But are your comments in support of the casual player or in relation to your loathing of Engineers?
Colonia Engineers need a re-think
- Thread starter GreyAreaUK
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Deleted member 182079
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Hehe yeah the 5 black markets one kept me busy for a little bit last week - I ended up firing hatch breakers at miners in a Low RES in my barely engineered paper Adder - was quite tense given it was an Anarchy and getting scanned by a fellow pirate would've meant hairy situations ensuing...This account (Wayland) has been unlocking the 'common knowledge' engineers (even though I 'know' of the others, he doesn't yet!) and is at 3 of 4 so far - other engineers have been introduced into the list now but are 'ignored' until the first 4 are done - it is ironic that "trade in 5 black Markets" is my last as the ships I'm BH'ing in Res sites have yet to drop cargo
It is quite fun doing it this way (I have already been to Colonia with 20 courier missions to raise some credits) even if progress 'feels' very slow. I'll admit the temptation to unlock the 4 then head to Colonia for a month or so is very strong - just thinking of the exploration data...
As for Colonia, the plan for my alt is to stay there, buy a couple of ships and G4/5 those locally as much as possible, and just dabble in the various activities until I get bored. My pet hate ship, the Conda, will also feature later on as I even bought the Stygian Blue PJ for it - gonna be my kitchen sink explorer and I might even travel aimlessly long distance in it, will see. Never really flew it that much as I prefer the Corvette on my main, which I don't (and won't) have unlocked on my alt.
I didn't imply any hate towards casual players. It's an age old question in complex computer gaming - how steep should the learning curve be, how much grind should the game have, can complexity be sacrificed for accessibility etc.
Deleted member 182079
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You won't know this for sure though unless you actually fly there, or use Google, which was the point I was trying to make. Not a big deal with Eurybia, sure, but the effort required getting that confirmation in-game-only is somewhat steeper for Colonia.
I could mix this up with something else now, but Soontil Relics can't be found in Soontil for example. How did I find out where to buy them in the end? Inara.
The casul. I don't know much about Colonia or its engineers. I played ED mostly casually- That's not how you'd find out about these game items back then. So when some dude checks what they still not done in the game and give Colonia a try, what's so bad about it?
Dunno if you rely on Inara for instance, but their info is pretty old. Quite a few G3 blueprints on there are now elevated to G4, and G4 to G5. Rails, PA's, Frags and all that.
It's kinda easy to answer, when you have data on how players play the game. If only a mini subset make it to the point you designed you need to consider whether you wasted all that dev time.
Deleted member 182079
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I try not to rely on it too much, especially for my alt, but usually end up on Inara eventually
Good to hear, I'm aware that things have progressed quite a bit, and I think Inara reflects that (the important stuff is certainly G4/5 already on the site, too).
It depends of course of multiple variables, like heavy users of niche games usually spending a lot more money than people who just play a few hundred hours casually.
"Hardcore" Colonia of course is pretty insignificant part of FDev and mini subsets, considering all the half finished things like planetary surface gameplay and multicrew. I can only wonder how many players have actually participated to the Thargoid riddles. I know I haven't.
Deleted member 182079
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I'm firmly in the "who needs a manual!" camp, at least when it comes to games - I blame the lack of a manual at hand when playing my legitimate copies of games, made solely for safety reasons back in the 1980s, and not being able to read Japanese in the 1990s
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Deleted member 182079
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I since changed my... erm... excusesI read your response, and now I'm doing stuff.
I know the feeling, I had the same problem with English.
OK Not picking an argument, we are not that far apart really.
I don't need to know for sure, im playing a game of exploration, finding stuff and flying through space, I stumble across stuff and try and work it out. I heard that Maia was a place to go, obviously went to Maya as that's how its spelled and ended up varying spelling until I found Maia.
Soontil is a harder one. Theres a mention in some market or other that mentions Soontil Relics and where they can be bought so you have to follow the clues. I thought it was in a market at Soontil but maybe not. This was a long time ago so may be slightlywrong but theres something somewhere that says something like 'Soontil Relics are the property of / are recovered by XYZ Scrap/mining outfit based in ABC system' I know its vague but I like it like that where I feel I have to work something out to progress.
Remember, all of this was solved by the first person to do it, it is possible.
I don't need to know for sure, im playing a game of exploration, finding stuff and flying through space, I stumble across stuff and try and work it out. I heard that Maia was a place to go, obviously went to Maya as that's how its spelled and ended up varying spelling until I found Maia.
Soontil is a harder one. Theres a mention in some market or other that mentions Soontil Relics and where they can be bought so you have to follow the clues. I thought it was in a market at Soontil but maybe not. This was a long time ago so may be slightlywrong but theres something somewhere that says something like 'Soontil Relics are the property of / are recovered by XYZ Scrap/mining outfit based in ABC system' I know its vague but I like it like that where I feel I have to work something out to progress.
Remember, all of this was solved by the first person to do it, it is possible.
Deleted member 182079
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I'm sure you'll be able to appreciate though that not everyone has the time, patience, and/or problem solving skills to work out these little 'puzzles' themselves.
I still feel like cheating every time I open up the browser to check stuff*, but at the end of the day I have to evaluate whether solving things myself is worth the payoff, and more often than not it just isn't really (especially when I want to do Z, but have to solve X and Y first). Different story of course if you're (for example) one of the Canonn science buffs that enjoy spending a lot of time on these kind of things, but that's really not your average player I'm talking about here, and each CMDR has their own playstyle that will be more, or rather less, compatible to what you described above.
* I largely only have this issue with Elite - many other similarly (or more) complex games are more than capable of guiding me towards their content without having to rely on external tools as much as Elite does, even if it's gotten a little bit better with the 3.3+ updates.
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I'm about to head back up to Colonia as a permanent move. I have been before, realised that I couldn't get a 5A FSD up there, so after a while came back. This time I have unlocked every Bubble engineer to level 5, got my Federal rank up sufficiently to buy a Corvette, have bought a Clipper and am flying up there in a Cutter. Have also bought and engineered four 5A FSD drives. Took a while but now feel ready and good to go. If we boil all the grind and hurdles out of the game then there'll come a point at which we don't have a game. And if some don't want to do the legwork then they won't get some of the things acquired by those who were prepared to. So I guess it's just like life - some things take a little work, and that's how it should be. So personally I'd leave it as it is. We all start in the Bubble, all this information is out there.
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As a player how did you know who or where the engineers in Colonia are unless you had unlocked the previous engineers? How did you know what engineering they even offered? How did you even know the Colonia engineers existed? Until you unlock Elivira (for example) the respective Colonia engineer doesn't show up in your ship's engineering tab. And if the desired engineer doesn't show up in your engineering tab clearly you can't do anything with them yet. When they do show up the prerequisites are stated clearly.
If you had learned about the Colonia engineers from researching on the internet then the prerequisites should have been quite obvious. The wiki's and INARA spell it out clear.
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Buy the Corvette in the bubble as the highest fed ship in Colonia is the FGS. The only way to maybe make it available is hindered by FDevs decision on where they put the mat traders, and they are more important than the Corvette. Also buy the Courier if you like that one, we don't have that either.
We sell those now
Oh, did I mention that when I went to Colonia it was deader than disco? I popped in for a visit, while I was in the area, and barely found a human. I did find a well stocked station and some extra engineering, but it seemed to be lacking all the other great things I've heard about the place..
I cam across the early Eng's fairly early in the game and over Farseer and Elvira, I never bothered chasing any more. The rest of the bubble Eng's have mostly happened while doing other things.
I cam across the early Eng's fairly early in the game and over Farseer and Elvira, I never bothered chasing any more. The rest of the bubble Eng's have mostly happened while doing other things.