  The Kadomtsev-Petviashvili II (KPII) equation admits a large variety of
multi-soliton solutions which exhibit both elastic as well as inelastic types
of interactions. This work investigates a general class of multi-solitons which
were not previously studied, and which do not in general conserve the number of
line solitons after interaction. The incoming and outgoing line solitons for
these solutions are explicitly characterized by analyzing the $\tau$-function
generating such solutions. A special family of $N$-soliton solutions is also
considered in this article. These solutions are characterized by elastic
soliton interactions, in the sense that amplitude and directions of the
individual line solitons as $y\to\infty$ are the same as those of the
individual line solitons as $y\to-\infty$. It is shown that the solution space
of these elastic $N$-soliton solutions can be classified into $(2N-1)!!$
disjoint sectors which are characterized in terms of the amplitudes and
directions of the $N$ line solitons.
