Credit sink solution and Engineering fix

[Dagwit]

You can actually buy materials - in some sense, at least. When you take mats instead of profit for a mission reward you're essentially buying mats at a rate of e.g Cr 500k per G5 mat, or Cr 3 million per G5 mat if you subsequently trade for what you want.

In the great G5 mat drought that followed the BGS changes in 3.3, I kept my G5 manufactured mat stocks up by doing Sirius Atmospherics runs and taking BC/EFC as mission reward when offered. Calculating that I was spending two-thirds of my time making money and a third buying mats, I reckoned that it was a reasonably efficient way of obtaining manufactured G5s.

 

[Old Duck]

One of the benefits of being a minimalist, I ain't got that much to engineer in the first place.

 

[Drelthar]

To be honest, the credit sink should be ship maintenance.

A service every X light years, ammo costs, and repairs should be at a point where it means so something, it's not really that hard to do. People just complained early on about the prices of it, back when creds were hard to come by.

 

[sollisb]

Not gonna happen. Frontier decided that gathering materials is one of if not the main game loop and it's part of almost all aspects of the game.

Credits are out of control, material grind is easier to keep on a leash for Frontier.

In that case they're pretty stuffed at game design.

In my game loop if I need a ship for some reason that's not in my normal few I use, I store the modules and place them on the hull I do need. No need for stupid loops.

Aint nobody got no time for that !

 

[sollisb]

To be honest, the credit sink should be ship maintenance.

A service every X light years, ammo costs, and repairs should be at a point where it means so something, it's not really that hard to do. People just complained early on about the prices of it, back when creds were hard to come by.

Nope. The sink should be that we have a huge choice of hulls. We/the game (in my opinion) needs another 20+ hulls added to the game. An easy example, lets take the Python. There should be a ship from each manufacturer that is a direct match for the Python. Same slots, same sizes, same flight characteristics. The FDL, the murder hobo boat, again, there is nothing from the other 2 manufacturers to choose.

The reasoning is this; It gives more diversity, more individualism, and there-in, is the money make for Frontier. With so many hulls you'd need a fantastic amount of paint jobs.

But they're just too dumb to see it.

Does anyone believe that when we get to such a time in space, there'll only be 3 ship manufacturers in the entire galaxy? I drive a merc, and there are at least 4 other car manufacturers that have an equal offering. Why not space ships? It's not rocket science.......

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Not gonna happen. Frontier decided that gathering materials is one of if not the main game loop and it's part of almost all aspects of the game.

Credits are out of control, material grind is easier to keep on a leash for Frontier.

It's a game loop in amongst a lot of others, which all seem to intertwine a lot. Whether it's the main one is all down to the individual.

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

Nope. The sink should be that we have a huge choice of hulls. We/the game (in my opinion) needs another 20+ hulls added to the game. An easy example, lets take the Python. There should be a ship from each manufacturer that is a direct match for the Python. Same slots, same sizes, same flight characteristics. The FDL, the murder hobo boat, again, there is nothing from the other 2 manufacturers to choose.

The reasoning is this; It gives more diversity, more individualism, and there-in, is the money make for Frontier. With so many hulls you'd need a fantastic amount of paint jobs.

But they're just too dumb to see it.

Does anyone believe that when we get to such a time in space, there'll only be 3 ship manufacturers in the entire galaxy? I drive a merc, and there are at least 4 other car manufacturers that have an equal offering. Why not space ships? It's not rocket science.......

and this is exactly why my quest for small hardpoints would only help FDev in the funding department, more diversity and inclusion on more hulls with ultimately more paint packs, ship kits and nic naks to stick on your dashboard.

equally making engineering quicker / easier / more accessible as per the OP would make people switch ship more often and buy more ship kits, paints, and other nic naks

its simple marketing, consumerism and human behavior, choice drives spending.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

(looks at empty materials).

(Looks at Speedcuffs' materials)

FDev pls gib hatchbreaker upgrade.

 

[CMDR DragonHorn]

If FD cuts down on grind in any department, they will seriously decrease playtime, and thus game presence of significant group of people, which is important, becuase more time you spend in this game - more likely you'll cave in to buy some ARX.

In all seriousness, without grind there will barely be anything to do here, and I think FD knows that.

 

[Drelthar]

Nope. The sink should be that we have a huge choice of hulls.

That's not a sink - because once you bought them all, you have them all.
With maintenance and ammo/fuel - that's a constant need.

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

If FD cuts down on grind in any department, they will seriously decrease playtime, and thus game presence of significant group of people, which is important, because more time you spend in this game - more likely you'll cave in to buy some ARX.

In all seriousness, without grind there will barely be anything to do here, and I think FD knows that.

they have done it many times in the past with 0 negative results on player numbers (im sure theres a steam chart somewhere, showing an improvement vs time);

Credit inflation didn't cut play time (if anything it increased mine)
the whole x3 materials rather than x1 didn't cut playtime (again it increased mine)
The removal of RNG engineered parts didn't cut playtime and bought people back
removal of engineering cargo commodities, anyone remember that hell?
the 300% jumps Syth etc all increased playtime yet reduced the "grind"
the rank grind was made easier via mission rewards, no drop off there either.

its an open world there is literally thousands of hours of things to do without grinding excessive amounts of materials through boring and mind numbingly boring RNG gameplay*

*gameplay in the sense that racing around davs hope exiting to menu and repeating over and over 200 times before up trading at a mat trader is not bloody gameplay!

 

[fu9ar]

*gameplay in the sense that racing around davs hope exiting to menu and repeating over and over 200 times before up trading at a mat trader is not bloody gameplay!

You are correct about that. That is not gameplay. I have a wide array of materials. I have never been to dav's hope. I just take a little extra time to eat what I kill and I've always had enough.

 

[Vorxian]

Can't I just be an engineer just like in any other MMO?

 

[sollisb]

That's not a sink - because once you bought them all, you have them all.
With maintenance and ammo/fuel - that's a constant need.

I used to be a dev arch on one of more popular MuDs in the 90s. As a credit sink we had multiple armours and what not, which was all sold for a huge loss before you logged out.

But.. We had one player who logged in and all he did was increase his coin balance, night after night after night. He had more than most of the lower tiers put together. And still he logged in and increased his balance. There will always be players who want to increase their credits no matter how many they have.

In Elite, they decided that credits were worthless. Nothing and I mean nothing will be a solution to being able to earn a quarter of a billion per hour.

 

[GraXXoR]

In Elite, they decided that credits were worthless. Nothing and I mean nothing will be a solution to being able to earn a quarter of a billion per hour.

How can you earn 250kk per hour?

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

How can you earn 250kk per hour?

by gathering 156T of void opals in the previous 2 hours and selling them in the specific hour you're measuring cr per hour?

 

[GraXXoR]

I recently bought NMS and gained my Freighter in my 3rd or 4th session. Just had to kill a few pirates... felt a bit silly to me.

My thoughts exactly. I've done a LOT of Vopal mining but even 100Mph is pushing it, RNG wise. I guess a clipper with A-rated thrusters is just about fast enough to scan enough area to sustain 100Mph repeatedly, but it just doesn't feel right that a luxury ship is actually better and mining than any of the industrial ships, so I tend to RP my ships' roll based on manufacturer/design.

Since this dude (Rick Sanchez 3L-173) only flies small ships + the type 7, there is only one perfect core miner. That is the Cobra MK4.

My A-rated fully engineered Cobra MK4 with its 10 internal slots can fit 58T of Vopals with 4 collectors and its flat profile is dead easy to manoeuvre between the rocks.
But it is ultimately limited by straight line speed of 400 while boosting. It takes less than an hour to jump twice, travel to a ring, fill it up, jump twice back and sell.
58T usually brings in just a little shy of 100M.
I just don't see how anyone could beat that by OVER a factor of 2.5 without some kind of duplicating bug like the multiple abrasion blasters used to bring in... (before the nerf, I used to fly my Cobra MKIV with 1 Siesmic launcher and 4 abrasion blasters... it was plain stupid.)