With the release of the new development pipeline for ships, has CIG any plans for a ship balance pipeline? How do you see ship balancing going forward?asked by Maggus

So the answer is yes, we're actually-... the balancing of the ships is part of the pipeline. And we're also putting processes in place, so like one of the checklists for the QA department (who obviously do the most playing with all the stuff) is that we also have sort of a balancing pass now that's part of the sign-off of our big releases. So that, you know, we can say "okay, well this is how the Hornet compares to the Aurora, compares to the 300i," and have that sort of part of an instituted process. Because there's so many things going on, and we always... and we've actually had this in a couple of cases where, someone changes something down in some other area and it actually has an effect on a ship that we didn't even know it would, but we don't really catch it 'cause everyone was focusing on testing other areas of the game. So we're trying to make sure that that side is sort of... has check-listed, and then we're also specifically having a focus internally on the design and technical side to do that.So, I don't know whether that's gonna be full in for 13.2, because there's a lot of stuff to be done, but going forward, definitely for release 1.0 of Arena Commander that'll be there. It's something that we're focusing on because the balancing is obviously something that's really important, and it's the opportunity we get right now with Arena Commander, 'cause you know, the beauty of it is we have these builds out there and you guys give us feedback, and yes sometimes things get broken, and sometimes things aren't as much fun or whatever, but that's the whole point of sort of honing in what will be the best balance of, you know, the different comparison between the ships, because of course every ship can't be equal. I mean, we've got a huge universe out there and there's gonna be a lot of progression, and plus there's gonna be different sizes of ships. So, you know, yes the Aurora shouldn't be able to go 1-on... same pilot, 1-on-1 a Hornet should beat an Aurora... but a better pilot in an Aurora than a sort of bad pilot in a Hornet - the Aurora should win, right? So we sort of need to balance these things and keep on top of that as we add new systems and features in, and so it just requires a lot of process to get that.So that's definitely something we are focusing on, but I really do believe by the time the game actually is "done" (not that it will ever be "done" but, you know, is in the sort of state where the base features are all there and everyone can blend around the Persistent Universe) it will actually be a really good experience. I mean, we'll certainly have gotten a lot of the network and connection kinks, and graphical issues and performance issues, and all that out the way... and the balancing issues. So I think you're all helping make a much better, polished game. It's one of the reasons why I'm pretty confident it will be a really good game, 'cause I think the overall promise of it, the overall concept, the base gameplay mechanics of travelling between worlds and performing missions, or buying and selling goods, and upgrading your ship, we all know would work. Because we've loved that from Privateer and even the very early days of Elite - a long, long time ago - and Freelancer, and all this kind of stuff. So what we're adding to it is the sort of level of polish, and immersion, and detail, and all these extra things you always wished and dreamed you could do, that you couldn't do in the past, and you know, now we have sort of the ability to do it, and thanks to you guys we have the resources to do it. So all the balancing feedback that goes on it really useful.