That's exactly what it's for, and despite my cynicism over some of what's been done with this update I will be taking full advantage of it on my exploration account. I'll be changing the skins I have on the fly, and maybe even buying others. If you're wondering how the immersion-focused players cope with the disconnect, search the forum for "nanotechnology paint" or similar.
Personally I would prefer -- and hope for a suitable tweak one day -- that the option to change paints and decals were right in the ship's interface, as though we're commanding nanobots or micro-robots to do the changing. But if it has to live on the main menu for now, so be it. I'd rather have an option that leans up against the fourth wall than no option at all.
It's only a wonder that FD took so long to realise how much revenue they've turned away by not allowing explorers to take advantage of new paint job availability. Then again, you can only buy each paint job once, so maybe there's method in their madness. This way they get a brief surge of income as all of the long-term explorers buy the back catalogue of paints they've always wanted but been unable to use.
I've said this elsewhere, but one problem with this game is that there's too much pretend. And not good old-fashioned "fill in the blanks" pretend like we had with
Elite or
Frontier where our imaginations made up for technical shortcomings, but
retcon pretend where we're having to expend mental effort on editing away or otherwise coping with stuff that
is in the game but which makes no internal sense.
That's why "little things" like store buttons seem trivial to some but important to others. There is a threshold that every player reaches, at which all of the little things add up to something significant. When that point is reached one of two broad things happens to a given player:
- They carry on playing the game but give up trying to justify anything and just accept the craziness for what it is. They lose the sense of verisimilitude, but still enjoy the mechanics of playing the game,
or
- They can no longer immerse themselves in the game universe, and the mechanics become meaningless. They leave the game.
There is of course a third group. Those are the players like myself who haven't yet reached the threshold but who, perhaps more importantly, have no idea yet as to which of the other two groups they will fall into if and when they do.
I don't want to ever leave this game, and right now I feel as though I never could because I love it too much despite its flaws and foibles. But every silly minor design decision risks pushing me one step further towards that cliff edge. And I'd much rather there weren't quite so many of them, just in case I find myself in that second group.
![[VR] Mad Mike](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/27/27910.jpg?1553527108){kind=avatar}
