It’s too early for a retrospective on Skyriter although I’d perhaps do some things differently if running it again, but there is a downside to splitting kits. MOQ. If you split a kit apart you have to consider what it’s MOQ can be. One benefit to putting obscure keycaps together with more common ones is you can ensure a higher MOQ and therefore lower prices. It’s a very fine balance for sure and I like what you’re saying here Konstantin but I just wanted to add this perspective.
Hi Cijanzen, thank you for your input, much appreciated as always. The highlighted bit is exactly why these kits are split in such a way that Specialties is useful to everyone, not just ≥60% users. I have no doubt that if this set is as successful as, say, SA Skyriter, it will do well with this kind of kitting and have no trouble meeting MOQ on all kits, while at the same time giving users more flexibility.
Of course, nothing is 100% for certain, and it's up to the runner to decide what would work best for the set based on the feedback and amount of interest he's gathered so far.
Other kitting decisions were also made bearing the above in mind: for example, I opted to give Ortho/40s their own spacekeys and not force them to buy Spacebars, since space kits
usually sell well anyway and don't need the extra boost from 40% users. However, as with everything else, this also is up for discussion; I think the way the current kits do it (and how Skyriter does it) is fine as well.
Out of the keys that I added to Specialties, probably not all of them are necessary. A few could be cut if needed, in order to secure an attractive price point for Alphas+TKL+Specialties, which is what I assume a lot of (if not most) people would be buying.