Lavian Brandy

[Tarman]

Engi Unlocks; for the once-per that you have to do it, doesn't bother me. For DD5, you don't have to become an explorer. You just have to take a few days out of your entire Elite career and fly thataway and back. If you're not interested in doing literally anything other than one single career element in a game without capital-C Careers, then yeah, it's probably grating for that mindset, but not just in of itself for everybody.

I'd imagine part of the design is to get players to test other gameplay avenues they don't know anything about. If you hate it or it makes you cry, you at least never have to do it ever again. If you however find some gameplay you think is fun that you probably never would have taken a shot at otherwise, then that's a win. I got one of each from Engineer unlocks.

I got enough of a taste for mining during Engi unlocks (which I don't have all of yet, because I don't really need ALL of them) to have a dedicated vessel laying about for when I got the urge to kill rocks, but I doubt I would have tried it at all otherwise. Plus that foray into mining has let me transition into NuMining and not have to go in cold.

I also learned that I don't much care for deep-black exploration (which I thought I would actually like) and much prefer the bustle of the bubble; but I didn't actually die from it and now that I have access to DD5 I don't have to go deep-blacking again unless I feel like it. It really did take just a few days, and considering 100% of time is wasted pretending to be a spaceman, a couple days out of everything I've done in game since 2014 is nothing at all. It wasn't even hard, just uninteresting. No need for any "omg that was like eating a bowl of broken glass and washing it down with H2SO4" hyperbole we usually get around here.

 

[Sapyx]

Man, this would be so nice if it was actually true. Unfortunately, it's not.

I like to do combat.. assassination missions, bounty hunting, etc. Dirty Drives really help with that.. well guess what? I have to be an explorer to do that.
Upgraded Shield Boosters.. another huge plus.. oh, guess what? You need to mine 50T of ore first!


Are you an explorer by chance? Want to lower the weight on your Life Support so you can maximize jump range? Well.. better be a Dangerous combat pilot!

I'm not in the heads of the designers at FD. But I believe the theory - theory - was supposed to go something like this:

"Explorers need to be able to run away from the evil pirates and player-killers that might hunt them down. Therefore, we need to give explorers an edge." So they make the best Thrusters gated by exploration.

"Miners need good defenses, to give them a fighting chance against the pirates who would steal their cargo." So gate the best shields and armor behind mining.

"Combat pilots are the ones for whom improving Life Support is most useful, since they're the ones who are most likely to get their canopies blown out; they also need to make their essential-but-non-combat-related components as lightweight as possible, to get better jump range for their combat craft (which have notoriously poor jump ranges)." Therefore, gate Life Support improvements behind combat.

Most of the "illogical" Engineer gatings kind-of-make-sense, from the perspective of "trying to provide balance".

Personally, I'd like to see the Engineer qualifications reversible. Kill an explorer with your dirty-drive-equipped ship, and suddenly Palin doesn't like you any more - and you lose your dirty drives the next time you lose your ship, because he refuses to make new ones for you.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I really don't understand why anyone complains about Didi's unlock. She's right next to Lave. It's one jump to haul the stuff there and back with any ship that has a decent jump range.
Now, Broo Tarquin's 50t of Fujin Tea, with a 10t limit and a 120ish light year distance to travel, that's a pain.

It's a lot of round trips for Didi, though - Tarquin I did in two trips (timed it for Boom) - Didi took 13 since I wanted to get it done before I left on an expedition, and couldn't wait for Boom. Though it was interesting seeing if I could deliver the batch of 4 and be back in the station at Leesti before the markets had refreshed to restock it (yes, with practice).

Then why is the only way to get the Lightweight mod for the Life module from years of combat grinding when it's clearly a exploration mod?

Both Etienne Dorn (no combat or rares required) and Bill Turner (trivial amounts of combat for McQuinn required, lots of mining) offer G3 Life Support.

On a 5D life support (Anaconda) the difference between G3 and G4 is 0.8 tonnes - 0.03 LY - which will only be noticeable for a few extreme fringe explorers.
On a 4D life support (Asp/Krait) the difference between G3 and G4 is 0.4 tonnes - 0.05 LY.
On a 3D life support (DBX) the difference between G3 and G4 is 0.2 tonnes - 0.03 LY.

It does make a bit more difference in the Beluga - that 8D life support is still pretty heavy - you save 6.4T for an extra 0.18 LY range there by going from G3 to G4. But if you were exploring in a Beluga, you probably weren't after a min-maxed jump range in the first place.

Etienne Dorn is also in the process of researching [1] the G4 mod as well. If a mere ten explorers were willing to spend an hour each helping him with this research, it could be fast-tracked and completed within the week. (If it was *really* important to the exploration community, then 100 explorers could do it with a few minutes work each)



[1] The Colonia engineers in general provide a complete workaround for the rares issue (since none of them require touching a rare to unlock them) - once they're upgraded, which the community could accelerate considerably if it wanted to. Broo Tarquin? Mel Brandon has the laser blueprints at G3 and rising. Didi Vatermann? Mel Brandon has shield boosters at G3 and rising. Lori Jameson? Etienne Dorn has life support at G3 and rising, and Mel Brandon is catching up rapidly on SCBs ... and that's mainly just from people generally using the blueprints, rather than focused research effort. Hera Tani and Zachariah Nemo will be able to hold out longer against the competition, I think - their exclusives are not being prioritised for research as much today. But it's still only a matter of time...

 

[Shaamaan]

Nah man. Just take it nice and slow. Haul 10T a day. Better yet 10T per week. Even better don't do it at all. Then it becomes real painless. It's only a pain if you force yourself. Ask the experts on the forum. They're ALWAYS right.

Responses like these grind my gears (hopefully you read this in Peter's voice).

That's excusing bad and lazy game design and it's pure fanboism. "I like the game and this mechanic, thus everyone who doesn't like it is wrong"... We all like ED, otherwise we wouldn't have bothered to make accounts on these forums. But that doesn't mean the game is flawless or that flaws cannot be acknowledged. And ED is, in places, a TERRIBLE time waster. This is very clearly one of them.

 

[Tarman]

Responses like these grind my gears (hopefully you read this in Peter's voice).

That's excusing bad and lazy game design and it's pure fanboism. "I like the game and this mechanic, thus everyone who doesn't like it is wrong"... We all like ED, otherwise we wouldn't have bothered to make accounts on these forums. But that doesn't mean the game is flawless or that flaws cannot be acknowledged. And ED is, in places, a TERRIBLE time waster. This is very clearly one of them.

Did this happen to you recently?

 

[Shaamaan]

Did this happen to you recently?

Probably. Given that:
a) sarcasm sometimes doesn't translate that well over the internet due to TCP/IP packet switching
...and (more importantly)...
b) some people ACTUALLY USE THAT LINE OF DEFENCE! (even if the quoted person was using it sarcastically...)

 

[Pliedies]

Yeah.. how about a 10000 ly trip for no apparent reason?

 

[DeletedUser191218]

Responses like these grind my gears (hopefully you read this in Peter's voice).

That's excusing bad and lazy game design and it's pure fanboism. "I like the game and this mechanic, thus everyone who doesn't like it is wrong"... We all like ED, otherwise we wouldn't have bothered to make accounts on these forums. But that doesn't mean the game is flawless or that flaws cannot be acknowledged. And ED is, in places, a TERRIBLE time waster. This is very clearly one of them.

My favourite excuse for bad gameplay design is that you don't HAVE to engage in said gameplay. I can't imagine that was part of the design process at FD. "We'll introduce some artificially enforced repetitive, dull gameplay but it's ok because most people won't want to do it."

For the record, I'm doing it because a g5 beam laser is necessary (IMO) for my PvP FDL. But i'm not enjoying it and it's abundantly obvious to me there's no need for it to be so boring.

 

[DeletedUser191218]

Yeah.. how about a 10000 ly trip for no apparent reason?

Oh god that. Most useless evening of my life that was. I just bought a dbx and blew it up when i got 5000 ly out.

 

[Patrick_68000]

Always drink with moderation.

 

[Shaamaan]

Always drink with moderation.

On that account, I can somewhat understand the excessive amounts of alcohol some engineers want... but one of these spawns of satan wants tons of TEA!

 

[Zoltah-Talion]

On that account, I can somewhat understand the excessive amounts of alcohol some engineers want... but one of these spawns of satan wants tons of TEA!

Well... what's the tea guy's name again?

 

[Urbanski101]

Ok so this is really just me venting - When someone in FD came up with the great idea of requiring 50t of Lavian brandy for an engineer but you can only carry 12t at a time, did no-one pipe up to suggest that perhaps making players make 4 trips unnecessarily, repeating the same monotonous task over and over, just to get access to more grind, is perhaps a really bad idea for gameplay?

They can get stuff really right. But there's still a lot of stuff that's really bad.

I'm totally with you on this.

Not all of the unlocks are that bad and I get FD have used the unlocks to direct people towards other gameplay styles / features. However the rares delivery unlocks are really poor piece of coding. I've not bothered with the lady that wants cigars....just can't bring myself to do that.

A friend who doesn't play as much tried to do the 'trade at 50 different stations/systems' unlock but for some reason no matter what he did it wouldn't update the number and he was stuck at 30 or something. After a week of trying he gave up and has not been back since....perhaps ED is not for him but stupid bugs and tedious unlock requirements are a real turn off.

 

[Deleted member 110222]

Oh god that. Most useless evening of my life that was. I just bought a dbx and blew it up when i got 5000 ly out.

Hauler is your friend. You only lose a few 100k. I will see that cost as effective payment to Mr Palin.

No intention to fly that distance and back.

 

[phong]

Ok so this is really just me venting - When someone in FD came up with the great idea of requiring 50t of Lavian brandy for an engineer but you can only carry 12t at a time, did no-one pipe up to suggest that perhaps making players make 4 trips unnecessarily, repeating the same monotonous task over and over, just to get access to more grind, is perhaps a really bad idea for gameplay?They can get stuff really right. But there's still a lot of stuff that's really bad.

I think you fail to take into account the potency of lavian brandy.The limit is there for good reason.A lot of the wreckage strewn about the galaxy is as a result of ignoring this limit.

 

[Axilleas]

Wait until Selene Jean or Bill Turner.

If you need a straight razor, you can borrow mine.

Tell me about it. I remember mining the required 50t for Bill, then going to deliver, only to discover he's in a permit locked system...

I had to sell that load while I hunted pirates to unlock the permit, then mine another 50t for Bill.

Fond memories.