For detailed ships all you need to do is hire a 3D artist, you don’t need a game for that.
The rest is a mess. Free fly weekend? I load in and all the NPCs are T-Posing and standing around. Or sitting half in the ground. The surroundings are lifeless, there is absolutely nothing to interact with besides some doors/elevators. And don’t even get me started on the bugs and performance (I have a 3080 and 5800X3D at 1440p, so it should run fine…).
So no matter how much content they might add in the future, it doesn’t feel like they have the technical side down at all. And the technical part is the entire make or break it topic as they are trying to build something on a scale no one has done before (and a MMO on top…).
For years now my personal bet is that the game will never come out. And if it ever does it will get negative reviews for being an unplayable mess.