I've been meaning to set some time aside to gather my thoughts a bit more on this topic but with the price increase I'm pushed a bit more to just toss out my rough thoughts now.
I've bought two ships, the Type 8 stellar for early access and to show my support, and recently I bought a Python MK 2 Stellar when it was on discount as I wanted a decent combat ship with zero rebuy for PVE. Maybe it's just the money conversion as a Canadian that gets me, but the price for the ships was already on the high side so an increase is even harder to take. 35,620 ARX, before tax, costs $35.56 and is still 2380 ARX shy of purchase. Now add in 13% tax and perhaps you'll understand why I've backed out of past ARX purchases once I saw the total.
Perhaps there is something that can be adjusted with the CDN conversion rate, but I don't really expect them to lower prices because I've complained. However, if the goal is to sell me these ships then I would like to get a bit more benefit from an actual purchase of a ship in-game. Understandably it's a hard balance to strike. So with that in mind: one of the benefits of these pre-built ships is that they give players new or old a jumpstart into the game. Now along with the new ships came the new SCO drive feature, something that massively improved quality of gameplay as it cut down on travel times that often was a problem for both existing and new players. I mention all of this because if FDev is open to changing certain things in game to improve gameplay for players, could we have the auto dock and supercruise feature built into all new SCO ships? Lore-wise the computer that is equipped on the new SCO ships has the computing power to also handle super cruise and auto-dock functionalities, but no one read the manual and the seller of autodocking computers had zero incentive to say otherwise.
As an existing player, it's just something that would eliminate one of many pain points that feels like a relic of the early game for myself. Admittedly a minor annoyance. However, when it comes to new players, this game has enough of a learning cliff that additional pain points can make or break whether a new player sticks around. I would rather explain to a new player how to enable/disable autodocking and supercruise in the right panel of the cockpit than drag them through the steps of buying one and the pain that can occur there if you're not at the right station.