It's not though.
It's not iterative. There's no progress. It's pure frustration.
A few weeks back I grinded for about 10 hours straight to do 50 G5 Dirty Drive Rolls.
The fact that none of them were above 133% meant that time was literally wasted. All of the results went unused. I achieved nothing. It was a demoralizing and boring experience that sadly is now part and parcel for PvPers who want to compete against exploiters and the lucky with their 142% drives
I just feel like I am going in circles with all of these discussions. Last time, someone pointed out that RNG rolling is hardly like IRL engineering, and pro RNG fellows came and told us that "It's a game, it isn't meant to be like real engineering".
Now another fellow has suggested that RNG has merit, because it is comparable to real engineering.
I do not know where to turn, I do not know who to call.
Now another fellow has suggested that RNG has merit, because it is comparable to real engineering.
I do not know where to turn, I do not know who to call.
I am not for or oppose RNG, there is a place for it, given the lack of a more comprehensive system which consumes both mats and commodities, where a specific combination of mats and commodities will always roll a specific set of attributes with a very minor perturbing of the results specific to you, thus in essence would qualify as a "result" that has been researched through iterative testing and is "saved" for your use at a later date as many times as you want.
likewise I haven't said "RNG has merit, because it is comparable to real engineering.", what I have said is there is an iterative process in extracting ten tenths of performance from something while minimising the negative effects in IRL engineering, the negative effects could be cost, could be lack or reliability, to much heat, consumption of more fuel etc etc, it could be other systems also need upgrading to cope thus further development and iterations of them must be made and tested etc etc etc, thus RNG mimics some of this iterative trail and error by consuming some of your "time" in the hunt for mats rather than consuming your "time" sat twiddling your thumbs at the engineers waiting for an iteration to complete e.g. once every 30mins.
lots of things IRL have been found by mistake, chance and the iterative process of good old trail and error, be it yesterday, today, tomorrow or in hundreds of years time.
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It's easy to avoid being frustrated by engineers. Just set realistic expectations for what rolls you are going to get based on how much effort you're willing to put in. Don't define an "acceptable" roll as one which on average takes hundreds of rolls to appear and then complain that you can't get it with twenty.
You're right about having your ship engineered the way you want being one of the most satisfying experiences in the game. As far as I'm concerned, the reason it's so satisfying is that it's one of the few things in the game which really demands effort and dedication. Same reason exploration feels meaningful.
You're right about having your ship engineered the way you want being one of the most satisfying experiences in the game. As far as I'm concerned, the reason it's so satisfying is that it's one of the few things in the game which really demands effort and dedication. Same reason exploration feels meaningful.
This.
It's quite probable that your "acceptable" G5 roll would -Never- be available in a predictable, slider-like system.
In this system, you at least have a chance, however slim.
This is a good point. One of the things that is the most frustrating about Engineering is that EVERYTHING is one RNG being dependent upon another, which is dependent upon another RNG, which is dependent upon another RNG, and so forth. So much so that the probabilities of reaching your goals becomes seemingly near to dismal. There needs to be an adjustment somewhere to make this less time consuming or more rewarding. My vote, personally, is in the availability of the mats.
I cant really speak to the attractiveness of the game for others. This is a game that I did not pick for myself (was gifted to me by a friend), but have actually ended up enjoying more than nearly any other that I have ever played. First flight-sim for me, as well. This isnt an issue that will chase me away, but is definitely significantly discouraging.
I'm not chasing God-Rolls on every module. I simply dont have the time for that. Im looking for some that are somewhere between better than average and God-Rolls. With the rolls that I specified, the best one hit mid 133%, with an Optimal Mass penalty that mooted that benefit.
CIF and Pharma Isos are such a pain to procure, that somewhere within 30 rolls I feel that I should have obtained something at least acceptable in the 130%'s range without the Optimal Mass penalty mooting the benefit. Fully 20+ of those rolls had the Integrity Secondary effects, which is obviously excessive.
I accept that Prof. Palin is a top-class , but I mean come-on!! I even brought him fresh Ethiopian Coffee from Sol!!
Agreed on the completed ships. It does take tons of work, and is indescribably rewarding!!
I believe that I do have realistic expectations/goals for my engineering. But I also feel that the Work Vs Rewards ratio when so many RNGs dependent upon one another are involved requires very careful tuning to keep things fun and interesting. Though something keeps making me think that something significant changed with the Engineers when 2.3 dropped. Something along the lines of the Secondary Effects getting even more watered down...
My frame of reference, based on what I have reasonably rolled in the past, would lend me to believe that what I am pursuing currently is not unreasonable. Best 5A G5 DDT roll on my Best/PvP FDL is 136%. I know that I cant expect that kind of roll very often, but when I have seen talk/vids of other CMDRs occasionally rolling stuff close to 140%'s, it doesnt seem like shooting for the moon (so to speak). My best G5 DDT roll went to my Anaconda at around 137%, and the other sliders squared very reasonably.
When I go gathering for mats for particular module upgrades, I usually stop at around 30-50 rolls worth. I dont think it unreasonable to expect 1-2 reasonably good to excellent rolls from 50-100 attempts. God rolls should, understandably, show their faces somewhere above the 100 attempt mark, imho.
What really has me peaved is the serial Secondary effect results of Integrity Rolls. Personally, I feel that the frequency is way too high, and that the pertinence in regards to the stated modification category is obliquely inappropriate. Especially when I have received so many Integrity rolls as the primary Secondary Influence, in long-running series of attempts, across all modules. This is like a flying middle-finger in the face of very time consuming and tedious mat gathering efforts.
Reply to others: Im not sure how comfy I am with the "Manual-Slider" solution, but I think it could be a good alternate path alongside a wholly RNG based model. I think that the Secondary Bonuses would have to be trimmed or other negative influences would have to be introduced to keep this from becoming exploitative.
I definitely like the idea of Improving Serial Iterations within a set limited number of rolls. That would make seemingly possible that some of the mats that you have already submitted not be a total sacrifice. It would also give an "Averaging Effect" upon the comparison of results between similar modules with same engineering.
I also think that having the option of submitting more mats per single roll for better results or even a very expensive Bribery option (both money and rare commodities) for increasing favorable odds would be acceptable.
Praying to RNGeesus is the only place where gambling behavior has ever appealed to me. But I'm seeking upgrades in a game for Christ'ssssss Sake!! Not trying to best a One-Armed Bandit in Vegas!
Any roll near or below a G4. Which, when you look at it, is a fairly large segment. There simply should be no overlap - when you have to grind as hard as we do for some of these mats, it's fracking insulting.
As I've said before - I'm happy to do the work, but I want my damn cookie at the end. an dI don't want my cookie smaller than someone else's when I did the same work. Now, if I get to choose between more choc chips, but a smaller sized cookie, I'm happy to make that choice...
But I don't get to choose. And recently, I've been getting some good roles, but then, the "bonuses" end up dragging everything down, which is just damn frustrating. the only time I seem to get a positive bonus, is when I roll badly, it the bonuses bring me up to merely "sub-par" for that level of mod.
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Respectfully disagree. I enjoy exploration. I loathe and detest the engineers RNG, to the point I actually got a warning once for allegedly insulting the devs. I suspect the mod in question did not read carefully enough to read the difference between insulting a dev and insulting an idea - kinda like attacking a person vs attacking a person's post, but I digress...
I have no issue working hard for something, my real life proves this. But, it is very possible to work like mad and NEVER get a roll you want. Where as some there person can quite likely get it first go.
Now, you may argue that exploration is also RNG, but it's possible to improve your odds (say you're looking for an ELW) with some research. No such luck with RNGneers.
I love this game, I really do, but too often the ideas room seem to throw up a concept, and then, the head idea person says:
"Now, what is the most annoying frustrating and painful way to do this? Let's make the players do that!".
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Yes, but it can then be reproduced... Starting a fire isn't an RNG role. Nor is making a wheel...
Once you figure out a process, you can reliably reproduce something. Sure, you get tolerances, but have you seen the "tolerances" in RNGneers? 50%-100%? Come on...
If they really must do RNG as is, the ranges need changing. EG
imagine "100%" is the best improvement possible for a mod.
L1 - 25-45%
L2 - 50-67%
L3 - 70-83%
L4 - 85-94%
L5 - 95-100%
Make L5 truly hard, but note there are gaps - meaning that no matter what, you get a reasonable improvement over a lower grade, even with a poor roll.
And at the top, it's up to you if that extra potential 5% is worth the effort.
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There is no reason why players need to
visit random POIs
to fulfill random missions
to earn random rewards
or collect random drops
from random spawns
in random POIs
in order to waste all that effort on random outcomes at the engineer base.
Is it because the stuff is super OP? Nobody asked for that. NOBODY.
ED was always generous in dishing out the waste of time, but engineers took it to entire ridiculous levels and I haven't even talked about lack of storage, material bloat, loot dilution, abysmal UI, awful ingredient management and convoluted recipes yet.
Yet it was deemed necessary to give NPCs access to the OP crap out of this system so the players grinding the poop out of it would still have a decent ttk. Well, thanks - now I have bulletsponges that take far longer to kill with my vanilla crap it's not even funny.
Engineers doesn't add to the game - it just takes away.
visit random POIs
to fulfill random missions
to earn random rewards
or collect random drops
from random spawns
in random POIs
in order to waste all that effort on random outcomes at the engineer base.
Is it because the stuff is super OP? Nobody asked for that. NOBODY.
ED was always generous in dishing out the waste of time, but engineers took it to entire ridiculous levels and I haven't even talked about lack of storage, material bloat, loot dilution, abysmal UI, awful ingredient management and convoluted recipes yet.
Yet it was deemed necessary to give NPCs access to the OP crap out of this system so the players grinding the poop out of it would still have a decent ttk. Well, thanks - now I have bulletsponges that take far longer to kill with my vanilla crap it's not even funny.
Engineers doesn't add to the game - it just takes away.
but no two or more things made by man are the "same" and what you call "tolerances" can make a large difference in the potential e.g. one engine can reach with all its constituent parts and their interacting individual "sizes" within the tolerance limits of manufacturing vs. another "same" engine and its combination of parts and their sizes within tolerance limits of manufacturing, when we start talking about getting ten tenths of the potential out of it, if you have the right combination of "gaps" between things rather than the wrong combination of gaps even though BOTH will fall within the tolerance limits of manufacturing there can be huge potential extracted from one engine, while the other can seize, detonate or otherwise have drastically less potential, even though they are the "same" in layman terms.
Say you want to buy a car. The dealer tells you that the engine in the model you want is supposed to have 100-140hp. He can't tell you before you buy how the assembly of your car is going to go and no matter what, you'll have to take what you get and when it will just have 100hp, you still won't get your money back. - But of course, you are always free to buy another car for the full price which then might have a more powerful engine - or not
. Be serious with me, would you accept such an offer in real life? And how would you react if the car dealer started telling you of tolerances and how they all add up and how unpredictable results are unavoidable? And 100-140hp is not even as extreme as some of the engineer mods get.
Yes, like we go to Engineers, to pre-order and measure up and we move the sliders to what we want, he then examines our ship and Umms and Ar's and scratches his head and Says, well son, thats gonna be difficult, in return i want 10 MEF, 25 Config componants, 15 Unexpected do dah's.
We then go away and grind his requirements out, go back, pay the dude and he fixes our Weapon/Drive/Sensor/Etc Etc.
To keep the FD desire to have us Grind, we won't ever know what he/she will randomly ask for, so no use storing stuff for instant payment!
Personally i would not mind grinding if i knew i was getting what i wanted!!!
Wadda you think??
Say you want to buy a car. The dealer tells you that the engine in the model you want is supposed to have 100-140hp. He can't tell you before you buy how the assembly of your car is going to go and no matter what, you'll have to take what you get and when it will just have 100hp, you still won't get your money back. - But of course, you are always free to buy another car for the full price which then might have a more powerful engine - or not
What you are describing is what you do when buying the ship and modules originally. Those are knowns.
Engineers are like taking it to a pro-performance shop for custom mods. There will be variances. Granted tho that the variances with Engineer rolls are definitely greater than what you would get out of such a shop.
One thing I do hope the people clamouring for user adjustable sliders (of which I'm not one, I'm fine with it like it is) have realised. If they get introduced, on that day every single piece of 'God rolled' gear they own and a lot of the gear with rolls that people just consider to be decent will be lost and they'll be starting again.
Reason being, as soon as you have sliders that work on 'increase X but decrease Y' a hell of a lot of the combinations people will have now simply won't be possible and there's no way FDev can go forward with players who own gear with stats that another player would find it literally impossible to match due to the new system.
If anybody doubts that, it's exactly what they did when they changed the parameters of some of the weapon mods - anything you had was automatically changed so that the proportions of the old roll fitted the new ranges, but you couldn't even do that with a slider based system taking the place of the rng.
Just as one very low value example, I have a grade 1 overcharged powerplant on one ship, can't even remember which but I just needed a tiny increase to overall juice on it, might be my FAS. Anyway that was a pretty cool roll (literally) because despite the changes to values that you can get with a grade one overcharged power plant being 2-12% increase in power output with the offsets being a 0-10% loss of thermal efficiency and 0-10% loss of integrity, mine has something like a 10% power output increase and actually increased thermal efficiency due to a lucky secondary.
Bring in sliders and lose the RNG that's gone. You're not going to be able to set a slider outside the maximum and minimum ranges for the attribute and there's no way I could keep that gear because it would be outside the possible parameters that a player could get for the gear from the point of the change.
I'd suggest people had a good look at their existing mods and see firstly just how many have a stat that is outside the stated parameters of the engineer upgrade due to secondaries.
Then I'd have a look at how many have rolls within about 75% of the 'best' value for two or more attributes because you'll be losing those too. If sliders allow you to increase X but correspondingly decrease Y, you won't be keeping that FSD upgrade that got a 45% optimised mass increase with only a 10% increase to power draw and a 20% mass increase. It won't be possible because to keep your optimised mass that close to the maximum, you're going to be jacking up at least one of the other two stats.
Here's the good bit. None of that can be automatically re-rolled like weapons were because some players would want to keep the mass low and take the hit on power draw, whilst others would couldn't take the power draw increase without wrecking their build and so would swallow the mass increase. FDev aren't going to argue about the 'best' way to do that, the mods will just be stripped.
Be careful what you wish for.
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It needs a complete rework, not adjustment. The ENTIRE FAIL-SYSTEM!
But FD have been steadfast in ignoring the community in this, and other areas including basic connectivity. Don't waste your breath on deaf ears my friend.
Restarting just needs to happen regardless of any change considering 99% of the people got their rng garbage through exploits; as admited by a few of the players and FD themselves. The whole system is borked; and has been since it's unfortunate inception. Personally, I'm already seeing RNG being REQUIRED on the new thargoid only weapons to even be useful. WE will see of course, as nothing is set in stone yet; but considering the past, hopes are not high.
As for slider mechanics, I for one would welcome that with open arms and great fanfare. As it would mean I no longer have to ignore half the game and be automagically excluded from the other. I know I don't care about not being able to set thing outside of their prospective bounds, as a slider system would actually introduce what FD promised, and failed, at delivering: customizability and legitimate not-gambling crafting. The absolute disaster of a failure that the RNGineers are and represent on all counts and fronts of development and implementation seriously just need to be removed for the cancer they are. Also, FD already allow for some players to have stats legitiamately unatainable by any other player because of said exploits; so that point there is already in effect and an issue. And lastly, no, changing a slider based result to a new perameter is no different than changing an RNG one. So having to change a slider-created module is still just as easy on their part. It's literally as simple as knowing what percentages are.
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I'm very familiar with this. I ride motorcycles, and I spent a bit of time tuning my CBR954RR for the track many years back. I invested in a full titanium exhaust system. Now, the stock CBR954RR produced about 130-136 rear wheel BHP. Note that gap... It's not even 5%.
Now, with the particular race exhaust in question (Arata Full Titanium system), with a programmable ECU add on, reached between 146-151 rear wheel brake horsepower. Mine hit 149.3 - still quite respectable by modern standards, considering it's a 2003 machine. Again, that's about 5%...
See where I'm going with this? If I'm going to be putting in potentially tens of hours, for heavens sake, don't make me regret it, it just "urinates" me off as a player, and makes me really resent the game.
Heck, everyones favourite comparison, the overclocking of CPU's, even then, you are not hitting anywhere near the tolerance differences that this game does.
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