Not planning on picketing in front of HQ over this. But it’s definitely something I’d consider spending more money on, if it happens…
Some ships simply don’t get nearly as much love as others from those designing cosmetics for them. Speaking, specifically, of SKINs.
Sansha, Blood Raider, Mordu ships… Amarr and Gallente T3 cruisers… Compared to their constituents of other Pirate/imperial factions (this is discounting Trigs for seniority purposes, and unobtainable tournament SKINs), the disparity in cosmetic choices is pretty stark. Some people cite ‘popularity’ as a deciding factor, but from my observation across high/low/null sec, I see some of the sparsely-SKIN’d far more frequently than others… Legion? Orthrus? Ashimmu? Phantasm? Yes, yes, yes and yes… and all lacking in the SKIN department. So I don’t know specifically where the decisions for giving 15 SKINs to one and 3 to another comes into play, but having limited aesthetics can certainly impede popularity for some, as well.
Heck, even heavily-situational, Omega-only ships like Command Battlecruisers have a dozen or so SKINs by compare.
When the Biosecurity SKINs dropped, the Legion’s was one of the most expensive for a while, as I was tracking the market. It might still be, and I can’t tell you how happy I was to get my hands on it, so my ship could stop looking like a lump of melting sherbert, between the Exoplanet and Sunburst SKINs.
In 2020, CCP introduced the new event sites for Blood Raiders and Sansha, which did no real favors to the ships of their respective factions in terms of fashion- though plenty of other holiday-limited SKINs for ships which already have several available, hit the login rewards page and the New Eden store.
Now here in 2021, with the Guardian’s Gala, we’re seeing even more SKINs for the Angel and Serpentis ships. Hell, they’ve even gone cross-faction more than before, and given the Angel ships Serpentis SKINs, and Serpentis ships Angel SKINs… What?? And the Blooder ships didn’t even get the courtesy of a Deathglow SKIN?
CCPls, expand the SKIN options for some of the vessels lacking in this department? I’m one of those odd people- not unlike several others- who wants to love certain ships, but can’t get past their cosmetic options. This isn’t asking for the proverbial moon, here.
I’d trade one of my kidneys to get Khanid SKINs for Blood Raider vessels (which already exist to some extent ), as an example.
My suggestion? I’m not involved in the game’s development, but if assets already exist (such as the examples above), then just make them available for acquisition.
Another suggestion? Review event/quadrant themes, and balance out which ships will get new SKINs better… This will mean just a smidge of attention to detail in terms of lore, perhaps…
Event related to a specific faction? Give SKINs them to the specific faction- especially those with less choices than others.
Factions only somewhat related to the event factions (ie: proximity to faction or ship skill reqs relative to faction)? Maybe give them some SKINs, too.
Events which aren’t faction-specific? Carte blanche to give some nice stuff to those ships sorely in need of a makeover.
Fingers crossed this is already in the cross-hairs to be fulfilled in the background, but I’m not convinced it is just yet.