all li-po's are layers of a malliable plastic vaccuum packed in a aluminium pouch. Soft case cells are just the raw cells in heatshrink. This is normally what you get for flight packs. they're fine to handle but can be deformed by impacts- eith dropped or hit. Once deformed they can be damaged leading to best case- puffing up and losing performance, worst case toxic fire.
If the cells get puctured by something conductive like a scre or carbon, you're almost gaurenteed a fire.
Hard cased cells are the same cells in a tougher plastic case instead of heatshrink to make them more robust and resistand to impacts. This is a bigger priority in TC when cells can be hit in accidents, by other cars, or come loose from the chassis. Off road cars tend to offer a little more protection but I think hard cased are still mandatory for any BRCA events and some clubs.
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