JonnyRay Posted February 20, 2015 Share Posted February 20, 2015 (edited) 1) Are the ships worth the unlock prices? They seem to be capable designs based on Stasie's Galactic Starfighter Guide. But are they similar in performance to ships I could unlock using normal Fleet Reqs? 2) Paint jobs / paint colors? It seems to me that the variation in paint is so minor that you're only going to see it "in the hanger"; so I don't feel like it's a great deal to be unlocking new paint schemes and colors. Am I missing something there? 3) Bolt / engine colors? I have to admit that I've never noticed the colors of anyone's lasers or engine reactants in mid-dogfight. I guess I don't see where spending money on those would be worthwhile either. It's not like someone's going to see my laser blast and go "Oh no! Where's Jon?!?!?" I believe in supporting the portions of a game that I enjoy. Which is why I subscribe to SWTOR overall and I have spent a fair amount decorating my stronghold, outfitting my characters, etc. I just feel like Bioware hasn't given me a lot of reason to "invest" in the GSF side yet. Am I wrong? Edited February 20, 2015 by JonnyRay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caederon Posted February 20, 2015 Share Posted February 20, 2015 (edited) The Cartel ships are functionally identical to the ships you buy with normal Fleet requisition. There are cases where it is desirable to have two of a given ship type on your 5-ship bar when you enter a match... I like having two versions of the T2 scout (Sting and Ocula, for Imperials) so that I can have them set up for different roles. The trouble is that the cartel ships are purchased on a per/character basis. If you primarily play one character, that is not a problem. I have alts on about 10 servers, and several characters per server. I have not felt the need to buy any of the others a Cartel ship. They're a luxury, overpriced, and in my opinion should at the very least be a legacy unlock, not tied to one character. You're right about the paint jobs, engine reactants, etc. They are mainly for you to look at in your hangar... which may be enough to get you to experiment with some color schemes, but what you may not realize is that many of those components are available on the GTN. Not all of them, but many... and often pretty cheap, if you keep your eyes open for them. Even the Cartel ships show up on the GTN from time to time, with the scout being the rarest for me to run across (and those, as opposed to the cosmetics, can be pretty expensive). Some of the paint jobs and coor schemes are only available by Cartel $ purchase, but it's hardly worth it. If I didn't get free cartel $ from being a subscriber, I would never have been compelled to spend any money on such things. They have a very odd pricing structure for the Cartel $ color selections. I noticed when looking at the ones available to Republic pilots last night that for no apparent reason, one was priced at 360, one at 180, and one at 90. In general I find their pricing structure laughably bad and the selection of what they offer completely inadequate. It was a very poorly implemented attempt to monetize GSF, which could be easily fixed with more options that people have been saying for months that they would spend money on, and would hardly require any developer time to make. - Despon Edited February 20, 2015 by caederon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DamascusAdontise Posted February 20, 2015 Share Posted February 20, 2015 Your correct, we dont even have a cartel version of the minelayer (which is about the time they stopped supporting GSF with all their heart) That being said I still enjoy GSF and have paid to unlock the cartel ships available to us, as well as all the colors / dyes / etc. as to your questions: 1) The cartel ships are exact replicas of existing ships, basically they are re-skins. They also allow you to have two versions of the same ship on your active hanger at any time. I do not suggest buying the cartel strike fighter (gladiator) as you won't really need two of these (same thing with the cartel GS, no reason to have 2 on your bar) I do however suggest picking up the cartel scout and bomber (ocula and onslaught) having two versions of these ships can be helpful. You can setup one typical scout and one quads and pods, the bomber also has alternate builds worth merit. 2.) The paint jobs and color modules are typically lackluster. They look best on the scout and GS IMO, bomber aint bad either. We have been screaming for those paintjobs that have eyes and a moutj (much like ww2 planes) but they have fallen on deaf ears. I am however a collector so I bought all these for very cheap off the GTN (and continue to do so when I see ones I don't have) 3.) Bolt and Engine colors are cool IMO. I play a lot of GSF and always notice the bolt and engine color, helps me to immediately recognize certain people even before I read their name. These I also purchase off the GTN for cheap, I have spent CC's on these as well. I love to match paint job, blaster, and reactants in a variety of ways. All that being said there is A LOT more they could do with customization but it appears that they don't care enough about GSF to monetize it properly. I would pay real money for new cartel ships chassis / paints / bolts / reactants / colors etc..... despite me throwing my wallet at them they don't appear to care or want the money *shrug* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danalon Posted February 20, 2015 Share Posted February 20, 2015 (edited) You also can use CC to turn ship req into fleet req to get more ships earlier. This makes daily and weekly quest requisition rewards more effective and also having more ships (if you got the right ships) makes you more versatile. Edited February 20, 2015 by Danalon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramalina Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 For CC requisition conversion, it also allows you to unlock the good crew members more quickly (this is a potent improvement in performance). In addition, if you love flying a particular ship type, you can convert ship req earned on other ships into fleet req, and use it to master components on your favored ship in a fraction of the time that it would normally take using just ship requisition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Verain Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 (edited) I strongly recommend spending cartel coins to convert ship to fleet req, and then buying all the fleet req ships. I strongly recommend NOT converting fleet to ship req under most circumstances, and I only recommend converting ship to fleet from ships A, B, and C to buy an upgrade on ship D if you are legit rich-ish (doing these things sets you back on your other ships while also costing you like 40 bucks per ship you want to max). Unlocking the ships with cartel coins will normally see you spending about three to ten dollars of cartel coins, for every ship in the game. Don't feel obligated to do this: it just seems like the devs sort of made it cheapish but not free assuming that most players would do at least a little of this. Your questions have been answered, but I'll add this: several paint jobs and color modules are ONLY available on the GTN, and many of them are the most colorful or patterened options. If you are empire, there's a lot of very mediocre paint jobs (my incomplete guide on cosmetics points out that empire has four almost completely identical white/blue color schemes, all hard to see on any ship as the blue is mostly black and the white is mostly gray). In fact, the empire colors, if you screen cap / sceen shot and then color tool them, can't always legally even be called the colors that they claim to be in the first place. Looking at you, "deep purple" or whatever, with almost as much green as blue and not very much of anything at all! On Republic side, the paint jobs and color schemes are VASTLY more reasonable and interesting, with many solid choices. Lasers: these are VERY visible. If you aren't seeing them, give it a little bit of time. I recognize every laser type at long distances now. They are the only cosmetic choice you have that your allies and enemies will both see. I'm very particular about my laser colors, this is the one cosmetic option that is really done right. Boosters: The trails only draw for you. The color can be seen on other ships if they are facing and such, but it's not super obvious. These are highly visible to YOU, however- just not your allies or enemies. Paint jobs- the ones that involve the noses seem to be pretty visible in the targeting window, and you do see this on satellites at times. I think these are reasonably visible to the player as well. I don't have a recommendation on cartel ships. If spending about 15 dollars to have a second copy of a ship is pleasing to you, go ahead and do it. If that strikes you as nuts, don't. On Bastion I have every ship mastered, and that counts cartel ships on both factions. I really like the look of the type 2 gunship and the type 1 strike in their cartel variants. But don't feel obligated on power reasons- there's no power reason at all (in fact, the ships can be a little bit weaker, as their icons don't update when they swap weapons, making it very rough to play a type 1 gunship- you can't tell at a glance if you are on ion or slug). The "10% requisition" bonus will, if you earn req from NOTHING but actual games played (aka, you don't pop any tokens) be worth 13k requisition over the 150k that you earn to mastered. Once mastered, the ships earn at the same rate, so you'll never get anything over that 13k. And of course, the bonus doesn't help you when you pop tokens, which is a very sizable percent of requisition earned. So don't make a decision on that- playing three to ten games with one extra upgrade won't make or break anything. Edited February 21, 2015 by Verain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickDagles Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 I would say the best use of coins is to convert ship to fleet to get whatever ships and crew you want. You could also use fleet to get important upgrades. I've used coins to get level 5 targeting telemetry before but it's pretty expensive. I have heard of people getting level 4 slug railgun upgrade and level 4 BLC upgrade on the battlescout with coins as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ALaggyGrunt Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 A good scout pest will see your engine colors. That's about how close you have to be in order to be lethal with BLC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonnyRay Posted February 25, 2015 Author Share Posted February 25, 2015 I would say the best use of coins is to convert ship to fleet to get whatever ships and crew you want. You could also use fleet to get important upgrades. I've used coins to get level 5 targeting telemetry before but it's pretty expensive. I have heard of people getting level 4 slug railgun upgrade and level 4 BLC upgrade on the battlescout with coins as well. I can see where this is true and the best "bang for the buck" as it were. However, it wouldn't create any incentive for new models / paint schemes / etc. So I think I'll try to budget to pick up one or two items each month directly from the Cartel Market to show some support for this part of the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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