rotate skins every month

[Skuzzy]

There are skins, in the queue, that will not be in the game until 2015.

Increasing the skin count per plane is not going to happen.  I already spend about 1.5 man hours per skin, whether or not it gets into the game or into the queue or gets rejected.

Whether the skinner is playing the game or not, if the skin is being used, it stays in the game.  I have had skinners ask me to swap thier own skins around and I cannot do it.

Right now, the biggest issues is duplicate skin submissions.  A skin in the queue is not known about so skinners are submitting them.  A guys spends a lot of time creating a skin only to find it is already in the queue gets disappointed and then just gives up skinning.  I really think the best thing to do is to simply cut off entries once the skin queue, for any given plane, is full.

[Krusty]

I don't think that's the best solution.

Sometimes folks will skin multiple skins with little variation just to fill slots. There were about 4 nearly-identical P-47 skins put in for the same plane because ToD/CT might have a need for them, and because at the time the slots weren't full.

Now, we have no need for those 4 nearly-identical skins from similar units [edit: they may have since been rotated?], the CT/TOD is not going to use them, and they can be removed/benched/whatever to allow a bit more variety in the already-full P-47 skins.

Then there are times where a plane with all the skin slots filled has a lesser quality skin in place. Don't get me wrong I don't want any kind of ranking system, but things where basic alignment wasn't put into place, upper and lower stripes on wings don't match up, or gross inadequacies. If we had a P-51D skin like that and then there's Fencer's Big Beautiful Doll sitting in the queue, I would be perfectly okay with HTC saying "You know what, let's swap these, and damn the complaints"

(yes, even if they're swapping out one of MY skin!)

Totally subjective, granted, but I would think/hope HTC puts a bit of thought into the comparitive quality of the skins once the slot limit is reached.

[VonMessa]

Whether the skinner is playing the game or not, if the skin is being used, it stays in the game. 

Incidentally, is there a way of tracking the statistics of "skins used in game"?

[Skuzzy]

No.

[VonMessa]

No disrespect intended, but how is the GO/NO GO criteria of  "if it is being used " determined if there is not a way to track a skins usage?

(Believe it or not, I'm OK with a "Because I said so" answer) 

I do agree that a big sign saying "This skin has all slots filled and we are not accepting any more, ever" would be very discouraging to veteran and new skinners, alike.

I'm sure a more happy medium could be reached. 

[Skuzzy]

My answer was to your question.  There is no way for you to gather stats about skins being used.

[Krusty]

how is the GO/NO GO criteria of  "if it is being used " determined if there is not a way to track a skins usage?

Skuzzy, I think this was his followup question.

[VonMessa]

My answer was to your question.  There is no way for you to gather stats about skins being used.

Semantics, perhaps?  Did I ask the incorrect question?

Is there a way for YOU (read: HTC staff) to track skin usage   

[DEECONX]

Umm, why can't the amount of skins per plane be increased? Just wondering cause I don't know 

[Motherland]

I already spend about 1.5 man hours per skin, whether or not it gets into the game or into the queue or gets rejected.

Wow! I didn't know it took you so long. That puts things into a perspective...

[Krusty]

Umm, why can't the amount of skins per plane be increased? Just wondering cause I don't know 

Every resource must be loaded onto the system memory at one point or another. There are already (I think, it keeps increasing with every skin!) 3GB or so of textures in this game. Skuzzy's said there's no video card in existence that can run AH with all textures fully loaded, and you get these stutters, hiccups, when a plane enters your area and your computer has to load the textures onto it.

The reason they are limiting it to 15 is that this already stretches general system resources a bit. They even encourage folks to only load skins they use, to reduce the strain. I, on the other hand, like to see what skins other folks fly with so I load quite a bit.

Short answer: 15 slots only because the bloat increases greatly if you increase the slots.

[DEECONX]

Every resource must be loaded onto the system memory at one point or another. There are already (I think, it keeps increasing with every skin!) 3GB or so of textures in this game. Skuzzy's said there's no video card in existence that can run AH with all textures fully loaded, and you get these stutters, hiccups, when a plane enters your area and your computer has to load the textures onto it.

The reason they are limiting it to 15 is that this already stretches general system resources a bit. They even encourage folks to only load skins they use, to reduce the strain. I, on the other hand, like to see what skins other folks fly with so I load quite a bit.

Short answer: 15 slots only because the bloat increases greatly if you increase the slots.

Thanks, was just wondering 

[dhart]

seems like i remember going over this before. why not just make it to where you can download the ones you want instead of being told what we can use?

[Krusty]

We replied to you before: Because then there's no link between what YOU download and what the OTHER person uses. You could see bright red when he's flying camo green.

IMO it's worthless not to have it show the skin the other guy is actually using. Were that the case you might just have random skin generation on every plane in the game (blech!).

Your way doesn't work without increasing the slots, which (mentioned above) won't happen.

[guncrasher]

We replied to you before: Because then there's no link between what YOU download and what the OTHER person uses. You could see bright red when he's flying camo green.

IMO it's worthless not to have it show the skin the other guy is actually using. Were that the case you might just have random skin generation on every plane in the game (blech!).

Your way doesn't work without increasing the slots, which (mentioned above) won't happen.

not trying to be funny, if you are close enough to see the skin and all the detail that goes with it, you already crashed.

semp