Special Paint Job Rewards

[shadragon]

Been mulling this over this weekend as I was doing other things. Would you support special paint jobs (SPJ) which would be gained through completing several specific game mission types and have various positive effects?

- Disruptive pattern (Dazzle Camouflage) SPJ that make a ship harder to hit. Useful in PvP or other combat situations.
- IR SPJ that reduces target heat signature making it harder to lock on. Useful for smugglers, stealth builds.
- Polymer SPJ that can absorb small amount of kinetic damage from missiles, rail guns.
- Reflective SPJ that reduces laser based weapon damage.
- Conductive SPJ that dissipates ship heat more effectively and cools you down faster.

I'm sure there could be more.

I'm only talking 2-5% reductions in each case, but even that could be useful in certain situations.

Regardless of the type used, these paint jobs have their effectiveness decrease over time, as it takes damage or wears away. You can replace the SPJ with another, but not fix them up.

I thought they could be for sale in the store, but that whiffed of pay-2-win. Achieving them through game play would give you a nice bonus every now and then. Or alternatively have the above effects be overlayed over regular paint jobs through Engineers.

 

[kryss]

They would need to be hard to get!

 

[Ian Skippy]

Been mulling this over this weekend as I was doing other things. Would you support special paint jobs (SPJ) which would be gained through completing several specific game mission types and have various positive effects.

- Disruptive pattern (Dazzle Camouflage) SPJ that make a ship harder to hit. Useful in PvP or other combat situations.
- IR SPJ that reduces target heat signature making it harder to lock on. Useful for smugglers, stealth builds.
- Polymer SPJ that can absorb small amount of kinetic damage from missiles, rail guns.
- Reflective SPJ that reduces laser based weapon damage.
- Conductive SPJ that dissipates ship heat more effectively and cools you down faster.

I'm sure there could be more.

I'm only talking 2-5% reductions in each case, but even that could be useful in certain situations.

Regardless of the type used, these paint jobs have their effectiveness decrease over time, as it takes damage or wears away. You can replace the SPJ with another, but not fix them up.

I thought they could be for sale in the store, but that whiffed of pay-2-win. Achieving them through game play would give you a nice bonus every now and then. Or alternatively have the above effects be overlayed over regular paint jobs through Engineers.

Definitely not in-store. In-game? YES! Same for in-game non-gameplay decals/paints.

Aid the feds enough and get a 'federal navy' decal. Do enough 'distress signal' USSes and get a 'resuce paintjob' etc. But so far it seems FD sees the art department of this aspect as cash-cow and not as game-improver. Id much prefer to have my ship's visuals show what my cmdr has been up to, rather than reveal I wasted some cash.

 

[Winterwalker]

I agree would be a nice step. If you remember before Christmas, there was a CG where it was possible to earn a chrome Eagle paintjob and would be cool to see that extended into the missions and ranking system. Probably when the major faction navies have been developed a bit more I think and they would have to be rare, which is only fair to Frontier, because we don't pay any server subcscriptions. Rarity only makes them more valuable though, so it's a +1 here.

 

[shadragon]

They would need to be hard to get!

This, I agree with completely.

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Sounds good to me. Do you imagine these would be maybe 5 times earned per playthrough or achievable every 1-2 weeks or what sort of overall numbers?

If it's repeatable over time then its a new level of grind for that % in PvP. If its a per playthrough then I think the bonus should be bigger but as above you can only get each paintjob a certain number of times so it won't be a PvP grind to get, it'll be a boost every now and then.

 

[JetsonRING]

I do not think those things deserve special paint jobs. How about a row of "battle honors" badges instead, painted/welded onto the ship right next to or under the ship's nameplate, like the old Rising Sun marks US pilots painted on their planes in WW2 except instead of tracking kills, the badges would honor achievements and heroism, like the battle-honors welded onto BOLOs in the old Keith Laumer stories.

 

[BradHann]

A 'rustbucket' paintjob for the sidey, unlocked if your ship is destroyed and you can't afford rebuy. Consider it a badge of shame [haha]

 

[Martian Successor]

Sounds good to me. Maybe they can make the spiky skins earnable via in-game actions, which would make them much more compelling.