It's been awhile since we've heard anything about ship armor. Can you tell us where it is in development and when we'll be able to see it implemented in the game?asked by Dex

Well, it's actually implemented in the game right now. It's been in Arena Commander for quite awhile. The big issue is you really don't see it because it's sort of an invisible item, but it's attached via an item port to the ship. Ships like the Hornet that have armor, have the armor item attached to them and essentially the current implementation is a modifier on damages that you take. It modifies the energy damage, it modifies the ballistic damage in the same way the shield does except the armor is built to absorb ballistic damage but not be very good against absorbing energy damage and then the shield is the exact opposite case. So we actually have armor implemented in the game, you just don't visually see it. We do have plans to add the visual representation. Part of it would actually be quite easy since it's an item that gets attached so therefore that would be just adding GON on the item, and the item system already supports that. We just haven't built the reflective armor pieces you would see on your ship. The other thing we have been talking about that hasn't been fully implemented is a material swap and change. So when you change the armor on your ship, you can actually see the difference in the surface quality in the places that are armored. That is actually not that difficult to do, but it's sort of going to be wrapped up in our physicalized damage system work that we are planning to do. That is actually on Mark Abent's list of todos. But we have got some pretty deep item system refactoring for the greater good of the game that him and Paul are doing right now. The armor is actually already in there so really the key is to make it more visible and then I think it will become more apparent and have more nuance when the fully physicalized damage system is in.