Does anyone else think the concept of engineers is terrible?

[Greasetrap42]

I could accept this if they didn't also make the realism excuse when it was convenient to them. Something doesn't make sense "it's a game", something isn't fun "it wouldn't be realistic".

Realism is usually prefered when reasonable, feasible, and works with the game. There is an attempt to make certain aspects realistic, but many aspects will be limited by the fact that it is a video game.

It is easy to pick apart the lack of realism in open world video games. Beginning with the immortality of the player's character.

 

[Star Wanderer]

You have these magic space gurus, the only dudes in the galaxy who know the hidden secrets of how to get the most out of your modules and weapons... except somehow the entirety of the Federal and Imperial Navies having access to these secret tinkering techniques as well. Not to mention, these modifications are so common that even some dinky little pirates have them! And out of nations of trillions, apparently only a few dozen know how to pop the hood of your ASP Explorer and fiddle with the engine. They must get a ton of business if literally millions of pilots are popping by on the daily, and it's totally immersion breaking in that regard.

The fact that so many activities near demand vast amounts of engineering is mindnumbing to say the least, to even fly safely in open if you aren't rocking G5 meta builds on a dedicated combat ship you're a little fish to anyone with even the slightest bit of engineering on their space-boat. The amount of time just to get one ship up to par, mining iron (Iron of all things, one of the most common metals in the known universe and we can't buy it but we can buy literal tons of gold off the market?) just to trickle up your stats little by little is monotonous. As a person with limited time to play, it just makes me want to go play something else instead of slogging through another job just to be able to do the things I enjoy without being at a disadvantage.

Playing a game shouldn't feel like a chore, having billions of credits and not being able to spend it on the simplest things like iron to give to your magic space guru is dumb, there's no way FDev can spin it where I won't think that it has been a terrible addition to the game.

I can't be the only one who feels this way?

I've seen where they are looking at making engineering "more accessible" but the fact remains is that I believe it's a poor mechanic to begin with. I don't think there's a single way it can be spun to where it makes the slightest bit of sense.

I just don't see why material trading has to exist at all. If you squint a bit you might be able to make a slight case for raw materials (though lol at the idea of having to fly to the middle of bum nowhere on a planet to farm carbon), but everything else...

You're telling me that there's entire industries around building ship parts, software companies writing code for ship systems (that can magically be transferred to a USB drive by just scanning something) and yet you can't just go into any station and just buy them? How the do these parts enter the market in the first place? What sort of rubbish proprietary contracts and space-DRM prevents me from walking into a Core Dynamics station with my billions of credits and just securing a contract with them to supply my magical spaceshipmancer with all the materials they need to make my FSD suck less? If I need a specific material why are the only options farming them myself or trading them like Pokémon cards?

If engineers need these materials, why don't they arrange a contract with the manufacturer and just bill us for the cost? Material traders would only work in practice if they're sitting on an unlimited amount of materials, so why are they trading a small amount of their unlimited stash of G5 mats to add to their unlimited pile of G1 mats and not trading something universally useful like, oh I dunno, credits? How the did they get all that polonium anyway without being classed a security risk?

Nothing about the mat grind makes any sense and that's why it's so frustrating. The only purpose it serves is preventing CMDRs with fast stacks of credits engineering their way to the max without any difficulty, but really it just makes engineering unnecessarily tedious for everyone. It's rubbish, it doesn't make any sense both in-universe and out, and it's also a major reason why people don't stick with the game and just needs to go.

If you look at this trailer, the concept of engineers makes sense again:

It's just a game.

 

[metatheurgist]

I could accept this if they didn't also make the realism excuse when it was convenient to them. Something doesn't make sense "it's a game", something isn't fun "it wouldn't be realistic".

Same. It's funny how someone's tolerance for game nonsense is so variable. I personally find it highly offensive that so called "precious" commodities can be mined in the thousands of tons, sold in the millions collectively so much that there must be entire space stations built out of precious gems. And yet the price of these things remains consistently high. Yet this nonsense is perfectly fine for most for some reason by those "offended" by things that "don't make sense". I wonder why?

 

[Kotoku]

Well, yes?
I mean what's the point complaining about he game which is 8 years old already.
It's not like it's going to change.

So if you dont like it, dont play it because it wont suddenly change from a game you hate into a game you love

It's not like it's going to change, just because it's 8 years old?

What sort of logic is that? What do you call EDO?
You could even argue (to a point) that the 14 updates to EDO so far are a form of change alchemy, trying to transform lead into gold.

They've introduced many changes over the 8 years, the only constant being the grind game design philosophy.
They could change that too, in various ways from small to large, if they wanted to.
In some cases they have, tweaking payout amounts for various activities being an obvious one that triggers a lot of people for different reasons - some very strange ones too.

It's entirely possible for FDev to implement a material marketplace for ship/suit engineering mats/weapons etc.
All the systems are there to do it - even within the constraints of the current engine.
The only reason it's not done is they don't want to do it.
Arguments about "balance" are bogus excuses, you can poke a hole in any of the existing "balanced" systems without even trying.

So if you dont like it, dont play it because it wont suddenly change from a game you hate into a game you love

That's a strange to say, all you have to do is look at the history of gaming to negate that. Plenty of games have managed that transition, because they made a choice to do it and/or because enough players told them directly (by -ve feedback) or indirectly (by leaving or not buying it).
A current example of an ED/EDO contemporay product in the same genre: how do you think No Man's Sky converted all its haters? BY CHANGING.
NMS isn't to my taste, but they've done a lot of interesting things and turned their ship around quite neatly, whether you like it personally or not.

 

[Sylveria]

There are 3 things that I find weird about the engineering concept:

1. The "cost" is the same regardless of the size class of module.​

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2. The value of the ship does not increase. Rebuy remains the same.​

​

3. Insurance includes the replacement of engineered modules.​

I don't think the OP would like it if I was the lead designer of ED.

I'd have actually added a random chance if mechanical failure, given the mechanical nature of all modules, weapons, etc.

Then I'd add in an increase in chance if failure for pushing modules past rated limitations. You know, like you can dump NOS into your engine for as long as you like, buuuuuuut.....

 

[Muzz UK]

Which I find to be horrible, poorly designed game design.


Forcing myself to do all those things I don't want to do, to get the things I do want, makes me want to play less and less.

in fact, I'm playing less and less.

Yep I get that the thing is I have friends who still play all these years down the line with little or no engineering. The only thing they are really locked out of is PvP they can still do the other elements in game just travelling for example without FSD upgrades makes getting places longer but the Guardian tech is an entirely differnet alternative. I don't think engineering is that bad few tweaks to drop rates and gathering plus adding requirements for each career type and you're fine.

 

[ferus]

I do have a problem with Engineers.
Considering that the original implementation of Engingeers was later overhauled in Horizons it's not too silly to try and convince FDev to do the same for Ody.

My top issues with the current desing are:

- I don't like the fact that there is absolutely no info in game where to look for Ody engineering materials (just like there was initially no info in Horizons). Just look at the sheer number of materials/assets and data and yet there is no information what might be a good place to find them.

- I don't like the fact that you can't pin a recipe and track it in game. You are once again forced to use 3rd party tools or an excel sheet.

- I don't like the fact that you can't trade all of the needed resources (just like you can with ship resources).

- I don't like the fact that you can't get all of the resources as mission rewards.

- I don't like the sheer number of needed materials.

- I don't like the fact that among Ody resources there is way too much balast that has absolutely no use in game only to make your chances of finding the right resource lower.

- I hate the fact that even if you do everything right (you find the right system, with the right state, then you find the right settlement type, with the right buildiing type, with the right locker/data point type) you can still be given the middle finger by RNG and get an utterly useless piece of rubbish.


There were plenty of things that were reworked by FDev after players' feedback so everyone who has an issue with an aspect of the game can (and should) give feedback.
Discouraging others from doing so is not the right approach.
There is much that can be improved in ED.

Without players' feedback we would still have Fleet carriers that are not able to actually carry our fleet.
We would still have fleet carriers with lower range/higher fuel consumption.
Engineers would still be a very RNG thing that promises no improvement at all.
The whole of Beyond would have never happened and Horizons would still be a bugfest (even worse than it is now).
Guardian blueprints would still be 10 times worse.
We would never have ship transfer.

 

[Endealon]

My top issues with the current desing are:

- I don't like the fact that there is absolutely no info in game where to look for Ody engineering materials (just like there was initially no info in Horizons). Just look at the sheer number of materials/assets and data and yet there is no information what might be a good place to find them.

- I don't like the fact that you can't pin a recipe and track it in game. You are once again forced to use 3rd party tools or an excel sheet.

- I don't like the fact that you can't trade all of the needed resources (just like you can with ship resources).

- I don't like the fact that you can't get all of the resources as mission rewards.

- I don't like the sheer number of needed materials.

- I don't like the fact that among Ody resources there is way too much balast that has absolutely no use in game only to make your chances of finding the right resource lower.

- I hate the fact that even if you do everything right (you find the right system, with the right state, then you find the right settlement type, with the right buildiing type, with the right locker/data point type) you can still be given the middle finger by RNG and get an utterly useless piece of rubbish.

I think this sums it up very well. +1

How the developers could have considered this good game design is beyond me.

 

[Tividar]

You don't need a combat ship to fly safely in open. The engineering required to make a trade ship that can escape any ganker (without even needing to high wake) is a fraction of the engineering needed for a combat ship.

You can escape gankers without any engineering at all. Look up the [REDACTED: Content breaks forum rules.] on YouTube, which shows how an un-engineered Type 6 can escape gankers.

Um… I lost a fully engineered AX Cutter twice tonight. Total engagement time between first salvo and detonation was less than five seconds. First death happened while I was in the mail slot, second inside the station. Not sure How the attacker was surviving the station-fire, but I ended up logging when I realized his packhounds were detonating on the landing pad above me.

Might have been a hacker, but I doubt it. I recognized the packhounds, reverb torps, and FSD reset dumb-fire. Possibly chaff kept the station-fire off him? The thing that doesn’t add up was that it wasn’t a large ship, but it had at least 3 hardpoints devoted to missiles/torps (and more likely 5), and still had enough additional hardpoints to ghost me in seconds.

But sure, an unengineered Type-6 would have been fine…

 

[Northpin]

It's not like it's going to change, just because it's 8 years old?

What sort of logic is that? What do you call EDO?

EDO didnt change Ship Engineering, nor any of the ship mechanics
IT added stuff like on-foot engineering and on-foot combat and exo-biology and apex

But even if now we can apparently be disconnected from our ships, you still have an active ship and you cannot use other ships unless you change the active ship.

They've introduced many changes over the 8 years, the only constant being the grind game design philosophy.

Many?
I can remember only 2 major changes to an existing mechanic:

• one was to engineering when they removed global caps on materials, introduced categorization, changed the blueprints and generally speaking made engineering reliable and consistent in its results
• the second was the removal of ADS and introducing FSS - so a rather major change to exploration

That doesnt mean it wont be further changes, but - while i'm quite curious about what revamp of a major feature they have planned for next year, i dont really think it will be ship engineering (if so it would be the second major revamp for engineering while PP really could use some redoing)
However, there are some slim chances they will either redo ship engineering to become like on-foot engineering (but i guess a lot of their loyal fan base will be really miffed over it) or they'll redo on-foot engineering to be more like ship engineering (with better materials categorization, removal of global caps, removable mods, etc)

 

[Darkfyre99]

Um… I lost a fully engineered AX Cutter twice tonight. Total engagement time between first salvo and detonation was less than five seconds. First death happened while I was in the mail slot, second inside the station. Not sure How the attacker was surviving the station-fire, but I ended up logging when I realized his packhounds were detonating on the landing pad above me.

Might have been a hacker, but I doubt it. I recognized the packhounds, reverb torps, and FSD reset dumb-fire. Possibly chaff kept the station-fire off him? The thing that doesn’t add up was that it wasn’t a large ship, but it had at least 3 hardpoints devoted to missiles/torps (and more likely 5), and still had enough additional hardpoints to ghost me in seconds.

But sure, an unengineered Type-6 would have been fine…

It isn't a Type-6, but I occasionally take out a Type-9 into at CG's. It isn't engineered, except for its FSD, and I've encountered the exact same situation you describe above. Except in my case, my Type-9 was able to absorb the alpha-strike and survive, and docked fast enough that the PK exploiting the rather well known safe spot in the docking bay couldn't get in a second volley. Of course, it wasn't one of those aluminum foil transport ships that the "how to play the game" guides recommend. It had military grade armor, 7A shields, two shield boosters, point defense, and chaff. I also sacrificed six tons of cargo for some hull reinforcement.

I was able to survive because I assumed that at least one of the players inside would be using this exploit, so I made sure I "Buckyballed" my landing, popping my chaff has I went through the docking slot. I'd do that anyway, I respect my time too much to waste it by "playing it safe," but the point is a Type-9, which is a slow and clumsy space ship, was able to do this. A Type-6 is much faster and more nimble, and given the skill level of the typical PK, would've passed through the docking slot fast enough that they PK wouldn't be able land a solid hit on the ship before I'd docked in it.

Yes, I might've hit another ship on the way in, but a fine is cheaper than a rebuy, with all cargo lost. I consider that a fair deal even under normal circumstances. In a probable combat landing scenario? It's a no brainer in my book.

Player killers are able to succeed because they rely on their targets to cooperate with them. Many players follow these "how to play the game" guides, and naturally PKs have access to them. These guides create a script for players who want to follow the path of least resistance to "win" this game, even if it takes longer to do so and is a "boring grind," and that makes them predictable, and thus easy to kill. They're frequently pretty bad at the game in my experience, otherwise they wouldn't targeting transport ships.

 

[Kotoku]

EDO didnt change Ship Engineering, nor any of the ship mechanics
IT added stuff like on-foot engineering and on-foot combat and exo-biology and apex

But even if now we can apparently be disconnected from our ships, you still have an active ship and you cannot use other ships unless you change the active ship.



Many?
I can remember only 2 major changes to an existing mechanic:

• one was to engineering when they removed global caps on materials, introduced categorization, changed the blueprints and generally speaking made engineering reliable and consistent in its results
• the second was the removal of ADS and introducing FSS - so a rather major change to exploration

That doesnt mean it wont be further changes, but - while i'm quite curious about what revamp of a major feature they have planned for next year, i dont really think it will be ship engineering (if so it would be the second major revamp for engineering while PP really could use some redoing)
However, there are some slim chances they will either redo ship engineering to become like on-foot engineering (but i guess a lot of their loyal fan base will be really miffed over it) or they'll redo on-foot engineering to be more like ship engineering (with better materials categorization, removal of global caps, removable mods, etc)

Change is change, don't reframe/redefine things just to suit yourself.

This is a much more accurate account of how ED/EDO evolved.

...


There were plenty of things that were reworked by FDev after players' feedback so everyone who has an issue with an aspect of the game can (and should) give feedback.
Discouraging others from doing so is not the right approach.
There is much that can be improved in ED.

Without players' feedback we would still have Fleet carriers that are not able to actually carry our fleet.
We would still have fleet carriers with lower range/higher fuel consumption.
Engineers would still be a very RNG thing that promises no improvement at all.
The whole of Beyond would have never happened and Horizons would still be a bugfest (even worse than it is now).
Guardian blueprints would still be 10 times worse.
We would never have ship transfer.

 

[Rat Catcher]

Engineering (and every ship) should be just bought with (literally) a few credits. Then even new players can have everything in the game's engineering loadouts even before leaving the starter zone.

Then players can enjoy the game in every type of ship, fully engineered, virtually from day 1.

(yes, I'm being facetious, I think...)

 

[Greasetrap42]

Engineering (and every ship) should be just bought with (literally) a few credits. Then even new players can have everything in the game's engineering loadouts even before leaving the starter zone.

 

[Rat Catcher]

View attachment 335298

It is the usual regurgitation of "I don't WANNA!" that vomits onto the forum at regular enough intervals...

If there was no engineering progression, I am pretty sure that the very same 'campaigners' would be back on complaining there is no progress in the game

 

[Ian Skippy]

Well, yes?
I mean what's the point complaining about he game which is 8 years old already.
It's not like it's going to change.

So if you dont like it, dont play it because it wont suddenly change from a game you hate into a game you love

FD repeatedly asked for input on engineers because they too feel it can be improved. No offense, but if you don't want players to discuss suggestions at least have the basic decency not to try chase them away. Go read something else instead, there is no need for space-MAGA.

 

[Greasetrap42]

FD repeatedly asked for input on engineers because they too feel it can be improved. No offense, but if you don't want players to discuss suggestions at least have the basic decency not to try chase them away.

What was the Original Post's suggestion? All I got from it was they don't like engineering. No mention of alternatives, changes, or suggestions.

Except an undertone of simply remove it. Which I highly doubt FDev is going to do.

There certainly are lots of great things that could be done for improving engineering, but that does not appear to be the intended discussion opened by the OP.

 

[Endealon]

What was the Original Post's suggestion? All I got from it was they don't like engineering. No mention of alternatives, changes, or suggestions.

I did not write in the "suggestions" section.

 

[Thatchinho]

You have these magic space gurus, the only dudes in the galaxy who know the hidden secrets of how to get the most out of your modules and weapons... except somehow the entirety of the Federal and Imperial Navies having access to these secret tinkering techniques as well. Not to mention, these modifications are so common that even some dinky little pirates have them! And out of nations of trillions, apparently only a few dozen know how to pop the hood of your ASP Explorer and fiddle with the engine. They must get a ton of business if literally millions of pilots are popping by on the daily, and it's totally immersion breaking in that regard.

The fact that so many activities near demand vast amounts of engineering is mindnumbing to say the least, to even fly safely in open if you aren't rocking G5 meta builds on a dedicated combat ship you're a little fish to anyone with even the slightest bit of engineering on their space-boat. The amount of time just to get one ship up to par, mining iron (Iron of all things, one of the most common metals in the known universe and we can't buy it but we can buy literal tons of gold off the market?) just to trickle up your stats little by little is monotonous. As a person with limited time to play, it just makes me want to go play something else instead of slogging through another job just to be able to do the things I enjoy without being at a disadvantage.

Playing a game shouldn't feel like a chore, having billions of credits and not being able to spend it on the simplest things like iron to give to your magic space guru is dumb, there's no way FDev can spin it where I won't think that it has been a terrible addition to the game.

I can't be the only one who feels this way?

I've seen where they are looking at making engineering "more accessible" but the fact remains is that I believe it's a poor mechanic to begin with. I don't think there's a single way it can be spun to where it makes the slightest bit of sense.

I just don't see why material trading has to exist at all. If you squint a bit you might be able to make a slight case for raw materials (though lol at the idea of having to fly to the middle of bum nowhere on a planet to farm carbon), but everything else...

You're telling me that there's entire industries around building ship parts, software companies writing code for ship systems (that can magically be transferred to a USB drive by just scanning something) and yet you can't just go into any station and just buy them? How the do these parts enter the market in the first place? What sort of rubbish proprietary contracts and space-DRM prevents me from walking into a Core Dynamics station with my billions of credits and just securing a contract with them to supply my magical spaceshipmancer with all the materials they need to make my FSD suck less? If I need a specific material why are the only options farming them myself or trading them like Pokémon cards?

If engineers need these materials, why don't they arrange a contract with the manufacturer and just bill us for the cost? Material traders would only work in practice if they're sitting on an unlimited amount of materials, so why are they trading a small amount of their unlimited stash of G5 mats to add to their unlimited pile of G1 mats and not trading something universally useful like, oh I dunno, credits? How the did they get all that polonium anyway without being classed a security risk?

Nothing about the mat grind makes any sense and that's why it's so frustrating. The only purpose it serves is preventing CMDRs with fast stacks of credits engineering their way to the max without any difficulty, but really it just makes engineering unnecessarily tedious for everyone. It's rubbish, it doesn't make any sense both in-universe and out, and it's also a major reason why people don't stick with the game and just needs to go.

Not going to get into the implementation discussion here, but just going to talk about the concept of the Engineers themselves within the context of the game universe.

Yes indeed, the idea that out of a galactic population of 7 trillion, only a handful are capable of modifying parts is absolutely ludicrous. At first sight at least.

Let's take more than a first sight glance at it though.

The ED universe is decidedly dystopian (or is supposed to be at least). There are long established vested powers, and manipulation and deception of the public in the galaxy is rampant. Alongside the main superpowers, corporations and other organisations wield huge power.

So when you think about it more, with the Engineers it's not just about the capability of making a modification, it's also:

• Being able to provide that service on a mass scale to millions of people multiple times
• To do so without being shut down
• To be able to dangle enough carrots in front of people (players) to get them to do what the Engineers want
• Being able to avoid any action from the authorities as a consequence of what they get people to do*

*Engineers have people (players) doing criminal actions for them, supporting criminal factions, doing other morally dubious things like supporting Sirius, and on a more currently relevant point, some have been getting players to do things which have provoked conflict with the Thargoids.

So it's not just about the actual ability to make modifications, it's about having the power, money and influence to do what the engineers actually do. It's highly conceivable that the amount of individuals of that nature in the ED universe is very small.

 

[Greasetrap42]

I did not write in the "suggestions" section.

Correct. I was replying to @Ian Skippy who was suggesting this was a thread aimed at input for improving engineering. Which it is not. It is just a complaint thread.