Newcomer / Intro Warning: Hidden costs of Shipyard!?

[Vhaegrant]

Finally thought I had enough to upgrade from a decent T-6 with 3million in the bank to an Asp.
Even selling the modules on the T-6 before selling the chassis (I've heard this is better than a straight trade) didn't give me enough to repurchase the cargo modules
Instead of dropping back to the T-6 I thought I'd go give combat a go. Afterall I'd had a decent Cobra before upgrading to the T-6, so dropped the Asp to grab the Cobra.
Couldn't afford the powerplant needed to run the weapons config I wanted so decided in the end to return back to the T-6 to earn a few more credits.
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Back in the exact same set up of T-6 having not left the outfitting/shipyard options and am now 750k poorer
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I've put in the suggestions forum a consideration for a preview system rather than compulsory purchase.
Just thought I'd put my experience here to warn any newcomers.
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I suspect the main culprit is the hull upgrade options, although I thought they boosted the ship cost when selling it back.
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It's a shame I'd never noticed the credit loss before, but then again that was with the much smaller ships. Going from 3 million to 2.25million is a bit more noticeable.
An evenings play wiped out and the feeling that I need to take another long break from the game.

 

[carlisle]

To be fair most people are surprised to hear you don't lose any money when selling modules back, rather than being surprised to find you do lose money when selling ships back.

But if the resell cost of the armour is what diddled you then in future you can downgrade those mandatory modules as well as selling the optional ones before you sell your ship.

 

[Ancipital]

While hindsight is a wonderful thing, this is what the wiki has to say:

It is recommended to buy a ship and keep it permanently and then buy additional ships while keeping primary ships. Thus, if you want to go into a combat zone or switch profession, remember to keep the 10% of the ship value as an inevitable loss when you are done with that ship.

 

[Vhaegrant]

While hindsight is a wonderful thing, this is what the wiki has to say:

And while wiki's are a wonderful thing games should include such information upfront.
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I'm sorry I don't subscribe to the current mindset that to play a game you need to spend hours at a time reading through third party sources for essential information.
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Why would it be so hard to have a preview option to see if you can afford a full build before you actually press the purchase button?

 

[Vhaegrant]

To be fair most people are surprised to hear you don't lose any money when selling modules back, rather than being surprised to find you do lose money when selling ships back.

But if the resell cost of the armour is what diddled you then in future you can downgrade those mandatory modules as well as selling the optional ones before you sell your ship.

The trouble is Elite: Dangerous doesn't have any sort of player economy so the need to control credit generation with credit sinks is lessened.
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There is no other way in game to see if the build you want works and while I guess you could justify it as wear and tear it seems a rather petty credit sink. Especially if you never even leave the hangar

 

[Ancipital]

I'm sorry I don't subscribe to the current mindset that to play a game you need to spend hours at a time reading through third party sources for essential information.

Then, when playing a game of any complexity of all, "you're gonna have a bad time", If you take offence at the notion of reading information offered by others, but are also disinclined to pay enough attention to work things out for yourself, you're setting yourself up for difficulties, sadly.

 

[Vhaegrant]

Then, when playing a game of any complexity of all, "you're gonna have a bad time", If you take offence at the notion of reading information offered by others, but are also disinclined to pay enough attention to work things out for yourself, you're setting yourself up for difficulties, sadly.

I'm not taking offence at information written by others.
I'm taking offense at poor game design that adds a layer of difficulty through bad transmission of information.
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Complexity is a matter of opinion if it arises out of obscuring information that should be readily available through the in game interface.
Game developers aren't bedroom programmers anymore. These are people who have been to university for a degree in game design.
Game UI and the transfer of information are aspects that cross the gaming genre into everyday applications as well, companies spend large sums of money to make interfaces that are easily understandable.
I'm sorry there are no excuses for not making the 10% hull loss more readily apparent. A simple 'Includes 10% surcharge' on the trade in screen would suffice.
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I did work it out for myself when the loss was significant enough to notice against the starting balance. I'm here to warn other newcomers.
It stings a little that it was a lesson learned at the expense of a days play.
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It would be even nicer to have an ingame preview option so you could see how much a prospective ship change and module upgrade would cost without having to buy them first.

 

[Sapient6]

What's interesting to me is that you already knew to sell the modules separately from the ship. The reason people are advised to do so is that selling ships incurs a loss, but selling modules does not. So you had the information right there in your hands but didn't put it together.

Not saying what happened to you wasn't unfortunate, just that it's kind of weird that you knew and yet still managed to be unpleasantly surprised.

 

[Aquamonkey]

Allowing people to preview a loadout to check the cost is unnecessary. All the component prices are plainly listed. Just do the math.

Or use http://www.edshipyard.com

 

[the100thmonkey]

You are aware that you can prioritise modules when the hardpoints are deployed, aren't you? Prioritising modules can work wonders for getting seemingly unviable ship loadout to work. If you post your next build in these forums, you'll get a metric ton of good advice. I guarantee it. I also use edshipyard.com for previewing ship builds and calculating costs, just as I used to use symthic for previewing and honing weapon loadouts in Battlefield 3.

I'd also suggest that as a design decision, keeping information outside the game enables a non-financial player economy - a knowledge-based gift culture. There's a whole extra layer of the game that takes place outside the client - player alliances, knowledge exchange and support, and so on. I certainly find the conversations that take place on these forums (at least the threads that aren't complaining that X is overpowered or that Y should be nerfed, for example) to display greater depth and knowledge of the workings of the game and a deeper emotional and intellectual investment in making the game better. I rather like that learning about the game involves forging personal relationships. You may well disagree, and naturally, you're perfectly entitled to.

Regardless, it might be a bitter pill to swallow, but you'll know next time, and the existence of this thread increases the probability that the next neophyte will know the costs. It's only an hour in the T6 anyway.

 

[ocflyer]

When I sold my ship, I tried to sell all of the upgrades first before selling the ship. Unfortunately, they don't let you sell all of the upgrades.

To be fair most people are surprised to hear you don't lose any money when selling modules back, rather than being surprised to find you do lose money when selling ships back.

But if the resell cost of the armour is what diddled you then in future you can downgrade those mandatory modules as well as selling the optional ones before you sell your ship.

 

[the100thmonkey]

You can, but only if there's another module available at the station to replace it with. If there isn't, you can't sell it. If there are too many high grade parts you can't sell, I suggest decamping to a large population high tech or industrial system and selling the ship there. Selling an Asp without selling an A5 shield, for example, is just a big no.

 

[Distance]

Lost 12mil when I got my T9 and had to resell due to bad planning on my part and find a station which sold the parts and rebuy it to fit it out. Was I mad? No. It was a mistake on my part and even if I wasn't aware of the game mechanics at the current time I am now.

There's two kinds of people, those who take a mistake they made personally and then kick up a fuss and blame the game or those who suck it up, learn their lesson and carry on wiser in the knowledge that even if it might have been a bad experience they've learned a valuable lesson.

I do believe the game should explain things more in the official manual but if you've worked up to asp level you really have no excuse to not knowing the game mechanics by then.

 

[Vhaegrant]

What's interesting to me is that you already knew to sell the modules separately from the ship. The reason people are advised to do so is that selling ships incurs a loss, but selling modules does not. So you had the information right there in your hands but didn't put it together.

Not saying what happened to you wasn't unfortunate, just that it's kind of weird that you knew and yet still managed to be unpleasantly surprised.

It's the steep increase in price that took me by surprise.
I'd been used to working with the smaller values (30-90k, which is easily absorbed over a couple of missions) while in the back of my mind I knew it was 10% it didn't quite get around to working through the maths to give me the 500k it was in reality.
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If there's no depreciation incurred when swapping out modules I don't understand the game design choice to place a loss on hull swapping.
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Either it should all be free, or it should all carry a cost.

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Allowing people to preview a loadout to check the cost is unnecessary. All the component prices are plainly listed. Just do the math.

Or use http://www.edshipyard.com

Yeah sorry I forgot the point of a game was to obfuscate information and push players out to 3rd party information sites to actually play.

 

[Sapient6]

I agree, modules should also be sold at a loss. Right now they aren't, so I intend to continue taking advantage of that.

 

[Vhaegrant]

Lost 12mil when I got my T9 and had to resell due to bad planning on my part and find a station which sold the parts and rebuy it to fit it out. Was I mad? No. It was a mistake on my part and even if I wasn't aware of the game mechanics at the current time I am now.

There's two kinds of people, those who take a mistake they made personally and then kick up a fuss and blame the game or those who suck it up, learn their lesson and carry on wiser in the knowledge that even if it might have been a bad experience they've learned a valuable lesson.

I do believe the game should explain things more in the official manual but if you've worked up to asp level you really have no excuse to not knowing the game mechanics by then.

I know the fault lies at my door, if I didn't I'd be sending in game tickets and asking for a refund.
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I'd hoped to raise awareness amongst new players that like myself may not appreciate what 10% means in actual credits when you transition across to the different ship costs.
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I'd also hoped to point out where the game is lacking a certain amount of information transparency and could be improved.
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As I said in a reply above I don't understand why ship hulls have a 10% loss on their sale but components don't.

 

[Vhaegrant]

I agree, modules should also be sold at a loss. Right now they aren't, so I intend to continue taking advantage of that.

FD seem to be making all other 'simulation' aspect cheap to the point of pointlessness (refuelling and repair).
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I would expect it's easier to justify removing the 10% cost as it serves no purpose other than being punitive to players.

 

[Shocken-Orr]

"I'm sorry I don't subscribe to the current mindset that to play a game you need to spend hours at a time reading through third party sources for essential information."

Sources such as ... The Forums?

 

[Vhaegrant]

"I'm sorry I don't subscribe to the current mindset that to play a game you need to spend hours at a time reading through third party sources for essential information."

Sources such as ... The Forums?

Sources such as 3rd party information sites, You Tube, etc...
Forums are great places to raise questions, clarify situations and to ask the developers to consider implementing features that improve the game.
How useful forums actually are in getting that done once the threads bog down into blind defence and opinionated whining I'm not so sure.

 

[Sapient6]

How useful forums actually are in getting that done once the threads bog down into blind defence and opinionated whining I'm not so sure.

So set a tone you prefer.