The ships are basically fundraiser swag.
The prices have nothing to do with any difficulty level of attributing them to your user account, nor do the prices scale proportionately to the usefulness of the ship.
The prices track the in-lore rarity of a ship more than its in-game power. There are nice/rate variants of weak ships that cost as much as base model variants of better ships.
eg.
300i for ~$60
350R for ~$100 (bit weaker, bit faster, not 'better' per se - but much rarer in lore. Patently NOT 2x the value of a 300i.)
Hornet for ~$100 (more guns, more health. slower - 300 series can simply run away)
Freelancer for ~$100 (better at trade - but worse at fighting. slower)
Cutlass for ~$100 (better at piracy - worse at fighting. slower. Kinda in between 300i and Freelancer.)
There are also variants of the Hornet/Freelancer/Cutlass that cost more - but like the 300i->350R, their price goes up while their utility is basically the same as the base model.
There is only 1 remaining 'jack of all trades' ship that's over ~$100, and that's the Constellation, which can be had for ~$150 for the base model.
The rest of the game's expensive ships are large and/or specialized - basically guild/org workhorses/mules that need either protection or crewing or whatever to make them useful beyond flying from A to B with something less than ideal for simply flying around.
-scheherazade
This comment was edited on Dec 22, 2014, 14:24.