Mr Barbeque
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Posted - 2008.05.25 22:27:00 -
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Painting ships is an awesome idea but some restrictions would have to be implemented. You could structure the painting scheme by layers. Say, eight or so.
First layer would be pretty simple, a base color, several options but limited by the race of the ship. Say Galente leans toward greens, Amarr towards yellows, Caldari goes to blues, and Minmitar leans toward reds. To ad a level of exclusivness to ship painting, options are limited to a few base colors and the window/light colors cannot be changed. Players with the ability to modify ship blueprints have more extensive options, such as windows/lights more base colors ect...
The second through fith layers would be kind of like vinyls on tuner cars (ex. need for speed games). Several different prefabed layer patterns are availible to the average player. they could be placed in a couple different places according to the ship. These patterns would have one or two colors that come default in different shades of grey but then can be set by the player to be a variety of contrasting colors.
Layer six would be slightly different. Instead of customizable layers, the sixth layer is the option of a corporate logo. Placeable both symmetrically, and asymmetrically on the sides, top, bottom, and nose. Possibly on the rear if engines arent in the way.
The seventh layer would be the same as layer six, but with an alliance logo.
Layer eight would be variations of the windows/lights on a ship. This would be an exclusive option avalible only to those with the ability to manufacture.
The same principle can be applied to POS structures. A corporation or alliance building bases have similar options. They have less layers, such as only two decals, and the same window/light and logo options as ships. The catch is they must be manufactured to have any options other than the logos.
**NOTE** Since a control tower must be anchored before any other structures, the strucures would just have the same color scheme as the control tower.
This could tie into the market as yet another money sink. Decals/vinyls can be bought off the market. They would be applied at the fittings screen. There, the colors would be painted and changed, but it would cost according to the ship, and the complexity of the desired paintjob. Decals/vinyls for POS structures would be more expensive, and of course they would be incompatible. However, if the ship or structure is manufactured there would be no cost of painting, since the player is building it (or having it built) themselves.
**NOTE** Special decals/vinyls could be given as tounament prizes and whatnot...
I could be wrong (I rather doubt it though), but it wouldn't be much stress of the servers either. The server would be loaded with all of the patterns and availible colors for all races, which wouldn't be all that much, then the custom ship would have a tag telling the server to show it as "Layer1 X: Layer2 X: Layer3 X:" ect...
(ex: Layer1=color X: Layer2=pattern X;color X: ect...)
Fleet engagements would look spectacular!
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