Engineering - what does this icon mean?

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What's that odd icon on the right? Can't recall seeing it before. This isn't the first time I've Engineered wide angle scanners.
 
You can't do the bonus effects with pinned blueprints. So there is often a reason to go there in person.
 
And you can only pin one set of blueprints at a time per engineer (as rightly pointed out by Bigmaec). So when you go, think ahead a bit before you leave.

Also, you can use different engineers to add experimental effects if they can both upgrade that module. Example: once you have Palin and R5 drives, pin that print and then whenever you need Drag or Clean etc you can you to FarSeer and she can add the experimental and save the journey.
 
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And you can only pin one set of blueprints at a time. So when you go, think ahead a bit before you leave.

Also, you can use different engineers to add experimental effects if they can both upgrade that module. Example: once you have Palin and R5 drives, pin that print and then whenever you need Drag or Clean etc you can you to FarSeer and she can add the experimental and save the journey.

To clarify, you can have one pinned set of blueprints per engineer.
 
You can't do the bonus effects with pinned blueprints. So there is often a reason to go there in person.
You can add experimental effects at any other engineer that offers any grade of the mod. For example you can pin Dirty Drives at Palin and have Farseer add Drag Drives whenever you mod thrusters remotely.
 
You can add experimental effects at any other engineer that offers any grade of the mod. For example you can pin Dirty Drives at Palin and have Farseer add Drag Drives whenever you mod thrusters remotely.

I believe (can anyone confirm this?) that you have to add the experimental effect before you engineer a module past the level that the engineer you're using to add the effect can achieve. So, for example, you'd want to visit Farseer to add the special effect before you use Palin's pinned blueprint to engineer your drives past Grade 3.
 
I believe (can anyone confirm this?) that you have to add the experimental effect before you engineer a module past the level that the engineer you're using to add the effect can achieve. So, for example, you'd want to visit Farseer to add the special effect before you use Palin's pinned blueprint to engineer your drives past Grade 3.
That used to be the case, but isn't any more - any engineer capable of working on the module at all should be able to apply experimentals
 
That used to be the case, but isn't any more - any engineer capable of working on the module at all should be able to apply experimentals

It's nice that they changed this.

I get the feeling that the original incarnation of this mechanic was a dying gasp of the Space Loach's sadistic humour.

"You've just spent a heap of mat's creating a set of DD5 thrusters via remote-engineering but now you've either got to go to Palin just to get the XFX or you've got to buy another set of thrusters, apply a G1 mod along with the XFX and then remote engineer them to G5"

Lol. What fun. :rolleyes:
 
It's nice that they changed this.

I get the feeling that the original incarnation of this mechanic was a dying gasp of the Space Loach's sadistic humour.

"You've just spent a heap of mat's creating a set of DD5 thrusters via remote-engineering but now you've either got to go to Palin just to get the XFX or you've got to buy another set of thrusters, apply a G1 mod along with the XFX and then remote engineer them to G5"

Lol. What fun. :rolleyes:
We value your precious time. Now go and buy shipkits, slave :D
 
And you can only pin one set of blueprints at a time per engineer (as rightly pointed out by Bigmaec). So when you go, think ahead a bit before you leave.

Why why why this is forced upon us who knows... Pinned blue prints should have been removed in Engineers V2 so you could just engineer at any (suitable) station. Just needless contrived grindy faff for the sake of it.

ps: I can understand forcing CMDRs to go in person to an engineer for side effects as a limited grind/faff...
 
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Why why why this is forced upon us who knows... Pinned blue prints should have been removed in Engineers V2 so you could just engineer at any (suitable) station. Just needless contrived grindy faff for the sake of it.

ps: I can understand forcing CMDRs to go in person to an engineer for side effects as a limited grind/faff...

It's too bad ED didn't better copy ESO. If they did, we would be able to engineer (craft) in any station (town) with the appropriate facilities (crafting tables). However, there would be special locations where we would need to go to engineer "specialty gear". This would have been a great place to move the PowerPlay modules to - you want Prismatic Shields, you have to go to a special engineering base and build your own, similar to ESO's hidden crafting stations.

As I recently posted in another thread, "crafting" in ED falls terribly short of the crafting systems in other games.
 
It's too bad ED didn't better copy ESO. If they did, we would be able to engineer (craft) in any station (town) with the appropriate facilities (crafting tables). However, there would be special locations where we would need to go to engineer "specialty gear". This would have been a great place to move the PowerPlay modules to - you want Prismatic Shields, you have to go to a special engineering base and build your own, similar to ESO's hidden crafting stations.

As I recently posted in another thread, "crafting" in ED falls terribly short of the crafting systems in other games.
Agreed...

Yes, pinning Blue Prints just underlines some of the grindtastically poor design choices made for this game.

FD wants us to engineer often, and slowly improve our ships, so...... make us go to contrived out of the way places to do it (except for one pinned blue print)?

It's just a contrived design, which even on a second visit only make it slightly less faffy... while introducing yet more contrived faff.
 
As I recently posted in another thread, "crafting" in ED falls terribly short of the crafting systems in other games.

I guess we need to consider FDev's intentions for upgrades.

I always assumed that FDev thought players would just upgrade their ships piecemeal - "Oooh, I found X, Y and Z so now I can go and get a G3 thruster mod. Yay!"
In that case, you wouldn't really want, or need, "crafting" to be ubiquitous because, by it's very nature, upgrades would be something special.
When you encountered an iCourier that could do 800m/s you'd be absolutely gobsmacked that somebody'd been lucky enough to find all the mat's needed to create that mod'.

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, we all just routinely hoover up most of the mat's we need to carry out most of the top-tier mod's we want, assuming we haven't just collected those mat's already in the course of our travels.

Seems like the collection of mat's IS now geared toward stockpiling mat's for use but the actual engineering is still geared toward the original paradigm of opportunistic upgrades.
 
I guess we need to consider FDev's intentions for upgrades.

I always assumed that FDev thought players would just upgrade their ships piecemeal - "Oooh, I found X, Y and Z so now I can go and get a G3 thruster mod. Yay!"
In that case, you wouldn't really want, or need, "crafting" to be ubiquitous because, by it's very nature, upgrades would be something special.
When you encountered an iCourier that could do 800m/s you'd be absolutely gobsmacked that somebody'd been lucky enough to find all the mat's needed to create that mod'.

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, we all just routinely hoover up most of the mat's we need to carry out most of the top-tier mod's we want, assuming we haven't just collected those mat's already in the course of our travels.

Seems like the collection of mat's IS now geared toward stockpiling mat's for use but the actual engineering is still geared toward the original paradigm of opportunistic upgrades.

For me personally, the problem with Engineering is the lack of logical integration into the game world, not the "grind". It always has been. Having to shoot rocks to get iron while being able to buy palladium by the ton is just.... Sigh. In ESO, gathering materials actually fits in with the medieval (albeit fantasy) time period of the game - it's quite logical a leather smith would hunt for his own furs, though he also has the option of purchasing those furs at a markup (something ED doesn't have).

And then there's the idea of this single engineer, let's take "Tod The Blaster", who requires us to hand in chunks of iron shot from rocks in order to improve our weapons. And not just our weapons, but he personally has to modify the weapons of all the players and now NPCs as well! One can head-canon that Tod just sits in his office while robots do all this work, but he's doing this for FREE while expecting us to bring him supplies that should be common (iron) but are not. This isn't even crafting, because we aren't crafting anything. That said, I play by my own narrative, so in my game I'm the one doing the "crafting" and Tod just owns the "maker space" that has allthe specialized tools (like a crafting station) that lets me to this. I have to stick my fingers in my eyes and go "lalalala" when his dialog pops on my screen, but welcome to Elite Dangerous.

The entire system was thought up from a gameplay mechanic perspective instead of a "immersive experience" that makes cognitive sense within our futuristic game world. And the "it's just a game" cop-out fails horribly here, because as crafting systems in other games like ESO proves, it is possible have a crafting system that also "makes sense" if the developer puts some time and thought into it. And now we have silly things like material traders and blueprints which is the gameplay version of the ducktape that holds half of the ships in ED together :p

This topic makes me want to put my grumpy face back on!

iu
 
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For me personally, the problem with Engineering is the lack of logical integration into the game world, not the "grind". It always has been. Having to shoot rocks to get iron while being able to buy palladium by the ton is just.... Sigh. In ESO, gathering materials actually fits in with the medieval (albeit fantasy) time period of the game - it's quite logical a leather smith would hunt for his own furs, though he also has the option of purchasing those furs at a markup (something ED doesn't have).

And then there's the idea of this single engineer, let's take "Tod The Blaster", who requires us to hand in chunks of iron shot from rocks in order to improve our weapons. And not just our weapons, but he personally has to modify the weapons of all the players and now NPCs as well! One can head-canon that Tod just sits in his office while robots do all this work, but he's doing this for FREE while expecting us to bring him supplies that should be common (iron) but are not. This isn't even crafting, because we aren't crafting anything. That said, I play by my own narrative, so in my game I'm the one doing the "crafting" and Tod just owns the "maker space" that has allthe specialized tools (like a crafting station) that lets me to this. I have to stick my fingers in my eyes and go "lalalala" when his dialog pops on my screen, but welcome to Elite Dangerous.

The entire system was thought up from a gameplay mechanic perspective instead of a "immersive experience" that makes cognitive sense within our futuristic game world. And the "it's just a game" cop-out fails horribly here, because as crafting systems in other games like ESO proves, it is possible have a crafting system that also "makes sense" if the developer puts some time and thought into it. And now we have silly things like material traders and blueprints which is the gameplay version of the ducktape that holds half of the ships in ED together :p

This topic makes me want to put my grumpy face back on!

This concern would almost imply mechanics such as clan league tables then being a logical gameplay for FD to add to create more simplistic grind mechanics to participate in?

DOH!
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