First off, ship design in GOIO is level design. You have to think of ships in the same way you would a city block in a FPS. Every design choice will guide players to what you want them to do. Bad level design will end up with players confused, in odd placements, or simply not understanding the objective at all.
To answer some questions:
No, this is not an official WIP. It is my own fan creation. Will we ever see it ingame? Not unless I get a very strong green light. The work is less than 90% done. It needs further refinement and playtesting, the greeble (pointless decor that looks like it does something, but doesn't), at least 18 textures made or borrowed from Muse (most from the Corsair), animated parts, at least two LOD models and two stages of damage models for each LOD (9 models you can see), plus a player Collision mesh (10 ship models total), death animation, hitbox for balloon and hull, themes (more borrowing of assets), etc. And that is just the required art. This adds up to months of all of my free time. If it were green lit, I would most likely enlist people to help.
Yes, I have been considering making the balloon larger, especially after bulking up the lower part. The original model was smaller with odd engine placement. After I compared it to the profiles of other ships, it was way too small, so I stretched it out and bulked up the hull. The engines were too far out of 'engie paradise', so I moved them to the back.
Mirroring front to back? No. That would confuse scrubs with too many guns. The one gun is specifically to bring all the scrubs to the back of the ship (to fight over) when the pilot runs. When they only have one gun, the two others will start fixing things. One heavy gun still always enough firepower without taking up two crew. Default scrub gun would be hwacha, of course.
Raging Geek, you mean this
Heavy (turret) Mine Launcher? Or the Heavy Remote Detonation Grenade Launcher they call a mine launcher in Alliance?
Overpowered in vet hands? Less so than the Pyra. As pointed out by someone else, the guns are easy to disable, the balloon is easy to hit, there is no gap between hull and balloon hitboxes, and engines are exposed. None of that matters to scrubs that shoot flak at balloons. It does matter to vets. The hull/balloon fixpoint column is given its odd placement behind the helm for a scrub/vet set of reasons as well. The pilot can't see the gun or enemy. In scrub case, combined with the distance, this discourages (not prevents, sadly) them from running back to the gun. There will be at least two crew already back there (fighting over the gun), so a runner pilot will have nothing to do but get back to the helm.
Where are the claws? They did not fit the Anglean aesthetic, so I went more utilitarian. To answer another question, I did not really consider them to be lifting arms, but it is an interesting thought. More like shunting arms. But, I can add some hooks. Maybe physics ones like lanterns so they sway with ship movement.
Yes, the balloon fixpoint is elevated. It is carefully placed just at the top of the center point of a level camera view. And yes, it is specifically that way to train scrubs to fix in 3d. The elevated engines are for the same reason, as well as keeping the 'fix this' side indicators from grouping up.
The name comes from the Brig class ships so kindly linked, in keeping with the Anglean naming conventions. Frigate and Corvette are ship classes larger than a Brig. A Corsair is just another name for pirate. A Brig is a nicely maneuverable fast ship often favored by pirates. It all fit. Goldfish, Squids, Mobs, etc all belong to other Factions, and I wanted to keep the lore tight (even if Muse can't xD). Also, I like the thought of throwing scrubs in the brig, a name for a prison. The ship's vertical bar layout lends to this.
Technically, it does have two small masts holding up the top square, and two triangle sails. So my naming is justified.
As far as stats, Goldfish-like stats would be a good place to start. I am hesitant to suggest movement stats until I see it in action. It is like an easy to disable Pyra from the front, blind side Pyra from both sides, but backwards flying Goldfish from the rear.
Scrubs should not be allowed to fly Galleons until they pass Galleon training (need to add ship-based tutorials/challenge modes). Any that try should be sent to the Brig. (see how fun that is?)
