i think that would be a valid support ticketI think something happened to my account while I was away.
A bunch of ships went missing from my fleet, I lost access to a bunch of Guardian modules and I lost the paid DLC I'd bought for the CM3 (ship-kit and 2 or 3 paintjobs).
I was starting to think I was losing my marbles but I've spent the last 2 or 3 days re-unlocking the Guardian stuff and my inventory is already full of the Guardian mat's not required to unlock the stuff I want but there was just dregs of the mat's I did need... indicating that I've already collected heaps of Guardian mat's and then cashed-in the stuff required to unlock the modules I wanted.
I mean, I have screenshots of my CM3, complete with ship-kit and brit' flag paint so I know I'm not crazy but they're not in my inventory now.
Store scrubbing paint jobs again?
- Thread starter Fnord Velkor
- Start date
If it helps, you can view your transaction history at user.frontierstore.net
It allows you to see your purchase history in "My Orders" (under "User"), and - weirdly only showing up in the menu if I load it on a mobile device - also all your history of in-game acquisitions such as paintjobs and ship kits in "My Entitlements", a necessary distinction since these days your purchases are now for Arx top-ups, so to see what you actually acquired with the Arx you use the "My Entitlements" list. (The Entitlements list also shows all the stuff you acquired non-monetarily; promotions, community goal prizes, etc.)
There is another menu option "Steam Entitlements"; this is separate from "My Entitlements", and does show up on desktop. My account is direct with FDev (so that FDev doesn't have to pay Valve/Steam a whopping 30% of every micro-transaction), so my Steam Entitlements is empty, but is presumably different if you purchased the game from Valve.
[browsing down memory lane in my own history - oh wow; I have a flag paint for the Cobra too. I thought I only had it for the Viper]
Last edited:
Well, that is amazing, I never knew that existed. It is (as you say) not listed on the desktop access so was totally hidden from me. Going to have to make a note of that.
Thanks.
EDIT: I was corrected on this, see ArchVillain's post below ↓↓↓
Last edited:
It was confirmed (at around the time that Elite became made available via Steam after player outcry) that unfortunately for all accounts where the game is purchased through Steam (or a steam key was involved), FDev becomes required by contract to pay 30% of all future microtransactions associated with that account to Valve, not just the 30% slice of the initial game purchase, not just transactions made through Steam, Valve takes a chunk of everything involving that account, forever. Nice work if you can get it I suppose.
(I suspect that an NDA was softly violated in the course of that information coming out
)The info predates the Arx system but I don't imagine Arx can bypass the contract.
Last edited:
Ah ok, I consider myself corrected (I did say I wasn't sure).It was confirmed (at around the time that Elite became made available via Steam after player outcry) that unfortunately for all accounts where the game is purchased through Steam (or a steam key was used), FDev becomes required by contract to pay 30% of all future microtransactions associated with that account to Valve, not just the 30% slice of the initial game purchase, not just transactions made through Steam, Valve takes a chunk of everything involving that account, forever. Nice work if you can get it I suppose.
(I suspect that an NDA was softly violated in the course of that information coming out
The info predates the Arx system but I don't imagine Arx can bypass the contract.
Same as you I'm not sure about Xbox/Playstation, but I think it's likely; if it's not the case it's probably only because XBox/PS hadn't thought of demanding that yet
Last edited:
This one is at least somewhat understandable; presumably FDev have access to metrics telling them which ships are flown most often and/or which ships are most likely to have players buy cosmetics for them, and do some kind of cost-benefit analysis to determine to what extent it's worthwhile spending the development resources producing cosmetics.
That's what people keep saying, but someone posted the stats on the ships more popular to use and the Anaconda ain't near the top, yet it is always getting paint jobs. Other ships are also more popular and they still don't have many ship kits or paint jobs.
Yet they removed from the store bucket-loads of ship paint jobs that had already been produced / created in the past ten years. No extra resource needed to keep them available, no warehousing costs for little bits of code that by the way are in everyone's game already*.
I can see absolutely no rational explanation why they removed for example all the flag repaints, most mil paints, and many many other suites of repaints from the store.
* If my Norway Flag Cobra (for example) parks next to you, or you shoot it up like some pirate, then you see the paintjob 'cos it is in the game code. Same thing used to be seen with the station security, lots of Finland-flagged Vipers for example, not seen any in years though.
Last edited:
Yes, in that post I was referring strictly to the process of creating new paintjobs for specific models of ships. Apologies if I was unclear on that point.
For paintjobs that have already been created, it seems obvious to me that almost all costs will be already sunk. I am likewise unconvinced that removing paintjobs makes any kind of business sense, and as a customer I certainly find the practice annoying and off-putting. No doubt the marketing drones at FDev are convinced that using FOMO tactics and limiting availability works out better for them, but that certainly doesn't mean that it's actually true.
Let´s not forget that (especially) from a new player´s perspective, it is the first "easiest" to get large ship (and the "ultimate milestone") that, on top of the impression it creates, has always had a good allrounder reputation and received a lot of attention. Similarly to Python, which has always been the most recommended first medium ship to get, a status that has stuck with it as an unspoken truth over time. Then Cobra as your fist "serious" ship. Perhaps not solely as a result of that, but both get plenty of paintjobs.
On top of that, there´s the perception that Anaconda is a player´s first Star Destroyer-like ship (that is, before Corvette was introduced) while also resembling an Acclamator-class Star Destroyer, which is not that much less popular.
After the recent changes to engineering, the whole UI, with the spinny wheels of randomness, are
There might as well now just be 5 click-boxes to allow you to pick what level of engineering you require.
Thing is, FDev clearly didn't want to mess with the UI so we're stuck with the spinny wheels of randomness even though there's now nothing random about the actual process.
With that in mind, apparently some people were complaining that they were struggling to find stuff in the Frontier Store.
Apparently FDev's solution was to pick some of the older stuff and remove it from the store so there was less "clutter".
A more elegant solution might've been to sort paintjobs into "packs", have a sample as the thumbnail and clicking on it would take you to a page that showed all the variations.
In addition to being able to search by colour and ship, it would also have been a good idea to allow players to select a number of ships and then display all the paintjobs that are common to all the selected ships.
As with engineering, though, it seems like FDev aren't really keen on updating UIs when there's a simpler, if clumsier, way to do things instead.
And, if I was being cynical, I might wonder if FDev's real objective, here, is simply to steer people toward newer paintjobs so that sales justify the expense of creating them.
And people said I was just a hater for seeing what they were gonna do. Get ready for the pay to win ships that have absurd advantages
A for-Arx single-use old skool Energy Bomb could have .. interesting applications. Put me on the waiting list.
Oooo....
Yes please!
They can even do a copycat of Chris Roberts' studio and charge £thousands, we have the whales here, I'm sure... (the very same as this game appears to attract the folk who consider a fiver in the steam sale pays for everything, for ever!)
I'd enjoy the outcry so much should such happen, particularly from those who consider a tenner is whale spending!
Arx spent on old paints pay for new paints just as well, and the "vote" toward which style of paints should be next should be taken just the same. Cynical would be thinking someone on the art team asked for this when their new design didn't sell well.
Yikes, it looks like - after I posted - that the "My Entitlements" section got removed; both from the mobile menu and the website (404 error)!
I had assumed there was just an everyday error in the desktop menu that made it harder to access our Entitlements, but if this alteration doesn't change then it seems like the information is being intentionally blocked and the "error" was failing to fully remove our ability to see our purchases?!?
Whisky Tango Foxtrot?
Last edited:
The 'improvments' continue?