Greetings CMDRs and FDev in particular!
After the release of the Panther Clipper MK.2 into the game an old issue and irritation of mine popped up, namely the inflexibility of the current shipkit system. This is something that has bothered me since the original “Hazard” shipkit packs came out for a select few ship, with the problem only having become worse thanks to the many other shipkits that have been added. So, I am here to offer the following suggestion: removing limits on the amount of shipkits parts you can attach to your ship.
The current problem:
Many ships have so called “ship kits”, which are dedicated livery options that allows CMDR’s to give their ships a unique look. This means adding a spoiler, maybe bigger wings, we even recently had additional functioning lights and turning radar dishes! There’s a great deal of personalization to be had with these, some ships even having multiple ship kits for various roles (I.E. the Anaconda has both the Hazard/Extraction and Survey Ship Kit, meaning you can both kit it out to look like a deepspace explorer that is made for the rugged landings of unknow planets), but therein lies the exact problem; the system is flawed, for you can only add 4 of these kits per ship.
Considering I have been flying through the galaxy for quite a while now and thus have gathered a good amount of shipkits, this has become a problem and annoyance for me. Considering that shipkits and the new ARX-EA style purchases are what keep the lights on at FDev, it frustrates me that there are just no incentives to buy new shipkits, or use the unique ones available at my disposal – thus making my suggestion: removing the limits of shipkit application.
Pros and cons:
Obviously, there are some pros and cons attached to this concept of completely removing the ship kit limits, and to show that I at least thought about it a little bit more than just “I want more”, here are some I came up with:
Pros:
Cons:
Now, I do want to quickly preface too that removing the entire limits on shipkits might be a bad idea (especially with the Anaconda which has 7 store-bought kits, meaning you’d have at least 84 parts that can be smashed together), so instead it could be an arbitrary limit per ship. For example, you could set it to having a maximum of 4 or 6 ship kit pieces per ship part, meaning that for most ships (with few exceptions) you don’t have to worry about quickly going into the excess with the amount of ship kit pieces available. These 4-6 pieces per ship section should be more than sufficient for any ships available whilst still limiting it a little bit, and for certain ships (primarily the Anaconda) exceptions could be made.
Conclusion:
And there we have it folks! My entire ramble on the suggestion of removing the limit on ship kits and allowing any piece of a ship kit to be togglable to your hearts content. If anyone has any other suggestions or changes that they would like to see, feel free to add them, and for FDev: please do add this, I promise to spend money on ARX like a good boy if you do.
-CMDR Herix
After the release of the Panther Clipper MK.2 into the game an old issue and irritation of mine popped up, namely the inflexibility of the current shipkit system. This is something that has bothered me since the original “Hazard” shipkit packs came out for a select few ship, with the problem only having become worse thanks to the many other shipkits that have been added. So, I am here to offer the following suggestion: removing limits on the amount of shipkits parts you can attach to your ship.
The current problem:
Many ships have so called “ship kits”, which are dedicated livery options that allows CMDR’s to give their ships a unique look. This means adding a spoiler, maybe bigger wings, we even recently had additional functioning lights and turning radar dishes! There’s a great deal of personalization to be had with these, some ships even having multiple ship kits for various roles (I.E. the Anaconda has both the Hazard/Extraction and Survey Ship Kit, meaning you can both kit it out to look like a deepspace explorer that is made for the rugged landings of unknow planets), but therein lies the exact problem; the system is flawed, for you can only add 4 of these kits per ship.
Considering I have been flying through the galaxy for quite a while now and thus have gathered a good amount of shipkits, this has become a problem and annoyance for me. Considering that shipkits and the new ARX-EA style purchases are what keep the lights on at FDev, it frustrates me that there are just no incentives to buy new shipkits, or use the unique ones available at my disposal – thus making my suggestion: removing the limits of shipkit application.
Pros and cons:
Obviously, there are some pros and cons attached to this concept of completely removing the ship kit limits, and to show that I at least thought about it a little bit more than just “I want more”, here are some I came up with:
Pros:
- More customization options – many ships could stand to benefit from having ship kits layered atop of one another, giving them truly unique looks instead of the most common used ones repeated on end.
- Incentive – as previously mentioned, from personal experience there is very little incentive to buy more ship kits due to the limiting factor of only 4 pieces being allowed. Removing this limit, or at least adjusting it accordingly, would give more incentive to go out and complete your collection of shipkits - not to mention actually using the unique ones available.
- It just looks cool – honestly, the primary reason for suggesting this. It just looks very cool, because I know there are certain combinations I want to have on my ship that’d add so much to, but right now I am limited to that one part per ship area.
Cons:
- Clipping – there will be a significant amount of clipping with certain combinations of kits, namely around areas like the engine or nose. The immediate counterpoint to this is that some kits ALREADY clip into one another, except this would obviously increase the problem further
- Graphical intensity – even though I feel like we’ve come into an area where even relatively low-end PC’s can run Elite, this might still put additional strain on the engine if the system and code wasn’t made for this. Personally I am not a programmer, so it might turn out perfectly fine, but this would definitely still be a point of concern for FDev to look into.
- It’s silly – precisely as it says, it’s a relatively silly suggestion! Technically it doesn’t add much to the gameplay itself but to look cooler than we already do, and there are already quite a few combinations one can make with the 4 slots that we have. This entire thing is purely based upon the fact that I got annoyed that I cannot add in certain combinations of ship-kits at once
Now, I do want to quickly preface too that removing the entire limits on shipkits might be a bad idea (especially with the Anaconda which has 7 store-bought kits, meaning you’d have at least 84 parts that can be smashed together), so instead it could be an arbitrary limit per ship. For example, you could set it to having a maximum of 4 or 6 ship kit pieces per ship part, meaning that for most ships (with few exceptions) you don’t have to worry about quickly going into the excess with the amount of ship kit pieces available. These 4-6 pieces per ship section should be more than sufficient for any ships available whilst still limiting it a little bit, and for certain ships (primarily the Anaconda) exceptions could be made.
Conclusion:
And there we have it folks! My entire ramble on the suggestion of removing the limit on ship kits and allowing any piece of a ship kit to be togglable to your hearts content. If anyone has any other suggestions or changes that they would like to see, feel free to add them, and for FDev: please do add this, I promise to spend money on ARX like a good boy if you do.
-CMDR Herix