I like the new engineers (mostly). Baby don't hurt me!

[Tanith Low]

So I actually like the way engineers work now. I like that it reduces the randomness and makes me feel like each part of the grind is a step in the right direction. No more the frustration of "dammit! after an hour of driving around I have 100 iron but no selenium." Now you can just trade it in and get some of what you want.

Likewise, when I do have the materials to make a roll I will always get something better than I had before - rather than a bad roll basically nullifying all of the work I just put in finding the materials. Excellent. It may be more effort now but none of it feels like wasted effort.

I also like the god rolls being made experimental effects. Nice touch that adds more granularity to the system and make me feel more like I am customising my ship.

What these changes meant is that in a couple of evenings I have managed to get a well modded Chieftain with a modest selection of materials and a bit of romping around and hoovering up anything and everything.

All in all a good move.

However, there are some minor issues.

1. Please let people grandfather their mods from wherever they are just using outfitting. For me this is less of an issue, because I have a deliberately small fleet. However for the people who have done a lot of engineering and have a big fleet this feels like an obtuse punishment for having played the old system - particularly for the PvPers who need to stay at the cutting edge of the arms race and now have to take all their ships to all the engineers.
2. I like the pinned recipes - good move letting us craft remotely too, but please let me see the whole cookbook from wherever I am. I shouldn't have to use a 3rd party website to check if I have the materials before I make a trip somewhere. And please at the very least let me see the experimental effects!
3. If you must take the experimental effect off my weapons when you grandfather them, TELL ME BEFORE YOU DO! In truth there is no need for that. If there's a corrosive shell mod on my MC just apply that same special effect to the grandfathered module using whatever the new rules for the special effect now is.
4. We really need a better system for managing muliple module across multiple ships. This is an absolute pain with my fleet of 5 ships. Some people have 30 or more and that's a lot of watching the docking bay animation! Give us a panel with modules on one side and our ships in the other. Show us the wire frame of the selected ship and let us drag modules onto the apropriate solts and back again. Done.

Like I say, I think the new system is a far better implementation, and the issues are themselves hang overs from the old system (mostly). Overall though it feels like there is now a consistent reward for the amount of effort you put in. Tying up a few loose ends would put the last polish on the system

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Try changing title to "Baby don't hurt me." That song is gonna play in so many heads.

 

[Tanith Low]

Try changing title to "Baby don't hurt me." That song is gonna play in so many heads.

You are an evil person.

Done!

 

[znôrt]

i haven't actually tried 3.0 yet, but i don't think some "qol" changes will change my fundamental view on engineers. if anything, buffing has gotten worse, grandfathering is still there looming and could be the next big salt mine/black hole. will see.

but to the point, on your title: yeah, a lot of people like facebook, and crap music, and lots voted for trump. so?

 

[Polared]

[*]We really need a better system for managing muliple module across multiple ships. This is an absolute pain with my fleet of 5 ships. Some people have 30 or more and that's a lot of watching the docking bay animation! Give us a panel with modules on one side and our ships in the other. Show us the wire frame of the selected ship and let us drag modules onto the apropriate solts and back again. Done.

Personally for me this is a major issue, and always has been. The whole outfitting section interface needs a complete rethink/overhaul to bring it up to the 34th century! Managing more than just a couple of modules in storage, especially multiples of the same type, is an absolute pain! it needs a function to annotate notes to individual modules, a flexible sorting/batching function, one screen multiple module compare interface, hell even a colour coding feature would help somewhat, the present design just isn't fit for any purpose other than the fact that it lists stuff in the form of a barebones basic list!

 

[Chorda]

I'm pretty happy with 3.0 so far, but I agree with all points here. Stripping special effects on old mods is particularly annoying.

 

[Tanith Low]

Personally for me this is a major issue, and always has been. The whole outfitting section interface needs a complete rethink/overhaul to bring it up to the 34th century! Managing more than just a couple of modules in storage, especially multiples of the same type, is an absolute pain! it needs a function to annotate notes to individual modules, a flexible sorting/batching function, one screen multiple module compare interface, hell even a colour coding feature would help somewhat, the present design just isn't fit for any purpose other than the fact that it lists stuff in the form of a barebones basic list!

Yup - quite right, and don't even get started on trying to store hull modules! "which ship were these military grade composites for again?"

It needs a massive overhaul, and has done for a while. Your ideas for this are pretty spot on for PC but I think part of the issue is designing an interface which is usable with a controller is not straight forward but there is still a lot that can be done.

• Give me the option to choose type of module, and the size - similar to the outfitting screen as it already is.
• Give me the ability to swap modules between ships without having to get in and out of the ships.
• Let me "bookmark" modules.
• Let me send modules to places as well as call them too me.

Those 4 things would make a huge difference and are basically just a re juggling of the current UI.

 

[SciTrekker]

Yup - quite right, and don't even get started on trying to store hull modules! "which ship were these military grade composites for again?"

It needs a massive overhaul, and has done for a while. Your ideas for this are pretty spot on for PC but I think part of the issue is designing an interface which is usable with a controller is not straight forward but there is still a lot that can be done.

• Give me the option to choose type of module, and the size - similar to the outfitting screen as it already is.
• Give me the ability to swap modules between ships without having to get in and out of the ships.
• Let me "bookmark" modules.
• Let me send modules to places as well as call them too me.

Those 4 things would make a huge difference and are basically just a re juggling of the current UI.

And a comparison tool would be super QoL.[yesnod]

 

[Polared]

Your ideas for this are pretty spot on for PC but I think part of the issue is designing an interface which is usable with a controller is not straight forward but there is still a lot that can be done.

unfortunately, and no hate intended towards our console bound brothers and sisters, i have long suspected that this may be the main, if not the sole, root of the problem! although, having recognised that issue, and taking limitations imposed by it in to account, i can't believe that there isn't somebody capable enough as an interface designer at FDEV that couldn't vastly improve, make "feature rich" etc, that whole section. as i don't know the resources allocated to it etc etc i certainly am not slagging of anybody who worked on it, but it does seem that only minimum thought/effort was put in to it!

 

[John Xenir]

I've said it before previously about beta, and I'll say here too: I like that the RNG is now the tool to make progress, operating within confined margins, rather than being the driving force and working without any control.

Now, if only other fundamentally RNG-based mechanics could undergo similar facial surgery...

 

[ronnie-kane]

I couldn't agree more.

Personally I have put a lot of effort into engineering under the previous system. These changes are not really for my benefit - these changes are for people for whom one roll of engineering was a significant investment of their game time. Many of these people naturally saw engineering as "materials grind + casino = not working towards anything".
That said, I do feel that the system as it is feels almost punitive to me. Having to fly every ship to every engineer to convert the modules is a massive pain on my end for something that only exists to work around a mistake that Frontier made. I'm not ragging on them for making said mistake, I applaud them for recognising it and addressing it, but the conversion of modules to the new engineering system should not be another hoop to jump through. It should be available almost everywhere in the same way that we can remove any modification in any outfitting station.

Better module management would be nice but it's not my big pain here. Well, not technically true - I'm feeling the pain from it but only because I am having to move around every module I own.
I can't even see in outfitting whether a module is from the old or new engineering system. This is another symptom of the same problem - it should not matter that it's from the old system and having old engineering on it should not make any difference to what I can do with it and where.