Between now and the release of the upcoming expansion pack, Twilight of the Arnor, we will be adding a new editor called the Starship component editor.  It will let users easily tweak and add new starship componetns into the game.  The computer AI will automatically use them.

The addition of this new feature won't affect the release date. What happens is that we just keep coming up with new stuff we want to put into the game and so we end up making it.

We are still on track for tomorrow for Beta 3 which adds the Iconians (read about the new info here) and Terror Stars!