EVE General Discussion

Pink avatar!
Orange erebus!
Coolest design ever!

Your idea has merit.

For my part, I believe the NEX store should be limited to selling vanity design templates only. Players that wish to produce a vanity item (that would be sold on the in game market for ISK) would purchase a design template from the NEX store (with AUR, which can of course be purchased with either cash or ISK) and then produce the item for in game profit.

Ideally, these design templates would be customizable to a degree and function much like BPC's do now. To achieve this CCP would need to create a design template creation tool in EVE that allows you to chose a base template and then tweak it (within certain parameters) during the process. The final output is a limited use customized design template that can be used to produce say 1000 items via a standard factory slot.

To flesh that out.

1: We have NPC sold BPO's now, but that isn't a proper term when discussing clothing, paint jobs, or really anything of a truly cosmetic nature. So CCP puts out various design templates for sale via the NEX. You can pay in cash or in ISK as usual.

2: Lets say I purchase a design template for a custom paint job (using ISK to purchase my AUR in this case). At the time of purchase the design template customization tool opens. Here I can tweak various parameters including color in various area's of the ship, whether it has a spot for a corp or alliance logo, etc. These options would likely be somewhat limited by CCP for obvious techical and artistic reasons.

3: When done tweaking i finalize the template and it appears in my hanger much like a BPC. I can install this template in a factory and produce a limited number of paint jobs (say 1000). This template can be bought/sold/traded/blown up just like a BPC.

4: When I produce these paint jobs (possibly requiring PI components to build, or perhaps new materials), the finished product again appears in my hanger as an item... much like a rig would. Again, this item can be bought/sold/traded/destroyed like a rig.

5: I sell my custom paint jobs on the market for whatever price the market will bear (obviously it would need to be previewable), or I could simply throw them in the corp hanger (if say I wanted my corp or alliance to use them).

6: When used the custom paint job installs on any ship exactly as a rig does (it could even use an existing rig slot, or a special slot could be added to all ships for this purpose). It can not be removed/changed other than to destroy it. It is lost with the destruction of the ship.

7: Design templates in specific NPC corp or faction colors (with or without corp or faction logo's) could also be made available through the LP store of that particular NPC corp or faction.

8: Special design templates that cannot be made with in game tools could also be given as event prizes by CCP... or for any number of other reasons.


In this fashion the NEX store could function as a source of vanity item only driven income, yet still involve the player base in the production and final value of these items in game, contributing to the health of the in game economy.

An identical system could be (and should be) implimented for the creation of clothing items, this also includes official corp/faction "uniforms" being available through the LP store.

This also reinforces the idea that all items in EVE should be destructible, and the players should decide the value of those items.

I agree... make them expensive, but with ISK.

One other suggestion: Have it so that a player could only own one painted ship at a time. They would define this ship as their 'flagship'. Maybe have it listed on their profile. Blowing up someone's flagship would drop a unique item. Maybe a black-box that would identify the ship name/type that was blown up...similar to a frozen corpse. On the flip side, have the ship keep track of any player kills that it scores.

It would also make an interesting solution to the 'pink' problem. In order to have anyone really see your custom skin, you'll have to fly it. Hitting that undock button means you are risking your ship. Make a bad enough eye sore and you might invite gankers to take you out just for offending their senses. And of course, if a player has a powerful enough ship and deadly enough wing mates, they can have a pink ship if they want to.


This would make custom ships a somewhat rarity. Most pragmatic pilots aren't going to do their trade hub shopping or small gang pvp in their flag ships, so 95% of the ships that you see flying around will still be normal skins.

Tailoring? Go back to WoW