I admit it; I'm spoiled and lazy.

Stealthie

Stealthie
I just finished using remote-engineering to modify 3 different ships without leaving Shin Dez and all I can think is that now I'm going to have to go to the trouble of schlepping around a bunch of engineers just to apply various XFX.

A year ago I would have been overjoyed at the idea of remote-engineering and I guess I can see why the XFX remain the exclusive remit of the engineers, themselves, but I can't help wondering if it might be for the best to just "go the whole way" and allow XFX to be applied by remote-engineering too... and then, perhaps, create an entirely different reason to actually visit engineers.
 

Arry

Arry
'Remote engineering'?

This is a thing; as it sounds?

I have to say that since the new forums and the dross my email box is getting, becuse of it. I am tending not to keep up with the latest toys becoming available.
 

Vedmo

Vedmo
Engineering at Colonia is so nice with just 4 stops to make, to the point it's far easier and faster to engineer a ship there assuming you have pinned what you need. I'd be happy if they just expanded the repertoire of the bubble engineers a bit so just a few stops could cover it all.
 

Stealthie

Stealthie
Vedmo said:
Engineering at Colonia is so nice with just 4 stops to make, to the point it's far easier and faster to engineer a ship there assuming you have pinned what you need. I'd be happy if they just expanded the repertoire of the bubble engineers a bit so just a few stops could cover it all.
Click to expand...

See, I think that's part of my problem.

In Colonia, it wasn't a big deal.
You do your remote engineering and then, even if you weren't thinking about it, you'd end up in one of the engineer systems and you could just drop in and apply a heap of XFX all at the same time.
With 4 engineers, covering all aspects of engineering, all within about 40Ly of each other, the whole thing wasn't a big deal.

In the bubble, OTOH, you've got a heap of engineers, fairly far apart, and all of them only capable of applying a couple of XFX - which makes finishing off the engineering quite a trek.

Maybe, at the very least, FDev could pick one engineer in each "territory" (Imp, Fed and Alliance) and give them G1 mod's for a heap of different things so that, having remote-engineered our ships, we could just swing by those three engineers to get XFX applied... and then, as I said, create a new reason to visit the individual engineers?

Maybe they could have the engineers contact us every so often and ask us to complete a mission or get our access reduced by one grade?
Alternatively, maybe the engineers could sell special modules, a bit like the PP modules (or, if PP was Open-Only, maybe the existing special modules could be transferred to engineers), for players who've reached G5 with each engineer?
Perhaps they could become their own "faction" and we could offer to do stuff to help them expand and allow them to upgrade their, erm, grade in various mod's etc?
 

zipline

zipline
The cherry on the cake would be a resident mat trader at every engineer base who did raw, manufactured & data trades at a better rate ... just saying.
 

Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
Stealthie said:
See, I think that's part of my problem.

In Colonia, it wasn't a big deal.
You do your remote engineering and then, even if you weren't thinking about it, you'd end up in one of the engineer systems and you could just drop in and apply a heap of XFX all at the same time.
With 4 engineers, covering all aspects of engineering, all within about 40Ly of each other, the whole thing wasn't a big deal.

In the bubble, OTOH, you've got a heap of engineers, fairly far apart, and all of them only capable of applying a couple of XFX - which makes finishing off the engineering quite a trek.

Maybe, at the very least, FDev could pick one engineer in each "territory" (Imp, Fed and Alliance) and give them G1 mod's for a heap of different things so that, having remote-engineered our ships, we could just swing by those three engineers to get XFX applied... and then, as I said, create a new reason to visit the individual engineers?

Maybe they could have the engineers contact us every so often and ask us to complete a mission or get our access reduced by one grade?
Alternatively, maybe the engineers could sell special modules, a bit like the PP modules (or, if PP was Open-Only, maybe the existing special modules could be transferred to engineers), for players who've reached G5 with each engineer?
Perhaps they could become their own "faction" and we could offer to do stuff to help them expand and allow them to upgrade their, erm, grade in various mod's etc?
Click to expand...
I think only engineers that can mod to the level your item is at can add an experimental. I.e. an engineer that can do everything g1 cannot add a special to an item already at g2 or higher.
 

Cmdr. Numa

Cmdr. Numa
Ian Skippy said:
I think only engineers that can mod to the level your item is at can add an experimental. I.e. an engineer that can do everything g1 cannot add a special to an item already at g2 or higher.
Click to expand...
Nope, that got changed a while ago. Any engineer that has the blueprint at all and even if it's just G1 will happily apply the special to your G5 module. This is why Palin hasn't seen me in months, but yesterday I found legacy modded thrusters, so I had to go for conversion.
 

Hanerib

Hanerib
But do you really trust those station mechanics to do your engineering? We've all seen how they are like. I wouldn't fly anything not personally inspected by Prof Palin.
 

Schmack

Schmack
Am I wrong to believe that the engineers originally were basically doing illegal things? I mean would they have missions and trade boards and things like that if they were illegal? I know we have black markets in stations but we don't have missions from the black market people. I know some factions give us options for missions that are illegal in most systems but the factions themselves aren't illegal.

Personally I would rather do missions for some of the engineers than any of the factions.
 

B1rdy

B1rdy
Stealthie said:
In the bubble, OTOH, you've got a heap of engineers, fairly far apart, and all of them only capable of applying a couple of XFX - which makes finishing off the engineering quite a trek.
Click to expand...
I can't see a benefit for making players travel to those system, besides stretching the "time played". Other games have similar possibilities in hub sites or areas a player will visit often anyway. I mean travelling is not even that exciting in itself to justify remote locations of Engineers.
Imagine Engineers where placed within 40Ly of Shinrarta Dezhra, it would be convenient to players. But would rise the question, what purpose all the other (inhabitant) systems serve.

Edit: Stealthie: You aren't spoilt, the issue has always been there.
 

Triptych

Triptych
Firstly, all materials should be readily available at space stations, at a price that makes it worthwhile to go hunt them for yourself, but buyable for those who don't want to. Secondly, all crafts should be blueprinted once you've engineered the first one: and that would include xfx. Lastly, reduce the outrageous exchange rates between materials.

It'll never happen of course.
 

Watcher

W
Stealthie said:
I just finished using remote-engineering to modify 3 different ships without leaving Shin Dez and all I can think is that now I'm going to have to go to the trouble of schlepping around a bunch of engineers just to apply various XFX.

A year ago I would have been overjoyed at the idea of remote-engineering and I guess I can see why the XFX remain the exclusive remit of the engineers, themselves, but I can't help wondering if it might be for the best to just "go the whole way" and allow XFX to be applied by remote-engineering too... and then, perhaps, create an entirely different reason to actually visit engineers.
Click to expand...

I was strongly against remote engineering to begin with... Now, I've come around to the idea and also feel it should be taken further - get rid of the pinning mechanic and just give access to everything you've unlocked.

FD could then focus on making the unlock process more interesting, perhaps with a staged series of missions related to the type of character the engineer is. Perhaps give some options at each stage to provide for some variation. This makes more sense to me than the current mechanism of building reputation and getting unlocks by them doing things for you... Huh?

Whether we would then want the experimental effects also available via remote engineering I'm unclear, maybe. Perhaps you have to unlock those separately :D (I can hear people complaining about the grind even now..)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom