Despite Enginner 'improvements', unlocking engineers is still a pain...

[Darkslayer]

I found the engineering grind to be about 50/50. Half grind and half fun. There was certainly a sense of accomplishment though as I don't feel everyone will do this. The end result is tremendous for myself as now instead of min maxing an indestructable FDL or sometbing that can jump 50 lys, I have been able to craft a Viper4 that can handle itself against a non eng Vulture and still be a very capable Multi role. I find the results to be worth the 50% grind

 

[Captain Jack Sparrow]

After the much lauded (by FD at least) so-called improvements to RNGineers in Beta 3.0, the fact is that FD have failed miserably to address one of the most negative aspects of engineers; that being the fact that some engineers are locked behind other engineers and then require a ridiculous amount of 'hoop-jumping' in order to access their services.

Whilst appreciating the fact that Sandro and his team have to account to shareholders for the number of hours players are logged-in, it is a disgrace that the above engineers merry-go-round has not only not been addressed, but also the fact that it appears not even to have been considered in Beyond. In fact, it has not been mentioned in any streams or posts by FD.

Going back as far as 2016, one of the biggest complaints about engineers was the fact that to unlock them was - and still is - a real pain, and continues to be so. And before the white knights and good old Max Factor - whose posts can sometimes be informative and whose opinions I respect - start to tell me, "You don't have to engineer if you don't want to...", let me just say that without engineered modules, most of the ships in ED will get blown out of space much sooner than later; something of which new players become aware very quickly.

I fell into the trap of engineers early on but have never progressed beyond G3 Dirty Drives or a G1 power plant and G5 FSD, etc, simply because to unlock Palin or the others seems to me to be a pointless time-sink and very disrespectful of the limited time in which I have to play and enjoy ED.

The fact that this aspect of engineers had not been improved in Beyond (instead we have material brokers with exorbitant exchange rates) is imo a disrespectful slant on those of us who have spent more than a thousand hours in game but who still have the integrity to avoid being forced by FD into certain activities in which we have no desire to participate.

As always, 'Sandro's law' says, "Play the game your way, blaze your own trail...as long as it is the way and the trail of which we approve and which we sanction."

Your thoughts please..even white knights!

They should be locked behind other engineers. They improve your ship and give you an advantage. god forbid you have to work for something. If they weren't locked they would have no value. And no one is forcing you into anything. If you want to engage in combat, you need to put in the work.

 

[CMDR Dragonclau]

I think people want these unlocking missions to be meaningful. Replace "deliver 50 Lavian Brandy" with a scripted mission where the player can learn about the lore of Elite Dangerous. Essentially this would be a meaningful "quest" instead of a time sink.

 

[Sylveria]

I think people want these unlocking missions to be meaningful. Replace "deliver 50 Lavian Brandy" with a scripted mission where the player can learn about the lore of Elite Dangerous. Essentially this would be a meaningful "quest" instead of a time sink.

And perhaps the Engineer just so happens to like Lavian Brandy? How is this not meaningful to the lore of the game?

They didn't ask you to bring them a "shrubbery".

 

[CMDR Dragonclau]

And perhaps the Engineer just so happens to like Lavian Brandy? How is this not meaningful to the lore of the game?

They didn't ask you to bring them a "shrubbery".

This is not meaningful experience to the player, it's just another delivery mission with the added time sink of rare item and quantity.

 

[Drelthar]

And perhaps the Engineer just so happens to like Lavian Brandy? How is this not meaningful to the lore of the game?

They didn't ask you to bring them a "shrubbery".

I'm unsure how you can't see the difference.

 

[Genus]

And perhaps the Engineer just so happens to like Lavian Brandy? How is this not meaningful to the lore of the game?

They didn't ask you to bring them a "shrubbery".

Are you saying "No" to that old mechanic? Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can say "No" at will to old tinkerers. There is a pestilence upon this universe, nothing is sacred. Even those who produce and market Lavian Brandy, are under considerable economic stress at this period in history...

Did you say Lavian Brandy?

 

[Susanna]

If only Douglas Adams was still around. lol

.... So True! [heart]

 

[Vorxian]

I've started to learn to play the piano over the last couple of weeks.. At the ripe old of 40 something... Do I wish I could just Matrix style upload the required skill into my brain? Sure.. But where is the fun in that.

Some things in life are worth taking time over, something lost on generation Z sadly

haha +1 rep for awesomeness.

Been playing the Piano & guitar since childhood and I'm not far off you in years

As proficient as I like to think I am (play in bands) etc, what I'd still give to download matrix style the prowess of some of my guitar heroes (Mark Knopfler / Gilmour etc), or the sheer piano extravagance of some of the all time greatest pianists like Sergei Rachmaninov.

I tend to look at music differently from someone who isn't musically oriented, and I regret that, I would love to sit down and listen to music for what it is, but I cannot. I'm dissecting every note, passage, phrase.. I listen to me play, listen to someone that IS a master at what they do, and momentarily dislike everything about myself... In frustration I wanna quit. Then go and sarcastically play something to enforce that really i'm an amateur in comparison, and someone comes in and says...... Ohhhh.......... M.................... G..... you're g awesome, where did you learn to play.

So I think no matter how well you can or cannot play, having a turbocharge of someone elses technique, or technical instrumental prowess downloaded into your head, you can incorporate and use to fill gaps in your own way to play. Some then argue that you lose your individuality if suddenly you were Steve Vai in your mind or, Bach or whoever... but in the grand scheme of things, I'd download it into my brain any day (as long as it didn't blow my mind up)... but from all accounts i'm only using 10% of brain anyway with the rest as a silent humming in Dm .

EDIT : But on topic I'd compare Engineers to trying to play a G on the 15th fret and someone has helpfully de-tuned every string, and snapped 2 of them off for you, including the root: to make it 'more challenging' and to stop you going directly for the chord. Which doesn't help if you just want to play the chord! (nor any other note or chord on the guitar).

 

[IndigoWyrd]

There are only a very few Engineers that I found to have a little pain involved in unlocking them:

Liz Ryder - Friendly with the Eurybia Blue Mafia

Zach Nemo - Invite from Party of Yoru

Marco Qwent - Sirius Invitation

Bill Turner - Ailoth permit required AND mine 50 tons of Bromellite.


Liz.. ok, honestly, getting to Friendly with any faction just isn't that hard, it's just a little annoying.

Zach - Not much of a Party, and these are just tedious.

Marco - I just happened to be trying to do this during the demi-legendary Auto-Mission-Fail bug's lifespan. But it really didn't take all that long, it was just extra annoying.

Bill - I never wanted to punch someone in the face quite as much. Then I came to realize he did G5 Plasma Accelerator mods, so was forgiven for being such a pain.

Even Palin wasn't that hard. I just had to go on 13 real-day-long scan-fest across the galaxy. At least I took a long-range passenger for an added bonus, and it only took 6 hours to get back. And I learned I cannot do Exploration with the current system mechanics. This was confirmed prior to the 2.4 launch, when I once again ventured into the void, 6200 Ly this time, every bit as painful as my previous venture, but at least I wasn't home when the thargoids came calling.

 

[CMDR Carbo]

Ah yes, fetch quests, the most boring/least creative missions in the world of gaming.

Normally in MMOs they look something like this:

"Bring me item X from challenging dungeon A and I will give you this shiny sword".

In ED they go like this:

"Bring me N amount of X or I won't even talk to you, but you know what, you have to do it 5 TIMES over, because you can only carry so much, HA HA HA HA!!!"

 

[verminstar]

Presumably, that's part of the way it's "supposed" to work.

You're supposed to just potter along, doing your own thing, and then you do something which gets you "noticed" by the relevant engineer and they crawl out of the woodwork to offer their services.

Course, gamers being the sort of people they are, that was never going to work out because (most) gamers like to unlock as many toys as possible.

The main problem I have is that I have to leave the game to find relevant information...not the grind itself. That part is the easy part because then one knows what one has to do.

Just as an example...how do ye find soontill relics without going out of game? Or MA? Of course I wanna unlock everything but I dont expect it to be easy or fast...finding out how to unlock them however...yeah try doing that without once ever leaving the game to check out 3rd party websites. Think ye could unlock them all with the relevant information in the game? Im told one has to leave the game to gain certain pieces of information...thats my issue.

Presumably one just plays the game and they unlock over time naturally? Thats weird cos Im here two years and only know how to unlock three so far...and on two of those I had to ask on the forums where to purchase the relics...theres zero information about them ingame. So if one just plays the game, when does this information materialize? If one just has to play the game, one would assume that means only the game and not using external websites...so can ye still tell me they will all unlock by just playing the game and not using out of game resources? If ye can then pray tell me where in the game the information can be found, if at all.

If that information does not exist in the game...then yer statement about just playing the game is factually misleading as that will not unlock engineers alone ^

 

[Sylveria]

because you can only carry so much

This is the my only point of contention- and perhaps concession, in regard to the implementation.

I've got a hold that can carry 200 tons of cargo, yet no matter how long I sit at the market waiting for Fujin Tea, I'll need to come back 5 times, indeed. Hell I'd settle for having a timer, perhaps even having to log completely out of the game and wait for an hour or two for the market to "refresh" itself based on a "limited supply of rare goods".

It's an arbitrary restriction which has no sensible implementation, no doubt about it. Challenges are indeed necessary... but nonsensical ones are not.

 

[S3B4ST13N]

Fun fact... OP said "fact" 6 times in his OP.

 

[Wyaston Hypatia]

Soontill Relics info:

Spoiler

Read the info on the engineers screen for Elvira Martuuk

 

[Ktonos]

7
8 if u include factor

 

[Stealthie]

If that information does not exist in the game...then yer statement about just playing the game is factually misleading as that will not unlock engineers alone ^

Well, the information does exist in-game, insofar as the objects are in-game to be found.

Presumably, the dev's envisaged people getting engineer invites and then, eventually, stumbling across the location where the relevant item was to be found and then thinking "Ah! Now I've found these things I can go and unlock that engineer!"

Not saying I approve of it but it seems like that's the only explanation for the way things happen within the game.

There's a bit of an art to introducing "tutorials" into a game without making it obvious that they are tutorials and it's something FDev isn't terribly good at.

Now we have chained-missions in the game, it wouldn't hurt if there were a whole heap of missions which trigger a "tutorial" as a set of chained-missions which educates the player about how to do something.
For example, you find a mission that requires you buy Lavian Brandy and deliver it to a station.
As soon as you complete a mission like that for the first time you get a chained-mission to go and buy other Rares and deliver them as well.
Work through the entire chain of missions and the location of every Rare would be known to you.

That way it'd still be "murky" but once you stumbled across the right sort of activity, the game would guide you through the activity via chained-missions.

 

[Jenner]

Well, the information does exist in-game, insofar as the objects are in-game to be found.

Presumably, the dev's envisaged people getting engineer invites and then, eventually, stumbling across the location where the relevant item was to be found and then thinking "Ah! Now I've found these things I can go and unlock that engineer!"

Not saying I approve of it but it seems like that's the only explanation for the way things happen within the game.

There's a bit of an art to introducing "tutorials" into a game without making it obvious that they are tutorials and it's something FDev isn't terribly good at.

Now we have chained-missions in the game, it wouldn't hurt if there were a whole heap of missions which trigger a "tutorial" as a set of chained-missions which educates the player about how to do something.
For example, you find a mission that requires you buy Lavian Brandy and deliver it to a station.
As soon as you complete a mission like that for the first time you get a chained-mission to go and buy other Rares and deliver them as well.
Work through the entire chain of missions and the location of every Rare would be known to you.

That way it'd still be "murky" but once you stumbled across the right sort of activity, the game would guide you through the activity via chained-missions.

Yeah, I do wish the chain missions were a lot more utilized than they are currently. There is a lot of storytelling potential there.

 

[Enderby]

It's meant to a faff, though, isn't it?

Spin out the 'content'.

 

[Blackcompany]

I've started to learn to play the piano over the last couple of weeks.. At the ripe old of 40 something... Do I wish I could just Matrix style upload the required skill into my brain? Sure.. But where is the fun in that.

Some things in life are worth taking time over, something lost on generation Z sadly

Yes, some things are worth sinking time into. And yes, playing the piano is absolutely one of those things.

Watching loading screens and waiting on the intentional time sinks Sandro (incorrectly) refers to as "game play" however...are not.