it’s not hard to earn in-game money and buy ships with that

If you can skip that process by paying real money, and the things you unlock are gameplay affecting upgrades, then that’s pay-to-win. That’s what the phrase originally meant before being diluted by morons. Non pay-to-win microtransactions are purely cosmetic.

Not that people should be playing any game that’s infested with a microtransaction funding model. Let alone one with a base price of $45, let alone one with absolutely absurd “micro”-transactions meant to prey on mentally ill people, let alone one that’s already taken people’s free money only to implement all of the above.

At one point in time horse armor was enough cause controversy. How did it all go so wrong?