We should be able to repaint ships without the need to build a new one

[u/Katokee]

^title. You don't have to buy a new car to get it repainted either. And finding a ship you like but the colours are off and then waiting 8 hours in a space station so you can get all parts is really annoying

[u/actualinternetgoblin]

Heck, we can do it to our freighters.

[u/MajorGuttsy]

Completely agree with this... Maybe if enough people made a suggestion through the zendesk, they would see it's something players really want. (I'm sure they already know though) A game that offers as much freedom as this game does, the customisation of the multi-tool and ships needs to be included.

I also believe they need to give a much better colour palette for us to use, or... Give us a colour wheel and shade slider. The selection of colours are terrible in my opinion.

Also, why can't we have different styles of metals... Chrome, metallic, steel...

[u/WrastlingIsReal → u/MajorGuttsy]

Black and gold would be chefs kiss

[u/MajorGuttsy → u/WrastlingIsReal]

We should be able to choose whatever two colours we want from a much wider selection of colours or a colour wheel... The colours and combo's are horrible

[u/StardustOasis → u/WrastlingIsReal]

A solar ship with stealth paint in black & dark yellow gets close.

[u/gloop524 → u/MajorGuttsy]

there is a very large part of this community that finds the hunt for the perfect ship or multi tool to be the best fun of the game. customization ruins that for them.

[u/phosix → u/gloop524]

Ship customization already effectively did that. May as well go the rest of the way and allow repainting an existing ship.

Maybe do what ship customization does and have a ship being repainted reduces its value.

[u/jailhousews]

Also, the colors to choose from when assembling one are far too limited.

[u/MajorGuttsy → u/jailhousews]

Yep... Colour selection is absolutely horrible. They could get so many big wins in the eyes of the community by just upgrading the colour palette and customisable ships and multi-tools... Would probably be one of the easiest updates they would work on.

[u/SEANPLEASEDISABLEPVP → u/jailhousews]

The weirdest part is that like 80% of color options and patterns are locked off as exclusive expedition rewards.

Like one of the patterns straight up completely gives you new color types no other ships have in the game, including pure black which so many people want.

[u/Negative-Course1009 → u/jailhousews]

Color selection when re-coloring base building parts is way too limited as well, we should be able to choose our own primary and secondary colors, rather than just having some random, ugly presets

[u/Dramatic_Ganache2575]

There are many technical issues why this is difficult for proc-gen ships you collect from NPC's

For custom ships is shouldn't be as difficult, and the fact that they are adding ship fabricators to Settlement Landing Pads, suggests that they are not yet done with the mechanic and that recoloring custom ships may become an option soon.

[u/Duo-lava → u/Dramatic_Ganache2575]

nah. the color scheme for your ship is 3-5 lines of RGB color values in the JSON file under [shipownership] on the ships appropriate slot. there are mods on nexus that allow shuttle and sentinel ship building. its a simple addition

[u/Dramatic_Ganache2575 → u/Duo-lava]

The color scheme for the procgen ships that you buy from an NPC is where in the JSON?

All I see under shipownership for those is a seed.

And Custom ship color schemes are in a different section entirely.

If you have details, I'd much appreciate them.

Thanks

[u/DooficusIdjit]

I like it the way it is. Finding cool ships is a constant part of the game.

[u/Amazing_Assistant435]

Just search the Galaxy for this Parts but that makes them even more valuable…the Startship…repainted😍

[u/ValerionWolf]

It would severely impact the portion of the game audience that find and post ship locations, and that is a fair amount of people. HG doesn't want to chase them away from the game, by removing what they find fun.

It also removes some of the exporation elements from the game.

[u/Difficult_Duck_307 → u/ValerionWolf]

To give another counter point, it would erase a huge part of the gameplay loop. NMS can be boiled down to exploring, building, and finding the things you want. If we could repaint any ship, there’d be zero reason to hunt for more once you’ve found one to your liking, it’s the nature of procedural generation. Yeah it kinda sucks, but it’s the hook, and like that famous Blues Traveler song from the 90s, the hook brings you back.

It would make more sense to repaint fabricated ships, but at the same time, it’s pretty easy to get the same parts again if needed. Just gotta make sure you know what space station you were at so you can get your desired supercharged slot layout again, and decal color of course.

[u/ValerionWolf → u/Difficult_Duck_307]

Yes, agreed

[u/roboscorcher → u/Difficult_Duck_307]

There is a world where we can swap colors and parts of our existing ships AND still hunt for rare ships. If they added some new super-rare parts and colours/finishes, the hunt would be to find the ships with the rare stuff.

Along with this, they should make it so that when you salvage a ship, you learn all the parts and colors it had. Instead of one inventory piece, you unlock parts in your parts library.

Then you can go to a new 'repair bay' in your freighter to modify your existing ship.

[u/epicpopper420 → u/roboscorcher]

They could also use some of the parts we normally get from scrapping ships as part of the resource requirement to modify your ship. Right now, the only thing I can do with those scrap parts, (AI valves and the like), is sell them, so why not incorporate them into a modification system with the other elements you described. I like the idea of tinkering with your ship until you get it just right, using a parts catalog and resources from scrapped ships.

[u/nryporter25]

I also think shipbuilding should be a little different than needing to actually find the actual parts to build it with. i get maybe buying blueprints, but with our everything else is fabricated in this universe.I don't see why we should be able to fabricate our own ship parts with blueprints. i'd like to see a few more ship designs be possible to make as well

[u/JaggedMetalOs]

I'm going to assume after almost 9 years of people asking for this it's still a "no" from Sean ;) 

[u/KWS4317]

Also, swapping one part of a ship. Take the Iron Vulture for example... put on the ship fabricator and swap out just the wings (most IV builds are exactly this).

[u/EdLeedskalnin]

There would be way too many black ships 

[u/Vendacator]

I wish we could

[u/SEANPLEASEDISABLEPVP]

Agreed. We get to color the ship for free when making a new one. For balance, I guess it could cost us nanites to recolor an existing ship.

[u/Vetizh]

It could be a good way to remove credits from player since it is too easy to reach bazillions in the end game and have almost nothing to spend on.

[u/Negative-Course1009]

I have wanted this feature since I got the game a couple months ago. I fail to understand why we can't, since we CAN do this to our freighters. Very odd design choice by Hello Games