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I agree with you it would be nice to have a Paint Shop Interface that gets focus (like a pop-up) to be able to change all characteristics about the base color, lighting, decals, other effects, etc. much like if it was layered so you can edit each layer and put whatever you want on your ship.

While it would be pretty cool to have lots of customization options, I don't agree that is it feasible and I much rather be able to have the system control the lighting for me based on where I'm at. For example, if I'm undocking and the station casts a shadow on a portion of my ship the system will automatically account for that. Based on the client's graphics settings it may be more pronounced with greater level of detail that you get with the higher settings. If that was applied on the ship itself I believe it would not look realistic in certain conditions. Also, keep in mind that the more complex the artwork on the ship is the greater load the server and/or the client will have and the more data that has to travel over the wire. I say keep it simple especially in the beginning, fine-tune to get more complex skins artwork and enjoy that. The custom colors or skins should not, ever, cause any lag or delays or errors to occur during gameplay in any part of the universe and it will be easier to implement. If we ask for too much it will either be a ****** product when finished or it won't get implemented. If I could turn my whole ship "hot pink" that is better than not being able to change the look at all. Just making a point, I don't really want my ship to be "hot pink".


The second counterpoint is that with the ability to use a blueprint or blueprint copy it gives people who do Industrial stuff something else to do and sell -- which is a good thing. Eve is all about the community and teaming up with people from various career paths and preferences in working together towards a common goal. With that in mind, I don't see anything wrong with requiring some kind of Industry element to get your ships painted. Will be a nice way to work with other people in your corporation or alliance. However, like you said, if the manufacturing process included using some kind of interface to complete the process with say the blueprint and maybe some other items then we could have the best of both worlds. Plus, it will add a completely unique design element that is a lot of fun and add depth to the gameplay experience. All this stuff will need to be added into the game by the Dev team(s) so I wouldn't expect the ability to create custom colors unless Hex values are used to display the colors.


I also like your point in that instead of directly applying the blueprint to the ship to change it's paint scheme (color or skin) to some kind of item you can fit on your ship or some kind of consumable item that is applied to the ship itself. I don't know the technical challenges with that but it would be awesome as there could be an entire market on selling colors and skins pilots can buy from each other.


I fully agree with you that CCP will have to be totally committed to offering us the ability to change the color or skin of our ship or else it won't be a good product. I feel that since they rolled out a pilot "testing" program they are approaching this carefully and the correct way at this time. To elaborate more, 1) CCP can design their own skins and offer them to the community in some kind of way other than just AUR, like using ISK to buy it from the Contracts system. Then, 2) there should be the ability for pilots to create their own skins and share them with the EvE Community, provided they follow a list of criteria -- similar to that of letting us create alliance logos -- that goes through some kind of approval process and maybe costs some ISK as well. Also, 3) could allow other vendors, that have ties to EvE, to also create their own skins that could be available via the Contracts system as well. It would create a nice collection of skins gallery we could choose from ranging from stuff in eve like skulls and crossbones, factions, pirate factions, corporation logo, alliance logo, custom colors, custom skins but also to having CCP logos all over our ships and other cool design elements that skins can provide.

I really think the community would help pitch in and offer custom created skins and custom colors to design our ships with. I can see the creator getting the skin and all things to implement it on their ship for free, with a reasonable fee payable in ISK or a way to use ISK for AUR instead of real-money while everyone else has to pay ISK or AUR to obtain their artwork to apply to their ships. Furthermore, however the process gets developed there should be a limited use before the stuff gets consumed so that people can effectively sell and buy the stuff to change the color or skin of your ship.

Just a few thought I had about this after applying the police skin to my comet:

1. For skin application It would be nice to be able to apply the skins without repackaging the ship
2. I would personally prefer being able to buy skins in the LP store rather than using NEX, but that's just me
3. Perhaps a Star ship Customization window would be in order? something that works like this:
-Has a window with a limited number of slots laid out as:
-1. Lighting Slots, Hull Color, Trim Color 1, Trim Color 2, Logo Slot 1, Logo Slot 2, Camo Overlay, Effects, add-on's.
For color slots and logo slots, these are like Rigs, once painted on, they cannot be removed, only destroyed. For Lighting, ccp can limit the number of light emitters that can be placed on a ship so that we don't overload the server or peoples clients too badly because of too many blinking lights, these would be removable like normal mods, as would the effects and add-on's. as for the prefabricated skins: they would be added to the ship through the same interface as a package instead, so it auto applies the skin.

The parts and colors would be sorted by type and be offered in S, M, L, XL, and these sizes are based on the ships rig size. That would give players a chance to bling out any ship they want, in any way they want, as well as using the default skins.

For lights and ship accessories, it would also be nice to have a hardpoint selector so that things like lights end up in the right places for the look we want, in the fitting window it would be nice to have this too for turret placement, that way the hardpoints we want get occupied. its not so bad now, but on ships like the ferox if you fit the seventh gun the ship looks lopsided a bit. being able to move a gun to another hardpoint set would be nice. now that launchers can no longer be fitted, the old launcher slot on the back could be used for the turret now. just a tweak to allow players to choose where the mods and add on lights get placed on ships based on the hardpoint system already in place would be awesome.

For now though, I just want more ships with police skins.

Basics summary: A starship customizing tool in-game, players can move items shown on the hull from one hardpoint to another, all items available on the market and / or in the LP Store.

Were the Amarr ships in there originally?

By this reasoning how do you justify "Dust"?

p.s. love the new paint skins

Why was the Ship Painting Pilot Program Dev Blog bumped back to the top?

I try to stay up-to-date, and patient, with Dev news (as hard as I try...). But I really don't appreciate reposts of the same material.

You read it (the blog) wrong and gained a false impression.

Read it again - properly (all of it).

No, he means on the Dev Blogs page. (Hence the link in his post. )

Am I to assume that you include me as one of them?

If so, then if you didn't mean on the forum or on the Dev Blogs page, what did you mean?

I totally agree with this. BUT you can buy aurum with isk.
And...
But Im not impressed yet with the paint system.. I want something more like http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s260/MrOosterman/ponyclub.png Im not spending a single isk or real money on anything less.

First paint should be after youve done the fitting. this whole manufactured paint thing is bs. RL i dont have to pull my car apart take the engine out and strip it completely down to paint it(yes i know a good shop will strip it part of the way down, its not a complete dismantle though). IE i shouldnt have to remove rigs and repackage to get it painted.

Second, if i buy a paint job(scheme) with aurum it should never go away. BUT to have a ship painted it should be a per ship type deal and it shouldnt be more then the ship. And the paint cost should be a 1/3 of the total price of Jita as it is the main hub(or make it relivent to the price at that station). so, 100mil ship should be 33mil(roughly) for the paint job.

As for the paint schemes it should be by EACH ship and EACH paint scheme you use.IE you make a few and save them and then deside on which one you want to actually use you then purchase it(its now saved to you forever) at the paint booth and can be applyed to your ship at a cost equal to 1/3 ship value at that time. I would perfer isk but i know how much CCP is trying to put a use of the aurum. Also, Scorpion, widow, Scorpion Navy issue, and rattlesnake should all be seperate to be fair for the costs of building the programing for this.

As for the break down as the visual form the photo above you have 5 sections for items to paint, I think the mods should be 1$ per section. To add a uploaded decal 1$ per ship(decals should be allowed to upload what we desire, But i know there needs to be some code of conduct in place IE no **** pics). Corp. and other ingame factions icons should be free.

shuttles should be a flat rate of a 1$.(painting it should be free)(all shuttles)

All other ships. 1$ per section and 1$ to upload a decal. painting it should be 1/3 current value of jita price.

Also, I think it should cost extra to make the paint scheme public thinking 1$. and its not tradable(up in the air about this one).

just an idea, the painting for the future could me made as a paint rigg for the ship so u can just put a Paint rigg to change the paint of the ship, (this would require a new Paint rigg slot), in that way would be no need to create new database items for the painted ship and also it would be on KB by reading the paint rigg on the ship and using the picture according to it. or something like that =)