Ok, first things first: this has been discussed and suggested before, i want to restart it in a clean thread by expressing further thoughts on the matter of custom paint jobs and other customizations, and add there maybe a showcase possibility. Also, there was a suggestion thread from before we got ship painting options from May which can be found here: [http://forum.star-conflict.com/index.php?/topic/19368-ship-paint-jobs-custom-stickers-corp-emblems/](< base_url >/index.php?/topic/19368-ship-paint-jobs-custom-stickers-corp-emblems/)
1. TL;DR for that thread:
-suggests more options for colors and sticker choice
-concerns about inappropriate displayed messages in custom paint jobs and stickers
-impact on bandwith and created graphical lag / stutter concerns
2. Hand-picked stuff from other random threads:
-neon trims (lumifiber for you Planetside 2 lovers)
-full-body ship painting
-more textural, material and tint options as the color’s background
-current ships that are missing customization possibilities to have them added (DLC ships)
3. My own additions for now:
-free placement of stickers anywhere on ships + resizing ability
-free painting anywhere on the ship with color, material and texture application
-all done IN-GAME (no external software for custom paint-jobs, but an internal importing possibility - will detail below)
1.
The first line is self-explanatory - more colors, more stickers than what we currently have. My suggestion: a free RGB slider for colors and the possibility to import PNG images of limited pixels and size directly into the game for stickers.
The concerns for offensive material in the case of custom paint jobs can be resolved with a simple ‘Report player’ option and a check on the ship’s model preview by the GM’s, resulting in the immediate deletion of the paint job and a pretty awful ban (name your period - i’d say 1 week). To avoid quick-changing of custom paintjobs to just troll people with offensive images and then displaying an innocent one after being reported - show a history of them for the ship.
The impact on bandwith can be resolved actually quite easily. At every match we get 30 second cooldown before it starts. That’s more than enough time to load the models. 12v12 (24 players) x 4 ships maximum would be 96 sets of paints in a game (128 in custom 16v16 battles). It would be exactly the same as now, but instead of loading the current sets as we have them now, you would load those other ones. To further prevent lags and stuff - limited size of imported stuff. In-game created paint-jobs wouldn’t be an issue since they would be applied directly on the ship’s model just like they are now, but looking different.
2.
Neon trims are pretty much self-explanatory. Pick the defining edges of the ship’s model and apply a neon line glowing effect. Or give us the option to pick our own desired trims. Also give us the option to choose the preferred color. To avoid clutter - limit possible neon covered areas (check for the defining edges of the ship and each ship will have that amount as a limit, eventually + a few more areas at most). Also, they can have different lighting effects: static glow, pulsating, a stonger point of light moving through the trims etc.
Full body paints is self-explanatory - let us paint all the ship’s parts, not just armor plates for example.
More options when it comes for the colors’ under-layers. They could be metallic, glossy, matte etc (different materials), they could have different textures applied to them, like camos, stripes, random stuff etc.
Self explanatory - DLC ships are not customizable yet.
3.
Free placement of stickers is self-explanatory. Currently we have predefined areas for our stickers. Let us move them with the ability to rescale them and use a symmetry option to have them on both sides of the ship when placed.
Free painting refers to something like the Trackmania system. You pick up the brush and start free-painting with colors on the ship. Select different parts of the ship to color if you don’t want to cross the edge of something by mistake, select a specific area to paint at your choice, apply textures, materials, all wherever you like, and not only between pre-defined armor plate edges. Also give the ability to import images to be used as paint jobs or textures. Also with symmetry options.
All of it must be done in game to optimize the loading of your custom paint job so it wouldn’t create a massive lag fest. Furthermore the desired imported objects can be displayed on the ship’s model while working with it and when done applying it would be optimized by the game’s engine to also reduce lag fest (to avoid the loading of super-large images that would cause lag) - or just limit their size to an acceptable detail level. They must also have symmetry options along with resizing abilities.
I mentioned the showcase ability in the opening. Basically let players share their ship models as previews with other players, just like the current ship preview system.
Add-ons from the discussions on this thread:
1. Ship model customization. This must be based on presets or made simple by integrating in-game models to choose from to keep the identity of the ships as they are: class and faction. To insure a certain good quality the players must have choices between changing only parts of the ship or the entire ship to a new style they like. Once again - the ship must maintain it’s factional theme after the body part change.
2. Ship naming. The ability to give our ships custom names, in addition to class / size and model type. The custom name should take importance when checking stats or other things on the ship, shortly followed by it’s designated model type (current names).
TL;DR: give us artists the ability to fully display our skills 
That is all folks. Rant on! I’ll update this post with anything interesting in the discussions below.
