Engineers Vindicator Jones is back, with some good suggestions for engineers

Viking84

Viking84
If the changes that Vindicator Jones suggested were implemented I would return to Elite :) It is good to see that there is still discontent with the way Engineers was implemented. I was worried everyone would just have resigned and concluded that this is what it is and will never be changed.

Still though, a long way from good suggestions to implemented changes unfortunately!
 

TheSisko

TheSisko
I disagree. We would end up with cookie-cutter builds.

"Move this slider to 20%, this one to 40%"

I like the way my ships are unique, with sliders we would lose that.

If anything needs changing its the spawn rate of some of those materials. Rare ones pop up too often, at the expense of less rare ones which are rarely seen as mission rewards.
 

Ceekay

Ceekay
Certainly VJ's suggestion about tying missions into specific mat/data rewards is a sound one as the current random approach is frustrating so I'd be all for that.

Personally I don't mind a degree of randomness in the engineering rolls but a reduction in the performance spread would improve it significantly, additionally each grade/level should have zero overlap as rolling a G5 FSD and getting a worse result than a G4 is seriously irritating.

Installing a hard limit on each grade would limit the damage of potential future exploits (max 135% on G5 DDT for example), I also feel that the damage/performance reductions with weapon special effects should be removed they're meant to be rare worthwhile improvements after all not a case of having to choose between gaining DPS but also having higher power draw/heat generation etc, in most cases I just re-roll or remove the "special" if the weapon performance is decent enough.
 

znôrt

znôrt
any textual abstract of what he proposed?

i'm not going through 8 minutes of fast rabble to know of yet another engineers salvaging theory.

mine is pretty simple:
- mods for credits, cheap, at every outfitting station
- mods are sidegrades, not upgrades
- forget materials
- forget engineers
 

Soopyyy

S
TheSisko said:
I disagree. We would end up with cookie-cutter builds.

"Move this slider to 20%, this one to 40%"

I like the way my ships are unique, with sliders we would lose that.

If anything needs changing its the spawn rate of some of those materials. Rare ones pop up too often, at the expense of less rare ones which are rarely seen as mission rewards.
Click to expand...

"Unique". They're random dude.

I 100% agree with everything Vindicator said.
 

moose666

moose666
TheSisko said:
I disagree. We would end up with cookie-cutter builds.

"Move this slider to 20%, this one to 40%"

I like the way my ships are unique, with sliders we would lose that.
Click to expand...

That's what happens right now, nearly everything has 1 mod which is the clear winner, with a few other items can have a couple different blueprints.
Sliders would remove the hair pulling aggravation of needing tons of rolls to get to a decent threshold (not god roll territory)
 

TheSisko

TheSisko
Soopyyy said:
"Unique". They're random dude.
Click to expand...

Dude, that's my point. :)

moose666 said:
That's what happens right now, nearly everything has 1 mod which is the clear winner, with a few other items can have a couple different blueprints.
Sliders would remove the hair pulling aggravation of needing tons of rolls to get to a decent threshold (not god roll territory)
Click to expand...

I doubt if there's another Imp Courier out there with the exact same specs as mine. I'm not talking about the blueprints themselves, I'm talking about the effects of those blueprints, down to percentage level of performance and effects, both positive and negative.

I doubt if anyone out there in the Star Wars Universe had a ship with the exact same specs as the Millenium Falcon. She was one of a kind, like my Courier.
 
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Rozete

R
starting to tune the stuff at some shady engineers hole, - stuff, which is already perfectly tuned by legit stuff makers to whatever grade you wish to buy - the mess in form of rng that comes along is an excellent addition!
slidebars thou could be introduced to stock modules, hadrpoints etc., so we can slide from e to a according to our wallet and needs, before applaying extreams at so called engineers ...and suffer! :D love it
 

careBear1

Banned
C
I imagine that relative relief from the overwhelming frustration could be given by simply increasing the probability of finding materials, significantly, without the need for any reprogramming or redesign.


I hesitate about this only because I am beginning to suspect that the ‘skinner box’ elements of the game design that lead to frustration and misery for many players is actual intended ‘gameply’, or at least a poor substitute - the designed reason to continue playing/purpose.

Other topical frustrations include finding sites on planets using latitude and longitude (how difficult is it to plot a point on a sphere for heaven’s sake) and the inability to enter co-ordinates in the map when traveling more than 1k ly etc. Come to think of it ... the lack of usability of the darn galaxy map itself - lets play 'whack a mole' aka select a star.

Other that, the game is fantastic of course.
 
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AnotherVoice

A
The true RNG problem is how we have to find materials imo. We need some "certain" way to get them. The RNG in mods stats is fine, except when a grade 5 turns out to be worse than a grade 4 for example
 

Iskariot

Iskariot
TheSisko said:
I disagree. We would end up with cookie-cutter builds.

"Move this slider to 20%, this one to 40%"

I like the way my ships are unique, with sliders we would lose that.

If anything needs changing its the spawn rate of some of those materials. Rare ones pop up too often, at the expense of less rare ones which are rarely seen as mission rewards.
Click to expand...

No I do not think that all ships would be the same at all.
Some would prefer to max damage output at the cost of extra heat and powerdraw, others would seek a balance etc. It would be different for many people.

The point is that players would get more input and would be able to precisely decide what kind of configuration they want.
Currently some/many players feel frustrated because they never know what they get for all the effort they put in.

For me personally this is not a huge problem, but I would still prefer Vindicator Jones' proposal.
 
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careBear1

Banned
C
AnotherVoice said:
The true RNG problem is how we have to find materials imo. We need some "certain" way to get them. The RNG in mods stats is fine, except when a grade 5 turns out to be worse than a grade 4 for example
Click to expand...

Understand this, but there is advice both in-game and outside on where the material magically sometimes appear.


I was simply suggesting that a quick fix and simple reduction in misery, rather than wholesale change that would presumably take some time, could be achieved by increasing the probability of finding stuff – so that when you are 30k ls out in deep space (why else would you go there?), for example, you do not have to fly around aimlessly like a complete idiot wondering why you are doing this (skinner box) for quite so long hoping that your type of signal source will actually spontaneously appear. Which means more materials and more engineer roles and slightly less frustration.
 
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CMDR Cylixx

CMDR Cylixx
There would be no issue with 'cookie cutter' builds. That's exactly what you have now anyway; I refuse to accept a 3% difference in damage to be a unique property, any 2 mods in the same class perform the same role - just one may be objectively better for no damn reason.

Pretty simple, when the best 'all rounder' build becomes popular then a build for dismantling it will become popular - exactly the same as it is now but more thought and ingenuity can be pursued.
 

Gorr

Gorr
I kinda like current system but I don't like some of the ways of getting needed materials. USS farming for example makes me wanting to pull my hair off.

Some good points in the video though.
 

Iskariot

Iskariot
BongoBaggins said:
I hate the approach where if one thing is improved, something else has to be worse. I hate it. It's superficial balance.
Click to expand...

I think it is a necessity. And there is logic to it. More laser power, more heat, more energy draw.
Things like that seem to be logical consequences to me.
And you can compensate for power draw by improving your power plant for example.
I think that is a sensible system and it makes you think about what you want to do with your ship.
 
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