Like many people here, I think half of the appeal of any Aliens game is the contributions to the human technology side of things, and this is certainly an area where Fireteam Elite has gone well beyond any other single entry, in my opinion. So I thought it worthwhile to start a thread where we can obsess over elements in the design of the spacecraft, weapons, equipment, and other tech.
To get the ball rolling, one of the things I was immediately interested in was how the weapon pods retract on the new dropship. Between its appearance in the Endeavor, where everything appears to be fully-deployed, and later in the Katanga, where most things are retracted, I think I've figured it out.
The front missile housings obviously just swivel down 90 degrees to sit flush with the fuselage, similar to the old Cheyenne class, but no longer leaving the missiles exposed.
The elevated rear missile pods no longer fold over each other in a "crossed-arms" kind of configuration. Instead, the arms appear to lower until they are perpendicular to the fuselage, then fold back on themselves at the hinge marked by a slight bulge. The pods themselves also swivel down 90 degrees from their position when deployed so that they sit square with the rest of the fuselage when retracted.
Something that isn't clear from these screenshots is whether there are cavities left when the rear pods are deployed, or if something else occupied that space.
Hopefully we start to see some concept art and design documents as people on the team start to update their portfolios.