Do paint jobs still degrade too quickly?

[WR3ND]

It's been a couple months since I've been back in colonized space to repair my paint, so I'm not sure if this degradation rate has been adjusted by Frontier or not.

Hopefully they've looked into it since I started this thread in the suggestions section. → https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-more-dirt-oil-exhaust-streaks-8K-Pics-Inside

As an explorer, there doesn't seem to be much point in bothering with paint jobs, decals, etc., if they're just going to degrade after a few days playing the game when I'm usually out for weeks or months at a time. And you know I like my gratuitous selfies upon occasion.

16K picture below – view image and zoom in for detail. Do I even have any decals? [where is it]

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And for higher visibility and a bit less bandwidth usage, here's the ship I used previously for a quick exploration related passenger mission.

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A ship should look like this after crossing the galaxy, not after a few days of casual exploration.

 

[Redfox]

[...]
Hopefully they've looked into it since I started this thread in the suggestions section.
[...]
A ship should look like this after crossing the galaxy, not after a few days of casual exploration.

Not sure about the latest situation, but I totally agree with your final assessment.

 

[WR3ND]

Last I knew it was based on distance traveled in supercruise. Maybe systems visited/hyperspace jumps would be a better value to base this on. Say, 5000 for full degradation?

Just an idea. Hull damage percent taken and maybe one tenth the rate of what it is (was?) in supercruise would be better overall, since combat oriented pilots seem to prefer their battle scars, and they're much more likely to be in a position to repair the degradation more frequently, as they might prefer.

...

I'm bringing this up again now as I'm looking into getting the nameplates and such, having not been back to colonized space since before they were available.

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

It's been a couple months since I've been back in colonized space to repair my paint, so I'm not sure if this degradation rate has been adjusted by Frontier or not.

Hopefully they've looked into it since I started this thread in the suggestions section. → https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-more-dirt-oil-exhaust-streaks-8K-Pics-Inside

As an explorer, there doesn't seem to be much point in bothering with paint jobs, decals, etc., if they're just going to degrade after a few days playing the game when I'm usually out for weeks or months at a time. And you know I like my gratuitous selfies upon occasion.

A ship should look like this after crossing the galaxy, not after a few days of casual exploration.

I hate paint degradation full stop looks messy and unrealistic, I've said it before but ill say it again, red Dwarf did a better job on paint distress using cardboard models and teabags. (its even got asteroids stuck in it!)

and no they haven't looked into it my dolphin looked scabby after only 10kly or so, may as well forget close ups after this

 

[Major Klutz]

IMO, paint should degrade like it does but not as fast as it does.
I think they just need to tweak it slightly so it lasts about twice as long.

One trip to Hutton Orbital and you look like you've been flying though a sand blaster.
I believe the degradation is based on time spent in super cruise with a speed modifier, so time spent in supercruise at very high speed will degrade the paint faster than time at lower speeds.

I just arrived in Colonia last night. left the bubble with a fully repaired paint job and landed at Jaques with 56%

 

[Redfox]

[...] red Dwarf did a better job on paint distress using cardboard models and teabags. (its even got asteroids stuck in it!) [...]

To be fair, he *was* painting it single every single time we tuned in.

I do wonder though how I could have overlooked those asteroids!?! Lovely, thanks - that should be a thing in ED, too!

EDIT: FD, here's to make some extra cash: Add a Colour Protection Kit to the store and fwd me 1% of the revenue - deal? Deal!

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

EDIT: FD, here's to make some extra cash: Add a Colour Protection Kit to the store and fwd me 1% of the revenue - deal? Deal!

should come as standard and folk pay for the degradation but either way I would buy it.

 

[Orvidius]

IMO, paint should degrade like it does but not as fast as it does.
I think they just need to tweak it slightly so it lasts about twice as long.

I could see that. Twice the time wouldn't be bad.

As another data point: My trip out to Colonia recently went like this. I left the bubble with around 98% paint. I hit every base along the way, and frequently did exploration jaunts out to nearby nebulae at each stop. I was scanning a lot of bodies during the trip, since I was trying to make Elite, but I didn't scan everything. Mainly the HMCs that I thought could be terraformable, ELWs, and water worlds, and Class II giants, so I was spending some time in Supercruise, but not as much as I would have, had I been scanning entire systems along the way. When I arrived at Colonia, my paint was at around 2% or 3%. That seemed mostly OK, except that I was trying to scan as much as I could while minimizing supercruise. Some of my friends that were on this trip with me, ended up hitting 0% paint well before Colonia, because they had a more "completionist" approach to scanning than I did, even though they weren't making side-trips like I was.

I think if they drastically reduced the rate at which supercruise eats away your paint, but also added some wear due to hyperjumps, that could be pretty cool. Like if each jump took off 0.1% (100% over 1,000 jumps) in addition to maybe a third of the current rate of supercruise wear, it might seem a little more appropriate?

 

[WR3ND]

Maybe it's just my play style, but it's seemed WAY too fast for me. I do spend a fair amount of time in supercuise though, as I don't cherry pick anything in systems, scanning the whole system if I want to scan anything in it.

I'm out for weeks or sometimes months at a time, so having the paint and decals wear off in a few days seems very excessive to me.

I don't really see much point in getting the nameplates when I won't even get to see them 90+ percent of the time when looking at my ships – I'm assuming they degrade at the same rate and severity. [blah]

YMMV, of course. Just sharing my perspective.

 

[ErichZann]

Yeah I agree, happens much too fast.

 

[Whitmann]

It's much too fast. I would expect the level of paint-wear you get from 5k to only be present after 100 tbh.
But worst than this it's the symmetrical nature of it that bothers me; it just looks daft on some ships.

 

[Orvidius]

I don't really see much point in getting the nameplates when I won't even get to see them 90+ percent of the time when looking at my ships – I'm assuming they degrade at the same rate and severity. [blah]

I can't speak to many other ships, but at least on the AspX, the decals almost completely disappear, but the ID and name plates are still in pretty good condition when the paint is at 0%.

 

[Pirin]

My Asp's paintjob was in a relatively good condition until today. As a reference, this is the last picture i took few days ago

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It is not perfect but still gives some idea.

Today i found two star systems very close to each other: just 0.45ly! This is first time i see two systems that close and decided this is the right moment to try to travel from one system to another without FSD jump. It took me 2h45min to cover the distance of 0.45ly traveling at the max. possible speed of 2001c. This is how my ship looks like after this adventure

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Its like it was shredded. Why cant AFMU repair the paintjob? Certainly paintjob is not more difficult to repair than thrusters, for example. This would solve the issue explorers have with the degrading paint...

 

[Redfox]

Why cant AFMU repair the paintjob? Certainly paintjob is not more difficult to repair than thrusters, for example. This would solve the issue explorers have with the degrading paint...

No, not for me personally (although I have no strong feelings here). I see a run-down paintjob as something like a badge of honour, and thus shouldn't be easily 'achievable'. I'd actually prefer it to have a real-time component to it, by which also e.g. a trader could 'achieve' this look over time without travelling across the galaxy. Even pew-pewers, in addition to their battle-scars (are they persistent?).

 

[iain666]

I can't speak to many other ships, but at least on the AspX, the decals almost completely disappear, but the ID and name plates are still in pretty good condition when the paint is at 0%.

The name plate on my Python is holding up much better than the decals...

 

[WR3ND]

Good to know the nameplates seem to hold up better. Thanks for the info. [up]

Now if the normal decals just would as well... I also like the directional weathering we had some time ago. Maybe some sort of combination of the two models could be used, but I digress.