New player xp suggestion: ship fits available in that station/system

[SA_Stowaway]

@Io_Koval

I have some clarifying questions … so it’s interesting to hear a different opinion

You are a credit to this community!

Great questions:

@Io_Koval

• I seem to recall an option in the regional market menu to filter based on availability. So on the left the navigational tree will only have stuff that is guaranteed to be listed. Is that helpful, insufficient, or not at all helpful?

It took me a bit of time to discover this, but it certainly made it easier. So highlighting this to new players through the New Player Exp would help. My starting point was always the fittings screen rather than the regional market screen because I was overwhelmed with the lists and submenus in the market.

@Io_Koval

is it that the process of navigating the market while also fiddling with a fit in non-hubs is extremely difficult tedious back and forth in general?

I think this is really it. It’s okay once you know what all the modules do, but until then you are relying on the community fits and others suggested in Rookie Help channel or websites like Workbench. But… it’s not obvious that if AfterBurner I is not available in station, then the compact version might be (and how to find that).

Here’s a scenario that reflects what I might have experienced a few months ago:
I’m new, I’ve done some exploring/hacking and now want to try security missions. I look up the nearest security agent and end up in a station some distance from a main trade hub. I now realise I need a different ship. I need to find a suitable ship and fit it with suitable modules and charges - but I don’t really know all the ships yet or the modules or the charges, so I look at the community fittings (which I used when buying my explorer fitting), but when I go Buy All, nothing is available. I try all the different fits until I see that there is a suitable T1 frigate available, but hardly any of the suggested modules for that fit. I look up the market details for some of those modules and they are a mixture of jumps away in different stations. But what I don’t know is that there are alternative modules in the station that are actually available and fittable OR that modules for a different type of fit are available. I don’t yet grasp how to navigate between the fittings screen and the regional market categories to find alternative modules that do the same job and are actually available to buy (and this is very time consuming if you haven’t developed the muscle memory…).

So what do I do? Spend an hour or two reading info screens and scrabbling together what should be a simple fit, or just head all the way back to a trade hub? It seems an unnecessary choice facing a new player who may have run out of time to run the mission. They didn’t realise that assembling a ship in non-hub space is itself a pre-mission mission.

The fitting/sourcing does get more enjoyable as you start to learn what they all do, but I’d rather learn by having them on my ship and flying with them than by clicking through endless info screens with statistics that I don’t yet understand.

@Io_Koval

is the core problem that not all modules are available for a fit? As in, you can buy all the modules and hull at a station, except for 1 key module, and that’s a jump (or more) over, so it’s annoying?

3. Is the fact that the regional market window shows orders everywhere in the region helpful at all for planning a route to scrounge the modules and fit together? Or too much work? Both?

4. Do you remote-buy items and find that useful? I can’t remember if this is a skill or not.

I think it’s fine and right that not all modules are available, and yes regional market and remote buying are both very helpful if you’ve only got a module or two left to source. I found it bewildering trying to source multiple modules (and in some cases even a ship) to put together a basic ship fit.