I have two inquiries regarding the Combine Point Exchange.
First, when will the next CP Items/Vehicles/Ships Prize switch happen? I would like to know because the last time the prize page was updated, I missed the chance to exchange CPs for the ship that I had saved for because I had no idea when the current prizes were to be changed. Has the date of the prize update been released yet?
Second, in regards to previous CP prizes, will datapads ever be created for the entities that can no longer be obtained with CPs? Does the Dev team have any plans to offer them for R&D?
If an update is planned, it will probably be announced with a few weeks, possible months, warning. Watching the Sim News is the only way to know for sure if a date has been set for one, and all other important game updates for that matter.
Please be aware that the CP exchange has often remained virtually unchanged for several years.
It's impossible to say for sure if any of the previous CP ships - now rare - will be available with R&D. Some that were available many years ago were handed out as DCs to production factions, so it seems likely that certain ships may be possible to R&D. However, it is unlikely that every ship will be on the list, and impossible to say for certain which ones might be.
TO complement Hal, I believe the admins said that all the last gen CP ships have been added to the R&D pool, so will be R&Dable when its released. One of the reasons they haven't had the Rare tag added to them like some of the other CP ships (like the N-1 for instance).