A large problem in traditional persistent online universe mechanics, is the over proliferation of old items versus new items. This leads to power escalation in new items. To provide relevant upgrade paths and progression without constant power escalation, will we see items deteriorate over time and eventually NEED replacement completely?asked by PhadeOut

Yes is the answer to that! So we're building in, from the beginning, all ships and all items sort of have wear and tear, and over time they will take wear and tear, and you will have to maintain them and fix them up. Some items will just sort of degrade and then eventually you'll have to replace them. Ships you can, as long as you keep the maintenance up, you'll probably be able to fly them for a long time. That's not to say that a manufacturer may not release a newer, better model. But essentially we're building in the idea of wear and tear to all the items to add realism. Like, we want you to go down to a landing area, and if this is sort of an old beaten up mining colony, you see it versus a brand new one that just was erected a year ago. And we've actually built into our ships, and items, and environments what we call "layer blending" on all the materials and textures. So literally, I could show you in the engine, I can move a slider and you can see something looking pretty into going really beaten up and nicked, and it's pretty cool! So that's a standard thing we're building into the game itself, and I think you should be able to see if someone's got a well-worn ship or it's a brand new ship. Those will all be the fun little visual, subtle cues that will, A) make the game feel a lot more alive, and also give a good idea of who you're coming up against.