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asteroidjas, my Hyperion is in that category. I intend to buy the BPC and hang onto it for the time being. I figure if they convert to fitting slots, they'll have to convert the BPCs to the socket item. (And convert the special ships to the standard ones with the skin item in the socket.)

That's what it says in the dev blog.

Here's how I figure it might have happened:

CCP Blue: "So, we want to test the waters with custom ship skins before we commit to the development work required to do it properly. Should we offer a sampler platter first?"

CCP Red: "Yup, sounds good."

[CCP Red digs around in database for a few minutes]

CCP Red: "There you go Blue, the most commonly lost battleships are Abaddons and Rokhs, so perhaps we should start with those?"

CCP Blue: "Sounds good, what could possibly go wrong?"



Here's how I would have done it:

CCP Flood: "But guys, why don't we start a Trebor style voting thing? List all the ships and get people to vote for their favourites, then pick the top four?"

[Time passes]

CCP Flood: "See! Everyone wants a custom yellow and black striped Dominix. That's what we should offer for the sake of testing the waters. And you already know what the most popular bling ships are."

CCP Drought: "Yeah, everyone in Lanngisi is flying officer-fit Machariels and CNRs. You reckon they'd buy this stuff?"

CCP Flood: "Yup. Make the Domibee a disposable option, five bucks a copy. Make the shiny platinum CNR 7000 Aurum. They'll lap it up."

CCP Drought: "Two PLEX for a ship skin?"

CCP Flood: "Never underestimate the depth of a player's wallet."

[Time passes]

CCP Drought: "We just made two million dollars on shiny platinum CNRs, and a few thousand on Domibees. What the hell?"

CCP Flood: "Yup. All the mission runner bruthas gotta honour their mothas. And we controlled the level of proletariat rage by offering them cake and circuses. You'll keep making a thousand a month off the combat skins, but the once a year replacement of bling skins are pretty much your bread and butter."

i.e.: note to CCP: if you want to make money, you go where the money is.

PS: it might be worth releasing the frigates at different price points, i.e. riter at 45 Aurum for 1, 5, 10 run BPC. Then players can vote with their wallets.

They address both issues in the dev blog!

Of course the second issue is addressed in the seminal work by CCP Games, THIS IS THE SOUND OF THE SPACE POLICE!

I really like the idea but the current method of implementation is not good at all. Why not just do like some here have suggested, maybe something like an insurance window with paintjobs that cost a certain amount of ISK, or something obtained through loyalty point stores. I know this isnt final for CCP but I do hope they change it.

Every time the topic of custom ship skins comes up, my knee jerk response is "paint all my ships orange with black racing stripes" in honor of my dearly departed Mustang (may she rest in pieces). The approach using BPC's for paint jobs isn't what i expected. But in the context of gathering information on interest in the project, it works as a first step. I look at the character creation tool, and how detailed it is and dream of that power applied to the painting of a ship. I'm not a programer, I don't know the first thing about how to make eve as it is now adapt to the possibility of every Tom, Richard (it wont let me use the short name), and Jane flying completely different colored spaceships. But it is a highpoint to aim for. That said, I love that the police comet is making a comeback. I'm seeing the price for the hull spike in forge region. this is your first data point for this experiment, market fluctuation of the Fed navy comet in anticipation of the new skin. I bought 3 just for that purpose

Regarding prices on frigate ships at least: 8-10 million isk is a fairly steep price for a 5-6 million isk ship that is generally regarded as totally disposable. I would buy 1 or 2 of each as collectors items at that price, but the ships I undock to fight in would mostly be sporting the standard paint job.

You may want to cut the prices by a factor of 5-10 for frigates. It wouldn't be every ship, but I wouldn't balk at using a stack of rusty merlins for pvp. An extra million isk per ship on a stack of 20 ships is more overall movement than 10 million isk on a single hangar decoration.

These paint jobs should probably be extremely cheap. If they cost the same as any of the T2 modules you'd be fitting to your ship (You could base the price of the skins on the price of that hull-size's weapon modules, for example) then I'd guess there wouldn't be many people who would undock without a paintjob.

Regardless, I don't know how you're going to accurately gauge interest in skins as a feature when the test-feature is nothing like what the end result would be. I know I'm not very interested in a Rokh covered in blotchy red spots or an Abaddon that looks like it was Plastidipped blue, but I'd go nuts if I could paint my Machariel* in a Sukhoi winter-dazzle theme :D (See this image).

Give me the ability to make my own skins and then apply them to ships for a reasonable amount of money (the cost of a module or two), and I'll almost never undock in an un-skinned ship again, I can promise you that.


*And by "my Machariel," I mean, "Every ship I own."

Pink care bear ships would be awesome, just for harvesting tears from the "elite PvPers" who take the dark, cold thing a bit too seriously. I'll be signing up for a Pink orca and a half dozen pink skiffs please! Just like the pink Scorpion that Caldari Prime Pony Club was joking with.

Anyone CCPer who says, "no pink ships," is oblivious to the trolling potential of such colours.

If this were true facts™ this little discussion would have taken place in late 2011, wouldn't it? I like that thought for some reason, because I am very weird.