Engineers An even simpler streamline for Engineers! Cutting a whole level of faff out, with very minor changes.

[NeilF]

An even simpler streamline for Engineers! Cutting a whole level of faff out, with very minor changes.

You collect materials (as currently) - Ideally a reduced list of them...

Engineers are interested in certain materials for their crafting, so you can give any materials you have to them (that they're interested in). This will increase your reputation with them. Common materials increase your reputation a bit. Rare materials more so.

As your reputation increases, higher level crafting is offered to you.

When ever you craft, you lose some reputation, in effect as payment.

That's it!

You can collect any material(s) an Engineer is interested in to level up and pay for crafting. Done!


If you want to skew the Wheel Of Fortune roll in your favour, then you have the option to additionally supply some specific materials to do that (akin to now). Likewise, if you want to dictate a specific side effect.

Done!


Result
A very small set of changes, for a very much simpler combined level up and payment system giving a simpler mechanic.

The desire is not to make it quicker to level up & craft, but simply to make it less of a full time consideration. Indeed, personally if it took even longer to increase my reputation via this method, I wouldn't mind, as I could do it more casually. In effect simply visiting the engineers periodically too drop off materials to level up as a side quest.




Example of actual changes

Spoiler

Change 1 - Handing in Materials
When you go to an Engineer you can go to a new screen to "donate" any materials you have which they are interested in (each Engineer is different).

It would show you a list of any/all materials you have they are interested in. Give an indication next to each how much reputation giving it to the Engineer would add (common less/rares more). And allow you to click any/all of these materials with the net effect showing your reputation with them going up.

Change 2 - Paying for Crafting
Crafting would simply reduce your reputation, depending upon the crafting level. So on the crafting screen, a simple graphic would show your reputations, and how much the selected crafting would reduce it.


Note1: The additional suggestions of allowing a CMDR to supply specific materials to skew the dice rolls for the module outcome, or dictate a side effect were already proposed by FD.

Note2: I would suggest removing "cargo" materials.

The mechanic to an even smaller/simpler degree
Just implement the suggestion to allow CMDRs to "donate" any material an Engineer is interested in to level up. Keep everything else as is.

 

[Viking84]

I like it It would have much the same effect as introducing a trade system for materials (like trading one rare commodity for another, or two common commodities for one rare and so on). It would greatly lessen the felt impact of the first layer of RNG (material gathering), and make the second layer of RNG (modification stats) more bearable as it is easier to get another go.

Anyways, with that I think I will bow out of the RNG discussion, I think I have added my fair share of posts on the topic. I believe FDev have seen a lot of the suggestions floating around, and hopefully come up with some good ideas regarding how to make this more palatable for most players. They have referenced a new point update coming out in not too long, so I will keep quiet on the subject until that comes out

 

[Altair8800]

That is all nonsense and too much work. I'll finally fix it for you:

In communications you type this command: /iwin name_of_module

Result is a replacement module in your current ship, grade 5 and best possible roll.

100% customer satisfaction guaranteed, because even those who would like to work for their module still can and are not forced, well not officially forced, to type this.

 

[Andovar]

i love this forum...

 

[NeilF]

That is all nonsense and too much work. I'll finally fix it for you:

In communications you type this command: /iwin name_of_module

Result is a replacement module in your current ship, grade 5 and best possible roll.

100% customer satisfaction guaranteed, because even those who would like to work for their module still can and are not forced, well not officially forced, to type this.

Alas - I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or funny?

 

[Altair8800]

Alas - I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or funny?

No, I was trying to be helpful in your attempts to dumb this down good enough, so that absolutely everyone will be satisfied 100%. Also you now can stop drawing great plans about non existing games, and you can continue playing the existing one [yesnod]

 

[Rubellen]

Where can we sign you up to be the assistent lead designer? Can't rep you any more but great idea. Edit: and I mean this ... Love the idea.

 

[NeilF]

No, I was trying to be helpful in your attempts to dumb this down good enough, so that absolutely everyone will be satisfied 100%. Also you now can stop drawing great plans about non existing games, and you can continue playing the existing one [yesnod]

Clearly we're in disagreement then.

Maybe rather than sarcasm, lead with an explanation of what you see the problem is? It is possible of course you've misunderstood something, or I've not explained something very well, so jumping in all guns blazing isn't ideal.

 

[NE1]

good idea! best thing is nobody would have to change playstyle and do things within the game they cant be bothered with.

but then the players that want to boost through caves (except there are no caves) and do triple back flip somersaults while scanning a stationary rock in a SRV will disagree

 

[Altair8800]

Clearly we're in disagreement then.

Maybe rather than sarcasm, lead with an explanation of what you see the problem is? It is possible of course you've misunderstood something, or I've not explained something very well, so jumping in all guns blazing isn't ideal.

Then do a poll with our both solutions for the problem and see which one is liked better.

 

[NeilF]

good idea! best thing is nobody would have to change playstyle and do things within the game they cant be bothered with.

but then the players that want to boost through caves (except there are no caves) and do triple back flip somersaults while scanning a stationary rock in a SRV will disagree

I'm not sure what Altair8800's problem is, and he doesn't seem interesting in explaining But unlike his initial comment infurs, I don't see this suggestion as "dumbing" anything down. At least not considering where the mechanic already is. It's certainly no less logical; Supply engineers with the materials they need/want to improve your reputation with them?


Ultimately, the notion is to try - with as little effort as possible - to make the current Engineer mechanics less onerous and less of a full time occupation/consideration.

So as you highlight, if you want to just go through the game doing your normal gameplay, you will undoubtably be able to collect materials, and you can hand these in when convenient to increase your reputation with one or more Engineers. It doesn't matter what you've been doing, and what the materials therefore are, as long as the Engineer is interested in them, they'll benefit your position with them.

If you instead want to be more serious about it, go out solely to collect the more rare materials Engineers are specifically interested in, and hand those in.


To me at least, this would relax how much The Engineers demands from you to participate and make it a more easy going "side quest" when you're interested - Handing in materials if/when you want to...

Not to be dramatic, it would certainly make the game more appealling for what I want from it, and as I'm not playing at the moment because of my feeling towards The Engineer's mechanics, that's a good thing for me at least.

 

[Sterlino]

for me anything that makes the whole process more fluid and simple (and less grinding)
is welcome.

I think that the idea of OP is good since Devs would do a very little operation to make it possible
without touching the work already done.

so i think is very acceptable.

 

[ElectricZ]

No, I was trying to be helpful in your attempts to dumb this down good enough, so that absolutely everyone will be satisfied 100%. Also you now can stop drawing great plans about non existing games, and you can continue playing the existing one [yesnod]

"Dumb it down."

Care to explain how the current model is intelligent at all?

 

[NE1]

I think many players are trying to claim that we want an instant win button.

I have been playing since pre-beta and play for about 1hr a week on the weeks I do play, not once have I ever gone for the big credit sinks or exploits found in the game even when I have seen how much players are gaining in credits by doing that.

I thought that when all these new roles were added into the game they weren't going to become a required activity but it seems to be heading that way so much so I dread the day we get FPS and walking about.

To me the SRV is just Dune Buggy on a better landscape, FPS when it comes is going to be Wolfenstein or Doom. Why cant players who want that gameplay just go and play those games surely they would get a better game instead of trying to make elite an all into one kind of package.

If we had ever got that offline mode I swear I wouldn't have updated once yet since release.

EDIT: although I do like the new AI and obviously the UI improvments

 

[Henri]

maybe the rng is there to prevent every spreadsheet cheat site gank warrior and their mother flying around in identical cheese fer de lances of which they found the build on some website with an alpha strike that can one shot kill a capital ship twice but still allow some exceptional mods to be out there in the wild. this ensures there is surprise in the eco system even in pvp keeping it fresh and exciting.

The missions to get in with an engineer introduce you to other aspects of the game and also ensures not everyone gets all the same upgrades, some engineers you might not want, can or be bothered to get entrée to. So everybody flying the same cheese gets avoided.

it is great putting everything in spreadsheets and dumbing great mechanics down so everyone can have a super ueber fer de lance with all the top level mods in a day which can' t be targeted because of 0 heat and can one shot kill everything but in the end it is not fun if most people fly around in exactly the same ship not for casual or serious non cheese players who will all leave open.

you just want to go back to before 2.1

maybe MechWarrior online is more your game....endless grind and cheese builds

 

[Julio Montega]

So basically you treat mats as reputation currency and components to directly influence the crafting process,
loosing a part of the rep as you craft?
That seems fitting though.
I like the idea better than having to ferry over goods from engi to engi,
doing the ferengi-trade-cycle.

 

[Tarman]

Looks like a decent alternative to me. I like the fluctuation of the rep according to how much you ask of them, and how much you're subsidizing their parts supply. It also gives folks a low-level reason to accumulate all this carp and still have something useful to do with it other than throw it away because it's not for the particular kit they're pursuing, or alternately trying to save it forever and getting Bethesda Inventory Syndrome, where at least in an actual Beth game you can put your piles of useless crafting junk into a container. People will be more likely to poke signals and such more often if there's some form of use for items you find beyond the Engineers specific recipes.

None of this particular alteration to the system changes the end results for the folks who want to UPGRADE ALL THE THINGS. These will be the players keeping their preferred Engi rep high with a regular stream of high-end components for those top-tier upgrades. They'll be gaming just as hard as they are now, only now they're not constantly micromanaging a full inventory of useless junk components along with everyone else.

I support ideas that provide more usefulness to the magic goodie box and its contents; they gave us eight billion things to find and collect and having most of them be dead weight (even if they don't actually weigh anything >__> ) is a waste of potential gaming. Let us use, trade, and/or store these things in some fashion.

 

[capt_sparks]

The problem with this is it gets easier to get the best upgraded modules, and everyone will have it in no time. Might as well suggest we return back to beta, where it's fun to upgrade at the cost of fishes.

 

[Robin of Spiritwood]

The OP's idea is simple and logically consistent. It would permit players to persue any preferred activity that generates materials, without having to do things they may not wish to. But maybe it was the intent of the Devs to drive interest in the various professions in the first place.

The best thing about the idea is the elimination of rare materials bottlenecks. I have the items for 10 runs at a Level 4 FSD mod, but no Yttrium. This forces me to drive the SRV rather than fly. It's less than perfect.

The existing game framework basically sets each Engineer up as a Faction. I'd like to perform missions or do favors to help build rep too.

 

[CmdrZaratan]

The best bit of Engineers for me is having to find specific things for specific upgrades, which means having a reason to do all the things the game has to offer. I feel much more engaged by the game now than before.

So while I can see the logic in what you're suggesting, I'd hate it if they went with that because for me it would make the game boring again. I'd have no reason to take a type of mission I don't play regularly to get that rare item that's attached as a reward. I'd have no reason to ever enter a combat zone. I'd have no reason to ever drive my SRV.

Engineers really ties the whole game together better than anything that's come along previously.