Engineers Engineers: what could have been...?

[digitalscream]

I've been thinking about the intended story behind the Engineers themselves - they're tinkerers, mad scientists etc. Now, while I'm 100% convinced that FD won't change the underlying RNG mechanic at all (despite the obvious hate for it), it occurs to me that something like this would be far more in-keeping with what would happen in an actual interaction with such an individual:

Engineer: Yo, get me 5 focus crystals, 2 capacitors and 3 firmware packages, and I'll upgrade your pulse lasers.
CMDR: Sure thing, dude. Here you go - 5 focus crystals (2 normal, one refined, one flawed and one exquisite), 2 capacitors (one is a military supercapacitor!) and 3 firmware packages (two specialised and one cracked industrial)
Engineer: Rad, man. That flawed crystal disperses the waves a bit so you've got a bit of jitter, but I can put much more power through it from that military cap for a lot more damage...and the exquisite crystal unexpectedly had the effect of letting a bit of the beam pass through shields! While I was rooting around, I found some cool stuff in that industrial firmware that gives you a bit of gimballing from your fixed laser too. Fun stuff!
CMDR: Aces! I'll see what else I can find out there...

One lot of RNG - finding the materials - and less frustration because the Engineer is asking for a class of materials, and what you can scavenge determines the end result. The point is that tinkerers and mad scientists would love mucking around with unexpected stuff they haven't seen before, and will always do their best to make something out of whatever they're handed.

Oh, what could've been.

 

[Lord Momo]

Yeah that would have been great, but rng is fun right? Not for me it is not, I have always hated the idea of gambling and I would prefer not having to play roulette if I want to upgrade my weapon. IMO player input > RNG every time, but there is still a lot of good stuff in the update so we can trod through.

 

[tarragon]

Nah, that would be interesting and creative. Fdev doesn't do creative or interesting. They do NoMMO and GrindFEST.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

so we can trod through.

Golden. That is the mantra since Powerplay. Game is not finished, give them time. We can plod thru.

 

[Lord Momo]

Golden. That is the mantra since Powerplay. Game is not finished, give them time. We can plod thru.

Sad but true, we aren't FD so I see no other alternative.

 

[Henri]

what I do not understand is why the mods are not procedurally created....

 

[bossbrigand]

This makes much more sense than the system we have. There's still an element of RNG (what grade of components you find) but it's more controllable. Hopefully FD is listening but I wouldn't hold my breath.

 

[X-Terminator]

This would allow us to spend time better for our needs rather be faced with the wheel of fortune.

 

[Innocentius]

I've been thinking about the intended story behind the Engineers themselves - they're tinkerers, mad scientists etc. Now, while I'm 100% convinced that FD won't change the underlying RNG mechanic at all (despite the obvious hate for it), it occurs to me that something like this would be far more in-keeping with what would happen in an actual interaction with such an individual:

Engineer: Yo, get me 5 focus crystals, 2 capacitors and 3 firmware packages, and I'll upgrade your pulse lasers.
CMDR: Sure thing, dude. Here you go - 5 focus crystals (2 normal, one refined, one flawed and one exquisite), 2 capacitors (one is a military supercapacitor!) and 3 firmware packages (two specialised and one cracked industrial)
Engineer: Rad, man. That flawed crystal disperses the waves a bit so you've got a bit of jitter, but I can put much more power through it from that military cap for a lot more damage...and the exquisite crystal unexpectedly had the effect of letting a bit of the beam pass through shields! While I was rooting around, I found some cool stuff in that industrial firmware that gives you a bit of gimballing from your fixed laser too. Fun stuff!
CMDR: Aces! I'll see what else I can find out there...

One lot of RNG - finding the materials - and less frustration because the Engineer is asking for a class of materials, and what you can scavenge determines the end result. The point is that tinkerers and mad scientists would love mucking around with unexpected stuff they haven't seen before, and will always do their best to make something out of whatever they're handed.

Oh, what could've been.

Oooh Me likey.

 

[GoblinOneEye]

Agreed, have some rep.

 

[Eymerich]

I've been thinking about the intended story behind the Engineers themselves - they're tinkerers, mad scientists etc. Now, while I'm 100% convinced that FD won't change the underlying RNG mechanic at all (despite the obvious hate for it), it occurs to me that something like this would be far more in-keeping with what would happen in an actual interaction with such an individual:

Engineer: Yo, get me 5 focus crystals, 2 capacitors and 3 firmware packages, and I'll upgrade your pulse lasers.
CMDR: Sure thing, dude. Here you go - 5 focus crystals (2 normal, one refined, one flawed and one exquisite), 2 capacitors (one is a military supercapacitor!) and 3 firmware packages (two specialised and one cracked industrial)
Engineer: Rad, man. That flawed crystal disperses the waves a bit so you've got a bit of jitter, but I can put much more power through it from that military cap for a lot more damage...and the exquisite crystal unexpectedly had the effect of letting a bit of the beam pass through shields! While I was rooting around, I found some cool stuff in that industrial firmware that gives you a bit of gimballing from your fixed laser too. Fun stuff!
CMDR: Aces! I'll see what else I can find out there...

One lot of RNG - finding the materials - and less frustration because the Engineer is asking for a class of materials, and what you can scavenge determines the end result. The point is that tinkerers and mad scientists would love mucking around with unexpected stuff they haven't seen before, and will always do their best to make something out of whatever they're handed.

Oh, what could've been.

I disagree

After a few hours spent in 2 1 i like what Fd did.
The only consideration is the lacked of informations about gathering such materials and the low drop %

Beside that Fd did a great work here ( in my opinion )

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

Your idea is OK, it's just that you introduce new RNG to the table rather than reduce it.

Each material has different "grades" - that's more RNG.

I understand where you were going with this but it's not in my mind what Engineers "could have been"

the low drop %

That's the sucker punch to it all.

RNG to find the components then output based on RNG.

Double facefalm right there.

 

[faluc]

Your idea makes a lot of sense, I wish we had something like this.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Your idea is OK, it's just that you introduce new RNG to the table rather than reduce it.

Each material has different "grades" - that's more RNG.

I understand where you were going with this but it's not in my mind what Engineers "could have been"




That's the sucker punch to it all.

RNG to find the components then output based on RNG.

Double facefalm right there.

Think of it as rather than having to hunt for a material of specific grade, you could substitute it with whatever grade you happen to have.

And if I'm not mistaken the higher grade materials drop from more expensive ships so it is not that RNG. The stronger ships you can kill the better upgrades you can get, this is good.

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

Think of it as rather than having to hunt for a material of specific grade, you could substitute it with whatever grade you happen to have.

I understand perfectly how it works : Recipe calls for X of any grade, the higher the grade the better the outcome.

It's still subject to RNG upon RNG which makes for a poor gaming experience. 1 layer of RNG is enough but 2

(Relying upon drops is RNG .. engineer outcome is RNG .. so that's RNG on top of RNG)

 

[CMDR Triklops]

actually when i read i thought it was how it was implemented, lol, although i played it, my brain is too small for too many ingredients, and what drives me crazy is that higher grade upgrades have no common ingredient that is used for all grades of the same modification, e.g. if level1 needs 1xfocus crystals why not just include that ingredient for all levels ?!

 

[digitalscream]

Your idea is OK, it's just that you introduce new RNG to the table rather than reduce it.

Each material has different "grades" - that's more RNG.

I understand where you were going with this but it's not in my mind what Engineers "could have been"

There is *no* new RNG element here - every material I listed in that post is currently available in the game. Right now, Engineers ask you for *specific* grades of material (eg "flawed focus crystals"). You currently have to rely on the following rolls of the dice:

1 - The RNG to spawn the correct materials
2 - The RNG to make your mods
3 - The RNG to make your secondary effects
4 - The RNG to make your special effects

The odds of managing to get something decent are pretty terrible (and frustrating). Contrast with what I suggested, whereby the RNG element is:

1 - The RNG to spawn the correct materials

That's it. I presume I don't need to point out that going from 4 to 1 is a reduction?

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

There is *no* new RNG element here - every material I listed in that post is currently available in the game. Right now, Engineers ask you for *specific* grades of material (eg "flawed focus crystals"). You currently have to rely on the following rolls of the dice:

1 - The RNG to spawn the correct materials
2 - The RNG to make your mods
3 - The RNG to make your secondary effects
4 - The RNG to make your special effects

The odds of managing to get something decent are pretty terrible (and frustrating). Contrast with what I suggested, whereby the RNG element is:

1 - The RNG to spawn the correct materials

That's it. I presume I don't need to point out that going from 4 to 1 is a reduction?

I agree with the 1st part - lots of layers of RNG makes for [expletive] poor game play.

The last part depends if you mean each recipe has a fixed outcome and depend on input material (RNG) ?

If so that's 2 RNG layers : finding them & hoping for good quality.

Better than FD yes but still 1 RNG too much IMO.

 

[TinyPwny]

I agree with the 1st part - lots of layers of RNG makes for [expletive] poor game play.

The last part depends if you mean each recipe has a fixed outcome and depend on input material (RNG) ?

If so that's 2 RNG layers : finding them & hoping for good quality.

Better than FD yes but still 1 RNG too much IMO.

I think the idea is that higher grade materials (same part, better quality) have a direct non-RNG effect on the modification. Bring only top quality parts and you'll have the best upgrade possible. Bring low quality parts and you'll never have top results. Looks realistic to me. The only RNG is in the item drop table.

Great idea imho.

 

[digitalscream]

I agree with the 1st part - lots of layers of RNG makes for [expletive] poor game play.

The last part depends if you mean each recipe has a fixed outcome and depend on input material (RNG) ?

If so that's 2 RNG layers : finding them & hoping for good quality.

Better than FD yes but still 1 RNG too much IMO.

See here...

I think the idea is that higher grade materials (same part, better quality) have a direct non-RNG effect on the modification. Bring only top quality parts and you'll have the best upgrade possible. Bring low quality parts and you'll never have top results. Looks realistic to me. The only RNG is in the item drop table.

Great idea imho.

Yes, that's it entirely. There could be a tiny random element in the effect on the end result if need be, to account for the fact that not all flawed crystals (for example) will be flawed in the same way, but yes.

It's all irrelevant anyway, because FD will never climb down from where they currently are. It would've been nice, and possibly is in an alternate universe, but not ours

 

[CMDR Triklops]

have to admitt again the reasoning here is fantastic, and isnt elite in a constant state of alpha ? - as mentioned by a friend of mine talking about missing module storage after a module modding update he just said -    , isnt that alpha status ?!

hehe, lets tease them, love the game love the mechanics, love modding modules, love consistency in module upgrade recipes, love frontier, love CMDR BRABEN

 

[Henri]

and a galaxy which is rng generated lol....everything is rng
and a galaxy which is rng generated lol....everything is rng

love the game love the mechanics, love modding modules, love consistency in module upgrade recipes, love frontier, love CMDR BRABEN

Hear! Hear! Good to see you be a little positive.