It shouldn’t be that way. It doesn’t take much effort to have a section for “Other items required” and list “None”. Really this is a marketing failure, as it makes me less likely to spend my money with FT, as I’m afraid I’m going to get it wrong. They should also have a video for each product they sell, explaining these things as well. They do such a good job with their airplanes, you would think they could do the same with other items they sell.
(Time to start another thread for my new questions on battery chargers!)
I was a bit surprised by this because their store generally does a better job of laying out what you need better than most. I popped into the value bundle page to see what you were talking about and yeah, it seems like particularly on the value pack page there could be a bit of additional explanation given. The value pack is the speed build kit for the airplane itself, plus the A power pack. The product page for each of those parts does a better job of explaining what you need, but I can see how it could be confusing when you only see the value bundle page. On the video side of thing, you should check out the build video at the bottom and watch the entire thing. That gives a really good overview of everything that goes into the plane and you can see where each part of the value pack is used.
Fwiw, I'm a software developer myself, and even though I've been trying to make my software easy to use for 20 years, it's very difficult to anticipate what users will or will not understand. I don't take it personally any more when users complain about my software, but it's rarely possible to make software that everybody will understand immediately. You just don't know what experiences and preconceptions people have when they see your software for the first time. Things will happen like I'll name a button with a word, and that word makes perfect sense to <me> in that context, but then a user comes along from a different industry where that word has a specific alternate meaning that I never knew about, and it causes confusion for that user. My design wasn't stupid or lazy, and the user wasn't stupid or lazy, but there was confusion anyways. What I'm trying to say is that FT has done a pretty good job, particularly for a family business, of explaining what needs to be done. You're right that there are gaps, but I feel like we ought to be charitable about it. Ask questions, get the help you need, and then when you have a decent understanding of things you can help the next new people who come along. I was new at this six months ago, by the way. Well, I still am new at it, just less new.
I hope you're very successful at this. Post videos and ask questions. It's fun to see how you're progressing!
