The "Non-Comprehensive" Paintjob and Cosmetic Feedback Thread

[Alex Brentnall]

So just a foreword on the title. This is a Feedback thread. So please no pointless "x is rubbish" and "Y is terrible". If you are going to say somethings bad then explain why and what you'd do to make it better. If it goes too far down an alley then I'll just close the thread. Try to read up on what others say so we don't repeat things over and over.

Ideally keep it to a "area and what you like", "What you dislike (Issue)", "Proposed fix".
Bear in mind everyone has an opinion and certain things wouldn't work but suggesting things isn't a crime.



Now onto the meat of the matter and my personal feedback:

1) Certain paintjobs I hold in much higher regard than others. There's the fabled Bananaconda, the money can't buy ones, the Special Effect one and a few others.
I really like the specific conventions have their own skins. Lavecon ones are amazing.

Issue - Sadly my main disappointment is that the remaining ones on the store (Barr the community paintjob competition ones) are rather bland for most ships. Sidewinder, Hauler, Eagle, Cobra III, Asp E, Beluga, Vulture and Viper III have some interesting ones.
The rest are the relatively bland tactical, military and vibrant and sometimes pirate. T6 has one interesting pack too if I'm fair but that's still only 8 of 34 ships (inc srv & slf) that have skins I'd consider interesting.

Proposed fix: Release some of the more unique skins across more ships: Ignition ones, Copperhead, Medusa, Impression Pack, National Flags, Synth etc etc. There's plenty of more interesting ones, just got to expand them to other ships. Cobra, Viper and Sidewinder may be the default testing ships but at 40 paintjob choices many of which being packs it really isn't needed anymore, there's enough variety there. So no matter how cool the predator pack looks I won't be buying it!


2) Decals - Again here there's an easy opportunity to make it much better. Powerplay was a breath of fresh air and with flight suit decals coming in holo-me this is an area that I personally think really really needs to be addressed soon(ish).

Issue - Variety

Proposed Fix - Put in National Flags as Decals since we've broken the 4th wall a bit with the ship skins on the Viper we may as well go all the way
Make Pirate logo on ships a decal, some of the stuff coming with ship names (Coriolis icon etc). Wasn't the pirate a decal at one point? Where's that disappeared to?
Anyway, allow the Onionhead ones to be bought separate to the cobra skin. Indulge in a few more maybe like Leestian Brandy or Hutton Mugs or whatever. Player groups are a nice touch with the Rise to Power but for those of us that were in deep space or not in game (holiday etc) during the CG's its a bit of a moot point.


3) Decals are great, especially event/player group ones. Nice way of giving something back to the community and something I love and cherish. Although something I wanted a while back but never got round to putting it on paper:

Issue - Decal visibility, in the vastness of space even close-up they arn't the most visible

Proposed fix - Scale (or give players the option to scale) decals up larger on the bigger ships. There's already some scaling but not anywhere near where I'd like. The Viper IV oddly enough is a very good example of large decals and how awesome they can be.
Also give players the option to set the colour slider manually, sometimes what looks good in a brightly lit docking port is terrible in deep space where it's dark. Look at the Lavecon skins for that.

Or - Put lights on the decal positions like this.
Do it for ship naming too so we can see the names easier. How awesome would it be! Pythons nearly there on this one.


4) Ship Packs - The packing of 6 decals for the same ship together

Issue - Lots of people don't want a pack of 6 skins for the same ship. Generally people buy a pack for 1 or 2 of the 6 skins.

Proposed Solution - Create various packs or in an ideal world create a "build your own pack" type thing. Currently packs sell at £5 for 6 skins. If I could pick 6 vibrant skins across say 3 ship types I'd be willing to pay maybe £8-£9 for the pleasure of having 6 skins most of which I'll use.


5) Edited in but I think it should be here. Not all paint packs are well represented on the store

Issue - Some people look on the store and are disappointed when they purchase their ship and find in non-brightly lit areas its terrible

Proposed Solution - Create an in-game method of allowing players to view all paintjobs that are on sale whilst in the hangar. They can then go to a high Tech/tourist for brightly lit hangars and to an anarchy for low light hangars... Or create a way of adjusting lighting.
By no means an easy fix and it's not the greatest problem in the game but it is a QOL thing when it comes to cosmetics to see how it'll look in game before you press "buy".


To end this OP and brace myself for the responses here is an extensive list of the paintjobs I've amassed over 2 years. This also clearly highlights poiint 1 and 2 for me which is: Higher quality things = more purchases.
I plan to get more ship kits and something for the SLF/SRV at some stage, oh and engine colours. Don't see those as a particular issue as they are fairly new so guess more to come soon. Same with upcomming holo-me stuff.

Spoiler

Sidewinder (4) – Gold, Special Effect, PAX East, Black Friday
Hauler (1) – Black Friday
Eagle (6) – Urban, Chrome, Pax South, Pax East, Lavecon, Black Friday
Adder (1) - Black Friday
Cobra III (9) – Medusa, Desert, Polar, Lunar, Onionhead, Ignition, Lavecon, Community, Black Friday
Cobra IV (2) - Lavecon, Black Friday

Diamondback Scout (1) – Black Friday
Diamondback Explorer (1) - Black Friday
Asp Scout (2) – Lavecon, Black Friday
Asp Explorer (16) – Synth Pack (6), Horus Pack (6), Gold, Gamescom, Lavecon, Black Friday

Viper III (3) – Pirate, Union Jack, Black Friday
Viper IV (1) – Black Friday
Vulture (4) – Gamescom, Lavecon, PAX South, Black Friday
FDL (9) – Tactical Pack (6), Gold, Lavecon, Black Friday

Keelback (1) – Black Friday
T6 (1) - Black Friday
T7 (1) - Black Friday
T9 (1) - Black Friday

Dolphin (0)
Orca (1) - Black Friday
Beluga (0)

Python (7) – Tactical Pack (6), Black Friday
Anaconda (8) – Vibrant Pack (6), Lavecon, Black Friday

Imperial Eagle (1) – Black Friday
Imperial Courier (7) – Vibrant Pack (6), Black Friday
Imperial Clipper (7) – Tactical Pack (6), Black Friday
Imperial Cutter (2) – Chrome, Black Friday

Federal Assault Ship (1) - Black Friday
Federal Dropship (1) - Black Friday
Federal Gunship (1) - Black Friday
Federal Corvette (2) – Chrome, Black Friday

SRV (0)
SLF (0)

Weapon (7) – Blue, Cyan, Green, Pink, Purple, Red, Yellow
Decals (10+) – Distant Worlds, Community, EGX, PAX, Fuel Rats, Gamescom, Lavecon, Onionhead (2), Special Effect. + rank ones & powerplay ones
Ship Kits (1) - Anaconda



Total skins = 103

Breakdown:

Free stuffs (51):
Black Friday (29)
Lavecon (9)
EGX/Gamecom/Pax/Community (7)
Horizons Cobra skins (3)
Chrome Eagle & Gold Asp rewards (2)
Special effect (1)

Packs (43):
Tactical Pack (18)
Vibrant Pack (12)
Synth Pack (6)
Horus Pack (6)

Leaving 10 individual skins I bought:
4x Chrome/gold
1x Urban
1x ignition
1x Pirate
1x Union jack
1x Onionhead
1x Medusa

Edit: Also I dream of a Star Citizen type hangar where I can drive around in the SRV past all the owned ships in their set-ups. Been on my personal wishlist for a long while now.

 

[GraXXoR]

+REP for actually presenting some opinions cooly and rationally...

Don't agree with the packaging at the end... I rather like having a choice of 6 colours... Some used more than others...
Pick and choose will probably eat at profits... (I have bought multiple packs for the same ship just for one or two skins per pack.)

Otherwise Agreed... HOWEVER, I'd go as far as to say: basic colours (vibrant, military -pink military included- tactical -what the Hell is a tactical colour?) are so boring that IMO they should be free.

 

[c00ky1970]

Flag based skins

I would like to see flag based skins across the range, the Cobra is not a day 1 ship, but I would have loved to have flown the flag on the starter sidey, or even nowadays on my meaty Python (ooer!) Jingoism for the win! ;-)

Novel tie ins?

With the novels that are linked to the game, I dunno if you could buy a Salome skin or equivalent?

Charity Skins?

Special Effect provided one during the 24 hour stream ( I donated the wrong way and missed out but never mind), there was a recent well supported thread about a skin for rescue rats based on RNLI (UK based Royal National Lifeboat Institute) which I would definitely cough up dough for as well as support the charity. Other skins for other Nationally specific charities would be great, shows the game is truly unique and spreads the word on the relevant charity. I would even buy a Red Nose paint job just for Red Nose Day here in UK, I am sure there are many well suited charities that could benefit from the players donations as well as mix up the paint jobs available.

Imperial/Federation/Independent skins.

You are a staunch Imperialist? A dyed in the wool Federalist or a loopy independent then having a cross ship skin set that means you could fly the colours of your preferred superpower would be great, note this is seperate to decals.

Sponsorship

Remlock, Faulcon Delacy and other in game companies , why are the adverts just limited to the bill boards outside stations, why not have pimped out ship skins advertising these companies? There is an onion head theme, why can't you have a Remlock themed ship skin?

I know this is probably heresy, but why not skins advertising real companies, probably more focused on PC hardware, console manufacturers and peripherals, but it ads to the variety that players can choose from.

Vertical rather than horizontal skins

Eh? I hear you mutter as you wade through this. What I mean is you buy a blue ship skin, but the purchase is for all ships you own - this would cost more than your standard skin pack, as it affects 30 ships, but is does mean that players can then have the same blue, or red or whatever skin pack ready for when they upgrade from their Sidey to a Hauler to an Asp?

Post 2.3 with nameplates in ships, I think the ship decoration space may get limited, but having other decals on your ship adds to that uniqueness. various in game pirate faction logos? Or maybe even a monthly competition in some form for PVP teams to "win" their avatar/logo as a purchasable item. Would give something for PVP to aim towards, make it more a coordinated and organised opportunity for players to get together and blow each other up.

You could do the equivalent for other types of CG's for traders to get their decals in game, again this is just an idea to give player buy in and ownership of ship decoration, plus an opportunity for Frontier to supplement income with a wider variety of icons and colour schemes to adorn player ships.

Rank/Title based decals

Like the Elite decals that are unlocked as you progress a range of unlockable in game decals for Serf, Master, Duke and King and the equivalent for Fed would be great!

That my two penneth!

I don't know how many skins/decals I have, but I have also. Wide range, including SRV's and fighters and as far as I am concerned keep them coming!

 

[Comrade Napoleon]

I exclusively use Black Friday. It is so cool, imo. I have not been tempted by others.

I' am happy with that.

Cheers Cmdr's

 

[IndigoWyrd]

I bought the commander's pack when I bought Elite along with Horizons. I think I'he used 2 paint jobs that were included - both on ships I haven't flown in months and may not fly for much longer. I'm not inspired by a vast majority of what is available, not that I really see annything wrong with them, I just don't care for the choices available. I also find them to be a bit too expensive for a mere cosmetic item.

 

[CMDR Corlas]

A lot of good points there.

I really like the new Pirate Faction paints, and am happy they seem to be coming out across the board. Would really like to see more paints like the Anaconda's camo pack, the Beluga's expedition pack, or the Cobra Mk IV's predator pack too.

 

[Martian Successor]

Release more community paint schemes starting with this one please:

Most of all though, please allow some form of customisation when purchasing a skin, like colour sliders. For example I would like to be able to buy the above skin but I would like to be able to adjust the colours myself until I am happy and then pay for the skin I have made for myself, i.e. black body, red stripes, dark green decals for example.

 

[Faybs]

Release more community paint schemes starting with this one please:

http://i.imgur.com/T2Uv9nI.jpg

Most of all though, please allow some form of customisation when purchasing a skin, like colour sliders. For example I would like to be able to buy the above skin but I would like to be able to adjust the colours myself until I am happy and then pay for the skin I have made for myself, i.e. black body, red stripes, dark green decals for example.

It took several months from the time the community paintjob winners were announced until the paintjobs themselves started becoming available... that tells me that an ED paintjob is a lot more complicated than just a pair of high res bitmaps and a list of UV coordinates - they might be vector based, or written as pixel shaders. That's probably why most of them are just one or two colors, and why it would be very hard to be able to just pick a color from a swatch and have a unique paintjob created for you.

One bit of feedback I have, getting back on topic, is asking why it takes so long for paintjobs to be put on sale once they're implemented. Take for example the Viper Mk.IV, my favorite ship. If you look at the data files you'll see that it's got all the same flag paintjobs as the viper Mk.III and also two chrome ones (called "metallic" internally). The flag paintjobs have been there since 2.2 and one of the chrome ones since 2.1 or maybe earlier - I was expecting it to be one of the ones in the christmas sale.

 

[Gunnet]

This may not be the most helpful feedback, but I'd like them to assign (or hire if needed) an artist with a flair for vehicle paint to skin duty and just let them go wild. I get the impression that they're trying to create artificial scarcity in more interesting skins, considering how they're dribbled out at an excruciatingly slow pace and most which aren't just flat colours have been limited availability (Sidewinder et al aside). I can see the logic behind it, but there's just no need. They will never run out of new things to paint on ships.

 

[DNA-Decay]

Bland on their own.
Kinda cool en masse.

You kinda need to wear SOMETHING so that you don't get mistaken for an
NPC.

 

[Gunnet]

Bland on their own.
Kinda cool en masse.

You kinda need to wear SOMETHING so that you don't get mistaken for an
NPC.
http://inara.cz/data/gallery/13/13551x1848.jpg

I love how there's the one guy there who wants to celebrate with gunfire.

 

[henlo pigeon]

My biggest issue is just the lack of variety in price points and the way that only a handful of ships have individual skins. I hated the colour of my little adder and would have gladly dropped a couple bucks to change it, but it was hard to justify spending 7 or whatever on a pack of 6 skins for a newbie ship I was going to upgrade from and never fly again.

 

[NW3]

SRV (0)
SLF (0)

Actually, the SRV has 5 6-packs, for a total of 30 skins. https://www.frontierstore.net/game-extras.html?extra_type=180&ship_model=212

The SLFs have paintjobs too:

The Taipan has 5 6-packs: https://www.frontierstore.net/game-extras.html?extra_type=180&limit=64&ship_model=211
The Federal Fighter has 4 6-packs: https://www.frontierstore.net/game-extras.html?extra_type=180&limit=64&ship_model=210
The Imperial Fighter has 4 6-packs: https://www.frontierstore.net/game-extras.html?extra_type=180&limit=64&ship_model=209

Still, I agree. The store should offer a lot more variety. Most of these paintjobs are solid colors and a lot of the colors are boring. I hate having to buy a 6-pack, only to get the one attractive color.

 

[Mengy]

I wish there were more paint jobs of the caliber like the Beluga's Expedition and United paint packs and the Squadron paints, and less of the solid color paint packs. I like the paints with some variety and style to them, but many ships only have solid color paints to choose from.

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Actually, the SRV has 5 6-packs, for a total of 30 skins. https://www.frontierstore.net/game-extras.html?extra_type=180&ship_model=212

The SLFs have paintjobs too:

The Taipan has 5 6-packs: https://www.frontierstore.net/game-extras.html?extra_type=180&limit=64&ship_model=211
The Federal Fighter has 4 6-packs: https://www.frontierstore.net/game-extras.html?extra_type=180&limit=64&ship_model=210
The Imperial Fighter has 4 6-packs: https://www.frontierstore.net/game-extras.html?extra_type=180&limit=64&ship_model=209

Still, I agree. The store should offer a lot more variety. Most of these paintjobs are solid colors and a lot of the colors are boring. I hate having to buy a 6-pack, only to get the one attractive color.

The numbers were for what I personally own and not what's available in store.

I plan to get more ship kits and something for the SLF/SRV at some stage, oh and engine colours.

It's on the list for when I can justify purchasing things again.


A good few suggestions from people here, hopefully amidst the chaos of DD a dev happens across this thread and passes it along.

Bland on their own.
Kinda cool en masse.

You kinda need to wear SOMETHING so that you don't get mistaken for an
NPC.

Thats true, better together and better than nothing. But still out of those the two I'd consider buying are the Cobra and maybe the orange Vulture.

On the other hand

Spoiler

Lavecon Anaconda:

PAX East Eagle

Onionhead Cobra

Synth Vulture

I know which I'd rather buy any day of the week



Also guys with the pirate skin. That last image there confirms at one point it was a decal. Can people confirm if/what has happened to that. Perhaps my account has a bug I need to report as my pirate skull decal is no longer showing..

 

[Gunnet]

Also guys with the pirate skin. That last image there confirms at one point it was a decal. Can people confirm if/what has happened to that. Perhaps my account has a bug I need to report as my pirate skull decal is no longer showing..

The skull decal on that Vulture was given away with the original preorder, and I think some KS reward tiers as well. It's actually quite different from the pirate skin skull.

 

[Alex Brentnall]

The skull decal on that Vulture was given away with the original preorder, and I think some KS reward tiers as well. It's actually quite different from the pirate skin skull.

Fair enough, maybe I dreamed it came as part of the Pirate paint pack like the Onionhead decals... Ah well, thanks for clarifying

 

[Stealthie]

Feedback on cosmetics?

Be nice if the ship-kits/paint-jobs and decals all integrated with each other AND the base models properly, rather than looking like fan-made mod's.

It's usually not a big deal but somebody's obviously gone to quite a bit of effort to design the base-models to include a variety of cosmetic "greebles" so it's kind of irritating when the ship-kits just cover those things up like, as I said, a fan-made-mod.

Like, for example, the way the Vulture has things on the sides which look like some kind of radiators/ducts and the ship-kit wings just obscure them without any reference to their existence.
Would it have been too much to expect the ship-kit wings to have featured a design that allows the kit to flow into the base-model rathe than looking like it's just fitted over it?

Or the way pretty-much ALL of the ship-kit noses obscure the ship's lights.
It really wouldn't have been possible to create new "lights" on the ship-kit noses (even if they didn't alter the actual source of the lights) to retain a bit of plausibility?


And then there's the way that the paint-jobs and decals don't seem to integrate with the ship-kits.
We have paint-jobs that are applied to areas of the base-model but which don't get applied to a ship-kit part which is in the same area of the ship.
And decals which are applied to areas of the base-model and then obscured by a ship-kit part fitted in the same area.

As I've said before, given all the fuss that's been made over ship nameplates, I really, REALLY, hope FDev have developed new places for applying the ship nameplates so that they aren't obscured by ship-kit parts.
If the nameplates are decals which can be applied in the existing spots, they WILL be obscured by ship-kit parts.


Thing is, FDev retain control of ALL the paint-jobs, decals and ship-kits so there's absolutely no excuse why they shouldn't be tested prior to release to ensure stuff like this doesn't happen.
A half-decent 3D modeller could probably tidy it all up in a few hours so why wasn't it done prior to release?

 

[Qohen Leth]

Decals don't look good. The DWE one looks terrible; Hi-Ban obviously wasn't consulted. Generally speaking, they don't blend with the paintwork, especially when they are complex (again, dWE). If there will more of those, I think they should really improve the result.

On a lesser note, same thing with the ship kits. Some just don't blend at all and/or show ugly wear & tear that's obviously bugged. Don't know if it has been fixed since then, though, has it?

 

[CMDR Corlas]

A follow up note on my praise of the pirate packs - I wish I could get them without the skull decal built-in. It's not me, but I love the look otherwise.