Disclaimer: what follow is all conjecture based on the limited information I've seen. The finished game will probably vary greatly.

I was talking with my buddy about pledging for the to-be-released large ship this Friday. While speculating on what will be released, we began to question what exactly the role of single seat spacecraft will be in the PU. We feel that clearly there will be a role for them, otherwise the only reason people will fly them is they haven't played long enough (~40 hrs) to get a Constellation or other multicrew vessels (MCVs)

To clarify, we strongly believe that MCV's will outclass solo ships for most roles such as combat, trading. We base this on the current stats page (bigger ship hauls more cargo) and CR's repeated statements that one fully crewed Connie can take on three Hornets. We believe that AI crew will be effective and cheap replacements for small MCV's. But we strongly feel the CR intends for solo ships to have strong, viable roles past the initial 40 hours of play.

So the following are reasons/roles we believe people will fly solo ships-

A) They are new players and need to work their way up
B) When approaching combat in an asteroid field (ala the current maps) it would be a nightmare to fly a multi-crew ship; here solo ships excel in combat
C) The possibility that bombers like the Gladiator will outperform small MCV's like the Connie 1v1.
D) Racing
E) The possibility that carriers will have longer jump range than small MCV's like the Connie, making fighters more practical for long tour combat
F) Matchmaker will work such that Solo ships won't have to fight MCV's on unequal footing (e.g. 1 Hornet v 1 Connie)
G) Info running