The only thing FD really needs to tweak in order to make the Engineer experience more enjoyable is to reduce the RNG aspect from gathering the materials/components. This is the crux of a frustrated playerbase.
Simple Solution: Concentrate drops per the various sources.
Surface Bases- Scans can download any firmware related data, the higher the defense rating of the base (+++) equals a higher chance of rare-very rare firmware scans. +, and ++ will still have a chance to drop rare and very rare. Scans should always result in firmware data downloaded.
Ship loot (combat) can drop any and all ship related materials\components. Equal % drop chance for all items. Loot drop amount scaled to match ship size. I.E. an FDL will drop up to 5 items, Anaconda will drop up to 10 etc..
Degraded Emissions Signals, can drop some ship related materials\components. Equal % drop chance for all items. Still allow for salvage canister loot.
Encoded Emissions Signals, can drop some (more than degraded) ship related materials\components, and always have a Private Data Cache to scan, which can drop any type of firmware or data scan. Equal % drop chance for all items. Still allow for salvage canister loot.
Missions, increase the offering of material/components as part of the reward.
Commodities, keep as is.
Wake Scanning Data, keep as is.
Surface materials\Asteroid mining, keep as is, just make sure material drop rates are accurate and not bugged, looking at you Arsenic…
Ship Scan Data, Keep as is.
One last thing, tweak the rare goods requirement for unlocking some engineers, completely out of whack in relation to how many spawn in and time to respawn.
Simple Solution: Concentrate drops per the various sources.
Surface Bases- Scans can download any firmware related data, the higher the defense rating of the base (+++) equals a higher chance of rare-very rare firmware scans. +, and ++ will still have a chance to drop rare and very rare. Scans should always result in firmware data downloaded.
Ship loot (combat) can drop any and all ship related materials\components. Equal % drop chance for all items. Loot drop amount scaled to match ship size. I.E. an FDL will drop up to 5 items, Anaconda will drop up to 10 etc..
Degraded Emissions Signals, can drop some ship related materials\components. Equal % drop chance for all items. Still allow for salvage canister loot.
Encoded Emissions Signals, can drop some (more than degraded) ship related materials\components, and always have a Private Data Cache to scan, which can drop any type of firmware or data scan. Equal % drop chance for all items. Still allow for salvage canister loot.
Missions, increase the offering of material/components as part of the reward.
Commodities, keep as is.
Wake Scanning Data, keep as is.
Surface materials\Asteroid mining, keep as is, just make sure material drop rates are accurate and not bugged, looking at you Arsenic…
Ship Scan Data, Keep as is.
One last thing, tweak the rare goods requirement for unlocking some engineers, completely out of whack in relation to how many spawn in and time to respawn.