I never though I'd say this, but I'm starting to like Engineers
- Thread starter GreyAreaUK
- Start date
How about no? They're the only thing that can make horrible drawbacks less bad, and they're also the only way to get above +50% FSD jump range.
And "god rolls" encourage players to keep collecting more mats in order to try to get even better results. Otherwise engineers would never be visited again after one upgraded all their modules. It's something that keeps you playing.
Not necesarilly, theres always going to be something to tweak and tinker on if you happen to change loadout or change ship etc.
Or could just be me , i swap out ships and loadouts often and like testing builds.
I will never understand why people that claim to have moved on and "ignore the game itself [...] indefinitely" still feel to need to sound out on the forums. You add nothing to your life except frustration and nothing to the forum except, possibly, fodder for the ignore list.
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Just doing the "rares" CG. The engineered AspX I pulled out for that jumps 45 ly empty, 41 fully ladden and boosts to 500 m/s, while still packing a punch with engineered multi cannons and pulse lasers. How is that not fun?
I tried to get into it but couldn't. I have better things to do than waste hours of my real life upgrading a virtual ship. It would be different if upgrading the ship was itself fun but it's just a bunch of fetch quests.
I spent an hour doing 18 jumps and then I quit.
I spent an hour doing 18 jumps and then I quit.
It's not just you. I love tinkering with my ships and trying different mod combinations. I suspect many people enjoy this aspect. I also understand the argument against secondary effects, but don't agree with them personally as I like the chance of an utterly ridiculous addition (or subtraction, of course, though they don't seem very common).
The least interesting part is definitely the supercruise material hunting, though. That's why I try to always be on the look out for materials when I am doing other things. So long as I have five or so of each one, I know I'm pretty much sorted. I'm not someone that can spend hours rerolling just for a minor improvement - the only time I'm likely to do that is when I have an excess of materials.
FSD mods can easily be kept to the same level by increasing the max to 56%.
Compare that FSD mod though, where its a max 7% range increase a secondary can give vs the 12.4% increase a DD5 secondary can give though. Thats a huge difference...
I would throw out every Engineer immediately if their work could be extended and integrated into a better ship garage system. Right now their "miracles" aren't anything beyond another layer of upgrades anyway. Nobody has a cloaking device or artificial gravity generators that I've seen, it's all tweaks to ship parameters. All of it could be incorporated into a larger and more interesting ship tweaking arrangement.
I keep mentioning GT because it set a standard for game ride tweaking for me years ago; I didn't even like racing games until I was allowed under the hood. Gran Turismo has an extensive garage mode for doing lots of upgrades and parameter settings for your vehicles. If you want to get someone else's build for your ride, go ahead, but for me in a game with customization to the point of my tire camber and drag coefficient, that's removing a huge chunk of gameplay from myself. Building a good ride from nothing is a fun sense of achievement, as your ride evolves from a hoopty into something track-worthy.
Anyone who wishes the performance without the effort of working on a build can copy a build, sure, but they'd still have to go get all the stuff and they're less likely to understand their ride's operation and how to alter it for their own personal needs than if they'd done the work with their own knowledge or some good advice instead of mere blind copypasta. Even stealing a build can be a jumping off point for learning to build yourself, and doesn't have to be a limiter if a player wants to know how their ride does what it does. If winning races is all that's important, okay, skip the build and just drive. But many players enjoy garage gameplay in of itself and not just for the end product.
Finally, what we have now is NOT the same input/output ratio for each player operationally. Same chances to gamble per roll, per scan, per USS, per ship target isn't in the least the same as putting in similar effort for similar results. Currently it's RNG to collect the nubbies and then more RNG to see if your nubbies did anything useful for you; and either one of those could take one day or two months. You might end up with some kind of crazy super-effect on roll one, or burn through your entire stack of nubbies and end up with something mediocre or weirdly offset. The odds of two given players being able to put in the same amount of gaming first to find the stuff and then have the stuff actually provide similar output are some pretty poor odds under the current paradigm.
I have G4 unlocked on Farseer, I just don't have some of the mats for it. I've taken a break from it for now, and am currently bounty hunting in my Python.
This game would be so much better if you could pay for engineer mods and you didn't have to travel to each engineer.
The fun would come in experimenting with the right mix of mods for your ship and play style.
Finally, it would be great if there were missions that could only be completed with a very clever mix of engineer mods.
The fun would come in experimenting with the right mix of mods for your ship and play style.
Finally, it would be great if there were missions that could only be completed with a very clever mix of engineer mods.
Farseer has ended up being the only engineer I have any real interest in.
And I avoid her as much as I can.
It would be good to get a few more enhanced modules (like the small drives & CRCRs).
Farseer has ended up being the only engineer I have any real interest in.
And I avoid her as much as I can.
At the moment, that is the same for me. Reactors, speed, and jump range, all of the things I really need regardless of the ship I'm using.
There may be some outliers like the DD5, but in many cases it's absolutely necessary to have a high secondary roll available. Without it, for example I wouldn't be able to get my Corvette powered, which requires 50.4MW, I managed to roll PP5 to 52MW which is 8.7% over the cap. It's nearly the same for my other ships which are all power-hungry, even my exploration Asp.
And anyway, it's not like DD5 is restricted to only certain players, anyone who wants it can get it. One good thing about this game is the fact that you don't need a group to get access to the best available content.
Regarding GT (and Forza), I'm with you 100%. I'm not an automotive gearhead, but the ability to get under the hood takes those games to a whole new level. Perhaps what you suggest could be added on top - do the Engineering first, but then we can tweak a (small) bit further on our own. I'd support something like that.
Random distribution: Some people will get unicorn parts, some will get screwed, but most will fall in the middle, and they will, in fact, get parts that are comparable. That's just how that works, and I'm only referring to a single roll, in this case. They are not likely to be the same, true, but they will be similar for most of the participants. As such, similar effort is most likely to provide similar reward.
I really wish that the Engineer complainers (not saying either of you, specifically, but you probably know who I'm talking about) would at least acknowledge how generous Frontier has been with Felicity Farseer. In her original incarnation, and then again when new blueprints have been released. If your primary way(s) of spending time in this game do not regularly involve Combat, then she is really the only Engineer you need, and she is only locked behind a full-scan trip to Maia, and a Meta-Alloy.
They could have stuck her behind an Elite rank, or in Palin's place, or a trip to the Core. Instead, she's right out front, with arguably the single most beneficial upgrade to all Commanders.
Riôt
Ever play one of those games like McDonald's use to run, a Monopoly game, where you have to collect all the pieces? There is always that one piece that is the actual key they make only a couple or so of, yet they have you going around collecting all the other pieces as if you're going to happen upon that lucky piece in the process. They could just have a single piece winner, not requiring the multiple collections of pieces.
Like that, the engineers require things that are given to you in bulk, that you later won't even want and will struggle to rid yourself of as you move through the game after you've engineered your modules. There are those few pieces though that you have to mine for, travel for, grind for. Those are the Boardwalk and Park Place of the ED engineering scheme. You'll have 60 atypical wake echoes but only 10 or so units of Arsenic. Exquisite focus crystals seem to be elusive, though I now have over a dozen I will likely never use (and didn't look for them in the 1st place).
Once you get your materials, you can fall into the God roll trap and not settle for "good enough", or you can take the 1st roll you get if you think it's better than what you have. I've done both. However it's worth the grind once you get the upgrades. The boost, range and power plant upgrades are game changers. I don't PvP but I still have shields and boosters upgraded, and did some multicannon upgrades as well. I store these modules, never sell them. I just need to upgrade the fuel scoop (not aware of the benefits yet) and I'll be set.
So it does seem like a huge waste of time to catch back up to the galaxy again, but it's actually better game play, I think, to have that ability - even if you only PvE.
Like that, the engineers require things that are given to you in bulk, that you later won't even want and will struggle to rid yourself of as you move through the game after you've engineered your modules. There are those few pieces though that you have to mine for, travel for, grind for. Those are the Boardwalk and Park Place of the ED engineering scheme. You'll have 60 atypical wake echoes but only 10 or so units of Arsenic. Exquisite focus crystals seem to be elusive, though I now have over a dozen I will likely never use (and didn't look for them in the 1st place).
Once you get your materials, you can fall into the God roll trap and not settle for "good enough", or you can take the 1st roll you get if you think it's better than what you have. I've done both. However it's worth the grind once you get the upgrades. The boost, range and power plant upgrades are game changers. I don't PvP but I still have shields and boosters upgraded, and did some multicannon upgrades as well. I store these modules, never sell them. I just need to upgrade the fuel scoop (not aware of the benefits yet) and I'll be set.
So it does seem like a huge waste of time to catch back up to the galaxy again, but it's actually better game play, I think, to have that ability - even if you only PvE.
We're all playing Pretend Spaceman at the end of the day and want the best experience. It just seems to be slightly different for all of us.
We're all playing Pretend Spaceman at the end of the day and want the best experience. It just seems to be slightly different for all of us.
Pretend!?!
Oh yea. Sure. Of course. I knew that.
There goes my immersion.