Random preset ship builds.

Did you visit the various dealerships in a tricycle, or did you get driven around in a decent car that had reasonable driving distance capability to visit dealerships more than 5km away? Or did you find the vehicle on a posted listing?
it's, called a main dealer! and no I travelled there in my old car!
next question
 
PS: This idea is primarily intended for new players, giving them a reason to hunt for a good deal on a ship they may be interested in acquiring. It’s may be less relevant for veteran players.

Nah, they will end up flying from station to station hoping to find the "good build" instead of playing the game.
It will end up in burning and frustration

If it's similar to the Pioneer Stores where it doesn't go above G3 then I'm ok with it. I actually enjoyed visiting places to see what they had in their Pioneer Stores, I found some pretty cool locations and ended up with some decent gear to get me going for when I do actually decide to do some onfoot engineering. Maybe have the modules available at the counter of Inter Astra in the same way?

Well, the Suit engineering is rather limited, but even with that limited engineering options, you still have rather small chances to get a useful thing.
G3 Maverick with night vision or G3 Exec with Audio masking, feel like winning the lottery, but as i said above, you'd better be playing the game and do the unlocks and get the mats instead aiming to win the lottery.

A similar system for Ship engineering, nope, i dont see it working - too many variables and for what?
To get a G3 ship where all modules are G3? - nope, that would be to OP imo.
And if you get a ship with only one module G3 - that would be rather useless, especially if that G3 module has the wrong mod.

So nah... and even more NAH for Arx ships with engineering.
 
"G3 Maverick with night vision or G3 Exec with Audio masking, feel like winning the lottery, but as i said above, you'd better be playing the game and do the unlocks and get the mats instead aiming to win the lottery."

But if you combine BGS missions and check the stations you visit, you kill two birds with one stone. Unless using an Oppressor.

Steve
 
Nah, they will end up flying from station to station hoping to find the "good build" instead of playing the game.
It will end up in burning and frustration
It can be for some but it can't be said for all. I look at it as something else to do while you're docked at a station. I collect records, when I visit a town I try to check out any record/thrift stores that are local to see what I can find, sometimes nothing but a lot of the time there's something and it's an enjoyable diversion/way to spend some time for me.


Well, the Suit engineering is rather limited, but even with that limited engineering options, you still have rather small chances to get a useful thing.
G3 Maverick with night vision or G3 Exec with Audio masking, feel like winning the lottery, but as i said above, you'd better be playing the game and do the unlocks and get the mats instead aiming to win the lottery.
You're not wrong if considering the most efficient way to go about it, but at the end of the day it's another option that worked for what I wanted to do, it gave me a good reason to explore the bubble and visit different places. I've gotten a lot of what I wanted that could be within reason of what there is to find, I have a suit with extra jump capacity, one with extra sprint etc.. and they've all come in pretty handy.

When it comes to ship modules, I'd say I'm at a point with engineering where I'd be curious to see what's there but for the most part I have all my engineering options open to me that I want, but for a newer player or one who doesn't really want to get too involved with engineering I think it would be just as cool as it was for me to find some neat stuff at the Pioneer Store.

A similar system for Ship engineering, nope, i dont see it working - too many variables and for what?
To get a G3 ship where all modules are G3? - nope, that would be to OP imo.
I don't know how G3 would be OP, but what it would do allow for players to get a taste of what engineering can do and quite possibly lead them into wanting to go further with it.


And if you get a ship with only one module G3 - that would be rather useless, especially if that G3 module has the wrong mod.
Well, there were plenty of options for suits/weapons that I didn't purchase so buy what you want and leave what you don't.


So nah... and even more NAH for Arx ships with engineering.
I'm with you on the Arx for engineered ships but at this point if it gets some players into AX and some money in FDev's coffers, I'm not mad about it, as long as it stays limited and not just a free for all engineering for Arx for everything.
 
I don't know how G3 would be OP, but what it would do allow for players to get a taste of what engineering can do and quite possibly lead them into wanting to go further with it.

Took my Epic account more than 2 years (3 i think ? :unsure: ) - to unlock Palin and G5 drives.
Which means that my Krait mk2 and Anaconda were both happily running G3 drives while doing all sorts of combat, including solo interceptor hunting - sure, only Cyclops and Basilisks - but still.

G3 is more than enough for basically any ingame activity that is not in the top 1%

So i'd rather keep All engineering and unlocks too as in-game activity as opposed to Wallet activity or lottery type activity.
 
Randomising the pre-built ships introduces an element of chance (taking a gamble)
example: I want an exploration ship by randomising there is no guarentee I would receive it after paying money.
I'd be more for it to be just modules rather than outfitted ships. I agree with those who feel that there's too much randomness for prebuilt ships to be useful for early players to buy multiple ships and then cobble the different parts together to make a single great ship. In that case it may as well just be the modules and then a player can just pick and choose what they want without having to mess around with selling what would effectively be junk.

However, the idea of selling prebuilt engineered ships that are bespoke is something I'm not against, but I'd want it to be something that players can create and sell themselves to other players using fleet carriers.
 
yes however, by randomising introduces a % chance of obtaining the desired build, this then moves towards the gambling slippery slope.
This is just my PoV.
Chance occurrences are part of every day life. I don't think anyone has or is going to be seeking Gamblers Anonymous for semi-randomized stock drops for Pioneer Stores since Odyssey launched, or similar for the same for modules at Inter Astra, if it were introduced.
 
1) New players with starter ship = crumby jump range = kinda tough to search around for a better ship they can afford.
That's no different from trading in an early Sidewinder, there's plenty of systems that are 7-10 Lyr away from each other.

2) How can new players with not enough credits to buy the ship & modules they want afford a pre-built ship that includes modules they don't want and must replace?
  • The #1 feature in any ship for a new player is an A-class FSD. Any ship that doesn't have this will be ignored or require immediate module upgrade.
  • Most decent ship builds have specific module needs: A-rated power plant, distributor, thrusters. Specific Shields. Specific Hull. A cmdr would need to replace all the undesired modules. If the ship had been built randomly... this would mean most key modules need to be replaced.
  • I can see this only working if the pre-built ship was vastly underpriced so a new player can afford to replace the key modules.
I think this is a much better point and would be why modules would be the better option to search out rather than prebuilt ships. However, think of the fact that no-one would really engineer some lower class modules because by the time you have them unlocked you're looking for A-rated where pertinent, with this option there would be stuff that's D/C/B rated with upto G3 engineering which would work pretty well as a stepping stone for earlier players as the price of them would be lower to match, though of course the pricing of all the different modules might need a look at for balancing it all out, but say buying a 3C G3 engineered FSD would get you close to an A-rated FSD but for 75% of the price.. Though something would have to be done to gate the money making potential of early game players to restore the early-mid game pathway.
 
That would lead to a glut of starter type ships and Python mk1s on the market.
Sure but I think it would be interesting. Anything that gives different locations a more lived-in character and differentiates one region from another is nice, and the more it connects back to real player activity, the better imho. Every ship build generated doesn't have to stay on the market forever, maybe there's only one per station, or one per ship type per station, and when a new "fly without rebuy" build is generated, it would overwrite the old one. Or any threshold in between it's not like this is some fatal flaw unsolveable problem with my idea. Similarly: we have CMDR holo-me portraits: we should have wanted posters inside of stations, the "X days without an accident" graphic (which always and everywhere says "2" and only "2") could update every time idunno a CMDR crashes into another ship in the mailslot and incurs a speeding fine. Or SOMETHING, instead of NOTHING.

Elite is a mandatory online always game, and yet very little of that is leveraged towards making the game better, or more varied, or more interesting. Many people play in solo which is fine, but their actions could leave traces which give each place more character.
 
Sure but I think it would be interesting. Anything that gives different locations a more lived-in character and differentiates one region from another is nice, and the more it connects back to real player activity, the better imho. Every ship build generated doesn't have to stay on the market forever, maybe there's only one per station, or one per ship type per station, and when a new "fly without rebuy" build is generated, it would overwrite the old one. Or any threshold in between it's not like this is some fatal flaw unsolveable problem with my idea. Similarly: we have CMDR holo-me portraits: we should have wanted posters inside of stations, the "X days without an accident" graphic (which always and everywhere says "2" and only "2") could update every time idunno a CMDR crashes into another ship in the mailslot and incurs a speeding fine. Or SOMETHING, instead of NOTHING.

Elite is a mandatory online always game, and yet very little of that is leveraged towards making the game better, or more varied, or more interesting. Many people play in solo which is fine, but their actions could leave traces which give each place more character.
Other thing that this idea may add, is the possibility of the player buy back its ship, with a discout because of the damaged state.
 
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The insurers may start looking suspiciously at people buying back stuff like that
To address this, a new mechanic could be introduced for the sale of recovered ships:

  • Critically Damaged Modules - Some modules might become so damaged after the commander’s death that they could be irreparable, necessitating a replacement. This could deter misuse of this mechanic, as dying and opting not to rebuy could result in your ship appearing on the market with your Grade 5 FSD permanently lost. Alternatively, it could lead to a downgrade of engineered modules.
OR

  • Modules Stolen by the Rescue Team - During recovery, what’s to prevent someone from removing a module from your ship before putting it back on the market? If a player doesn’t use the rebuy option, there’s a chance of modules being removed from the ship. The likelihood of this happening increases from low in lawful systems to very high in anarchy systems.
 
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