Hey all. I just found out about this game a little bit ago while on a reminiscent google quest about wing commander. I am excited for this game and have enjoyed meeting a few of you at the business end of your cannons in the arena already. While I've enjoyed having my mustang decimated by your hornets and 300is (truly I have) I had a couple questions I was hoping could help me out in my vain attempts to whittle down your shields the arena, and the afternoon I've spent drowning myself in articles and forum threads hasn't quite resolved them.

Are you able to buy upgrades for the ships that can be used in the arena? It seems from forum posts that people are indeed upgrading ships but a couple points confuse me. In one of the articles on the arena I understood it to say that the baseline of each model is the one that gets flown, regardless of which model you own. So hornet/ghost owners fly hornets, etc... (since the main difference that I can see between models of the same line is the load out, it made me question if upgrades would be used or not). Also my starter package listed including 1000 credits but my account still reads 0 credits. Is that because credits don't become valid until the game launches or are you able to use them for upgrades now?

Anyhow. Glad I found this game and can't wait to enjoy it with you all.
CoupDgrace