While I love the ideas behind the new ship kits, the purpose for buying a ship kit is to customize my ship but the only customization decision in the new kits is what color my ship should be - same as buying a paint job.
These new kits (like the Mandalay Explorer pack, the Carapace pack, the Extraction pack, etc) don't give any selection of parts; everyone who buys the kit will get an identical-looking ship to everyone else, which defeats the point for me. I purchase ship kits to build a custom appearance, it kills my interest to know that all ships with the kit all look the same.
I understand that (to maximize the effect of the ship mesh additions) it makes sense to include paint jobs designed for those meshes, and that including paint jobs suggests either bumping up the price of the kit or cutting its other content, but a ship kit that doesn't offer ship customization is really hard for me to buy.
Perhaps enough parts to give us choices could be made more cheaply by reusing geometry: a Survey kit's scanner-dish geometry could be reused four times to be available at each location of the ship, that way even though all ships with the pack will likely have a dish, at least its location and/or the number of dishes used will be custom to each ship, and the same could be done with other Survey kit parts. I would go for that.
That said, the ideas in the kit themes these days are GREAT. The Hazard/Extraction pack, the Survey Pack, the Carapace Pack - these are fantastic kit themes. (Banners are a cool idea too)
(I'm also aware that another way to get a customization option out of these 3-pieces-only ship kits would be to buy two kits and mix them together, but I've found that the 3-piece design of the new kits makes that feel deeply unsatisfying and unworkable; even if the themes don't clash the few pieces available are fighting for the same slots)
Please consider making these great ship kit themes more of a customize-your-ship experience!
These new kits (like the Mandalay Explorer pack, the Carapace pack, the Extraction pack, etc) don't give any selection of parts; everyone who buys the kit will get an identical-looking ship to everyone else, which defeats the point for me. I purchase ship kits to build a custom appearance, it kills my interest to know that all ships with the kit all look the same.
I understand that (to maximize the effect of the ship mesh additions) it makes sense to include paint jobs designed for those meshes, and that including paint jobs suggests either bumping up the price of the kit or cutting its other content, but a ship kit that doesn't offer ship customization is really hard for me to buy.
Perhaps enough parts to give us choices could be made more cheaply by reusing geometry: a Survey kit's scanner-dish geometry could be reused four times to be available at each location of the ship, that way even though all ships with the pack will likely have a dish, at least its location and/or the number of dishes used will be custom to each ship, and the same could be done with other Survey kit parts. I would go for that.
That said, the ideas in the kit themes these days are GREAT. The Hazard/Extraction pack, the Survey Pack, the Carapace Pack - these are fantastic kit themes. (Banners are a cool idea too)
(I'm also aware that another way to get a customization option out of these 3-pieces-only ship kits would be to buy two kits and mix them together, but I've found that the 3-piece design of the new kits makes that feel deeply unsatisfying and unworkable; even if the themes don't clash the few pieces available are fighting for the same slots)
Please consider making these great ship kit themes more of a customize-your-ship experience!
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