And right there it would make sense for them to sell ARX via Steam Microtransactions as well.
Any date on when thr Mandalay goes on sale for in game credits?
- Thread starter CMDR Jayce MacLeod
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You need to remember that some people haven’t got Odyssey and just use Horizons 4.0 (Live) their only way to get these ships is via the Arx store.
I've been as critical of Fdev as anyone in the past and at times I still am when I think that criticism is deserved. (cough powerplay2.0 cough) That said; I bought both Mandalay and the CobraV for ARX and I'm very happy that I did. In 10K hours in this game I've gotten WAY more fun out of my purchase that I ever expected. I hope they continue to actively "develop" the game and if they do, I'll continue throwing them a few bucks every now and then as long as they don't cross the line into PTW.
For all of elite's faults, it gets the spaceship part exactly right and there isn't another game that I can say that about.
For all of elite's faults, it gets the spaceship part exactly right and there isn't another game that I can say that about.
You mean, the only way besides using the (roughly) same amount of money to buy Odyssey? Yeah, technically this is a situation, but you really need to be economically dense in order to do it that way (after the EA period is over). Right now there are 2 ships available for in-game credits, and the 3rd is soon to be released. If you only have Horizons now and want both ships, you have to pay approx. 33k ARX, so you have to buy the 51k ARX bundle for about 30€. Odyssey DLC costs 15€ on Steam right now. It is a complete no-brainer what to do in this case.
All 4 of them combined being cheaper than the Odyssey DLC should be the lower limit of the gradual reduction IMHO. 15€ gives you roughly 25k ARX, divided by four makes 6250 ARX, which is a reasonable price tag for one standard pre-build. If they opt for the same method for the next ship bundle, that can even go lower. But as I wrote, I doubt that they will stick to it. Most probably longer EA (half a year), or even exclusives only.
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I agree but I suspect that not everybody who hasn't got Odyssey is not getting it for financial reasons.
Some of us do things that seem odd to the rest of us.
A fully engineered Mandalay is the most fun flying I’ve had in a long while, inclusive of Star Citizen’s old flight model.
The Mandalay fully engineered is simply amazing. It can keep up with most ships while in side strafe, moreover, it sticks to every ship in the game, even the mighty FDL.
Using Frag Cannons, I can 3 pip shields, 3 pip engines, and fire enough vollies to make most ships cry!
I’m sitting on over 300 Million credits, and I don’t know what other ship to get into, its that good.
Old me had fully engineered, FDL, big 3, Python, etc….
As soon as most can buy it, buy it. I think you will love it, as much as I love mine.
The Mandalay fully engineered is simply amazing. It can keep up with most ships while in side strafe, moreover, it sticks to every ship in the game, even the mighty FDL.
Using Frag Cannons, I can 3 pip shields, 3 pip engines, and fire enough vollies to make most ships cry!
I’m sitting on over 300 Million credits, and I don’t know what other ship to get into, its that good.
Old me had fully engineered, FDL, big 3, Python, etc….
As soon as most can buy it, buy it. I think you will love it, as much as I love mine.
How, you mean that it's available for in-game credits in Odyssey?
Shoot, I bought it with ARX recently after switching to Odyssey!
And I was wondering why I now see the Python II and Type-8 listed in the shipyard at Shindez...
Oh well, I am happy to support the game anyway!
Yes, it is. I bought my PM2 and T8 with in-game credits only.
That said, thank you very much for supporting the game, much appreciated!
![[VR] Mad Mike](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/27/27910.jpg?1553527108){kind=avatar}
in which case it doesn't matter. the sensible choice is to wait and buy the skins you want as they won't be free. sooner or later,.it may be a week ,.it may be a month the Mandalay will be purchasable for in game credits.
genuinely do not see that as a problem to be honest. previously the ships would have been locked to the latest DLC like the previous "new" ships were.
From my perspective it was just a clarification.
Where is that info available? I'm not seeing it in the annual report but maybe I'm looking in the wrong place. I don't pretend to be adept at reading these things. The only cash I could find mentioned in connection with Elite was £860k in deferred income from Elite Dangerous virtual currency at the end of the fiscal year on 31 May 2024. There were also smaller amounts mentioned in the two following tables on various forms of deferred income but, as I indicated, this sort of thing is beyond my expertise.
As for whether arx is a significant part of Frontier's business model, I'd want to see revenue from the current fiscal year as it should reflect higher arx sales due to ship sales.
Interesting to note that the US retail price of the base game is $20 and that buying the Cobra Mk V Stellar package costs at least $20 worth of arx. This is why I think the business model is changing. Other companies have been very successful with microtransactions and Frontier seems to be exploring that with its arx store revamp and introduction of non-cosmetic items for sale.
Indirectly, the mid-year investor presentation - if you compare the main ED revenue line in the graph on page 5 with the PDLC (ARX purchase+Odyssey) graph on page 13, you can see that the big spikes in PDLC income for the Mandalay and Type-8 releases basically don't touch the slope of the main revenue line at all, which means that even the bigger boost in November/December can't be causing most of the actual uptick in the main line either.
(Also, if the numbers on the graph on page 13 were impressive in an absolute sense, they might have put a scale on the Y-axis)
It's not nothing, but comparing the two graphs it's very unlikely to be over 10% of their ED income in most months. And that includes Odyssey sales, which are the cheaper way to get the ships if you're not in a hurry.
I certainly agree they're experimenting with more in that area - encouraging superfans who already have too many alt accounts to spend money on something is certainly part of their plan - but because the baseline was so low even the large relative improvement doesn't really make much difference to the overall figures, and it seems highly implausible they could get another doubling or tripling over and above what they've already done and sustain it as a new permanent baseline.
The new ARX ships have likely been a big success in terms of "enough people bought them to fund the development of the ships themselves, and leave a profit". And in terms of getting a few new ships released every year, that's all they needed to do. I can certainly see more experiments with easily packageable things like that where the cost of development is low enough that it can directly pay for itself.
I really like the consumer pushback on the self checkouts in my area. The other day at my local grocery store all of the open tills had lineups and the entire self checkout area was completely free and completely empty.
I like self checkouts, possibly as I have no desire to wait in the traditional British queue for an interminable amount of time.
I can be in & out of my local Morrisons in minutes since they introduced another dozen or so self checkouts.
But, I suppose if folk are happy standing in a queue...
Isn't queuing a British national sport? I wouldn't be surprised if you folks had a national cup for this as well.
Well, by that metric the Cobra V might actually get released before the Mandalay:
There's 3x more Mandalays on Inara already than Cobra V. Looks like the little OP ship doesn't appeal that much to people. The Mandalay has almost caught up to the T8, despite that one already being available.
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Tesco have scan and go here.
i had purchased arx thinking i would buy the mandalay, then i bumped this thread asking if anyone knew more, and decided to get the cobra. i know realize i am not even the mediocre pilot i thought i was. this cobra is too fast for this middle aged man
I tend not to use them as I don't visit any one brand of store enough to get comfortable with the process. Besides the delivery charge is lower than the bus fare.