We can’t really release what we currently have to the public (IMO). And if we only receive the min funding, that likely won’t change. So to have that as a higher tier reward, there would be significant resources required to get the tools into an acceptable state for any type of public release. It’s something we’re still debating.
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- Pick a ship from old Infinity site to be made for Battlescape (but that could prove complicated but still)
That’s not a good reward IMO because it limits the number of people who may care about that. We need an ~order of magnitude more people pledging to the KS than regular site visitors. (new or old site)
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Oh yeah? Drop a Flamberge on them and let’s put that theory to the test. 
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This sounds like something that has been done before, but I offer it anyway.
Make a high-end tier or tiers such that the contributors become the fictional customers of a new ship design. It would be rather like being on the government board for a new ship because the design must match government specs (which are provided by I-Novae Studios of course), The contributors would have access to a discussion forum specific to their ship, and the artists can work with that group.
The input from the customer team would have to be limited. The basic style of the ships would be defined by INS, but where there is the ability to decide between multiple options, let the group have inputs - and let the designers actually listen.
The team would provide the name, get things like signed prints, perhaps a custom skin for being “plank holders”, put their names on the list of fictional designers for the ship, get a 3D printed copy, and so on.
The idea is to make the ship design into a meta game. The artists would be in the world of Infinity, roleplaying the design and construction of a new ship in their shipyard. It need not be hardcore roleplaying, just a light fiction to suggest the pattern. The fiction might even allow for delays and such, giving the artists a little leeway for pacing the process.
This could be done for multiple ship designs, and even at multiple levels. For example, if a ship needs roughly $40,000 to get from concept to playable, then tiers could be organized into 20 of $2,500, 10 of $4500, 5 of $8,000 and even a $40,000 tier where each person gets to go through this process individually. Larger ships may have larger budgets.
The first problem I can see with this would be the workload on the artists interactively dealing with customers. The second is dissatisfaction by a customer in a large group of 20 people (or even among 5), expecting to get their way and finding that the majority interest doesn’t match their own. It might be a good idea to ‘pool’ the interested parties and find out who agrees on what and wants to work together on given ships. Or the tiers would be so well defined that only people clearly interested in that sort of a design would contribute.
The same could be done for planets and other big-ticket content. In fact, planets might be a very good selling point, given that they are unique to your property.
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One thing people need to remember while presenting their ideas for higher tier rewards is, we have to be able to deliver on all the rewards even in the minimum funding scenario. If someone pledges $10,000 in a successful KS with a min funding goal of $250K, we may only have ~$60-70k art budget for the entire game. In this scenario we’re likely only talking a couple small player ships and maybe one NPC smallish cap ship/station etc. This $10,000 pledge reward would need to be something deliverable (and desirable) under very extreme resource limitations. The design your own ship ideas can quickly evolve into something we’d not be able to deliver.
Though, something you could sell later on …
getting ahead of everything … sorry.
So you dropped your minimum funding goal from $500k to $250k?
No, we’re still in the midst of the budgeting workup. What I posted was just an example of an extremely limited funding scenario.
In your scenario, that person contributed more than 10% of your art budget.
Scale it into something that you can deliver. The basic idea is to let the person who drops $10,000 have some input to the team, to feel like they’re closer than the people who are getting the usual weekly updates. Include mention of the person’s input in weekly updates when you use it. Let them name a few things, or let them be the tie breaker when you guys are at loggerheads.
At the high end, they’re actually interacting with the designers on details of game elements.
Another thought is to give the person a planet or planetary system. That is, go as far as you need to with the modding idea to let them run a server with a planet that they helped define. They’re the only one with it, but they can hand it out to anyone that they want to. Dunno about the rights to sell such a thing to others or operate a pay-to-play server based on it.
Somebody mentioned Skype interactions with the developers, but you could also do invite-only Twitch sessions for high-tier supporters to demo the current state of the game at regular intervals.
As I see it, the rewards are going to be some form of more intimate connection with the development process, stuff that you create for the game (art), or stuff that you create for the supporters (tchotchke)…
That’s kind of why I think the $10,000 tier is nuts 
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I really don’t like seeing money bombs where someone can buy the right to design anything. Almost never works out and gets scrapped. Would honestly sell my everything just to make sure no one gets a chance to do that.
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im at work and cant read the entire thead of replies - but I think a good one for high rollers is allowing them to name a star/star system or cluster, station, or having it named after them etc.
sorry if this is posted already
Very excited, it’s been a long time in coming. 
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Awesome ! You made my day ^^
And if you don’t reach the date, it’ll be not a big deal : to know that you think this year is maybe the year is already awesome because ot the implications it has.
Thank you guys !! Finally 
If I had 10k$ for you guys, I would love to be a important character on a quest or something like this. I don’t know how you handle character design, but this would be a big source of motivation to me to give you this big number, if I could live the development as an actor of it. And the best way to do this is not to focus on dev part (because devs don’t have 10k$ 
), but focus on the fact that everybody want to be somebody “not like the others”. Imagine to be motion captured for a character of Infinity !! I want to find 10k$ just to get it !
Also, the difficulty of helping you is that we don’t have much ideas about the gameplay and story (yeah I’m a fox ^^… but in fact I prefer wait and keep my exciting !)
IMO, have an access to the “mod engine” is a high-middle pledge, not enough for thousands of $
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Battlescape in its simplest form is slated to be an arena shooter. There won’t really be any quests/character development, other than maybe reputation of the actual player among his/her peers and possibly a player profile showcasing personal and maybe even corporation achievements etc.
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Name the commander of the largest NPC ship after him. Or the commander of the NPC base.
There isn’t a commander named? For $10K, I think you can put one in.
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- 3D statue of the backer somewhere on the surface of a planet in the game with a little plaque saying their name and thanking them for backing etc.
The backer provides their measurements and a few photos.
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I thought I had mentioned something similar, but I must have lost it in an edit. I was thinking of just a shrine or something. Perhaps even something that a player could interact with. I wouldn’t want my likeness in a game.
Another angle is to just consider the various possibilities of easter eggs. Given the size of the planets, hiding them should be no problem. Or hiding them in keystrokes, in the HUD, or anywhere in the artwork. Including explosions, audio and so on.