.

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Kruger’s Next Ship: The Stingray

Kruger is already in the spotlight thanks to the L-21 Wolf and L-22 Alpha Wolf light fighters, but the team confirmed another Kruger ship is coming in 2026:

The Kruger Stingray.

They were very clear this is not another Wolf. The Stingray is a distinct new ship, with the team happy to give us the name now and leave the role and layout up to speculation until its formal reveal.

For collectors and light fighter enjoyers, this is an obvious candidate for a dedicated future deep dive.

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The Big IAE Ship Next Year: RSI Galaxy

In the closing stretch, the team revisited the tradition of each major event having a “headline” ship:

• This year’s IAE headliner: RSI Perseus.

• This year’s Fleet Week headliner: Idris.

• Last IAE’s big ship: RSI Polaris.

Then they confirmed the big one for the next IAE:

The RSI Galaxy is planned as the main feature ship of the next Intergalactic Aerospace Expo.

That continues the modern RSI warship arc: Polaris → Perseus → Galaxy, reinforcing RSI’s position as a cornerstone military manufacturer and giving players a clearer sense of how these large ships will anchor future events.

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Twitch Drops, Armor Sets, and Content Cadence

Towards the end, they also reminded viewers about:

• Ongoing Twitch drops, including a light/medium/heavy armor set that pairs nicely with previous concierge armor.

• The ability to mix and match armor pieces for unique looks.

• Plans for Inside Star Citizen (ISC) and Star Citizen Live to ramp back up in 2026, with an upcoming ISC episode focused on engineering.

The key point is that as more feature work comes online, they’ll have more to talk about on shows, and they want to find more ways to tell those stories without spoiling everything early.

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What This Means for Star Citizen Pilots (and Their Fleets)

For everyday pilots, org leaders, and collectors, this episode offers several clear takeaways:

• Capital Ships Are Long-Term Investments

  • Naming, paints, lighting, and backend systems are still evolving. As Idris, Polaris, Perseus, Galaxy and the future battlecruiser come fully online, expect iterative improvements, not a one-and-done implementation.

• There’s No “Finished Line” for Ships

  • The ship matrix is far from full. Expect more overlap, more choice, and more specialization across almost every role and size bracket.

• 2026 Is Shaping Up as a Systems Year

  • Mission 2.0, engineering, crafting tech previews, base building, and better scanning/radar will start making the universe feel more reactive, more rewarding, and more tailored to your ship choices.

• Solo Players Are Still in Mind

  • AI blades and NPC crew plans remain core to the vision. Even big ships should have viable solo or low-crew loops in the long term.

• Manufacturer Loyalty Will Matter

  • With Drake, RSI, Aegis, Anvil, MISC, Kruger, Gatac, Origin, Graycat, Grey's Market and others all in the 2026 mix, there’s a strong case for building fleets around preferred brands and themes, not just raw stats.

Source: Star Citizen Live