16 replies to this topic

[Remillard]

I suspect this is a quickie. I'm getting a little tired of my mechs basic paint schemes. So I've looked into the color and pattern purchasing.

I know paint has a one-shot cheap price. I don't know if pattern does.

Are paints and patterns global (I was awarded Ox-Blood Red for the V-Day's event and that seems to show up for all mechs.) or are they limited to weight, family, or specific variant?

Really hoping if I buy a blue, I can spraypaint blue over anything I want but micro-transaction greed knows few if any bounds.

[Krassos]

Afaik colors are global and the permanent patterns are for all variants of a single chassis.

[Dan Baxter]

When you purchase most paint with MC, you unlock it for use with all of your 'mechs. So if you bought a blue for 500 MC, you could apply it to all of your 'mechs without paying again. If you are buying colors though, it is best to wait for a 50% sale.

Patterns are different, and you have 2 purchasing options: one-shot and unlock. one-shot only puts the pattern on the 'mech you purchased it for, but if you want to change the pattern you will need to spend MC again to pick a new pattern or repurchase the pattern you had.

Unlocking a pattern allows you to use the pattern you purchased on all variants of a chassis you own. So for example, if you unlock the Sherman pattern for your Timberwolf Prime, you can use the pattern on all of the Timberwolves (A, B, C, D, and S) you own without spending MC on repurchasing the pattern if you decide to change your pattern to something different.

Unlocking is rarely worth it, unless you're the type of person who either owns a large number of the same 'mech or just want to change your pattern constantly. One-shot patterns are the best deal for patterns.

Edited by Dan Baxter, 19 February 2016 - 04:12 PM.

[Rogue Jedi]

paint is always unlock for everything.

cammo has 2 options,
you can get the one shot which is cheep but is a single application to a single Mech,
or you can unlock which is unlimited applications to any variant of that chassis, e.g. all Spiders or all Timber Wolves ^{(the Hero and some special variants still have fixed cammo but PGI have said that sooner or later all Mechs will have full cammo compatibility, it is just taking them a while to work through the older chassis).}

I would recommend the one shot as the unlock is literaly 10 times as expensive.

also some of the packs give you the option for faction content including paint, cammo^{(unlock for the chassis purchased with the pack only)} and cockpit items, the higher tier of pack you get the more faction content picks you get.
the faction content always includes at least 3 colours, 1 cammo Patten and 3 cockpit items
the Clan Origins IIC collection and the Inner Sphere Resistance 2 faction content provides 6 colours per content
the first Resistance pack and the Clan Wave2 and Wave3 faction content only includes 3 paints.

you get 1 content pick for each tier of the pack, max of 4 for the Clan packs but with the Resistance packs if you buy the top tier you can choose 6 IS faction content, it is possible to claim the same pick twice but that means you only get the cockpit items because you cannot get duplicates of paint or cammo

none of the other packs offer faction content

Edited by Rogue Jedi, 19 February 2016 - 11:42 AM.

[Remillard]

Thanks for the replies. Sounds like a one-shot sounds like the best deal. I don't know if I can completely wait for a deal for colors, but I could just get a few that do what I want for the time being and get more in bulk when it's worthwhile to do so.

[Morggo]

On colours, one thing to notice is to scan around all of the pallet. There are varying prices..

- Most cost 1000
- Some cost 500
- Some you can actually buy for ingame, think 1.5MM

Oddly, some of the 'basic' colours for cbills are nearly identical to some of the expensive ones... though there are only a handful of them.

Edited by Morggo, 19 February 2016 - 01:49 PM.

[Jables McBarty]

Morggo, on 19 February 2016 - 01:49 PM, said:

- Some you can actually buy for ingame, think 1.5MM

Oddly, some of the 'basic' colours for cbills are nearly identical to some of the expensive ones... though there are only a handful of them.

This was correct as of a month or two ago when I bought Basic Blue. I think the only other one is Basic Red (and you get Basic Green for free!)

[Morggo]

Oh boo, I should have picked them up then.

Edited by Morggo, 19 February 2016 - 03:37 PM.

[Koniving]

Pattern.

Remillard, on 19 February 2016 - 11:16 AM, said:

I suspect this is a quickie. I'm getting a little tired of my mechs basic paint schemes. So I've looked into the color and pattern purchasing.

I know paint has a one-shot cheap price. I don't know if pattern does.

Okay, I see something I gotta straighten out... Lets get this clear.

One... Paints are for everything, and there is no "one shot cheap price" for paint. Buy a color, put the color on anything and everything.

There are three KINDS of colors.
Ze Cbills, these are really muted basic colors but even these colors can change your world.
Ze Cheap, these are often 'faded' or 'dull' colors. De-saturated.
Ze Average, these are good colors. Covers most of them.
Ze Premium, these colors are heavily saturated, the ZOMG of color. Rich, strong colors.

The Catapult above is using average paints.
I used to have a series of images with a Dragon, recreating a paint job with each kind of paint to show the difference (and to show that the Zhizhu paint scheme can be recreated with any budget). It also had the price tags to show the difference. Sadly those seem to have been lost with the original Zhizhu forums. I'm sorry.


Two... Patterns come in two options, and two types.
The options are:

• One shot. Dirt cheap, one use; stays until you change patterns (you can look but don't save). Only works on the variant of the mech chassis you've bought for it. (If you plan on doing a lot of painting and like to keep multiple variants and/or collect mechs... this is a bad option to use).
  
• Unlock. This is for the entire chassis. So Unlock the pattern for the Hunchback, and every Hunchback (except the hero) can use it.

The types are:
Normal. (Basic camo patterns.)
Premium. (Patterns considered to be elaborate for some reason).

ALWAYS check the price of colors and patterns before buying!
Wait for Fridays; there's a sale almost every friday on colors and patterns, usually knocking 30 to 50% off.

[Remillard]

Wow, yeah thanks for the detailed reply there. I had wondered on the pricing and how it broke down a bit. Compared to "costumes" in other F2P, the whole dye system is oddly expensive but if it unlocks forever I can forgive them a little bit. The camo patterns -- we'll see.

[wild knight]

1500 credits to get it on one chassis is idiotic, I think they get purchases for that only rarely, or when some dummy like me buys it, thinking it is a actual unlock for all Mechs owned.

Yep I did it yesterday, and then figured it out that I was wrong... Never again... I will stick to one shots from now on.

[Jingseng]

Rogue Jedi, on 19 February 2016 - 11:31 AM, said:

paint is always unlock for everything.

cammo has 2 options,
you can get the one shot which is cheep but is a single application to a single Mech,
or you can unlock which is unlimited applications to any variant of that chassis, e.g. all Spiders or all Timber Wolves ^{(the Hero and some special variants still have fixed cammo but PGI have said that sooner or later all Mechs will have full cammo compatibility, it is just taking them a while to work through the older chassis).}

I would recommend the one shot as the unlock is literaly 10 times as expensive.

also some of the packs give you the option for faction content including paint, cammo^{(unlock for the chassis purchased with the pack only)} and cockpit items, the higher tier of pack you get the more faction content picks you get.
the faction content always includes at least 3 colours, 1 cammo Patten and 3 cockpit items
the Clan Origins IIC collection and the Inner Sphere Resistance 2 faction content provides 6 colours per content
the first Resistance pack and the Clan Wave2 and Wave3 faction content only includes 3 paints.

you get 1 content pick for each tier of the pack, max of 4 for the Clan packs but with the Resistance packs if you buy the top tier you can choose 6 IS faction content, it is possible to claim the same pick twice but that means you only get the cockpit items because you cannot get duplicates of paint or cammo

none of the other packs offer faction content

Just FYI: for IS resistance packs, light mech tier = 1 selection, med tier = 2, heavy tier = 4, and asslt = 6

[Jingseng]

Also, I have the hot rod flames pattern on my bh2... so while I've read you can't override pattern on a hero, I've done it at least there... haven't bothered to try on any other hero (the bh2 hero pattern is... bleh.)

[Rogue Jedi]

Origionaly hero Mechs had locked cammo but about a year ago PGI started retrofitting paterns for the older chassis, part of that was setting them up for the hero Mechs and other special varients.

new Mechs are now released with full cammo support and older Mechs are done when there is time but it takes about a day to camo a chassis and with about 30 patterns available it is taking quite a while to update all Mechs camo

[Tesunie]

On the note of colors, there are several colors you can purchase for C-bills. There is Basic Blue, Basic Red, Basic Purple, Basic Orange and Basic Green (you have green for free). These will always (as far as I understand) be available for C-bills.

Rest of the information already seems to be in the thread, so I see no need to repeat it.

[G4LV4TR0N]

If I would buy One Shot Camo for my mech, would I be able to recolor it anytime I want with my owned colors without spending additional MC's?

[Rogue Jedi]

Yes, provided you own the colours you can recolour a Mech with a one shot pattern as oftern as you want, however if you change the pattern (e.g. You have hotrod, change to Davion, then decide you want to go back to hotrod) and want to put it back you will have to pay again if you save