Something I'd like to say to those complaining about the new engineer system.

[Gun Star]

It really depends on what you are engineering. I just engineered a Cutter from start to finish. The old system I would have been happy with 3-5 G5 rolls. I would have collected all those G5 mats required in the matter of hours. I would have had a fully engineered ship in a day. I made a collection of notes wear to find all of them which is now garbage with how worse the RNG for HGE's (I've had one pop up in 4 hours. Fun times)

Even with mat traders I still had to spend several days collecting stuff to trade up or trade down. Some of the weapons and Engines are better. But some of the modules fully G5ed suck compared to old modules with multiple secondaries. Like FSD's, PP, Shields.

Its love hate relationship for me right now. It is definitely more time consuming now. Thats for sure.

 

[Kaocraft]

The thing that surprises me about the 'mid tier' school of thought, which opinion I might summarise as ...

"I like to do only a couple of g5 rolls, therefore 3.0 is, for me, more effort than 2.4"

... is that I think in most cases I'd actually find the new system the easier one, even just to do that.

I mean, yes, you have to g1-g4 but isn't that usually outweighed by the Mats Trader?

For example, even doing just a couple of g5 dirty drives rolls requires 2 x CIF. It's much easer to get 2 x CIF now, than before.

Old recipe for single G5 dirty drives roll after ranking up enginneer:
1x Cracked Industrial Firmware
1x Cadmium
1x Parmaceutical Isolators

Old recipe for "a couple" of G5 dirty drives roll after ranking up enginneer:
2x Cracked Industrial Firmware
2x Cadmium
2x Pharmaceutical Isolators

New Recipe for single G5 dirty drives roll after ranking up engineer:
3-12x Specialized Legacy Firmware
1-4x Mechanical Equipment
1-4x Chromium
1-4X Mechanical Components
1-4x Modified Consumer Firmware
1-4x Selenium
1-4x Configurable Components
1x Cracked Industrial Firmware
1x Cadmium
1x Pharmaceutical Isolators

New Recipe for "a couple" of G5 dirty drives roll after ranking up engineer:
6-24x Specialized Legacy Firmware
2-8x Mechanical Equipment
2-8x Chromium
2-8X Mechanical Components
2-8x Modified Consumer Firmware
2-8x Selenium
2-8x Configurable Components
2x Cracked Industrial Firmware
2x Cadmium
2x Pharmaceutical Isolators

Yeah it's easier to get CIF now than before. It's not easier to get ALL OF THESE THINGS now than it was to previously get those three things, though. Even with the mats trader. And the mats trader isn't even at the engineer station nor are all three traders ever in a single location, so it's inherently a giant additional layer of schlepp.

 

[Kaocraft]

But it also makes top-level mods much cheaper. Which renders mid-range a bit pointless, really.

Then WHYYYYYY do we have to HAVE mid-range in the game at all?

The new system ensures that you will spend *more* time with *more* modules in the mid range than ever before, even if (as you suggest) nobody wants them and they are "pointless."

In the Old system people were "stuck" with a mid-range G5 mod which they could get right away.

In the New system people are "stuck" with G1, G2, G3, G4 mods, etc; until such time as they can harvest more mats to move past these "pointless" mods. The new "mid-range" is worse, and more pointless than the old "mid-range."

 

[Deleted member 110222]

Then WHYYYYYY do we have to HAVE mid-range in the game at all?

The new system ensures that you will spend *more* time with *more* modules in the mid range than ever before, even if (as you suggest) nobody wants them and they are "pointless."

In the Old system people were "stuck" with a mid-range G5 mod which they could get right away.

In the New system people are "stuck" with G1, G2, G3, G4 mods, etc; until such time as they can harvest more mats to move past these "pointless" mods. The new "mid-range" is worse, and more pointless than the old "mid-range."

When was the last time you played a multiplayer game which gave you the top equipment right away?

 

[GG7]

If you play the game and approach the engineers later in your play history, all of this stuff would have taken care of itself just by playing the game and collecting stuff you find. That is basically Frontier's design approach here with 3.0. They are obviously considering new players as much or more than veteran players.

Since you can now basically collect EVERYTHING YOU FIND, and never have to dump anything to make room for something else, eventually you will have all the mats and data you need to plow through a full upgrade session in one session without lifting a finger to hunt down anything you don't have.

Anything you are still low on can be created with the Mat Traders.

I find those with the biggest complaints about the new system are those who have never bothered to take a serious look at how mat and data collection works in the game now. They also never bothered to take the info gleaned from the Beta and apply that to collecting all the top G5 mats they could grab in 2.4 when there was no 100 unit cap on them.

I did precisely that and breezed through my 10 ship fleet in no time. Painless and fun.

 

[Stealthie]

Old recipe for single G5 dirty drives roll after ranking up enginneer:
1x Cracked Industrial Firmware
1x Cadmium
1x Parmaceutical Isolators

Old recipe for "a couple" of G5 dirty drives roll after ranking up enginneer:
2x Cracked Industrial Firmware
2x Cadmium
2x Pharmaceutical Isolators

New Recipe for single G5 dirty drives roll after ranking up engineer:
3-12x Specialized Legacy Firmware
1-4x Mechanical Equipment
1-4x Chromium
1-4X Mechanical Components
1-4x Modified Consumer Firmware
1-4x Selenium
1-4x Configurable Components
1x Cracked Industrial Firmware
1x Cadmium
1x Pharmaceutical Isolators

New Recipe for "a couple" of G5 dirty drives roll after ranking up engineer:
6-24x Specialized Legacy Firmware
2-8x Mechanical Equipment
2-8x Chromium
2-8X Mechanical Components
2-8x Modified Consumer Firmware
2-8x Selenium
2-8x Configurable Components
2x Cracked Industrial Firmware
2x Cadmium
2x Pharmaceutical Isolators

Yeah it's easier to get CIF now than before. It's not easier to get ALL OF THESE THINGS now than it was to previously get those three things, though. Even with the mats trader. And the mats trader isn't even at the engineer station nor are all three traders ever in a single location, so it's inherently a giant additional layer of schlepp.

Just quoting that list of mat's for reference....

Even if we set aside any debate about the amount of "grind" it takes to obtain mat's, it just seems absurd the way we have to click through a bunch of mod's we don't give a flying fart about.

Level 1, click, click. Level 2, click, click, click. Level 3, click, click, click, click. Level 4, click, click, click, click, click. Level 5, FINALLY.....

At the very least, could we not just choose the level of mod' we want, "pay" for it immediately with a heap of mat's and then start rolling with the mat's required for that mod?

Between the amount of iron bloody daggers I've crafted in Skyrim and the amount of G1-G4 mod's I'm going to create in ED, I bet I'll knock a year off the lifespan of my mouse.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

Can someone please explain to me, how on earth 20 rolls of guaranteed progression is worse than several hundred rolls that are each worse than the last? It absolutely boggles the mind.

Basically the issue is this :

+ if you run only a single Ship and seek to max. it out, the new System is absolutely fine
+ New Players will have it much easier as well. That definitely works just as intended.

--- but if you run an already engineered fleet, you'd soon realize
a) Statement "Converting a Legacy Mod will put you near where you were" is false. It drops you an entire Grade and you'll lose quite a bit. 3x G5 rolls seems the ballpark based on what I've seen on many Modules
b) Re-Engineering a fleet is pita squared due to the Materials Requirements that blasted through the roof (I'm only doing it for my FSDs for the heck of it, everything else would be insane and clock in at several ten thousands of Mats (!!!) )
c) the Materials Traders that should dampen the ultra-grind effect(tm) catastrophically fail due to their poor and massively asymmetric trade ratios ripping the Player off in many constellations
d) additional Power Creep was introduced to at least provide any incentive at all (Re-engineering Legacy Modules not having extended performance parameters in their V3 Blueprints for example is nearly a total waste of time)

That's basically all there is to it.

I've stopped scooping like crazy after maybe 10000 Mats now. Those FSDs alone I'm still planning to do will take me at least 2-3 more weeks of mind-destroying grind.
I could do it in a week from here on, but then I'd probably have to call an ambulance and be diagnosed braindead in the ER.

The Level-Up System just throws Materials out of the Window like there's no tomorrow. The time & efforts the Player invested. Like it's entirely worthless junk that is best discarded.
That's precisely how the new RNGineering[limit_up] System feels to me. All while being 0.00% fun. Definitely feels like a super-crappy job that should best be done by some Factory robot (or NPC) instead.

 

[jasonbarron]

Basically the issue is this :

+ if you run only a single Ship and seek to max. it out, the new System is absolutely fine
+ New Players will have it much easier as well. That definitely works just as intended.

--- but if you run an already engineered fleet, you'd soon realize
a) Statement "Converting a Legacy Mod will put you near where you were" is false. It drops you an entire Grade and you'll lose quite a bit. 3x G5 rolls seems the ballpark based on what I've seen on many Modules
b) Re-Engineering a fleet is pita squared due to the Materials Requirements that blasted through the roof (I'm only doing it for my FSDs for the heck of it, everything else would be insane and clock in at several ten thousands of Mats (!!!) )
c) the Materials Traders that should dampen the ultra-grind effect(tm) catastrophically fail due to their poor and massively asymmetric trade ratios ripping the Player off in many constellations
d) additional Power Creep was introduced to at least provide any incentive at all (Re-engineering Legacy Modules not having extended performance parameters in their V3 Blueprints for example is nearly a total waste of time)

That's basically all there is to it.

I've stopped scooping like crazy after maybe 10000 thousand Mats now. Those FSDs alone I'm still planning to do will take me at least 2-3 more weeks of mind-destroying grind.
I could do it in a week from here on, but then I'd probably have to call an ambulance and be diagnosed braindead in the ER.

The Level-Up System just throws Materials out of the Window like there's no tomorrow. The time & efforts the Player invested. Like it's entirely worthless junk that is best discarded.
That's precisely how the new RNGineering[limit_up] System feels to me.

If your fleet already had good FSD mods, why on earth do you feel compelled to upgrade all of them?

 

[Red Anders]

I've seen this comment quite a lot.

"I prefer the old system because I was happy to settle for a mid-range roll. New system means I have to grind."

Haven't seen anybody say that. Not saying they haven't, but I haven't seen it.

I think the main reason some people are complaining is that even if they put a lot of grind into engineering, they won't get better module than everyone else.

Haven't seen anybody say that either. Same disclaimer as above obviously.

Maybe I'm reading the wrong threads.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

If your fleet already had good FSD mods, why on earth do you feel compelled to upgrade all of them?

The new FSD Range performance parameters looked sexy and worth it.
Plus, they said "it'll be easier".
So I played along as used everything "as intended".

When I realized just how way off their promises were from reality, I was already too deep into it to just discard all the gear again.
It's okay though, I only still need approx. 224 Grade 5 rolls requiring some 224 Arsenic, 170 Chemical Manipulators and 222 Datamined Wake Exceptions I'm missing.
A few weeks at best

Naturally, I long scrapped all my other Plans... I sure won't be touching the RNGineers or the Materials Black Holes (aka Traders) anymore.
(well, there's a Chieftain still waiting... I guess I'll do that Ship as well at the end - but only because it's a fairly cool ride)

 

[jasonbarron]

The new FSD Range performance parameters looked sexy and worth it.
Plus, they said "it'll be easier".
So I played along as used everything "as intended".

When I realized just how way off their promises were from reality, I was already too deep into it to just discard all the gear again.
It's okay though, I only still need approx. 224 Grade 5 rolls requiring some 224 Arsenic, 170 Chemical Manipulators and 222 Datamined Wake Exceptions I'm missing.
A few weeks at best http://www.falconfly.de/img/chatt.gif

Naturally, I long scrapped all my other Plans... I sure won't be touching the RNGineers or the Materials Black Holes (aka Traders) anymore.
(well, there's a Chieftain still waiting... I guess I'll do that Ship as well at the end - but only because it's a fairly cool ride)

My heart goes out to anybody who's re-engineering an entire fleet. I've mostly focused on my new Chieftain and my old FdL for starters, and then am just gathering mats piecemeal whenever I feel like breaking combat ops up. Basically the same as my usual routine playing. I think you're going to crush your soul doing too much at one time. Take a break and go have nothing but fun with one of your ships; sounds like you've earned it

 

[Lucifera Danzig]

My heart goes out to anybody who's re-engineering an entire fleet. I've mostly focused on my new Chieftain and my old FdL for starters, and then am just gathering mats piecemeal whenever I feel like breaking combat ops up. Basically the same as my usual routine playing. I think you're going to crush your soul doing too much at one time. Take a break and go have nothing but fun with one of your ships; sounds like you've earned it

I've been re-engineering a fleet, 27 out of my 30 ships needed their modules converted. I've been just...doing it as I get the stuff, from missions, from pirates I have to destroy when they interdict me, occasionally dropping into a USS or just scanning any ship that crosses my path. No concentrated effort, no grinding. Just playing the game. I'm only about 30-40% done, and in no hurry. And the pinning of blueprints saves ridiculous amounts of time as I can just engineer from my home station.

And yes, sometimes on a new module I settle for a G3 or G4, because "that's good enough for now." And sometimes I take on a project just to see what I can get a ship to be capable of.

Not feeling a grind at all. It's fascinating to see what can be done within the new system.

 

[Darty]

If you play the game and approach the engineers later in your play history, all of this stuff would have taken care of itself just by playing the game and collecting stuff you find. That is basically Frontier's design approach here with 3.0. They are obviously considering new players as much or more than veteran players.

Since you can now basically collect EVERYTHING YOU FIND, and never have to dump anything to make room for something else, eventually you will have all the mats and data you need to plow through a full upgrade session in one session without lifting a finger to hunt down anything you don't have.

Anything you are still low on can be created with the Mat Traders.

I find those with the biggest complaints about the new system are those who have never bothered to take a serious look at how mat and data collection works in the game now. They also never bothered to take the info gleaned from the Beta and apply that to collecting all the top G5 mats they could grab in 2.4 when there was no 100 unit cap on them.

I did precisely that and breezed through my 10 ship fleet in no time. Painless and fun.

I have been collecting everything and after cumulative days of time in beyond I still haven't collected a single Military super-capacitor or improvised component. Not. A. Single. One. The only reason I have any is because I found an exploit that allows you to collect literally hundreds of g4 mats in very little time. Even then I only have about 30 of both combined due to trade rates.

I don't derp around on planet surfaces. Most people don't as far as I know. For that reason I can't just "collect as I go" for raw materials either. I have mined, which is the only other activity that drops them. I've mined, a lot. Over a thousand mats since beyond came out. I still never collected a single drop of a handful of mats. I've been able to trade the literally hundreds of mats I have gotten from mining for about 10 of the mats I need, maybe. Selenium has been a huge bottle neck for me as it is required for g4 DD and you can't trade down for it because mat traders are messed up, and it doesn't drop from mining.

Data same issue. Data is something that you HAVE to collect as you go, yet myself and others are having issues collecting enough to do our mods.

And when I say I collect as I go, I mean it. I scan nearly every USS I see, even when I am nowhere near deep space. If it is a combat aftermath or encoded, I stop just for the chance of getting some good g4's or data. Obviously I stop for HGE as well.

So cut this "collect as you go" crap. There are plenty of mats that you simply cannot do this for and everyone knows it.

 

[Red Anders]

I have been collecting everything and after cumulative days of time in beyond I still haven't collected a single Military super-capacitor or improvised component. Not. A. Single. One. The only reason I have any is because I found an exploit that allows you to collect literally hundreds of g4 mats in very little time. Even then I only have about 30 of both combined due to trade rates.

I don't derp around on planet surfaces. Most people don't as far as I know. For that reason I can't just "collect as I go" for raw materials either. I have mined, which is the only other activity that drops them. I've mined, a lot. Over a thousand mats since beyond came out. I still never collected a single drop of a handful of mats. I've been able to trade the literally hundreds of mats I have gotten from mining for about 10 of the mats I need, maybe. Selenium has been a huge bottle neck for me as it is required for g4 DD and you can't trade down for it because mat traders are messed up, and it doesn't drop from mining.

Data same issue. Data is something that you HAVE to collect as you go, yet myself and others are having issues collecting enough to do our mods.

And when I say I collect as I go, I mean it. I scan nearly every USS I see, even when I am nowhere near deep space. If it is a combat aftermath or encoded, I stop just for the chance of getting some good g4's or data. Obviously I stop for HGE as well.

So cut this "collect as you go" crap. There are plenty of mats that you simply cannot do this for and everyone knows it.

It's remarkable just how many players apparently used to spend hours flying around in supercruise, away from any planets or stations, as part of their normal gameplay pre 3.0. I mean to me that sounds like 'doing absolutely nothing' yet it was apparently such a scintillating experience that people were doing it all the time to read some of these comments.

As for the repeated insistence that anybody who doesn't have buckets of materials from HGEs just falling out of their hold is obviously just some thicko who never bothered to learn where to obtain materials from, when it's directed at people who engineered 15+ ships under the 2.4 engineers it's frankly just insulting. Having said that, insulting is no surprise at all from your quoted poster, whose comments to anybody who has the audacity to disagree with his evangelising of 3.0 engineering have been so universally dismissive and laden with strawmen that I stopped taking him seriously back when the beta was still going on.

Frankly 'hurr durr you should have collected hundreds of G5 materials in the live game after the beta revealed how material brokers work' is such a laughable load of old toss that it hardly merits a response but perhaps I can penetrate the carapace of his hubris a little by pointing out that it's hardly a solution to the issue for anyone coming to engineering after 3.0 has already arrived. Like new players for example.

Saying 'The new system is obviously fine because I was able to game it using knowledge that I gained before its release' is probably about as close to logic as we can hope for from him on this topic, but really it ain't that close.

 

[Darty]

It's remarkable just how many players apparently used to spend hours flying around in supercruise, away from any planets or stations, as part of their normal gameplay pre 3.0. I mean to me that sounds like 'doing absolutely nothing' yet it was apparently such a scintillating experience that people were doing it all the time to read some of these comments.

As for the repeated insistence that anybody who doesn't have buckets of materials from HGEs just falling out of their hold is obviously just some thicko who never bothered to learn where to obtain materials from, when it's directed at people who engineered 15+ ships under the 2.4 engineers it's frankly just insulting. Having said that, insulting is no surprise at all from the quoted poster, whose comments to anybody who has the audacity to disagree with his evangelising of 3.0 engineering have been so universally dismissive and laden with strawmen that I stopped taking him seriously back when the beta was still going on.

Frankly 'hurr durr you should have collected hundreds of G5 materials in the live game after the beta revealed how material brokers work' is such a laughable load of old toss that it hardly merits a response but perhaps I can the carapace of his hubris a little by pointing out that it's hardly a solution to the issue for anyone coming to engineering after 3.0 has already arrived. Like new players for example.

Saying 'The new system is obviously fine because I was able to game it using knowledge that I gained before its release' is probably about as close to logic as we can hope for from him on this topic, but really it ain't that close.

I like how it also essentially comes down to saying "I grinded my asp off (we all know he didn't just happen upon hundreds of pharmaceutical isolater and polonium while playing the game for fun) in preparation for an update designed to reduce grind and as a result I didn't have to grind in the update so it must have done it's job."

It kindof defeats the whole point of the update if the only way to actually avoid grind is to have done a ton of grinding before the update hit.

 

[Kaocraft]

When was the last time you played a multiplayer game which gave you the top equipment right away?

I dunno dude. But I've never played a game where you're not allowed to buy the steel sword unless you first buy a wooden sword and then a copper sword and then a bronze sword and then an iron sword first. Usually the lower tiers of equipment are useful in their own right and you buy them because they are what you can afford at the time or they are what is available in the region you happen to be in.

And actually Elite is even sillier than I'm giving it credit for because this is more like a situation where you have to chop down a tree, then mine and smelt ores of copper, bronze, iron, and then finally steel; and then forge every one of those swords, every single time you want to equip a new steel sword.

But the other part of this conversation is that I don't accept appeals to tired old videogame cliche' as a justification for doing something that sucks. It might be in every other game ever made (p.s. it's not), but if it's an inane meaningless waste of time then let's have a discussion about that and we don't have to worry about how they do it in all those games that we're not playing.

 

[Red Anders]

I like how it also essentially comes down to saying "I grinded my asp off (we all know he didn't just happen upon hundreds of pharmaceutical isolater and polonium while playing the game for fun) in preparation for an update designed to reduce grind and as a result I didn't have to grind in the update so it must have done it's job."

It kindof defeats the whole point of the update if the only way to actually avoid grind is to have done a ton of grinding before the update hit.

What really irks me is the insistence on treating any negative comment as if it's a glib dismissal of the entire system made by someone who has only the most rudimentary grasp of it.

There are many aspects of the changes that I do think work well. Even the material brokers in themselves are a great idea and one that I'd asked for for over a year; my only beef with them is that the exchange ratios need some refining to make them usable for trading up because that's key to eliminating some of the still-present multi-layered RNG that infests material collection from HGE USSs.

HGE USSs remain a terrible way to gate access to top-end content for the reason given above, the fact that for some materials you have to fight multiple layers of RNG in order to obtain what you want, with no way to control whether your efforts are fruitful or a complete waste of time. I don't know what vested interest some people have in obfuscating that point but that's exactly what they do whenever someone raises it.

Some of them are just the usual lunatic shills who won't accept anything other than 100% positivity and see constructive and targeted criticism as a crime against humanity. Some others have in the past displayed more sense though.

 

[MrFailfactory]

What really irks me is the insistence on treating any negative comment as if it's a glib dismissal of the entire system made by someone who has only the most rudimentary grasp of it.

There are many aspects of the changes that I do think work well. Even the material brokers in themselves are a great idea and one that I'd asked for for over a year; my only beef with them is that the exchange ratios need some refining to make them usable for trading up because that's key to eliminating some of the still-present multi-layered RNG that infests material collection from HGE USSs.

HGE USSs remain a terrible way to gate access to top-end content for the reason given above, the fact that for some materials you have to fight multiple layers of RNG in order to obtain what you want, with no way to control whether your efforts are fruitful or a complete waste of time. I don't know what vested interest some people have in obfuscating that point but that's exactly what they do whenever someone raises it.

Some of them are just the usual lunatic shills who won't accept anything other than 100% positivity and see constructive and targeted criticism as a crime against humanity. Some others have in the past displayed more sense though.

You are welcome to have your own perspectives and opinions, of course, but that doesn't make them correct.

It should be clear that Frontier does not want upper- G5's to be obtained without some time investment on a single ship, let alone a fleet of them. Max G4's are quite good, and can be done pretty quickly and painlessly through normal play, with perhaps some short focus sessions. This is why the trade ratios on the Brokers are set to have reasonable loss - you can trade to fill some gaps, but it isn't (and was never) intended to replace obtaining those specific materials completely. You claim to know the value of this (from other posts), but your second paragraph implies otherwise. A max G5 ship (let alone a fleet) is intended to be something that is earned over time, rather than something that is just obtained. This objectively gives value to the G4 (and G3) tiers as well.

The HGE problem gates those materials using time, and nothing else. This is much better than, say, requiring a 10k light year fetch trip for those who don't like to leave the Bubble, or bringing enough materials to fix a broken asset for those who don't like A-B trading, or blowing up X number of NPC's for those who never mount weapons on their ships. The time gate involves only flying your ship (the basis of this game), and as such, it locks no one out.

Since you think the time gate is a terrible method, I look forward to reading your proposal on gating these materials to stay in line with the previously-mentioned goal regarding G5's that also doesn't lock anyone out from achieving it.

What you consider to be constructive and targeted criticism, others might perceive as entitled whining. In each individual situation, one of those is objectively correct, though it is not always the same one.

Riôt

 

[Darty]

There are many aspects of the changes that I do think work well. Even the material brokers in themselves are a great idea and one that I'd asked for for over a year; my only beef with them is that the exchange ratios need some refining to make them usable for trading up because that's key to eliminating some of the still-present multi-layered RNG that infests material collection from HGE USSs.

Nuance seems to escape him. Once I literally spent half an hour trying to communicated to him that is is a bad idea to have a raw material trader that placed a g3 mat directly above a g4 mat in it's trading tiers. Half an hour of trying to communicate the very basic fact that ignoring rarity like that is a bad idea. It ended with him telling me I refused to see reason or something like that. I kid you not.

(For those interested, the devs simply reclassified the materials in question, even though the g4 material is still twice as hard to find and used in higher grade recipes.)

 

[Darty]

It should be clear that Frontier does not want upper- G5's to be obtained without some time investment on a single ship, let alone a fleet of them.

I'm going to stop you right there because that's not the issue and never was. It's the fact that a. the activities you have to do to get g5 mats are brainless repetition and waiting essentially, not that they actually take too much time, and b. the mechanics that govern you getting g5 mats involve multi-layer rng, meaning that even after hours of grinding you still can walk away with nothing.

This has been said by myself, red, and many others countless times but this same "oooh but you just don't want to spend any tiiiiime" arguement keeps popping up time and again.

The issue is not the time involved. It's the randomness and utter boredom that are inherit to the current system that are.

I've spent hours grinding PP merits while undermining and I am fine with that, because those hours were broken up by random things happening. Sometimes I would bite off more than I could chew and have to retreat. Other times I would manage to salvage the situation and come out with a few hundred more merits than I had going in. I could see a hostile or friendly player. ect. Moreover, I was making pretty consistent progress relative to the time I put in.

Compare that to HGE hunting. Virtually no random events breaking up the time. No challenging gameplay where you had to make a risk reward decision. And to top it off, you could make a ton of progress in the first 1o minutes and then no progress at all in the next 50.

I've spent way more time killing feds at nav beacons than dancing around SC hunting for HGE, but never have I come out of the experience of undermining feeling bitter, frustrated and upset like I have after not finding the type of HGE I am looking for after an hour despite doing everything right.