Would you pay to unlock Cutter/Corvette?

You already can in a way, find enough donation missions, and it unlocks! Voila!

I don't think the barrier is the unlock, it's the outfitting credits requirement. I don't understand how someone could reach a billion credits without getting enough rank to unlock it. /shrug

Mainly by not spamming missions as your only gameplay. My assets are over 2 billion, I'm at 7% of the final rank for a cutter and about five ranks away from a corvette.
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
thanks for the reply! that's frickin awesome. you looked at the picture? so it's not a linear 5,000ly from start like going 5,000 from lhs 3447, but have traveled a total of 5,000ly ... is the number i have a lot for a non-explorer? that's so weird. lol.

edit: and thanks for not perceiving that as me being anything but oblivious to palin because I haven't reached that part of engineers yet, only heard about it on Lave radio and got sick to my stomach thinking about going that far away having never done it before.

Given that your stats indicate that you've been 68,951 LY from your starting location it would seem that you've already done some significant travelling for a non-explorer....
 
You already can in a way, find enough donation missions, and it unlocks! Voila!

I don't think the barrier is the unlock, it's the outfitting credits requirement. I don't understand how someone could reach a billion credits without getting enough rank to unlock it. /shrug
Missions are mostly crap. Therefore a lot of us earn monies in the others, way more fun way the game offers. Such as Combat, Mining, or Exploration.

I should now be way past the billion in assets and had to grind like crazy to unlock the Vette.
 
Lets be sensible here, pay to win is no different to grind to win, some people have the time to sit and play for hours, others don't but have spare money.

Personally i don't see the difference in this particular game because you can grind up to the top ships and still have very little skill at combat (which is really the only competitive part of this game).

In games where you need combat skills to unlock things but can use money instead it's more disruptive, in this game not so much.

I still don't think it's a good idea but lets not kid ourselves that everyone who has done the grind to unlock these ships is an ace pilot, you can noob your way through the rank grind with a starter ship and data delivery missions which is about as skilful as getting your wallet out, it just takes longer.
 
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No. It doesn't really take that much to rank up anyway. Just spend a couple days ranking up with data delivery missions at Wu Guinagi or Sothis and you'll have your rank in no time. I actually found it to be a lot easier than the enginner grind.

So how is the ranking work? I thought if I take +++ mission no matter where, the rank increase will be the same. I'm doing that in the core systems, often easy passenger transport missions that can be done with an Adder. Adds to the rank 1-2% at a time.

Are there other factors at play?
 
Usually I'm all for games that have a system in place for people with more money than time, but it would just feel wrong in ED. I think it's one of the things that separates sims from games? I dunno.
 

Jenner

I wish I was English like my hero Tj.
I'm going to buck the trend and say 'I'd buy that for a dollar!'

I don't see it as P2W, nor do I really see it as 'pay to not play.' I see it as 'pay to play your own way', or 'pay to not grind.'

It's not really affecting anyone else if people can buy rank-locked ships at this point. With the Engineers it's possible to turn pretty much any ship into a winner in a PVP brawl, so it's not like having Vette or Cutter is an automatic win in combat. Yeah, they're better at plenty of things than a Sidey, but I think that argument doesn't really have merit simply because those players who are time-rich (or just patient enough with the current naval ranking system) can still enjoy those ships, too. If they were *only* available behind a cash shop I think that'd be a problem.

I do not understand the notion that allowing people to purchase stuff like that somehow diminishes the game or the experience. If busy/impatient people want to throw money at a cash shop and acquire a ship that is already available to everyone else in-game for 'free' then more power to 'em.
 
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Community goals, basically. Unless you're into exploit bandwagoning :p

Half the money my CMDR has ever made has come from community goals.

That said, anyone who is actively doing missions, and not even to the 'grind' level, should reach required rank relatively quickly for either the Corvette or Cutter, or both.

Mainly by not spamming missions as your only gameplay. My assets are over 2 billion, I'm at 7% of the final rank for a cutter and about five ranks away from a corvette.

Spamming missions was never my only gameplay. I've been at Admiral/Duke for upwards of 18 months and I'm still not a multi-billionare.

I'm still Duke because I don't spend much time in Imperial space, but every time I even cross through I end up with another 2-3% on my way to King. If I go to the heart of Imperial territory and do nothing but look for CIF missions (and do this without any sort of mode switching or excessive mission stacking), I'll be King in two days from Duke 58%.

Lets be sensible here, pay to win is no different to grind to win, some people have the time to sit and play for hours, others don't but have spare money.

There is a pretty fundamental difference between paying and playing.
 
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It's about putting the time in, that was my point. In special forces you have to have self discipline and never give up. So I used the analogy regarding Elite. No insult intended. I would never insult the lads protecting our country doing things we never hear of. Always a Walter Mitty that gets offended on behalf of...

Wasnt so much offensive, as a bad analogy that I wanted to point out.

My main point was this:

People equate putting time into getting ships in Elite, with putting in EFFORT. With WORKING toward something. Which implies some measure of skill is involved in reaching larger ships.

Thats incorrect.

Putting in time is just that: Putting in time. Unlike physical or mental training, Elite doesnt require discipline. Just an inordinate amount of free time, and a high tolerance for boredom inducing activities.

There's no more effort involved in obtaining a Cutter or Vette than there is in obtaining an Eagle or Cobra. There's just a whole lot more repetition and tedium.

Which is WHY thread suggestions like this ridiculous premise of paying to unlock ships arise in the first place.

Elite needs to lessen the obscene amounts of Grind. This has become a mobile phone free to play game with a flight model. Its absurd and insulting and it needs to be fixed.
 
Would you pay money to unlock these ships?

No. The amount of money I made doing missions to get the rank to buy a cutter meant I could afford to buy a cutter when I was finished. If I'd just unlocked it I'd have had to grind to get the credits some other way. Might as well leave the rank grind in place so you can get enough cash to buy the ship when you're done.
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
I do not understand the notion that allowing people to purchase stuff like that somehow diminishes the game or the experience. If busy/impatient people want to throw money at a cash shop and acquire a ship that is already available to everyone else in-game for 'free' then more power to 'em.

Where would it stop though?

Don't want to earn credits (through gameplay)? Just £10 on the store for 100,000,000 Cr.

Don't want to unlock Engineers? Just £4.00 each on the store.

Don't want to gather materials / data? Just £1.00 per 100 for Very Common; £2.00 per 100 for Common; £3.00 per 100 for Standard; £4.00 per 100 for Rare and £5.00 per 100 for Very Rare in the store now.

Don't want to earn system permits? Just £3.00 each in the store.... ;)
 

Jenner

I wish I was English like my hero Tj.
Where would it stop though?

Don't want to earn credits (through gameplay)? Just £10 on the store for 100,000,000 Cr.

Don't want to unlock Engineers? Just £4.00 each on the store.

Don't want to gather materials / data? Just £1.00 per 100 for Very Common; £2.00 per 100 for Common; £3.00 per 100 for Standard; £4.00 per 100 for Rare and £5.00 per 100 for Very Rare in the store now.

Don't want to earn system permits? Just £3.00 each in the store.... ;)

To be honest (and I'm not being facetious here), I have no problem with any of those. :)

We already have a cash shop. Might as well go whole hog.
 
Elite needs to lessen the obscene amounts of Grind. This has become a mobile phone free to play game with a flight model. Its absurd and insulting and it needs to be fixed.

I disagree with your conclusion. I totally agree progression should be fun and not feel a chore..... but imo it HAS to take a long time to get the more expensive ship to have any sort of verisimilitude (I seem to be using that term a lot lately but it just nails imo one of the single most important aspects of ED for me). to me if it is possible to go from a sidewinder (fishingboat) to an anocanda (aircraft carrier) in 24 hrs it is just game breakingly stupid - and indeed that is where we have come to :(.

so sure, add more variation to the content to make it feel less of a "grind", but ultimately what some call grind IS playing the game imo.

now some skill or even luck based events which allow you to make increased progression over a short space of time, cool... but this for it to have any meaning at all, has to be something not really shareable for months on end on the internet.

now i dont really want the ability to buy ships for cash... but if players insist that they really must have the last of the big ships immediately, at least in this way it 1) gives money to the FD coffers to further the game and 2) stops the game being spoiled even more by making ship progression even more absurd than it is now for those in it for the long haul and wanting something to aim for which may take a long time to get too (1500 hrs in and thanks to no mission spamming etc i am still a long time of either sship and this is fine imo). the 2 final ranked locked ships are the last remaining ships in the game whcch can give a long term goal.
 
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o7 Commanders!!

My newbie opinion is, maybe FDev made it a grind on purpose, so that people would not focus only on one stuff. What I'm learning so far (as Chief Petty Officer) is that if I'm distracted with different kinds of objectives, I get each of them with a less soul breaking feel. So, in order to unlock an Engineer, if I need a certain commodity which only spawns as mission reward, I'm suddenly doing Fed missions and getting Rank. Last week I was going for Elite rank in exploration, then I've left at Ranger, and now I'm suddenly halfway towards a 5000Ly trip required to unlock another Engineer, lazily doing it while scanning water worlds, new discoveries and beautiful vistas, and I know my Explorer rank will go up when I come back with all the explo data.

Not saying I agree, just saying its an option on how we CAN play the game. Wanted credits because I was penniless after buying and fitting my FdL, jumped into the BH CG mission, made friends. So, one thing pulls another, and this way (till now at least) I can't really feel anything is boring or too much of a grind. Even if I know it is indeed.
 
To be honest (and I'm not being facetious here), I have no problem with any of those. :)

We already have a cash shop. Might as well go whole hog.

Have you played many P2W games?

The P2W model creates a different sort of focus in game development. Rather than trying to use gameplay as the selling point, they need to create items that players will shell out cash for. The easiest way to do this, is simply create more powerful items.

Need to generate some quick revenue? No problem. Just make a crazy overpowered ship. Even if it's game-breaking, people will buy it.

Now, if they want to create more revenue, there's only one course of action. Bigger or more powerful items. And so begins the power creep snowball.

If they ever "go the whole hog" as you say, or even take a single step in that direction, I'll uninstall the game and never look back. I've seen it enough times.
 
There is a pretty fundamental difference between paying and playing.

I didn't say playing to win, I said grinding to win.

No one is forced to grind for these ships but the option is there so many players take it and I see no difference between putting in 30 hrs of repetitive missions on Elite and putting in hrs at work and using wages to buy the ships.

IF you had to be skilful and a good pilot to unlock these ships then it would be different, but you don't, so you lose nothing by letting people buy them with cash.

FD needs to remove the ability to just grind up to these ranks and this kind of money without learning anything useful other than how to get "stuff".

OK I don't know how you'd achieve that, I don't want to force everyone to be a combat pilot to earn a big ship but there should be some test of ability.

I know World of Tanks is far from perfect but it's another game I know well so I'll use it as an example, a complete noob can pop up, buy a premium tank and drop into high tier battles, they WILL get their kicked (and of their team but thats not my point) and they either eventually give up or maybe start to learn how to play the game and work up through the tech trees to the high tier tanks you can't buy.

In Elite their is no team to annoy, its just you, so you buy the game and decide to sink cash into a big ship, nice, now you get your butt kicked by NPC pirates (or you would if FD didn't nerf them everytime players complain they are difficult to fight) or other players so you either give up, learn how to get good, or hang near a busy station and shoot noobs.

Not perfect but it makes no difference if you paid cash or spent 30 hours running missions in this case, you still have no skill.

I dont want the ability to buy ships with real money in ED, but as it stands its no different to spending time and grinding instead of spending money and buying.

Game needs to get better before it would become a problem.
 
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