"Don't rush into an Anaconda, do Engineering first...."

[Stigbob]

With the current crappy conversion rate? It's more efficient to trade down G5 compared to trade up lower grades.
Min-maxing how to get mats in the shortest amount of time isn't grinding. It's the opposite of grinding by minimizing the time you spent grinding. In fact, killing NPC and gather low grade mats to trade up is more grindy. A short burst of grind every 5 minutes doesn't make it not grind, that's just an illusion. In fact, that's just you grinding a bit every single day. Grind is grind.
And I think you just made that up because there's no statistical evidence to back up that claim.

That's a grindy min-maxxers argument. The exchange rate doesn't matter when you are ditching a bin full of phase alloys or whatever for a few of whatever you want, the reason the bins full is because you constantly trip over the stuff. Keep twenty or thirty back and you are covered for any engineering that actually needs it.

The proof of the vast superiority of my approach is you describe the mechanic as crappy, you obviously don't enjoy yourself and you'll join the ranks of the forum undead sooner or later.

If you are not having fun you are doing it wrong.

 

[Stealthie]

Because why would I spend time getting lower grade mats while I can spend even less time using limpets to grab G5? It's simply more time efficient.
And no, before you say something along the line of "but the mats are already there", the time NOT spent getting those lower grade mats are spent playing the game. Limpeting those mats also take time, and even more time if you do it manually.
So farming G5 mats are technically more efficient because the extra time it takes to travel to a system for HGE can be ignored in the grand scheme of things.

Are your ships all so focused and inflexible that you couldn't manage to squeeze a collector into them without ruining the usefulness of the ship?

To me, half the fun of ED is building different ships with different levels of versatility and then picking the right ship for the right job so that I can take advantage of opportunities that arise.
All my multirole and scout ships have a collector controller, as well as my big combat ships.

 

[Pascuanegra]

Actually once you learn what to get and how to get it more efficiently, it's not that hard to engineer a ship. I see that a lot of new players are quitters. Recently I fully engineered myself an AX conda and it took me 3 hours to do it. And you know what? I already had most of the materials. And there is always the material trader. You can just collect grade 5 stuff and trade them with the ones you need. Which saves a lot of time.

 

[Rietz]

That's a grindy min-maxxers argument. The exchange rate doesn't matter when you are ditching a bin full of phase alloys or whatever for a few of whatever you want, the reason the bins full is because you constantly trip over the stuff. Keep twenty or thirty back and you are covered for any engineering that actually needs it.

The proof of the vast superiority of my approach is you describe the mechanic as crappy, you obviously don't enjoy yourself and you'll join the ranks of the forum undead sooner or later.

If you are not having fun you are doing it wrong.

No it's not a min-maxxer's argument. It's common sense.
If you don't like doing something, find the fastest way to do it and spend more time having fun.
And no it's not the proof of your "superior approach", a crappy mechanic is crappy. Your approach is basically fooling yourself by doing crappy things a bit at a time. My approach is to get it over with as fast as possible and have fun playing without even thinking about it.
I did it with the most efficient way because I don't like the mechanic of gathering as you play, not the other way around.
And the "proof of the vast superiority of my approach" is that I'm done with engineering all the ships I needed for now and all I have to do now is having fun.

I already told you I'm having more fun doin what I'm doin, why are you so close minded and stubbornly insist that I'm doing wrong and your way is right? Do you have fun dictating the way other people play the game?

 

[Rietz]

Are your ships all so focused and inflexible that you couldn't manage to squeeze a collector into them without ruining the usefulness of the ship?

To me, half the fun of ED is building different ships with different levels of versatility and then picking the right ship for the right job so that I can take advantage of opportunities that arise.
All my multirole and scout ships have a collector controller, as well as my big combat ships.

I wouldnt call a Krait focused and inflexible. But I don't like stuffing a limpet controller on my FDL whenever I do combat just so I can grab some low grade materials when I can just farm G5 on my Krait once a month or two.

 

[Stigbob]

No it's not a min-maxxer's argument. It's common sense.
If you don't like doing something, find the fastest way to do it and spend more time having fun.
And no it's not the proof of your "superior approach", a crappy mechanic is crappy. Your approach is basically fooling yourself by doing crappy things a bit at a time. My approach is to get it over with as fast as possible and have fun playing without even thinking about it.
I did it with the most efficient way because I don't like the mechanic of gathering as you play, not the other way around.
And the "proof of the vast superiority of my approach" is that I'm done with engineering all the ships I needed for now and all I have to do now is having fun.

I already told you I'm having more fun doin what I'm doin, why are you so close minded and stubbornly insist that I'm doing wrong and your way is right? Do you have fun dictating the way other people play the game?

You seem to spend a lot of time moaning and getting mad about other peoples approaches for someone "having fun" so I'll disregard your approach as self evidently counterproductive as I have all the other min-maxxer types .

 

[TiberiusDuval]

All this discussion distills to fact that it was not ever meant by developers that one can get Annie in about day or two, or G5 engineer their stuff with likewise speed. One can of course, but that will mean dreaded GRIND. If requirements were eased, well thats kind of push a button to win stuff and that would take out most of doing in the game away. We saw that already with insane credit inflation. No need to put same thing to engineering.

 

[Rietz]

You seem to spend a lot of time moaning and getting mad about other peoples approaches for someone "having fun" so I'll disregard your approach as self evidently counterproductive as I have all the other min-maxxer types .

I spend a lot of time? It was one comment, my dude...
And it was a comment suggesting a different approach, to OP, not you.
I don't know what you're talking about. I'm only replying to you because you're the one who replied first by calling me stubborn for not playing the way YOU think I should be playing... Geez, talk about being stubborn lol

 

[Stigbob]

I spend a lot of time? It was one comment, my dude...
And it was a comment suggesting a different approach, to OP, not you.
I don't know what you're talking about. I'm only replying to you because you're the one who replied first by calling me stubborn for not playing the way YOU think I should be playing... Geez, talk about being stubborn lol

I think you may be confusing me with someone else.

 

[Dragsham]

Engineered ships are the meta are they not? Takes a few hours assuming you've credits and mats, to engineer one. Presumptuous of me isn't it... 12 or more engineers to unlock in whats probably the most complex aspect apart from guardian/thargoid related stuff.
Tedious....
Grind....
All those things yes true. But the benefits outweigh the initial grind. And if your playing the game as it was intended, farming mats is part of that.
I know one or two cmdrs who have mats all maxed out which is weird but hey ho.
Permanently Engineered ships just one at a time. I've 11 of em

 

[Rietz]

I think you may be confusing me with someone else.

Well, indeed I did...
Still, I stand by my point that it was one comment to OP (other than some replies to people trying to correct me), not a lot of time at all.

 

[Red Anders]

LMAO it is quite amusing to see so many people mindlessly defending the game and the crappy engineering system. I feel you OP.

People be like "oh no don't grind, just gather mats while you're playing", but I say F that.

That's fine, you can say what you want, do what you want and go about it whichever way you want.

Tell you what you should do though - take the blinkers off and try accepting that everybody else is also doing what they want and for some of us yes, doing it the way we describe works for us. See I can assure you that I don't care enough about your opinion to feel a need to lie to you about anything and I sure as hell aren't vested enugh in the game to feel a need to lie about game aspects in order to come out white knighting for a software developer that I also have no vested interest in.

In short, you do you eh? Let other people worry about what they do and without dismissing their own preferences.

 

[Brrokk]

I wouldnt call a Krait focused and inflexible. But I don't like stuffing a limpet controller on my FDL whenever I do combat just so I can grab some low grade materials when I can just farm G5 on my Krait once a month or two.

I take the opposite view. This thread is demonstrating clearly that materials are about the most valuable things in the game. I therefore see any ship without collector limpets as being weak in a core function.

I remember my days in Lord of the Rings Online. When the game started, after killing an orc you had to click on the body to open a loot window and then click the coins and items you wanted to take. Since this was usually everything, the developers added a "loot all" option to do it all without a click. There was a huge outcry about dumbing-down the game. But however it's done, collecting loot after slaying an NPC is a vital part of most games like this.

If you're short of materials, it's because you've been leaving them floating in space.

 

[Jmanis]

That's fine, you can say what you want, do what you want and go about it whichever way you want.

Tell you what you should do though - take the blinkers off and try accepting that everybody else is also doing what they want and for some of us yes, doing it the way we describe works for us. See I can assure you that I don't care enough about your opinion to feel a need to lie to you about anything and I sure as hell aren't vested enugh in the game to feel a need to lie about game aspects in order to come out white knighting for a software developer that I also have no vested interest in.

In short, you do you eh? Let other people worry about what they do and without dismissing their own preferences.

I take the opposite view. This thread is demonstrating clearly that materials are about the most valuable things in the game. I therefore see any ship without collector limpets as being weak in a core function.

I remember my days in Lord of the Rings Online. When the game started, after killing an orc you had to click on the body to open a loot window and then click the coins and items you wanted to take. Since this was usually everything, the developers added a "loot all" option to do it all without a click. There was a huge outcry about dumbing-down the game. But however it's done, collecting loot after slaying an NPC is a vital part of most games like this.

If you're short of materials, it's because you've been leaving them floating in space.

Pretty much both these...

In the context of engineering, I've only "done a grind" twice in ED.

• getting raw materials from a crystal site.[1]
• getting guardian materials for tech brokers.[1]

Everything else has just been parallel to the games core activities, running missions, doing exploration, fighting wars, search and rescue... all these just see my bins continuously filled with manufactured and data. And now PWA is fixed and mining is also balanced, i find my raw mats topping out occasionally thanks to that too.

Which makes me wonder... people who think engineering is a "grind" but don't want to do any of the things I've listed above... well... what are they doing after engineering? It can't be the activities i listed, since they don't seem to want to do them in the first place.... maybe it's just a quick trip to the forums to relinquish stuff and complain about grind.

[1] because i did an exploration trip past the crystal site, and picked it up on the way because it's hands- down a really fast way to get mats, and guardians because the rng for that one is just a bit crazy, with rarity not really meaning much.

 

[Rietz]

I take the opposite view. This thread is demonstrating clearly that materials are about the most valuable things in the game. I therefore see any ship without collector limpets as being weak in a core function.

I remember my days in Lord of the Rings Online. When the game started, after killing an orc you had to click on the body to open a loot window and then click the coins and items you wanted to take. Since this was usually everything, the developers added a "loot all" option to do it all without a click. There was a huge outcry about dumbing-down the game. But however it's done, collecting loot after slaying an NPC is a vital part of most games like this.

If you're short of materials, it's because you've been leaving them floating in space.

My view is that materials are important, but they're so easy to earn when you need them that I find picking up lower grade materials from exploded ships quite unnecessary. And frankly, picking stuff up in the battlefield feels like chore.
If you're talking about your daily drive ships like a Krait or Python, then yes, a collector limpet is a must-have. As those are the ships you're gonna use to actually farm materials. But for combat ships you take to HazRes or CZ, I wouldn't put the limpet controller on those, especially the FDL with not that many optional slots.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I therefore see any ship without collector limpets as being weak in a core function.

Or, just scoop them.

 

[NeilF]

Aaaaaand that's exactly when this game went from fun and exciting to something I can barely justify logging in for. The grind is horrible. The complete lack of any in-game direction for this Engineering stuff is unbelievable. I'm juggling 10 different third-party tools and YouTube videos just to get by, and I still don't fully understand the process.

If there's one thing I learned from playing Eve Online it's this: Spreadsheets for a video game is NOT fun and should never be required. Yet here I am again, looking at people's spreadsheets for this soul-sucking endeavor.

This isn't fun. I'm no longer having fun. And I would love to just ignore engineering and merrily go about my business but the upgrades are so game-breaking that they are pretty much required to do anything efficiently so that's not a real option.

This is all to get Felicity Farseer to level 5. To say nothing of all the other Engineers I'm expected to do space chores for to unlock their goodies. The vague and nebulous materials grind is the real problem. I would much rather these Engineers just hand out quests - err "missions" - like every other game on Earth. But nope, instead I'm logging in and out of the game repeatedly to farm the same High Grade Emissions source. Because that's just super fun stuff!

Who thought this was a good idea? Should I just abandon this fools gold and have fun again?

Yep! Engineering was the beginning of the end of ED for me in some ways.

It created a needless higher bar of (combat) performance, needlessly unbalanced areas of the game (eg: PvE and PvP), all just to give lazy perceived purpose to shallow grind loop gameplay. It's an over bloated, needlessly busy work, unbalanced mess IMHO.


Engineering should have been a simple affair, with you being able to carry it out at most stations, to make small alternations to suit your gameplay style. Not basically force tedious busy work because of 200+% improvements to combat performance.

And let's not even get into the daft magic the gathering paper-scissors-stone-spock-lizard side effects.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

My approach is to get it over with as fast as possible and have fun playing without even thinking about it.

That's fools gold in elite. After you have enough credits to buy your fleet, a carrier and a few years upkeep, what do you do then? There is an answer, but think about what you will be doing... Same cliff into nothing applies to engineering.

Not saying its a good thing, but nothing has been provided at all ever since day 1, so it actually turns out better to let it happen organically. You're possibly wasting future time by qutting the game after you've done all that stuff.. rather than getting into a more sustainable approach and enjoying the slow burn.

Can vouch for it that the grass isn't a different shade of green on the other side.

 

[Rietz]

That's fools gold in elite. After you have enough credits to buy your fleet, a carrier and a few years upkeep, what do you do then? There is an answer, but think about what you will be doing... Same cliff into nothing applies to engineering.

Not saying its a good thing, but nothing has been provided at all ever since day 1, so it actually turns out better to let it happen organically. You're possibly wasting future time by qutting the game after you've done all that stuff.. rather than getting into a more sustainable approach and enjoying the slow burn.

Can vouch for it that the grass isn't a different shade of green on the other side.

I get your idea. But personally, the "gathering while you play" is just not working out for me. It's like two dishes of food, one is your favorite, while the other is something you hate. I'd prefer to gulp down the dish I hate as fast as possible, and then slowly savor the good one, rather than mixing the both of them together and create something that is neither good nor bad.
Sure, it might feels like there are less to consume, but it'd leave behind a favourable impression rather than an average one.
That's just my take on many things in life, including games.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

The sheer pig headed stubbornness on display by certain posters here never ceases to amaze me.

Just say "I play it the right way so just let me continue to hate what I'm doing" and be done with it.

Those individuals don't want to be persuaded to open their mind towards other, maybe better ways to experience the game, will eventually burn out and end up posting here moaning on a daily basis because reasons. It's quite sad to see really.