What are the technical improvements of the new standard Stormtrooper helmets over the old standard Stormtrooper helmets?

Question

As the trailers for The Force Awakens have shown, Star Wars has undergone an equipment upgrade. What are the technical improvements of the new standard First Order Stormtrooper helmets over the old standard Imperial Stormtrooper helmets?

(I'm thinking the newer ones might have a built-in sight, but I may be wrong.)

If being worse looking than the originals is a technical advancement then they have that going for them. — user251563, Dec 16 '15 at 07:13
Easier to mass produce coz of less angles and details that have to go on em. I dont doubt for a moment that they will make a technical manual where they make the new helmets to be the bomb! they stil look shitty compared to the old helmets. — Cherubel, Dec 16 '15 at 08:34
Related: Are old order storm trooper helmets more sight restrictive than clone helmets? — Mr Lister, Dec 16 '15 at 12:07
Change doesn't necessarily mean improvement. Given the First Order has a significantly smaller number of worlds to draw on than the Empire, they might be cheaper and less featureful. — Schwern, Apr 07 '16 at 00:55
@MajorStackings Dumbed down organisations, dumbed down helmets. It's only reasonable. :) — Gunnar Södergren, Apr 07 '16 at 14:08

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 29 '16 at 03:15

It seems it's mostly a downgrade from the technical point of view but a gain in lightness and maybe resistance

I'm using this two wooekipedia articles to make a comparison, they are based mostly on the visual guides.

The first order helmets are lighter but in exchange the lack the advanced imaging gear it's imperial predecessor had. The imperial helmet featured built-in filtration systems that extracted breathable atmosphere from polluted environments while the first order can't filter toxins.

The material is different since the new helmet and armor are made from betaplast instead of plastoid. How the two materials compare is yet to be fully known but we do know that:

Captain Phasma claims that "even a Wookiee can't crush First Order armor", which seems like a considerable improvement given that imperial armor could hardly stand against the ewok's primitive weapons.
The new material is fire resistant,something we know the original plastoid was not (consider Vader helmet charring)

So basically given a scarcity of resources due to decline, the Imperial Remnant had to choose between higher-quality armor and perfect visual information (as if you could tell by their shooting) and chose high-quality armor (on the basis that they can't shoot for crap WITH good vision). — Jax, Nov 16 '17 at 15:52

What are the technical improvements of the new standard Stormtrooper helmets over the old standard Stormtrooper helmets?

1 Answers1

It seems it's mostly a downgrade from the technical point of view but a gain in lightness and maybe resistance

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