So here’s my proposal on the starting loadout used by new players.
This should be enough to show that there’s more to this game than meets the eye.
Special Weapon swapping, different kinds of weapons, items that help you when something happens … you get the point.
Crucially, all of these added items are consumable and newbies will tend to use them when they don’t really need to, so they’ll have to get more keys to get these items themselves again.
Because they’ve spent the items wastefully themselves, the players know they got themselves to this point and will be more motivated to get the items back, especially if it’s pretty easy to do so (I also picked these items because they are the cheapest kind of their type). You’ll be more motivated to get these items back yourself if you enjoyed the fun you had with them earlier. It’s the “free trials” effect from supermarkets.
These items are also pretty cheap from the Store to get so it’s easier to get them back - though I think the starting set should contain 15 of the special weapons listed here (with the loadout they’ll lose up to 3 per mission so they’ll waste them in 5 missions) and 25 extra lives (from 20) to give them a bit more leeway - I see a lot of newbies joining random MP lobbies with their default loadouts, lose all the lives, then use their Missiles (see what I mean from before?), and then leave cause they can’t do much else anymore.
PS: There should also be a warning if you have the starting H&C 101 specifically, saying that the Key Bonus perk of this ship won’t work if they’re playing in Multiplayer. I’m pretty sure they don’t know this fact.