This post will deal much more with the immediate status of ships.

I finally decided to do a gradual rollout of ships due to a variety of
reasons. What this means is that at the beginning there will be very little to
do with ships, but each week or so I will activate an additional feature, or
release another class of ship. Hopefully this means that I will be able to
handle any bugs that arise in a more timely manner, and generally make the
whole process a bit smoother.

At the moment, only class 1 ships are available. This will allow us to test
the ship creation process, the hiring of crew, basic ship movement, and
general ship handling commands. However, as these ships are very slow and
impractical, I would not recommend this part of the trial for the average
player. On the other hand, players who locate and describe bugs to me in a
useful manner may receive compensation in terms of ship points (think of them
as task points for ships, which will grant mostly cosmetic bonuses which can
not be obtained any other way).

At the current time, I expect to release class 2 ships a few weeks after class
1, and then class 3 in another 1-2 months after that. Of course, various
useful features will be released in between those times as well.

Have fun!
Melemkor