Any gameplay negatives to buying Pre-Engineered modules?

[DukeIronHand]

Limited gameplay time this weekend but planning a little exploration trip in a Cobra Mk III and realized I would like to try a Long Range Engineer mod for my Scanner(s). A minor Engineering feat of course but it will take play time when it becomes available.

This is made me wonder: Is there some game-breaking issue or disadvantage for the player base to be able to buy Pre-Engineered modules of various types? These can appear "randomly" perhaps, be of different types and levels, various (high) cost, perhaps only available at Engineer locations, whatever. Guess we'll leave the details to the game designers.

On its face it seems a fine and logical idea to me and, if done correctly, I really don't see any downsides. Am I missing something? Is the ability to buy Pre-Engineered modules a bad idea?

 

[Flavourless]

Engineering is, as it stands, the only game activity that you cannot progress in just by using credits.
You actually have to gain access to the Engineers, and personally collect the materials used for the blueprint.

IMO, its a good feature, as CR have become so devalued in the game, that having things that can just be bought is meh.

Pre-Engineered modules would bypass the process and reduce Engineering to the same level as the rest of the game.

 

[Siranui]

On its face it seems a fine and logical idea to me and, if done correctly, I really don't see any downsides. Am I missing something? Is the ability to buy Pre-Engineered modules a bad idea?

Some of the Engineers are clearly designed to be a carrot, encouraging players to take part in activities that they may not have before [rare trades, conflict zones, mining, bothering to go outside the Bubble] and potentially widening the scope of the game for them. By bringing in a 'lazy route' which bypasses content, it potentially reduces the player's content more by not prodding them in that direction.

 

[varonica]

Some of the Engineers are clearly designed to be a carrot, encouraging players to take part in activities that they may not have before [rare trades, conflict zones, mining, bothering to go outside the Bubble] and potentially widening the scope of the game for them. By bringing in a 'lazy route' which bypasses content, it potentially reduces the player's content more by not prodding them in that direction.

I get the idea, I really do, but some of us donkeys just don't like to be driven, carrot or not!

I have level one engineering on my FSD and thrusters, and that's it because I don't do combat, I simply don't and never will, so some of the stuff required for higher level mods which comes from combat areas isn't coming my way ever.

I could do mining, I don't mind that, trading I have done a bit of to earn enough money to outfit my exploration ships, but not combat, I have spent many years playing combat oriented games and its time for a change, so no combat, and no higher level mods.

But, I have also often wondered why the engineers keep wasting all them modules they fail to engineer to the satisfaction of the pilots, they should sell them to us needy people, that way we could get second rate engineered mods while the keen guys keep their first rate engineered mods to themselves, and if we truly wanted first rate mods we could still get them by collecting mats and engineering them. So everybody is satisfied, the dedicated guys get to keep their top rate gear, us non-dedicated people get some engineered stuff even if it is second rate.

 

[Jukelo]

The process of gathering mats to engineer your modules is there deliberately to create a second currency, because by the end of 2015 credits had become meaningless as Frontier had already started goofing up and caving in to complaints about progression.

 

[askavir]

Being able to buy engineered modules would in practice invalidate all the current engineering process. Everybody would just simply buy them. And that would invalidate the existence of non-engineered modules, just like every class of module except D and A has already been rendered pointless by super-inflation.

As the whole engineering process turned out to be absolutely horrible, I can't in due conscience say it is a bad idea, although I would prefer engineering to be made "not horrible" rather than just turn it into having more elements in the outfitting shop.

 

[[VR] Deggial]

Everything that Flavourless, Siranui and Jukelo said.

Furthermore, there is the idea of rewards for certain game activities.
Do you remember the early days of planet surface discussions? The question was: yes, driving around in the SRV is fun and all ... but why should we actually do so, after the novelty did wear off? What is the actual reason for it?

Well, gathering materials (elements and data from outposts) is the incentive and the reward for driving around. It gives purpose to it beyond the actual fun *) in doing so. Take it away (or bypass it) and you’ll be left with a pointless activity that indeed won’t be used much as it doesn’t add to the personal in-game progression.

*) yes, yes, I know. Fun is a very personal experience and you might not enjoy driving around as much as other activities or even just a single activity (e.g. PvP combat). But FDev weirdly seems to think, that they have created a fun game and that people who play it actually enjoy doing so (or they simply would play something else). Adding rewards to all existing game mechanisms seems to be a reasonable approch under such an impression ...

 

[Achibot]

I have level one engineering on my FSD and thrusters, and that's it because I don't do combat, I simply don't and never will, so some of the stuff required for higher level mods which comes from combat areas isn't coming my way ever.

You are doing yourself a terrible disservice by believing this, it's quite simply not true at all. I'm not aware of any G5 mod *requiring* combat and certainly none of the main ones. I'm not sure what caused you to think this but you should definitely reset your thinking here and look at it again. For example, a G5 FSD mod, which basically every ship can make use of, requires:

Arsenic - Self explanatory, you pick this up from the ground on planets that have it.
Chemical Manipulators - You can get these in certain (non-combat) USS but my preferred way is to visit the Naptha Class tanker in Okinura where they are just floating in space.
Datamined Wake Exceptions - Go to any Famine system and check if it has a Distribution Centre. If it does drop in and use a wake scanner to scan the wakes of ships as they leave.

So, you see, that's a G5 FSD mod for little enough effort and absolutely no combat.

 

[Cmdr Ultra]

G5 Dirty Drive - again no combat required.
Cadium from surface mining, Cracked Industrial Firmware from Surface Data Point or Misson Reward. And Pharmaceutical Isolators from High grade USS or Mission reward.

Of course you have to get through Grade 1 to 4 but you can do that with enough G1 mats if you have to.

 

[BlackSpaceCowboy]

Some of the Engineers are clearly designed to be a carrot, encouraging players to take part in activities that they may not have before [rare trades, conflict zones, mining, bothering to go outside the Bubble] and potentially widening the scope of the game for them.

That's true. Without engineers I doubt I would have tried the activity of shooting rocks on a planet for an hour or destroying innocent T9 trade ships.

It's not a good idea for a game to force you to do stuff you don't want to do for hours just to progress.

 

[BlackSpaceCowboy]

Chemical Manipulators - You can get these in certain (non-combat) USS but my preferred way is to visit the Naptha Class tanker in Okinura where they are just floating in space.

I didn't know that. Thanks. I lost interest in the game for months while trying to upgrade my FSD. I tried the USS's and it wasn't working and I didn't want to destroy T9's. Now my only gripe is that I'll have to spend a game session jumping to a location and back instead of having fun.

This is fine for the very committed ED player but it stops the game from becoming more popular as this kind of activity is considered by many to be a grind.

 

[Mrat13]

This COULD work, if we had an auction house, where we could buy engineered ships or modules off other players, but they set the price, but the cheapest would obviously sell faster, so they couldn't just charge ridiculous prices, or they'd be undercut by someone else.

This is a feature in online racing games, where people modify cars to sell them on and make money. One could then use this method as an end game credit earning mode, as supply would likely easily strip demand.

It would also make things more immersive, as we could interact with players more than just getting shot at, or saying hello. An actual player economy would form, where we set the prices for engineered parts, and would add an extra element to the BGS (background simulation).

But I get the feeling this would have some sort of player backlash, because seemingly some players abhor any sort of content where players can interact with each other .

 

[wrmiller]

Pre-Engineered modules would bypass the process and reduce Engineering to the same level as the rest of the game.

And that would be a great thing for many of us who despise the entire 'engineer' process.

 

[Tadeus72]

Yeah, because having to actually go somewhere and search for something is much too much to ask for top-tier item in a game. They should deliver them to your favorite mission hub, so you don't feel forced.

The mechanic is fine, there is only a problem with in-game sources of information. There is no way to know 90% of things that could be useful, without reading external guides. And it's like this with everything in this game and not only with material hunting.

Most of the most popular online games out there have much more grind than this. At least you don't have to repeat the same dungeon you hate dozens of times to get the artifact that has a 5% drop chance. And games with such mechanics have millions of players!

 

[wrmiller]

The mechanic is fine

Well, that's one opinion. But let's not go down THAT rabbit hole again.

 

[Wulfram Carbide]

I think it could work well if you made sure that bought modules weren't quite as good as you could tweak out with engineers. The aim should be to make engineering still valuable but less obligatory.

 

[Ian Skippy]

I have level one engineering on my FSD and thrusters, and that's it because I don't do combat, I simply don't and never will, so some of the stuff required for higher level mods which comes from combat areas isn't coming my way ever.

Almost everything can be had in multiple ways. Most combat mats can be found scavenging for example.

I think it could work well if you made sure that bought modules weren't quite as good as you could tweak out with engineers. The aim should be to make engineering still valuable but less obligatory.

But you can already buy modules with credits that are good but not as good as self-modded modules. They are called modules.

 

[Siranui]

This COULD work, if we had an auction house, where we could buy engineered ships or modules off other players, but they set the price

So: A player-driven economy is the solution?

Because that never breaks games. :/

 

[Mrat13]

So: A player-driven economy is the solution?

Because that never breaks games. :/

Works in Crossout.

 

[Cmdr Lucca1985]

OP FDEV would lose about 5 years from the game's staying power. We need to wait for the developers themselves to expand before any significant changes like that could be carried out.