Near as I can tell, the only thing that MM fixes is PVP/PVE engagements. Near as I can tell, it will erode and eventually break all other non-PVP/PVE gameplay loops. The large segment of the player base that own industrial, hauling, trading, bounty, luxury, exploration, refuel/repair, salvage, mining, racing, medical ships - they will simply stop flying. Let me explain. MM removes the ability to disengage. For PVP/PVE this may or may not be desirable. For every other hauler, explorer, industrial, etc. it will become a lethal, guaranteed death. The vast majority of non-fighting craft will not be able to return any kind of meaningful firepower, so fighting is not an option. MM coupled with shield drop, timer penalties for switching, and the anticipated nerf in speeds (some ships of which were already very slow to begin with, i.e. Vulture and Reclaimer) will turn these non-combat craft into flying loot pinatas. You stay and fight, you'll loose. You try to run away, you'll loose. Since you are 99% likely to die, this makes camping 99% efficient. Which means, I can camp any orbital marker, camp outside of the armistice zones at spaceports or stations, or just camp at well known markers that are frequented (racetracks come to mind). I can camp in a fighting ship, safely knowing that any industrial or hauler is instant mincemeat. The incentive is real, and we are already seeing this without MM present. So the behavior is a well-known, established pattern. Claiming that it won't happen is disingenuous; trolls will be trolls and I fully expect all kinds of half-baked arguments from said trolls claiming this isn't/can't/won't happen when it already does in the existing game model. Please save your breath. There are a non-trivial number of non-PVP players in the game and there is real-life hard cash backing the purchase of non-PVP ships, so this is not "wah wah you don't want to fight git gud", this is "you could be putting yourself into a risky situation as a company, CIG". Despite the rabid frothing-at-the-mouth claims of some PVPers, industrialists, traders, haulers, medical, fuelers, etc. are not dumb, and they know when the risk far exceeds the reward. The entire point of industrial/trade game play loops is to take the financial risk, and if you succeed, get the reward; and that means a careful, calculated, sometimes cold, analysis of the risks and benefits. That is not a game loop for idiots; if you don't keep your focus you will lose where it hurts, your in-game wallet. Medical, exploration, luxury, etc. have a different loop that involves engagement with other players or the environment in a non-PVP format. There is zero incentive for them to do this if they are guaranteed to be destroyed for setting foot outside their hanger bay. The non-PVP crowd will stop flying because there is no incentive to fly. If anything, they will feel and perceive one of two things: I'm backed into a corner by circumstance and none of my non-combat craft are worth flying; I will simply skip this patch I'm backed into a corner by circumstance and should fly fighter craft all the time. With all non-PVP activity grinding to a halt, it will turn into a universe of 99% pure fights. If this happens - and I think it will - the knock on effects will follow: Why should I bother when I can't make it out of the local spaceport without Team Troll camped just outside of armistice? (this is all outlined above, but that's just the player perspective) The upcoming economic simulation will have skewed data since the vast majority of economic activity will decline to near meaningless noise. You will not be able to accurately observe how quanta? quantum? (I can never remember the name of that feature) works because your data set is not only too small but also skewed due to inherent bias. You'll get lots of data on missile and gun replacements, and nearly nothing on material trade. Fantastic, you've just introduced bias into any meaningful analysis. The new distribution centers are no different from any point of interest. As such they will become kill zones, just like all other markers. Which means no-one will want to go for non-PVP game loops. Hence, they are just expanded bunkers for shooting. Any data gathered will be again skewed by this activity. All of the work put into them - half of it will be relevant. The rest is wasted effort because no-one wants to trade or haul there. Ship re-balance will also be skewed by this, as the vast majority of data will be gathered for fighters and their ilk, and little to none for just about every other class of ship (as per above). Again, skewed numbers along with inherent bias. There is no positive feedback loop; repair, refueling, and medical services will drop to zero. All social interactions devolve into literal "lord of the flies" as everyone kills everyone else off. Trust and any kind of group or community interaction will devolve into whatever tribal gangs can be formed, and even those are questionable. Short version: CIG, you fixed one problem by creating dozens of new problems. I fully expect A LOT of ship melts happening while people scramble to get at least 1 fighter into their hanger lineup, that or your player base will shrink while every non-PVP/PVE player waits for the "3.23 storm" to blow over. Did you want to reduce the number of active players? As your prior funding is repaid this year, and you court additional funding (yes, the community is aware of this) do you really think it will help when you tell prospective investors "well our player base is shrinking, so we're good for it, please invest in us"? You can still fix this. You can still make it so that all of the other game loops don't die on the vine. Find a way for the large number of buyers of non-PVP ships to function in this environment. Really, that's the gist of it. Not that MM is overall-bad, not that it will kill kittens or eat puppies - it just nerfs all other game loops to where they are unplayable and undesirable. No, escorts are not an option. I am also 99% sure that no group of fighter pilots will sit around watching a Vulture scrape a hull when they could be off fighting with other players. The argument that you will have to run as an org, run with escorts, etc. etc. is moot because no-one wants to be forced into doing game play they dislike. ~~~~~~~~ A follow-up: It has been, quite frankly, hilarious to watch all of the "PV-something" fixated players rushing in with red herrings, ad hominem, strawman arguments, goalpost moves, "git gud", "you want a safe space", etc. all trying to shout this down, when if you go back and read through my original posting with a different mind-set, you can see I'm presenting a business analysis. "Warfare is politics continued by other means". Very 19th Century. Here's one for you, updated to 21st Century standards: "warfare is economics continued by other means". Everyone piled in trying to jazz-hands something that I wasn't really asking about. Since reading comprehension is down, and no-one does their homework anymore, I'll spoon-feed it. We aren't in a recession; it's the starting line of another global-level depression. Anyone watching the news, the global markets, analysis of existing banks, etc. can see this plain as day. The big money - the players with billions in stock options - are cashing out frantically as they know their existing businesses will reach true intrinsic value. Bill Gates is now the largest farmland owner in the United States - yes, the software geek is now looking to grow corn. Bezos isn't selling off his Amazon options just for the pocket cash, and you're a damn fool if you think so. Musk is charming, but he's frantically looking for more funding as he continues to "kite" his finances, since buy-backs are not an option. There is a distinct reason why Costco regularly sells out 1oz gold bars; when the public sees this AND they are parking cash they supposedly don't have (according to <insert news source here>) into precious metals, then yes, the time draws near. With that in mind, CIG does lots of ... things ... in game development, but at the end of the day, they know what butters their bread. The recent "subtle" changes they are making are not so subtle; they are done with the eye towards shrinking sales, not just this year, but going far into the future. To put this bluntly, CIG knows that the jig is up, the rigged economy is contracting for the long haul, and they need to push this out the door as complete; hence the sudden rumor mill about "1.0 possibly soon". CIG raised a giant wad of cash, the fabled $600mil, but if you read financial reports, you can see their burn rate is incredibly high. More than 80% of that cash is gone, spent, not there. They are running roughly break-even for a few years now (+/- 10%), even when you factor in the "COVID bump" in funding. One of the investments they received came due. They'll be in the market to court new investors. This is publicly available knowledge, there is no secret disclosure here. The business analysis was me doing some ad-hoc risk assessment. I'm pointing out they are damaging their prospects by bolting on the game mechanics of SQ42. Yes, it will be patched out, but the unnecessarily lengthy time taken to patch it out will be long enough that it could have material impact on their business operations. This is borne out of their long-running history and current development practices, which they have indicated they are not changing anytime soon. Players will bail, funding will dry up as a result. Unless, of course, everyone piles more cash in for new Arrows and F7's and... you get the idea. If you can't piece this together, well... at least I got a nice coffee mug out of it. Something to remember fondly. 3.16 through 3.22 was a decent run, even when it had problems for everyone involved. I'll see all of you out there. While it lasts.