Outfitting - Poorly Handled and Too Expensive

[Blackcompany]

The best Thrusters for the Federal Assault Ship (heretofore, FAS) cost $18 million credits. That's $1mil less than the ship itself. And the other A rated modules are not far behind in this regard.

This is patently absurd (I love that phrase, but it also applies here). Imagine buying a brand new Mustang GT for $30k and being told that, if you want the actual GT Engine, with 8 cylinders and all the shiny, you need to pay ANOTHER $29k. Oh, and the performance tuned transmission with high capacity battery, and the electronics package for the interior? $20k and $10k, respectively. Basically, the $30K sports car is functionally worthless as a sports car when you buy it as advertised; you need to "buy" the vehicle three times over before its useful for the role it was advertised to play (in this case, a sports car).

That probably sounds ridiculous.

And yet, ships in Elite are handled just this way.
t For $19 million, its basicaly a paperweight. Not only does it not even come with large guns. It does not come with enough power to RUN large guns in the first place. As advertised for its base price the FAS is incapable of performing the role for which it is intended. This is not an upgrade system; its a punish-players-for-not-grinding system. There is nothing realistic or believable about the upgrade system in Elite Dangerous.

Believable would be: Buy a FAS for $19 million. Get two large and two medium guns, with enough power to actually SHOOT the damned things. Get mediocre jump range, good shields and a distributor that allows you to use all of these things. When you buy a ship for its base price it should be functional in the role it is said to perform. Then you should be able to improve its capability from there.

This is not how Elite handles upgrades. Instead, we are offered worthless ships that are incapable of performing any meaningful role at all for their base price. A functional downgrade from the ship we are already flying, most times. Its absurd and disrespectful of our time as players, and therefore, insulting.

Frontier needs to take a look - a hard look - at their grinding...I mean, Outfitting...system. Ships should be functional, in their advertised role, from the moment of purchase, and able to be improved from there, not functionally useless when purchased, with a NEED to be upgraded in order to perform their roles.

 

[Bomba Luigi]

Fantasy space ships from the Future in a Videogame and actual real world Cars are not the same. not even close.

 

[Commander Dave]

And if you want the highest performing components on your car you'll be paying a lot, lot more than the 30k for the car in the first place.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Furthermore, 18 million for thrusters is peanuts!
Try 146 million for my ship.

 

[xondk]

The best Thrusters for the Federal Assault Ship (heretofore, FAS) cost $18 million credits. That's $1mil less than the ship itself. And the other A rated modules are not far behind in this regard.

This is patently absurd (I love that phrase, but it also applies here). Imagine buying a brand new Mustang GT for $30k and being told that, if you want the actual GT Engine, with 8 cylinders and all the shiny, you need to pay ANOTHER $29k. Oh, and the performance tuned transmission with high capacity battery, and the electronics package for the interior? $20k and $10k, respectively. Basically, the $30K sports car is functionally worthless as a sports car when you buy it as advertised; you need to "buy" the vehicle three times over before its useful for the role it was advertised to play (in this case, a sports car).

That probably sounds ridiculous.

And yet, ships in Elite are handled just this way.
t For $19 million, its basicaly a paperweight. Not only does it not even come with large guns. It does not come with enough power to RUN large guns in the first place. As advertised for its base price the FAS is incapable of performing the role for which it is intended. This is not an upgrade system; its a punish-players-for-not-grinding system. There is nothing realistic or believable about the upgrade system in Elite Dangerous.

Believable would be: Buy a FAS for $19 million. Get two large and two medium guns, with enough power to actually SHOOT the damned things. Get mediocre jump range, good shields and a distributor that allows you to use all of these things. When you buy a ship for its base price it should be functional in the role it is said to perform. Then you should be able to improve its capability from there.

This is not how Elite handles upgrades. Instead, we are offered worthless ships that are incapable of performing any meaningful role at all for their base price. A functional downgrade from the ship we are already flying, most times. Its absurd and disrespectful of our time as players, and therefore, insulting.

Frontier needs to take a look - a hard look - at their grinding...I mean, Outfitting...system. Ships should be functional, in their advertised role, from the moment of purchase, and able to be improved from there, not functionally useless when purchased, with a NEED to be upgraded in order to perform their roles.

And if you want the highest performing components on your car you'll be paying a lot, lot more than the 30k for the car in the first place.

This.

You can't really value spaceships in the same class as you do a supercars, plus....they are spaceships.

There's no way to compare car <-> spaceship, because the components needed for something like a spaceship are not at the same level as a car, not, one bit, might be one day but game time clearly isn't there yet, so the 'basic' ship you get is able to get you around and do stuff, not great mind you, but it can, then you can upgrade from there.

 

[Iskariot]

I like the way ED does this.
It is far too easy to get money anyway.
The costs of outfitting these ships is not the problem.
Any real world analogy is pointless anyway. This is a game.
I had to work hard and long for an A rated engine for my Python.
If I remember correctly it cost me 55 million.
I don't mind at all.

I see your thread as just another request to make things cheaper and easier
I oppose that wholeheartedly.


What I would like is better information about what modules actually do compared to each other.
I use the external shipbuilder sites to get an idea, or I watch Cornelius Briedis' Youtube vids, but this should not be necessary.
I want the info to be available in game.
I also want to be able to check out certain setups in the game without immediately committing to it.

The game could use a cool internal ship builder.
I think that would rock.

 

[CMDR Argent Steel]

I disagree with the OP. I think this is handled just fine.

 

[o2thaZ]

And if you want the highest performing components on your car you'll be paying a lot, lot more than the 30k for the car in the first place.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Furthermore, 18 million for thrusters is peanuts!
Try 146 million for my ship.

Pff still pocketchange

 

[kpmop]

I kind of agree, staring in an E-rated sidewinder, one Cmdr against the galaxy in a rust bucket is fun, but no-one in their right mind is going to head out in an E-rated FdL. As others have said though I don't think there's a problem with paying more than the cost of the hull for an A rated drive, but I agree with the OP's point (I think - unless I missed it) that an E-rated ship with large hardpoints should be able to handle large hardpoints without having to upgrade anything.

 

[Blackcompany]

Fantasy space ships from the Future in a Videogame and actual real world Cars are not the same. not even close.

Except...this was supposed to be a far less "gamey" simulator than its turned out to be. Another in the long line of broken promises for which Elite has rapidly become infamous among a lot of gamers...

And if you want the highest performing components on your car you'll be paying a lot, lot more than the 30k for the car in the first place.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Furthermore, 18 million for thrusters is peanuts!
Try 146 million for my ship.

Sure. For the absolute highest rated components one can put on a vehicle you will pay a fortune. However, a Mustang is still CAPABLE OF BEING A SPORTS CAR right from the dealership.

A FAS on the other hand is incapable of being an Assault Ship when purchased. It lacks the capacity to even use the guns its designed for, as it lacks the power to shoot them. This is ridiculous.

I kind of agree, staring in an E-rated sidewinder, one Cmdr against the galaxy in a rust bucket is fun, but no-one in their right mind is going to head out in an E-rated FdL. As others have said though I don't think there's a problem with paying more than the cost of the hull for an A rated drive, but I agree with the OP's point (I think - unless I missed it) that an E-rated ship with large hardpoints should be able to handle large hardpoints without having to upgrade anything.

This person gets where I am coming from. I dont think you should be able to buy an A-rated FAS for the $19 million base cost. I DO think, however, that you should be able to buy a useful, functional Assault ship for this price. But you cant; instead you get a useless paperweight that is LESS Functional than the ship you are trading in.

As for those who say credits are easy to gain...I would be curious to know how you find that to be true. Six months of playing this game and I can barely A rate an Asp (not that I would do). A FAS is out of the question and I cannot even afford a Python shaped paperweight at this point. This is likely because I refuse to "optimize" my grinding time, and instead just take jobs or bounty hunt as I wish. But yeah, playing the game for fun makes the bigger ships nigh impossible to earn. I would be lucky to fly a Python this time next year, and I will probably NEVER be able to afford the sub-capitals like the Corvette.

 

[Privata]

I think they are too cheap , or rather we gain dosh too easy.
you can buy a fleet of cobras in a weekend... and thats keeping to respectfull jobs without breaking the law of exploiting anything and only playing a few hours

 

[Jesse Blue]

The reason is far simpler.

As the sell/purchase prices and mechanics are now, if a given ship were given with 'acceptable/functional' starting equipment, you could buy it, sell its components, sell the ship again and get profit in the operation. Thus, making enough money to buy a fully A-grade corvette/cutter would be a matter of spending a few hours in a station buying ships/selling components.

So instead we get our current system of "Congrats, here is the skeleton of your ship". A bit silly, I know, but only another grain of sand on the vast beach of silly things that make this game.

 

[KillingTime]

The best Thrusters for the Federal Assault Ship (heretofore, FAS) cost $18 million credits. That's $1mil less than the ship itself. And the other A rated modules are not far behind in this regard.

This is patently absurd (I love that phrase, but it also applies here). Imagine buying a brand new Mustang GT for $30k and being told that, if you want the actual GT Engine, with 8 cylinders and all the shiny, you need to pay ANOTHER $29k. Oh, and the performance tuned transmission with high capacity battery, and the electronics package for the interior? $20k and $10k, respectively. Basically, the $30K sports car is functionally worthless as a sports car when you buy it as advertised; you need to "buy" the vehicle three times over before its useful for the role it was advertised to play (in this case, a sports car).

That probably sounds ridiculous.

And yet, ships in Elite are handled just this way.
t For $19 million, its basicaly a paperweight. Not only does it not even come with large guns. It does not come with enough power to RUN large guns in the first place. As advertised for its base price the FAS is incapable of performing the role for which it is intended. This is not an upgrade system; its a punish-players-for-not-grinding system. There is nothing realistic or believable about the upgrade system in Elite Dangerous.

Believable would be: Buy a FAS for $19 million. Get two large and two medium guns, with enough power to actually SHOOT the damned things. Get mediocre jump range, good shields and a distributor that allows you to use all of these things. When you buy a ship for its base price it should be functional in the role it is said to perform. Then you should be able to improve its capability from there.

This is not how Elite handles upgrades. Instead, we are offered worthless ships that are incapable of performing any meaningful role at all for their base price. A functional downgrade from the ship we are already flying, most times. Its absurd and disrespectful of our time as players, and therefore, insulting.

Frontier needs to take a look - a hard look - at their grinding...I mean, Outfitting...system. Ships should be functional, in their advertised role, from the moment of purchase, and able to be improved from there, not functionally useless when purchased, with a NEED to be upgraded in order to perform their roles.

The ship is sold as a loss leader to get you to buy the accessories!

 

[DSA_Corsair114]

The reason is far simpler.

As the sell/purchase prices and mechanics are now, if a given ship were given with 'acceptable/functional' starting equipment, you could buy it, sell its components, sell the ship again and get profit in the operation. Thus, making enough money to buy a fully A-grade corvette/cutter would be a matter of spending a few hours in a station buying ships/selling components.

So instead we get our current system of "Congrats, here is the skeleton of your ship". A bit silly, I know, but only another grain of sand on the vast beach of silly things that make this game.

Used starship sales folks deserve to be paid too, damnit.

 

[Enderby]

Gotta spend that money on something.

 

[Bacalao]

The best Thrusters for the Federal Assault Ship (heretofore, FAS) cost $18 million credits. That's $1mil less than the ship itself. And the other A rated modules are not far behind in this regard.

This is patently absurd (I love that phrase, but it also applies here). Imagine buying a brand new Mustang GT for $30k and being told that, if you want the actual GT Engine, with 8 cylinders and all the shiny, you need to pay ANOTHER $29k. Oh, and the performance tuned transmission with high capacity battery, and the electronics package for the interior? $20k and $10k, respectively. Basically, the $30K sports car is functionally worthless as a sports car when you buy it as advertised; you need to "buy" the vehicle three times over before its useful for the role it was advertised to play (in this case, a sports car).

That probably sounds ridiculous.

It does, but probably not in the way you're thinking.

And yet, ships in Elite are handled just this way.
t For $19 million, its basicaly a paperweight. Not only does it not even come with large guns. It does not come with enough power to RUN large guns in the first place. As advertised for its base price the FAS is incapable of performing the role for which it is intended. This is not an upgrade system; its a punish-players-for-not-grinding system. There is nothing realistic or believable about the upgrade system in Elite Dangerous.

See, you're stuck on this car model idea. It isn't a car, you buy a hull, a customizable hull. I work with a lot of equipment that we purchase like this. You buy a frame and then you buy what you want to put in it to get it to do what you want it to do, the initial machine is almost useless (but ridiculously expensive). They also are basically wrapping the warranty into the cost, have you seen the laughably low repair prices? I can only make sense of it by pretending it's just a deductible and I paid 165 million for my power plant half of that was the "free repairs for life of the unit" warranty).

Believable would be: Buy a FAS for $19 million. Get two large and two medium guns, with enough power to actually SHOOT the damned things. Get mediocre jump range, good shields and a distributor that allows you to use all of these things. When you buy a ship for its base price it should be functional in the role it is said to perform. Then you should be able to improve its capability from there.

Again, not really, it's pretty beleivable because this is the way they do it. Sure they could give an option for what you want, a preloaded C rated FAS, but then you'd need to pay about 30-35 million for it. Also, if you think the FAS has power issues I don't know what to tell you. Stay well away from almost every other ship because that thing has power coming out of every orifice. I've got mine totally A rated, A rated KWS, PAC....no power issues at all. I think the only thing turned off is the cargo hatch. There are ships that badly need a power plant upgrade (the vulture) but the FAS is not one of them. Plus a C rated FAS is a beast. You're only looking at A rated prices. Even B rated are far less expensive than A rated, C are practically free. Take a look: A-Rated FAS vs C-Rated FAS. Take your pick for HRP, or whatever you want for your internals, if you want to stack SCBs in an FAS for some reason you may have an issue with power, but it's very possible. That A rated is running some of the most power hungry stuff I can put on, swap out a booster or two for chaff and the 5A shield for a biweave, the beams for pulses (better DPM anyway) and you've got oodles of power to play with (and almost no loss in survivability). The C rated is very practical and is still very much a beast of a ship that you can make millions in a HazRES in and have no problem escaping.

This is not how Elite handles upgrades. Instead, we are offered worthless ships that are incapable of performing any meaningful role at all for their base price. A functional downgrade from the ship we are already flying, most times. Its absurd and disrespectful of our time as players, and therefore, insulting.

Frontier needs to take a look - a hard look - at their grinding...I mean, Outfitting...system. Ships should be functional, in their advertised role, from the moment of purchase, and able to be improved from there, not functionally useless when purchased, with a NEED to be upgraded in order to perform their roles.

The ships are pretty lean to begin with, but with C rated upgrades (very economical, at the FAS level they cost around 1M each) you get a very capable ship.

I think outfitting needs to be changed, I want more variety, I want a third dimension. I want Class-Rating-Quality, so that I can have a very light powerplant (with very few hitpoints) that performs just like an A rated (essentially a 5A-D powerplant) or a big heavy armored A rated powerplant (5A-B) or an extremely heat efficient power plant (5A-A), or a high output, average hit points and weight (5A-C) or just the cheapo power plant that puts out lots of power, but is somewhat heavy, has poor hit points and bad heat mechanics (5A-E). They all tier down so you have 5x the options you have now (5B-A/B/C/D/E, 5C-A/B/C/D/E etc). The class and rating serve to determine the output of a module (MW/optimal mass/jump range/sensor range/etc) while the quality determines the characteristics (weight/hit points/heat mechanics/other specific to the module like spool up time for FSD). Then I want them all to be made by different vendors (some that are not ship vendors, unique module manufacturers) and I want them to be on sale at different stations for different discounts (now at Dalton Gateway, all Tweedle-Dee power plants(they make cheap components the XX-E ones) 5% off). And get rid of that Li Yong Rui discount that makes all other discounts irrelevant (or require players to be rank 3 to get it) and I want the little signs outside the slot and in the hangar to display that.

 

[Iskariot]

This person gets where I am coming from. I dont think you should be able to buy an A-rated FAS for the $19 million base cost. I DO think, however, that you should be able to buy a useful, functional Assault ship for this price. But you cant; instead you get a useless paperweight that is LESS Functional than the ship you are trading in.

What you are saying is that you bought your ship too soon! That simply is your own decision.

I bought a Python when I had enough money to outfit it somewhat decently as a lightly armed trader. I did not have a weapon in the bottom hardpoint and I could not yet afford the best weapons, or the best engine and I fitted a cheaper shield, but I could kill pirates with it, just not the big boys yet... well I could but that was very risky. I used that ship as a 200 tonne trader and it enabled me to upgrade to better modules. I loved to play the game that way. It took me a few months to buy an A-rated engine.
Same goes for my Anaconda, my Vulture and my FDL and in the early days my Viper.

What people do is work for a new ship and they take care to have enough spare money to afford at least a few basic upgrades and a few insurance rebuys.

What you perceive as a problem is non existent. It offers you gameplay opportunities.

Some people do fly very basic ships and can't even afford a rebuy.
The game let's you do that. You are free to take that risk. You should be happy you have that freedom.
But you do not have to.

 

[necrosecura]

Not quite sure how you have so little after six months, after two i have an a rated clipper and 60 mill in the bank and i dont play a massive amount. I don't disagree with your original point OP, I just feel that as with any game there is going to be some grind to get what you want. I go from bounties to trading to missions and doing cg's to keep it interesting, and just by playing cgs or rep grinding you can make enough cash to do what you want.

 

[Bacalao]

I completely disagree with the spirit of the original post on this thread. Outfitting is well-handled and the pricing is lifelike. It's annoying for new players who can't afford it, yes, but once you're past the biggest hurdles you won't feel like crying so much. You'll come over to our side, trust me.

dc83 goes into outfitting like:

Spoiler

 

[SnowyNI]

The best Thrusters for the Federal Assault Ship (heretofore, FAS) cost $18 million credits. That's $1mil less than the ship itself. And the other A rated modules are not far behind in this regard.

This is patently absurd (I love that phrase, but it also applies here). Imagine buying a brand new Mustang GT for $30k and being told that, if you want the actual GT Engine, with 8 cylinders and all the shiny, you need to pay ANOTHER $29k. Oh, and the performance tuned transmission with high capacity battery, and the electronics package for the interior? $20k and $10k, respectively. Basically, the $30K sports car is functionally worthless as a sports car when you buy it as advertised; you need to "buy" the vehicle three times over before its useful for the role it was advertised to play (in this case, a sports car).

That probably sounds ridiculous.

And yet, ships in Elite are handled just this way.
t For $19 million, its basicaly a paperweight. Not only does it not even come with large guns. It does not come with enough power to RUN large guns in the first place. As advertised for its base price the FAS is incapable of performing the role for which it is intended. This is not an upgrade system; its a punish-players-for-not-grinding system. There is nothing realistic or believable about the upgrade system in Elite Dangerous.

Believable would be: Buy a FAS for $19 million. Get two large and two medium guns, with enough power to actually SHOOT the damned things. Get mediocre jump range, good shields and a distributor that allows you to use all of these things. When you buy a ship for its base price it should be functional in the role it is said to perform. Then you should be able to improve its capability from there.

This is not how Elite handles upgrades. Instead, we are offered worthless ships that are incapable of performing any meaningful role at all for their base price. A functional downgrade from the ship we are already flying, most times. Its absurd and disrespectful of our time as players, and therefore, insulting.

Frontier needs to take a look - a hard look - at their grinding...I mean, Outfitting...system. Ships should be functional, in their advertised role, from the moment of purchase, and able to be improved from there, not functionally useless when purchased, with a NEED to be upgraded in order to perform their roles.

It to make us grind towards a goal, even if I do kinda agree that some prices are scarily silly. But if you don't pvp or PP like me, then the grind is all thats left (or expo - but I'm not that brave, I'd end up lost in a blackhole).

 

[Iskariot]

I think outfitting needs to be changed, I want more variety, I want a third dimension. I want Class-Rating-Quality, so that I can have a very light powerplant (with very few hitpoints) that performs just like an A rated (essentially a 5A-D powerplant) or a big heavy armored A rated powerplant (5A-B) or an extremely heat efficient power plant (5A-A), or a high output, average hit points and weight (5A-C) or just the cheapo power plant that puts out lots of power, but is somewhat heavy, has poor hit points and bad heat mechanics (5A-E). They all tier down so you have 5x the options you have now (5B-A/B/C/D/E, 5C-A/B/C/D/E etc). The class and rating serve to determine the output of a module (MW/optimal mass/jump range/sensor range/etc) while the quality determines the characteristics (weight/hit points/heat mechanics/other specific to the module like spool up time for FSD). Then I want them all to be made by different vendors (some that are not ship vendors, unique module manufacturers) and I want them to be on sale at different stations for different discounts (now at Dalton Gateway, all Tweedle-Dee power plants(they make cheap components the XX-E ones) 5% off. And get rid of that Li Yong Rui discount that makes all other discounts irrelevant or require players to be rank 3 to get it) and I want the little signs outside the slot and in the hangar to display that.

I love those ideas!!!
Repped