The Grind - You Weren't Kidding!

[JetsonRING]

You have time, there is supposedly a ten-year plan and we are only 2.5 years into it. I also started in June, 2016 and took a different path, haven't touched exploration yet. One of the great things about ED is there is no one path to success, you can get there many different ways and at your own pace. Just don't fixate too heavily on any one goal, that path leads to frustration and rage-quitting. If you find yourself "stuck", not making progress quickly at whatever you are doing, take a break and go do something else for a while! Sometimes just a change of venue/location can help for instance, tired of grinding IMP rank in Aditi? Maybe move to HIP 10716 and grind IMP rank there for a while. Maybe switch between Engineers and RANK whenever you get bored.

Yeah, you want a Corvette, everybody wants a Corvette, I love my Corvette and I want a Cutter too, already bought the chrome skin for her. Leveled up 4 or 5 times over the holiday weekend, only 2 more levels to my IMP Cutter. Figure by the end of the week. o7

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Isn't Palin the easiest to unlock once you get through Qwent. Took me roughly an hour to unlock him and most of that was travelling.

 

[Vorxian]

Still, you're forcing yourself to do something you don't enjoy, only so you can enjoy something else for a little while later on?

Opinions (as that's what "grindy crap" is) aside, perhaps you should manage your expectation about the game better?

I think the defense against this is that in regular games, you get tangible rewards and some form of progression. To that end, you can see progress to an end goal. Something like a cutter is 'end-goal', even if you could instantly grind the reputation to Duke or whatever it is to get it, you'll be a long long long LONG way off being able to afford one, and kit it out to a sufficient degree. But that is a time-sink ON TOP of a grind.

Dont mind things being a time sink, but, to additively attach time-sinks to grind requirements is just a motor for burnout. One or the other, but surely not both.

Engineer mechanics are both. Time sink to get to a point in which you can start rolling the dice, playing the casino slot machine (how ever one wishes to label it), and the grind in getting all the stuff back when you ultimately flop the lottery machine.

Naval rank progression is the same. One has to succinctly 'grind' in order to experience some level of meaningful progress through each rank, progressively getting harder in regards to time investment needed, that is time sink attached to another grind.

Sad and ineffective use of mechanics to present a 'challenge', if the only challenge is ones motivation and willpower.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Don't you also have to give him 20 Unknown Artifacts? Because that's what's stopping me from unlocking him.

You can get Unknown artifacts from one of the Alien Crash sites that isn't far from Palin. Did it in an hour.

 

[Han_Zen]

I'm just not bothering playing much until they remove the commodities from Engineers, got better things to do.

Why?

If all you want to do is engineer your ships, whats your plan after you're done?

 

[crushdepth]

What are the requirements?

Grind Elvira to level 3+ to find out about Qwent, get allied with Sirius to get their system permit, find a Qwent invite mission inside the Sirius system (a lot of people have trouble finding it, and I had to wait 3 days as Sirius was in lockdown and had no missions), find 25 modular terminals to unlock Qwent, grind Qwent to level 3+ to find out about Palin, gather 25 uknown fragments and travel 5,000 LY from the start to unlock Palin, grind Palin to level 5 to access the dirty drives. Then you just need to find bucketloads of cracked industrial firmware and pharmaceutical isolators to actually use the blueprint. Oh, and Palin's base is in the Pleiades, so you're looking at a 40 jump round trip for each ship you want to mod.

It sucks. But things are better now that we actually know where to get some of this stuff: i) you get modular terminals as a common mission reward in boom systems (use the map filter), ii) get unknown fragments by shooting UAs and picking up loose fragments as the second alien crash site, iii) you get the firmware by raiding certain types of surface settlements and iv) you reliably get pharmaceutical isolators from deep space USS in large population outbreak systems. See the dirty drives 101 videos in the Engineering forum for more details.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Grind Elvira to level 3+ to find out about Qwent, get allied with Sirius to get their system permit, find a Qwent invite mission inside the Sirius system (a lot of people have trouble finding it, and I had to wait 3 days as Sirius was in lockdown and had no missions), find 25 modular terminals to unlock Qwent, grind Qwent to level 3+ to find out about Palin, gather 25 uknown fragments and travel 5,000 LY from the start to unlock Palin, grind Palin to level 5 to access the dirty drives. Then you just need to find bucketloads of cracked industrial firmware and pharmaceutical isolators to actually use the blueprint. Oh, and Palin's base is in the Pleiades, so you're looking at a 40 jump round trip for each ship you want to mod.

It sucks. But things are better now that we actually know where to get some of this stuff: i) you get modular terminals as a common mission reward in boom systems (use the map filter), ii) get unknown fragments by shooting UAs and picking up loose fragments as the second alien crash site, iii) you get the firmware by raiding certain types of surface settlements and iv) you reliably get pharmaceutical isolators from deep space USS in large population outbreak systems. See the dirty drives 101 videos in the Engineering forum for more details.

None of that needs to be a grind. That is up to you and how you play the game.

 

[Vorxian]

Why?

If all you want to do is engineer your ships, whats your plan after you're done?

Depends on what you want to do. I'd love to engineer the be-RNGesus out of my ASP Exp, and optimize it for long distance travel, and go on a season long escapade.

 

[Red Anders]

so what you are saying is that we should play for tens of thousands of hours over 10 years, and after we have paid 600$, just to see the amount of content an average game throws at you in 2 hours?

lol, ridiculous is just to weak of a world here

No, really I would say that if your opinion of the game is so low what you should do is go and play one of the games that supposedly give you the same content in two hours. After you've killed two hours of your spare time, you could always come back.

 

[Tall_Toot]

You grind? At a game you can travel anywhere and do anything you like in the starter ship if you so wish?

Are you sure you wouldn't like another beer?

 

[Red Anders]

ED is a pure grind, without any fun aspects.

Please tell me that your user name stands for No Man's Sky. A game which is literally an endless grind with no purpose, no overarching story and an 'endgame' that takes you directly back to the start to commence exactly the same endless grind in an endless loop of endless grinds.

 

[Evoflash]

Somebody made a good point about being less goal-orientated. Perhaps I've allowed this too much. Personality trait perhaps? Can't change that

I love the game!

 

[Han_Zen]

Depends on what you want to do. I'd love to engineer the be-RNGesus out of my ASP Exp, and optimize it for long distance travel, and go on a season long escapade.

Put on a G5 FDS and G1 clean drives and G1 low emission PP. It will have plenty range and run cool enough to scoop through a star.

No need to engineer to the extreme.

 

[crushdepth]

None of that needs to be a grind. That is up to you and how you play the game.

If you don't set out to deliberately get this done you will never complete it. I had never even seen a pharmaceutical isolator, for example, in all my not isignificant travels. You will never get allied with Sirius unless you seek it out, etc.

 

[jasonbarron]

The only time I honestly felt like the game was a "grind" was when I set everything aside to focus solely on amassing the rank required to purchase a Cutter. I made it to Baron and realized I just couldn't do it anymore; that particular activity was killing the game for me. So I set that goal aside and wandered off to find something more fun and never looked back. If I ever DO end up with a Cutter, it'll be by accident, not by design. Knowing your limitations is very important IMO.

 

[Evoflash]

The only time I honestly felt like the game was a "grind" was when I set everything aside to focus solely on amassing the rank required to purchase a Cutter. I made it to Baron and realized I just couldn't do it anymore;.

ha! that's where I got to presently. Going to push a while longer but it's a fair old jaunt.

 

[shadragon]

When I see the word 'grind' I automatically replace it with 'this game isn't for me'. That isn't Frontiers fault, it's your expectations that are lacking.

 

[crushdepth]

When I see the word 'grind' I automatically replace it with 'this game isn't for me'. That isn't Frontiers fault, it's your expectations that are lacking.

I think Frontier have failed to live up to a lot of the expectations that they themselves set. Aliens for example. And an actual story within which to place grind into context, to give it meaning.

 

[Vorxian]

Put on a G5 FDS and G1 clean drives and G1 low emission PP. It will have plenty range and run cool enough to scoop through a star.

No need to engineer to the extreme.

As they say:

Every little helps, but a lot helps more lol +1 sir.

 

[Klab]

If you don't set out to deliberately get this done you will never complete it. I had never even seen a pharmaceutical isolator, for example, in all my not isignificant travels. You will never get allied with Sirius unless you seek it out, etc.

Yup there is truth in this. Sometimes you just have to knuckle down and get it done if you want that special something. It's only a grind if you do it for too long?