Constellation Mk V Centaurus pilots say it guzzles hydrogen, and Spectrum is asking if a nerf is coming

The new Constellation Mk V Centaurus is thirsty, and that’s what Star Citizen players have been talking about all weekend. A few days after the ship arrived for RSI Discovery Month, its hydrogen fuel use has become the biggest technical topic on the official forums.

What players are reporting: A Spectrum thread titled MK V CENTAURUS. Massive hydrogen fuel consumption. says the ship drains its hydrogen far faster than pilots expected. It had 28 votes and 18 replies by this morning, per Cavalera’s daily digest. Over on r/starcitizen, the poster behind Well damn shared a screenshot and joked about how fast it burns hydrogen, but still liked that the ship can carry a small shuttle with decent cruise speed.

One creator ran the numbers. YouTuber Cpt_Foxyloxy paid fuel-rat players to fill the tank and then tracked it in flight in Fuel Leak? Bugs or Feature For Connie Mk V Fuel Consumption & Test. His findings:

• Cruising is cheap. At a steady speed, consumption was close to zero.
• Speed changes are expensive. Fuel use spiked hard every time he sped up or slowed down.
• Probably mass, not a bug. He thinks the spikes come from the ship’s weight, which he puts at about 300 tons, rather than a broken fuel system. He left the question open for viewers.

For context, the community-run Star Citizen Wiki lists the Centaurus with a 46.8 SCU hydrogen tank, already one of the bigger tanks among size 5 ships.

Now people are asking about a nerf, or a fix. A second thread, Incoming nerf for the Connie MKV?, asks whether a rebalance is on the way. Another, How does the Centaurus have WORSE pitch, yaw, and roll rates that the Starfarer???, is unhappy with its handling. The wiki lists 22°/s pitch, 18°/s yaw and 35°/s roll. These join complaints from Saturday about a missing light amplification (LAMP) system and a weapon rack with no local storage, Cavalera noted.

Not everyone is upset. A thread called What if we were all wrong about the Centaurus MK5? asks people to step back. On Reddit, some players say the ship has won them over, and others are swapping cargo tips. One showed you can fit a Nursa sideways and still keep 144 SCU of cargo grid.

CIG hasn’t said anything yet. As of this morning, no -CIG account has posted in these threads, and there’s no new patch. LIVE is still Alpha 4.10.2, no PTU is open, and the server hotfix being tested on some shards targets other bugs. CIG’s own Centaurus Q&A does say the team can “adapt, improve, or change feature and ship designs in response to feedback, playtesting, design revisions, or other considerations to improve balance.” So changes are possible, but nothing has been announced.

PPR take: A 300-ton ship that drinks fuel when you push it around actually sounds like Star Citizen working as designed, and Cpt_Foxyloxy’s test backs that up. The real question is whether the tank is big enough for the long trips the Centaurus was built for. A quick note from the ship team saying “intended” or “we’re looking at it” would settle a lot of this before it becomes another week-long Spectrum debate.