That has always baffled me - I just don't see the point.
Does anyone actually enjoy engineering?
- Thread starter Bill Clement
- Start date
That has always baffled me - I just don't see the point.
Check above: why does ship transfer and module transfer take time? What does it add to the game?
Indeed the "pin blueprints" is a bit strange for me. It was surprising that we got this. Even the most hardcore engineer haters did not expect to get this, we all thought that even after the big rework, we'd have to go to each engineer again when upgrading. It was a very welcome change. But in the end i get it: they want us to still go to engineers once a while. Depending on the point of view, it's either immersion or a waste of time.
Either way, with just a little planing, you can eliminate a lot of the traveling time here. I for example never took a ship to Prof. Palin any more since engineers were reworked. The dirty drives blueprint is pinned. So i just engineer my thrusters up, then go to Deciat to Farseer to add the special effect. (And several other special effect, as Farseer can also engineer several other modules. Even just being able to engineer to G1 is enough to add the special effects. )
So yes, the logic behind it can be attacked. But it's really not that bad any more. The real chore for engineers is to unlock them. Some of them are still really a pain in some lower body part.
And my real criticism of engineering remains: power creep. Engineering effects are just way too powerful. Even +15% or +30% of offense and defense would've been huge. But we have +70% offense (multiplied by also much better distributor recharge rates) and up to +700% effective defense. (I mean, many people saw it coming, that adding +70% firepower and +700% defense might make it hard to balance things. But while many players saw it, it seems like FD themselves were utterly surprised by it. ) This is what would really still require some significant cuts and nerfs. But even small nerfs already more than once were cried away by the community.
There's no real chance that FD will ever dare to do the big cuts which would actually be very good for the games health. The rivers of tears would be too big.
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I'll tell you why, because it was designed in Engineers V1, and when looking at Engineers V2, the designer(s) behind it were too attached to their creation, and couldn't simply let it go for the better outcome.
Whenever I see stuff like this I recall some software development I was involved in years ago. A programmer was working on a bit of software which needed to go away and do so work for 10-20s, so he created a really nice progress bar which showed the software's progress during this stage.
Years later myself and a college needed to work on the routine. We got to this bit of code and ended up scratching our heads. We just couldn't see what the program was doing during this time/stage.
We went and spoke to the original developer. He looked a bit sheepish and admitted in the end, the work the routine need to do for 10-20s simply wasn't needed in the end, and he just couldn't bring himself to remove his lovely progress bar. So there it was sitting there simply achieving nothing!
PINNING BLUE PRINTS IS THAT TASK BAR!
Oh I definately agree with this. I think Engineers (specifically the combat orientated aspects of it) has compromised the game most likely forever now, significantly.
It should have been a subtle way to change your ship to the prefered outcome. Not 2x the pewpew and the like...
I enjoy the process of engineering, although the randomness that remains needs to be removed - it serves no purpose. The only thing I 'grind' for is surface based materials, because I enjoy driving the SRV around volcanic sites and it's a good excuse to go for a drive for a half hour. All other materials I just collect opportunistically. It doesn't really matter if you have to trade one for another at a great loss, if the thing you're using for the trade is as common as muck (for instance trading out Imperial shielding if you're based in the Empire).
The other thing you have to remember is you engineer *modules* not *ships* (except for hull engineering). If you want to try out a new ship you can often swap modules out from other ships without having to go through the whole process again, especially things like weapons and utilities.
The other thing you have to remember is you engineer *modules* not *ships* (except for hull engineering). If you want to try out a new ship you can often swap modules out from other ships without having to go through the whole process again, especially things like weapons and utilities.
This reality recently hit me, especially with changes to the AI. While my answer to the title is "Yes", I actually hate what engineering has done to the game itself. You may have seen me complaining in other threads how NPC Type-7s and even Belugas are outmaneuvering my Imperial Courier (my alt-CMDR is naughty), and this has just ruined combat for me. The same goes for my noble main CMDR, who is sick and tired of seen Anacondas whipping around like Vipers...
Engineering killed PvP for me long ago, and now that NPCs also have engineered ships, it's killed PvE combat as well.... I'd happily give up all my engineered modules to see this system removed from the game, but like you say, the cows have left the barn
The feeling you get when you've crossed all your T's and dotted all your I's off your Coriolis or Shipyard build is very satisfying. Engineering and pvp are the only reasons as to why I'm still playing the game. I enjoy the break of mining/trading/wing missions to go off on my scavenger runs. Putting this much effort into a ship you really enjoy flying, makes you feel all the more top notch once it's built exactly the way you've designed it.
You wouldn't get that feeling if it was any faster. With all the resources we have to locate materials now honestly, material hunting is easy. Time consuming yes. Difficult? No. It separates the boys from the men when in serious pvp engagements.
You wouldn't get that feeling if it was any faster. With all the resources we have to locate materials now honestly, material hunting is easy. Time consuming yes. Difficult? No. It separates the boys from the men when in serious pvp engagements.
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Engineering killed PvP for me long ago, and now that NPCs also have engineered ships, it's killed PvE combat as well.... I'd happily give up all my engineered modules to see this system removed from the game, but like you say, the cows have left the barn
There's one glimmer of hope: for quite some time, some people here ardently defended shield booster stacking and the likes. When FD tried to just slightly nerf it, they went ballistic. Interestingly enough, those who actually tested the changes liked them. But a vocal part of the community skipped that part and just switched to "foam at the mouth" mode.
It seems like those people just wanted to keep the status quo of being able to shoot weak NPCs while flying durable ships themselves. Now recently the engineering gap between NPCs and players was reduced. Mind you, it seems like NPCs are still not "there" yet. They could still fly much more durable ships. But they've been upgraded enough that people now notice the effect and some start to complain about it.
Perhaps that's actually the way to go: get the community into the deep and dark valley of "all NPCs are as durable as player ships. Enjoy the sloooow killing." When people are unhappy enough about how tough fully engineered NPCs have become, they might accept that all blueprints would be noticeably reduced in effect.
I neither know if that's FDs plan, nor if it would work out like this, but i'd appreciate this to happen.
I absolutely hate the new engineered NPC ships all piloted by the same aggressive Viper Pirate AI. It's as immersion-breaking as it gets to see a Beluga whip around in FA-off (should not be allowed for NPCs) and keep pace with my Imperial Clipper, aggressively attacking with guns blazing.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for easy mode fish-in-barrel NPCs. I'm looking for logical AI (Belugas should run, not fight, except perhaps dropping mines or some other cool retreat tactic) and logical physics (small should should be able to outmaneuver large ships). Removing Engineers from the game would actually make NPCs harder relative to our own unengineered ships, and it would even reduce a lot of this shield booster stacking and SCB spamming.
But alas, that game died long ago...
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Solo only casual player reporting ...... I enjoy the current version far more than the original ! Engineering has become my focus in this game. Simple answer is yes I do.
I quite enjoy the engineering aspects of this game. The newer method is far easier than previous however in some respects I prefer the older method, as tedious as some aspects were. I like the ability to customize a ship to the commanders preferences and by doing so any ship can be a great ship. What was nice about the older method was that one could truly have a unique ship, meaning that depending on the roll you ended up with it may be near impossible to duplicate. In the new system, given enough material and rolls, you can duplicate the results ship after ship. Not necessarily a bad thing, just takes some of the uniqueness out of the process.
I was planning to take my Asp X out for a short exploration trip, about 5k ly out and back and wanted to engineer it to have good jump range yet be robust enough to land on planets without taking huge risks.
I went into coriolis to put together the mods and engineering I thought I'd need and then.....I just sat there realising what an pita it will be to engineer my ship to where I'd like it to be for this journey. I'd need to collect the mats, or ones I can find which would involve hunting USSs, driving around a few desolate moons/planets shooting rocks, scanning wakes outside stations and then trade them up for the ones I need. This involves tabbing out of the game onto inara constantly, making lists of what mats I need. Then I need to fly out to the 5-6+ engineers to get the actual engineering done. In total it's probably 4-5 hours work...but it is work, I don't find any aspect of the process enjoyable or fun.
So in conclusion, I don't think I will bother, it's not worth it.
I went into coriolis to put together the mods and engineering I thought I'd need and then.....I just sat there realising what an pita it will be to engineer my ship to where I'd like it to be for this journey. I'd need to collect the mats, or ones I can find which would involve hunting USSs, driving around a few desolate moons/planets shooting rocks, scanning wakes outside stations and then trade them up for the ones I need. This involves tabbing out of the game onto inara constantly, making lists of what mats I need. Then I need to fly out to the 5-6+ engineers to get the actual engineering done. In total it's probably 4-5 hours work...but it is work, I don't find any aspect of the process enjoyable or fun.
So in conclusion, I don't think I will bother, it's not worth it.
Bob Lighthouse
Banned
I managed to get a new account set up with most of the main engineers in 2 months.
That Cmdr now has an engineered Python, Asp, Phantom and MkII, along with Prismatic shields and Pacifier cannons.
The only ones I didn't finish in time for DW2 are the last combat related ones (Jameson, Bris and Juri) due to time constraints and the CZ bugs.
That Cmdr now has an engineered Python, Asp, Phantom and MkII, along with Prismatic shields and Pacifier cannons.
The only ones I didn't finish in time for DW2 are the last combat related ones (Jameson, Bris and Juri) due to time constraints and the CZ bugs.
Two months of grind just to get where I was already in the game? No thanks. Sounds like a waste of good playtime. TWO g months for nothing, basically.
+1. If I ever get a VR capable PC to replace the PS4, I'd probably just unlock Farseer for the FSD and run mostly vanilla, sitting there with my silly VR glasses looking like a moron and having the time of my life.
I don't think I could go through the engr grind again without throwing away the game. Once was once too many already.
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I absolutely love engineering. It has transformed the game into one with actual shipbuilding, where I can sit on coriolis just tinkering with builds, something you could never do with stock ships, which are option-starved and restricted by limitation to the point of being braindead. The vast array of options that engineering brings gives ships so much personality and versatility, and most importantly the nuances of all the options available to you profoundly rewards game knowledge, as all good character building systems should. The process of it can be arduous, but lends value to what you have through effort spent to obtain it, and rewards game knowledge in its own way. It takes you on a decent tour of all the things that can be done in the game, and eventually, when you are well versed in all the best and fastest ways to gather materials, it comes with a sense of satisfaction for knowing how to do something well. In any case, the ocean of depth the system adds is well worth a little grind. And, to put it bluntly, stock ships are garbage. They feel horrible to fly. They might as well be flying through molasses, and watching their pathetic distributors try to eke out any amount of power is like grinding sand in my teeth. Once you've experienced a fully engineered ship, there's no going back.
The possibilities for builds and the system knowledge to be learned is incredible. You can set up SCBs with specialized boss cells, knowing that the heat cost is spread out over the spin-up time meaning that pushing it to 6 seconds lets many ships hotbank without taking damage. But then you're very vulnerable to feedback rails. Rapid Charge SCBs work much better against players, but now you have to deal with a huge amount of heat in a short time. And how are you going to deal with that heat? Here you have choices, too. Heatsinks are the most effective, but how are you going to match them up against the banks you have? Double banks with double heatsinks, or stagger the banks to double bank on one heatsink, which leaves the second bank vulnerable? Or maybe you'll use thermal vent beams. Are you a hull tank? You'd better know how to balance your resists and module hp with reinforced mods in the right places. Do you have enough HRPs to use military grade armor and bring the resists up with reinforced alone, or will you want reactive armor with thermal resist on the smallest hrp? Is heavy duty or lightweight armor the best for your ship? Of course you'll be rewarded for knowing how easily chaff and heatsinks can be shot off, and going for shielded instead of high capacity. Hybrid hull tank? Here you are rewarded for understanding how much of the fight you're going to have to deal with the enormous drain of broken shield regen and how that can stunt your play, and shipbuilders that know to pick low-draw on their biweaves instead of fast charge for this particular type of build are going to have a nice step up on the competition. Now, how about those lovely Plasma weapons? Finally we can run a full set of them thanks to that wonderful efficient mod... but that's not the end of the story. Maybe you'll go looking for your perfect heat balance between efficient and overcharged/srb. Maybe you'll try to deal with the heat of an all-out long range/focused plasma build so that you can catch your opponent early with your tlb just before they reach their comfortable release point. Maybe you'll cleverly utilize the shot speed modifications available for certain weapons in order to line up the reticles for two otherwise incompatible fixed weapons. Maybe you'll try stacking MJs only to learn a valuable lesson about phasing builds, or have an embarrassing encounter with a seemingly puny Cobra that happens to have reverb mines. I put a lot of time and thought into a plasma speed courier build, with the intention of keeping it at the 851 max speed for drive distributors. Let me tell you, nothing lets you experience just how thoughtfully a ship can be put together quite like a speed build. I tried lightweight plasma but they were too hot, so I went efficient and made up the weight elsewhere. Eventually I had a breakthrough moment where I realized there must be an ideal balance using some lightweight and some efficient plasma, and the weight savings afforded me significantly stronger shields. I remember that day well because it was an immensely satisfying act of puzzling out an ideal min/max solution in a very complex set of options, and it's a joy that would never have been possible without engineering. That ship, and all my others, are prized possessions thanks to the time and effort with which they are invested. With credits being given away by barrel, bucket and handful, engineering is one of the last bastions of accomplishment. A stock ship that you can throw together in 5 minutes at Shin feels like a throwaway in comparison.
I can understand how people would not care for it if they don't do any kind of higher level combat, or if they're just trying to mindlessly enhance what they would be doing at stock instead of really digging into the possibilities of shipbuilding, but the former at least don't really need much of it. Many people won't have a need for much beyond FSD, which requires only one of the starter engineers to be unlocked.
The possibilities for builds and the system knowledge to be learned is incredible. You can set up SCBs with specialized boss cells, knowing that the heat cost is spread out over the spin-up time meaning that pushing it to 6 seconds lets many ships hotbank without taking damage. But then you're very vulnerable to feedback rails. Rapid Charge SCBs work much better against players, but now you have to deal with a huge amount of heat in a short time. And how are you going to deal with that heat? Here you have choices, too. Heatsinks are the most effective, but how are you going to match them up against the banks you have? Double banks with double heatsinks, or stagger the banks to double bank on one heatsink, which leaves the second bank vulnerable? Or maybe you'll use thermal vent beams. Are you a hull tank? You'd better know how to balance your resists and module hp with reinforced mods in the right places. Do you have enough HRPs to use military grade armor and bring the resists up with reinforced alone, or will you want reactive armor with thermal resist on the smallest hrp? Is heavy duty or lightweight armor the best for your ship? Of course you'll be rewarded for knowing how easily chaff and heatsinks can be shot off, and going for shielded instead of high capacity. Hybrid hull tank? Here you are rewarded for understanding how much of the fight you're going to have to deal with the enormous drain of broken shield regen and how that can stunt your play, and shipbuilders that know to pick low-draw on their biweaves instead of fast charge for this particular type of build are going to have a nice step up on the competition. Now, how about those lovely Plasma weapons? Finally we can run a full set of them thanks to that wonderful efficient mod... but that's not the end of the story. Maybe you'll go looking for your perfect heat balance between efficient and overcharged/srb. Maybe you'll try to deal with the heat of an all-out long range/focused plasma build so that you can catch your opponent early with your tlb just before they reach their comfortable release point. Maybe you'll cleverly utilize the shot speed modifications available for certain weapons in order to line up the reticles for two otherwise incompatible fixed weapons. Maybe you'll try stacking MJs only to learn a valuable lesson about phasing builds, or have an embarrassing encounter with a seemingly puny Cobra that happens to have reverb mines. I put a lot of time and thought into a plasma speed courier build, with the intention of keeping it at the 851 max speed for drive distributors. Let me tell you, nothing lets you experience just how thoughtfully a ship can be put together quite like a speed build. I tried lightweight plasma but they were too hot, so I went efficient and made up the weight elsewhere. Eventually I had a breakthrough moment where I realized there must be an ideal balance using some lightweight and some efficient plasma, and the weight savings afforded me significantly stronger shields. I remember that day well because it was an immensely satisfying act of puzzling out an ideal min/max solution in a very complex set of options, and it's a joy that would never have been possible without engineering. That ship, and all my others, are prized possessions thanks to the time and effort with which they are invested. With credits being given away by barrel, bucket and handful, engineering is one of the last bastions of accomplishment. A stock ship that you can throw together in 5 minutes at Shin feels like a throwaway in comparison.
I can understand how people would not care for it if they don't do any kind of higher level combat, or if they're just trying to mindlessly enhance what they would be doing at stock instead of really digging into the possibilities of shipbuilding, but the former at least don't really need much of it. Many people won't have a need for much beyond FSD, which requires only one of the starter engineers to be unlocked.
(1) I don't doubt that you find it satisfying mate- but I find it a complete and total waste of time. The end result is just equipping a ship. The 'hard' part is making the right upgrade choices, the rest is just hour after hour of tedium acquiring a very specific subset of a huge number of prerequisite trading cards. Like most trading card games, swap ratios are outrageous. I have absolutely zero interest in playing 'space Pokemon'! [haha] Clearly, mileage varies on this one...
(2) I totally agree, being able to fit out a ship in a reasonable amount of time, without having to hand over a vast pile of virtual trading cards, wouldn't leave me utterly drained of the will to live...
(3) Yes it is, if you're keen on learning how to use umpteen different, out of game software assets, trawl through hours of dull as dishwater 'how to' youtube videos and keep a weather eye on patch notes and forum boards in case that thing you're depending on has just been memory holed!
(4) It sorts out who spent the most time and effort on activities completely unrelated to PvP. If you imagine PvP to be an arms race or a way to stress test your ships then maybe, I suppose...[where is it]
(11) My issue is that the game's now balanced around those 'durable' ships. I was just dandy with having to run in my go fasts, wake in my traders and fight in my warships. Now my options are 'slaughter all comers' in my engineered ship, 'don't dare lose the interdiction' in everything else... [sour]
Yeah, I'm up with all of that. Ships reacting according to their role would be cool...
Well done on the effort mate, but like I put in the OP, in two months, with a year's supply of mats, I got most of the way to engineering just one ship. I don't have the time or the will to grind-it's a leisure activity, a game, for goodness sake! If it starts to feel like work I might as well just sign up for some overtime... [rolleyes]
I absolutely hate it. It's the worst part of the game for me, and it's clearly a poorly implemented system, which could be so much more interesting and engaging. To better explain, I will quote someone from reddit:
As it is right now, it's really just another mindless grind "feature" to artificially stretch the content.
Also it's clearly a pay-to-win thing against those people who don't own Horizons and still want to play in PvP, and that's just cheap.
As it is right now, it's really just another mindless grind "feature" to artificially stretch the content.
Also it's clearly a pay-to-win thing against those people who don't own Horizons and still want to play in PvP, and that's just cheap.
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Since the upgrade last year to the engineering process, I don't really have a problem. However, it would be a nice feature that if and when we sell an engineered mod, we got back at least a percentage by rounding up or down of the materials utilized. I mean, what is the purpose of the area that allows one to "Remove Modification's". Personally, I'd settled for half of the materials, rather than nothing as it is presently. I don't believe that it would take to much programming to do. But then, I am not a programmer.