<= 12.5 BTC = 4 additional boards
I don't see how anyone will break even, even with a 4-module MPP delivery 90 days later.
I wouldn't put the limit for Batch 1 customers at 4 modules. Hashfast is in a complex situation for sure, but the MPP's underlying pledge is cost recovery in 90 days. Yes, there is verbiage about "up to 400%", but that should be contextualized bearing in mind the promise to double any shortfall in hashpower.***
At the point that the MPP kicks in, if Hashfast remains a viable entity (and I certainly hope it does), the boards themselves won't be costing them a hell of a lot. I sure hope they are upping their orders now.
So when late January rolls around, I think that rather being in the position of having dragged their first customers through this painful process for months, only to have the MPP not achieve ROI and have us screaming bloody murder at precisely the time that they finally will probably have significant hardware in hand to sell, the decent and relatively painless thing to do, if necessary, will be to quickly toss in additional boards so that people at least break even.
It's kind of death or glory for them. If the MPP fails, they are BFL 2.0. If they do what it takes for the MPP to at least leave its customers breaking even, they go down as the good guys that protected their early customers through an incredibly turbulent time. Earned goodwill. Imagine that.
And they will probably hew as close as humanly possible to promised delivery date on non-MPP Batch 2+ orders, because who can fault them for the network hashrate? Those machines were bought wholly at-risk and, if delivered on time, nobody can reasonably consider them not achieving ROI to be Hashfast's fault.
Goes without saying that the MPP is dead for future sales. I also think they will exit presales ASAP.
Basically, as I see it, the MPP customers are now going to form a pretty special class of 'stakeholders' in Hashfast. Although I think we should remain wary, instead of bashing them, we should really hope they make it, because I think they will make us whole if they survive.
*** From Hashfast MPP page: "You buy a Baby Jet for 50 BTC, and we ship it on October 25th. January 23, 2014 comes and goes, and it turns out that at the Baby Jet’s nominal hashrate, it would only have generated 25 BTC during that 90 day period. Calculated out, it would have taken an additional 400 Ghash/s of capacity shipped with your Baby Jet on October 25, 2013 to generate 50 BTC. We can’t go back in time to give you that 400Ghash/s. Instead, HashFast will double that and give you 800 Ghash/s in additional capacity. In this example, HashFast will give you two additional Golden Nonce ASICs, each with 400 nominal GHash/s."