With the Merlin cockpit adjustments in 3.5 and the Archimedes currently scheduled for 3.6, will their docking functionality be part of the development of those ships?

I would not expect that to be the case. So docking, we're going to be working on alongside the Hull C. I think I've talked about this in previous episodes, why the Hull C is not out, and there's a few big pieces of tech needed. One is docking, because you need to have it docked to somewhere with all the cargo to be able to sell it, because it can't land with all the cargo. So it's a pretty useless cargo ship without that functionality. So the first stage of docking will be ship-to-station docking with the Hull C. And then the next level or tier improvement beyond that is ship-to-ship docking. So then like the Merlin and Archimedes to the Constellations, that's where that comes in. Once you've got that basic level in, then improve it with the next one.

It's always important to remember that ship development is not always in parity with the game system development. See the Reclaimer and salvage, or the Starfarer and refueling, for that matter. So they're not always one-to-one. So docking will be developed independently of the work on the Merlin and the Archimedes.