The following thread was a good Q and A that spawned out of no where on Steam's Project Greenlight Concepts page for Project Fury
Names have been adjusted and messages summarized but you can read the full log on Steam under the above noted area.
Gamer wrote: Besides the storyline, what's so different about this game, what makes it so unique that would want me to buy this and ignore other space shooters? ...
Fury wrote: A key feature is the choice of play style and how that choice is made.
Fury can be played as a traditional arcade style shooter i.e. you get a ship bounced from mission to mission and destroy wave after wave of enemy craft because they are in your way.
i.e. Action
You could also chose to take an active role in your fleets operations i.e. choosing to react to a decision point in which case the player will be given new objectives such as leading a small wing and later a fleet into battle which they can customize depending on paths taken.
i.e. Tactical
Another option would be split off on your own all together in this style you would start solo, need to build a fleet and eventually a faction
i.e. Conquest/Empire Building.
Now how the choice is made was the second part of that; you don't toggle a check box or click a mode button on the menu you make choices or don't make choices in the game for example during a mission a you may trigger an event and be given the option to chase off after a group of enemy or return to fleet for debriefing, chasing off after them will open 1 line of missions while returning to fleet will open a different line each presenting different options to you based on the path you follow you may end up put in charge of a wing or singled out as a superior forward pilot i.e. soloist.
For one more example and this is documented better on the other various sites; you get your briefings through the command console, this also shows various events in the known galaxy some of which will give you the opportunity to go rouge and form your own faction which opens up the empire building part of the game this includes building a fleet, discovering tech and other resources, participating in politics and generally trying to either take over the galaxy or topple a given faction depends on how you go about it.
Gamer wrote: I see, so how large is the playing field, also will there be any customisation. People love personalising things in games.
Fury wrote: Ships can be upgraded to tweak there performance i.e. tech upgrades and the likes as for aesthetic customizations we are working on a paint and crest system for ships in your fleet so you can fly something aside from the drab grey ship. Early work looks promising but nothing ready to show on that aspect just yet. The way it will work and let me caveat this with its still very early; is you will select a pattern i.e. texture from a list of available options which will be projected onto your ships skin.
We are looking into performance impacts of this to determine just how much this will be used i.e. can you customize all ships in your fleet or just your flag ship (the one you pilot), Do other factions customize their ships or is the rest of the galaxy colour blind 
and so on.
A side note on the tech upgrades, depending on the path you took these come available in different ways; i.e. if you’re playing all action oriented then your host fleet has all upgrades available to it but they are locked based on main story progression.
If you’re playing tactically performance unlocks some upgrades while others are progression based
Finally if you are playing strategically, the resources (planets, subsectors and sectors) you hold and how you manage them determines the bulk of what’s available while some special items may be progression based.
So it really depends on the choices you make; if you chose to for example join “Faction” and you follow down the soloist hero of the faction i.e. action/arcade style then you will be hand held through a string of missions with a few options in which order some missions are done as you fly through a linear story. At any point assuming such an event is available you could diverge from this path but if you don’t you will find a fairly linear set of missions ranging in size and complexity but generally becoming more complex and swarm-esk as you progress; we are aiming for a mission run time between 5min (assault missions) up to 20min (series missions) at the moment. (this from an arcade style)
Ah I forgot the playing field question:
The galaxy is divided into 16 sectors, each sector is further divided into between 4 and 6 subsectors each subsector can at any time (depends on paths you took) have 0 to many “events” and a subsector depending on events performed or skipped may have 0 or many points of interest i.e. planets you do or don’t control, stations, etc.
Gamer wrote: Regarding the information given of the customisation. Are you planning to do similar pattern design as the game "Spore".
Also, you mentioned the word "Tweak". Is this similar tweaking as "Need for Speed: Pro Street", such as altering the nitro making either; A powerful burst at a short amount of time, a longer run time but with less kick, or something in-between.
Fury wrote: On the patterns, its been a bit since I played Spore so don't recall but what we are doing is projecting the pattern over the model of the ship; as for the art style again I'm not a graphics artist so more info to come on that but what the system is capable of is rendering any picture over top the skin of the craft i.e. not mapped but wrapped so they arn't distorted; this gives us the possibility of letting the player import there own images to paint on there ships which is why we are leaning this direction and is capable of flashy results such a flame paint job like you would see on a hot rod all the way down to subtle color and pattern changes like geometric designs and the likes i.e. a full ship decal
Gamer wrote: And the tweaking?
Fury wrote: Upgrades include things such as new modules which enable new functionality such as the ability to balance power between shields and weapons, there are also adjustments such as weapon type which can change your damage type, rate of fire, damage per round, round flight times, flight behaviours, etc. and of course structural modules and adjustments such as armour value, armour type (static adjust resistances), reactive armour (adapts to situation), living armour (heals over time), repairers (amps shields, repairs armour, has some sort of cost i.e. slows ship, weakens weapons, etc.)
Other tech and this depends on the path you take might include schematics for ships, drones, missiles, etc. for you to build; Upgrades for POIs i.e. resource harvesters, terraformers, star killers, even full artificial planetary systems and even updates to the Observer (the game camera) to enhance the HUD
Now which types of modules are important and available depend on how you are playing for example the action player will never see the POI bits and a simplified list of ship mods as many of the tweaks simply aren’t applicable to them.
side note, some modules give static changes i.e. once equipped that's what it is while others allow for in mission adjustment or are reactive i.e. change to the situation
