Thorsten Leimann · Assistant Design Director

So some of the stated ideas in that statement should already be true. So energy weapons are more efficient against armor in comparison to ballistic weapons. Maybe the difference is not that distinctive. So that's something that we have been working on for the 4.8 release. There are some changes coming in for the 4.8 release, as I think we already stated at the beginning of this show, that hopefully fix some of the major concerns. For example, a very prominent one that just popped into my head is a Scorpius cannot damage a Scorpius. So Scorpius fighting Scorpius is an infinite fight, except using missiles. The armor system that we put in, as much effort as we put into it to make it right, it is just... and 'just' is even the wrong word... it's a stopgap filler for Maelstrom. Maelstrom is the system we always wanted to achieve. We have been advertising Maelstrom for ages at this point as the real physicalized materials, where we go for a full physical damage model rather than a health bar model. So everyone that dislikes health bars: not a thing anymore with Maelstrom. But as long as we are not at that point yet, we at least want to see how the game feels once we get the full experience of Maelstrom. And one of those feels is the armor. The armor right now is a very binary system. I do agree. It is by intent, though, because we wanted to have this clear distinction where certain projectiles will just ricochet off of your armor. Sure, there are things that we have been discussing in our, I've been mentioning it a lot, but this is the topic we are talking about in our vehicle leadership group. And as with all the other things, we don't want to overdo it with changes, right? So for 4.8, we want to iterate over what we got. And the iteration is basically fixing all the issues there with the inconsistency between certain fighters not damaging each other, certain weapons not being clear enough as an advantage over the others. But overall, I feel comfortable in saying at least the majority of that statement we will have in a better state in 4.8. There are just things that we cannot do with the armor system that we have right now. I've seen people reach out to me with a lot of suggestions. They are good suggestions. I don't disagree. But that means we need to invest more time into that. We need to do some other feature work that we are doing. So there's a lot of considerations. And I think what we have right now is something we can build on, we can improve.

Jared Huckaby · Host, Community

That isn't too much wasted work while you're waiting for Maelstrom?

Thorsten Leimann · Assistant Design Director

Correct. Yeah, that's the big topic.

Jared Huckaby · Host, Community

Every minute you put into this is work that has to be replaced when Maelstrom comes in.

Jared Huckaby · Host, Community

So not every minute, but there's going to be some calculus here. At least we try to be smart about some decisions that we take now.

Jared Huckaby · Host, Community

So it's always the problem. I mean, John, you and I have done enough of these shows where it's like, we would love to do that, but we know we'd have to replace that afterwards. So rather than do work that you know you have to throw out, let's work on things that we know actually have a chance at staying and continuing. And I was surprised when I saw the armor stuff go in, because I thought we were doing Maelstrom and stuff. But again, there are experiences that can be tested now. There's data that can be gathered now by doing this work with armor today while you're waiting for Maelstrom. Like you said, you wanted to test out how this feels and that feels. You can get that feedback now without having to wait. And then maybe it would affect certain things.

Thorsten Leimann · Assistant Design Director

Yeah, I can already say that some of the observations and some of the feedback that we got definitely ended up on our notes list for Maelstrom once it comes to the PU. So there are some things that we see where the armor system is already a direct copy of how Maelstrom works. But then we notice, okay, we have to adjust those. So we already have notes for Maelstrom to be adjusted exactly the way that we are adjusting the armor system. So it helps us in the long run. We have to spend less time iterating over the Maelstrom system, because we are already doing that in a different system, but it's the same.

Jared Huckaby · Host, Community

And for those who might take this like, 'well, if that's how it was, then this must not mean very good for Squadron': again, single player, curated experience versus massively multiplayer online space game. The distinctions are night and day. It can work wonderfully for the curated experience that we're building there and just not here, which is where all the additional work comes from.