Engineers An even simpler streamline for Engineers! Cutting a whole level of faff out, with very minor changes.

[Falcon_D]

Hello,
Personally I think this is a good alternative with minimal dev effort. Although I do have a preference for mission based, bond/bounty or exploration based rep levelling.
Maybe rep level with an engineer is locked to your combat/trade/explorer level, just like imp and fed ships are locked to your Imp/Fed rank.
I for one don't really see a problem with people with spreadsheets finding the Meta to play the game. Cause when that happens the devs step in to rebalance.
So what, if everyone, at the end flies with a level 5 mod on everything? So what if the stats on the level 5 mods are the same? Didn't we have this pre 2.1? Did one persons pulse laser do different amounts of damage to another's? The game had spreadsheet metas pre 2.1, so what if it does post 2.1? Did people stop playing after 1.0 and wait for 2.1 to come out so they didn't have to face the boring spreadsheet meta gameplay? If pre 2.1 was boring and adding RNG upon RNG makes it more interesting than maybe this genre of games might not be as interesting as say the other genre of games where RNG is a must as players play the odds?

Have fun, fly safe. o7

 

[NeilF]

maybe the rng is there to prevent every spreadsheet cheat site gank warrior and their mother flying around in identical cheese fer de lances of which they found the build on some website with an alpha strike that can one shot kill a capital ship twice but still allow some exceptional mods to be out there in the wild. this ensures there is surprise in the eco system even in pvp keeping it fresh and exciting.

The missions to get in with an engineer introduce you to other aspects of the game and also ensures not everyone gets all the same upgrades, some engineers you might not want, can or be bothered to get entrée to. So everybody flying the same cheese gets avoided.

it is great putting everything in spreadsheets and dumbing great mechanics down so everyone can have a super ueber fer de lance with all the top level mods in a day which can' t be targeted because of 0 heat and can one shot kill everything but in the end it is not fun if most people fly around in exactly the same ship not for casual or serious non cheese players who will all leave open.

Not quite sure that your point is there?

As regards, "everyone ending up with the same modules?"
You'll notice that that I've not really suggested changing the module generation mechanics themselves (very much), simply the method by which the game, (a) allows you to rank up with Engineers, (b) how you "pay" for crafting. I'm even quite happy if using the proposed alternative (simpler) method, if it ultimately takes longer to rank up etc. I'd rather it was friendlier over a longer term, than painful over a shorter one.


As regards, "accessing specific Engineers?"
I've not suggested changing the initial access mechanics. But I would say that once you have access to an Engineer ranking up with them will be a more laid-back affair, which is an important part of this suggestion.

For example, if you only enjoy mining, and that gives you at least one material an Engineer is interested in, then that's theoretically enough to level up and pay for crafting (quite likely at a slow rate mind).


Summary
In effect the suggestion takes a layer of faff out of some areas of The Engineers, so you can have a more laid-back relationship with them, doing more of what you enjoy, rather than what they basically dictate. It takes away the necessity for concentrating on spread sheets (as you mentioned) because as long as you can supply some materials the Engineer is interested in, that will allow you to make use of their services.

If you want to take The Engineers more seriously, then you can do that, and fixate on the exact materials they are interested in, and which they rate most highly. ie: What will allow you to rank up most quickly.

And of course, the goal is not to make it quicker, but simply to allow you to participate in The Engineers by playing the game as you'd prefer, rather than having The Engineers mechanics dictating too much what you do in the game, all the time having to micromanage and been overly concerned about the exact materials you are collecting.

Hello,
Personally I think this is a good alternative with minimal dev effort. Although I do have a preference for mission based, bond/bounty or exploration based rep levelling.

I'd see no reason why certain missions couldn't give related materials as a bonus (as they do now). ie: If you do a very difficult combat related mission, you might get combat related materials, most likely of interest to combat related Engineers. ie: So you hand these materials into such an Engineer and that would increase your reputation level with them.

Maybe rep level with an engineer is locked to your combat/trade/explorer level, just like imp and fed ships are locked to your Imp/Fed rank.
I for one don't really see a problem with people with spreadsheets finding the Meta to play the game. Cause when that happens the devs step in to rebalance.
So what, if everyone, at the end flies with a level 5 mod on everything? So what if the stats on the level 5 mods are the same? Didn't we have this pre 2.1? Did one persons pulse laser do different amounts of damage to another's? The game had spreadsheet metas pre 2.1, so what if it does post 2.1? Did people stop playing after 1.0 and wait for 2.1 to come out so they didn't have to face the boring spreadsheet meta gameplay? If pre 2.1 was boring and adding RNG upon RNG makes it more interesting than maybe this genre of games might not be as interesting as say the other genre of games where RNG is a must as players play the odds?

Have fun, fly safe. o7

If we were starting from scratch, linking Engineer levels to some degree to your Elite levels could make sense. But with it being introduced now, that would of course mean huge number of folks would simply gain immediate/high access? So I can see why FD created a new (separate) reputation system for them.

 

[Sylow]

Thhis suggestion is part of what I wrote a while ago:
.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/259727-Less-dwarf-more-Engineer
.
It would reduce the importance of the loot, without utterly killing its importance. But instead of just then going ahead to say "buy an upgrade with reputation", I would make the player actually work for the upgrade. So upgrading an item at Felica Farseer would be a mission chain like:
.
1. Donate some money to her, so she can get the components she needs. (Price is staged based on the grade of the upgrade. )
2. While she "waits for the delivery of the components", you in turn have do a favour in return.
3. For a grade 1 upgrade this might just be to go to a system 20 LY away, scan an astral body and return.
4. In contrast, for a grade 5 upgrade she might send you like 500 LY away, to scan a system, scan an astral body, land there, drive around to find an artifact, drive off her rivals who just also want to recover the artifact, pick it up and bring it to her.
5. Of course this would be just one possible branch for the mission. The artifact might have been taken and you have to take it from their base, there might be pirates to fend off at the digging site, etc... there's a plethora of options, which all can easily be implemented with the mission steps we already have, by just adding a little bit of flavor text.
6. For other engineers, it could make sense to get one or another new mission step. E.g. "scan ships for cargo, destroy ships which carry illegal goods", etc.
.
Upgrades in such a system could easily actually take more time to acquire than in the current system, but the activities would be bound to the agenda of the engineer and integrated into the game world. It thus would feel more natural and much more rewarding to do than what we have now. So it definitely would not be a "I want it all now", it would be far from any "I win", but in contrast to the present system, it could actually be fun.

 

[NeilF]

Thhis suggestion is part of what I wrote a while ago:
.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/259727-Less-dwarf-more-Engineer
.
It would reduce the importance of the loot, without utterly killing its importance. But instead of just then going ahead to say "buy an upgrade with reputation", I would make the player actually work for the upgrade. So upgrading an item at Felica Farseer would be a mission chain like:
.
1. Donate some money to her, so she can get the components she needs. (Price is staged based on the grade of the upgrade. )
2. While she "waits for the delivery of the components", you in turn have do a favour in return.
3. For a grade 1 upgrade this might just be to go to a system 20 LY away, scan an astral body and return.
4. In contrast, for a grade 5 upgrade she might send you like 500 LY away, to scan a system, scan an astral body, land there, drive around to find an artifact, drive off her rivals who just also want to recover the artifact, pick it up and bring it to her.
5. Of course this would be just one possible branch for the mission. The artifact might have been taken and you have to take it from their base, there might be pirates to fend off at the digging site, etc... there's a plethora of options, which all can easily be implemented with the mission steps we already have, by just adding a little bit of flavor text.
6. For other engineers, it could make sense to get one or another new mission step. E.g. "scan ships for cargo, destroy ships which carry illegal goods", etc.
.
Upgrades in such a system could easily actually take more time to acquire than in the current system, but the activities would be bound to the agenda of the engineer and integrated into the game world. It thus would feel more natural and much more rewarding to do than what we have now. So it definitely would not be a "I want it all now", it would be far from any "I win", but in contrast to the present system, it could actually be fun.

The only problem is, we are where we are now... No doubt a far more involved and personal relationship with an Engineer would be nice, but I suspect FD will be looking to invest as little (further) time as possible into The Engineers, so it's really just down to making the best out of what there is.


Hence me suggesting minimal changes to the existing mechanics...

Material Collection
Little if no change - Although less materials would be nice

Change 1 - Handing in Materials
When you go to an Engineer you can go to a new screen to "donate" any materials you have which they are interested in (each Engineer is different).

It would show you a list of any/all materials you have they are interested in. Give an indication next to each how much reputation giving it to the Engineer would add (common less/rares more). And allow you to click any/all of these materials with the net effect showing your reputation with them going up.

Change 2 - Paying for Crafting
Crafting would simply reduce your reputation, depending upon the crafting level. So on the crafting screen, a simple graphic would show your reputations, and how much the selected crafting would reduce it.

Result
...and that's really it! Doesn't seem like a lot of work to me, but the outcome is a far more relaxed relationship with The Engineers...

Note: The additional suggestions of allowing a CMDR to supply specific materials to skew the dice rolls for the module outcome, or dictate a side effect were already proposed by FD.

 

[NE1]

Thhis suggestion is part of what I wrote a while ago:
.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/259727-Less-dwarf-more-Engineer
.
It would reduce the importance of the loot, without utterly killing its importance.

The loot is NOT the problem its the requirement to engage in multiple methods of obtaining them.

 

[Sylow]

The loot is NOT the problem its the requirement to engage in multiple methods of obtaining them.

.
I actually see two problems with the loot. The one I keep talking about is fun, where you are right. The methods of obtaining them are messed up, especially thanks to the randomizer. I have spent hours killing those ships which are supposed to drop what I wanted. Other pilots reported to have gotten 3 units of what I wanted in 20 minutes, by shooting three of these ships. I have spend several hours, but the RNG god hated me and gave me zero.
.
This is terrible design, no fun and a good reason to dispose of this system. There are plenty of other pilots who suffer from the same problem. The mechanics of low probability are not exactly new in the gaming world, but apparently some people, both players and designers, yet have to learn about them and understand them. Thus I very much advocate anything which works against that.
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Next to that, the whole "loot in space" thing also seems to be a bit from a logical point of view. I mean, the engineer tells me he needs iron. So I go to the market and buy a ton of iron. Now the engineer tells me he does not need that iron, it needs to be iron which has to be collected by me, with a SRV. Even if I go out with a ship and a mining laser, it's not good enough?
.
Or the engineer needs a specific ship component. Let's say mechanical components, as I am very familiar with them by now. You need to kill haulers or T6/7/9 for that. So, this component obviously is a part of that ship. Why can't I get the component from a spare parts vendor? Those ships can be repaired at almost any station, but the spare parts can't be bought separately? Or if it for whatever reason really is not sold separately, why couldn't I just buy a Hauler or T6 and tell the engineer to take what he needs and keep the rest?
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No, it has to be scrap from shot down ships. It just makes no sense. But I guess that's just what gamification gives us if no effort is spent on a logical integration into the game.
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Anyway, I guess the first part holds more weight: acquiring the loot is no fun. Logic would be nice, but fun is the deciding part, which should really be added into the game again.

 

[NeilF]

.
I actually see two problems with the loot. The one I keep talking about is fun, where you are right. The methods of obtaining them are messed up, especially thanks to the randomizer. I have spent hours killing those ships which are supposed to drop what I wanted. Other pilots reported to have gotten 3 units of what I wanted in 20 minutes, by shooting three of these ships. I have spend several hours, but the RNG god hated me and gave me zero.
.
This is terrible design, no fun and a good reason to dispose of this system. There are plenty of other pilots who suffer from the same problem. The mechanics of low probability are not exactly new in the gaming world, but apparently some people, both players and designers, yet have to learn about them and understand them. Thus I very much advocate anything which works against that.
.
Next to that, the whole "loot in space" thing also seems to be a bit from a logical point of view. I mean, the engineer tells me he needs iron. So I go to the market and buy a ton of iron. Now the engineer tells me he does not need that iron, it needs to be iron which has to be collected by me, with a SRV. Even if I go out with a ship and a mining laser, it's not good enough?
.
Or the engineer needs a specific ship component. Let's say mechanical components, as I am very familiar with them by now. You need to kill haulers or T6/7/9 for that. So, this component obviously is a part of that ship. Why can't I get the component from a spare parts vendor? Those ships can be repaired at almost any station, but the spare parts can't be bought separately? Or if it for whatever reason really is not sold separately, why couldn't I just buy a Hauler or T6 and tell the engineer to take what he needs and keep the rest?
.
No, it has to be scrap from shot down ships. It just makes no sense. But I guess that's just what gamification gives us if no effort is spent on a logical integration into the game.
.
Anyway, I guess the first part holds more weight: acquiring the loot is no fun. Logic would be nice, but fun is the deciding part, which should really be added into the game again.

Agreed... It's too onerous and cantankerous.

The suggestion made (in the OP) would at least mean you could be more relaxed about what you do & what materials you collect. As long as some of those materials are of interest to the Engineer(s) you want to progress/craft with, that's enough. Just hand those into them to earn reputation with them.

If you then want to be more "dedicated" you can specialise in getting the more rare/valuable materials an Engineer is interested in, which would hopefully mean you increase your reputation a bit quicker.

 

[Sylow]

I fear you are right. The absolutely best we can ever hope for Engineers any more now is an easy cheap bandaid for the most dire problems.
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Probably by now Frontier is mostly busy cutting down the original concept of Guardians and replacing awesome gameplay elements with easier to code grind, so they don't have the time to shape Engineers to the awesome product it could have been and it even would have been according to original plans, before they violently cut it down to reduce costs and keep the timeline.
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So yes. I very much wish FD would change Engineers and upgrade it to something which is actually fun to do, but I guess since the proposed fix of this thread is the best we can hope for, I support it.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

I don't know - I'd just suggest a thing where you don't have to jump through hoops to find out you have just one friggen super rare material missing for some kind of ordinary lvl1 upgrade, which is only found in combat, so now you have to dump the commodities when you switch to the combat vessel and you need to buy them again.

Which I will totally forget the next time so it's about going to and fro totally needlessly. And then when you have it all together you get a bad roll and start it all over.

 

[rrobes]

I am for anything that gets items off my ships so I can fly with no cargo when I want to. If I can take any required item(s) to an engineer and bank them with credit, great! However, the issue of interdictions for even the smallest bit of cargo would still be in play, otherwise you would be making Engineer runs too often. I would like to be able to have storage capability at a starport for mats, modules and Engineer commodities, then you can take several items on one run. Your idea is fine, combine it with cargo storage and many issues would vanish. I could then bring my FAS out of storage and have some fun again as opposed to sneaking around in my Python just doing the Engineer part of the game.

 

[Nagual]

I like the OPs OP. It's simple and effective, easy enough to tweak and add layers to if needed.

 

[NeilF]

I am for anything that gets items off my ships so I can fly with no cargo when I want to. If I can take any required item(s) to an engineer and bank them with credit, great! However, the issue of interdictions for even the smallest bit of cargo would still be in play, otherwise you would be making Engineer runs too often. I would like to be able to have storage capability at a starport for mats, modules and Engineer commodities, then you can take several items on one run. Your idea is fine, combine it with cargo storage and many issues would vanish. I could then bring my FAS out of storage and have some fun again as opposed to sneaking around in my Python just doing the Engineer part of the game.

I don't see the cargo side of things quite making sense myself in this proposal. ie: I'd note make any of the Engineers need anything other than the material orientated items. It's not as if we don't have enough of them...


And yes, you're analogy of banking them when you're full, seems to make sense to me. At the moment when you're full up you either have to micro-manage and chuck things away, or decide which Engineer to visit in order to craft something to make use of the materials. And undoubtably you'll only use a small sub-set of them even then!

With the proposal in this thread you'd simply visit the Engineer(s) you're interested in, and as you say, "bank the materials" to raise your reputation with them, undoubtably getting of a large number of then in doing so. You can then leave it as that and return to your normal affairs, or stay and craft. Up to you...

 

[NeilF]

I like the OPs OP. It's simple and effective, easy enough to tweak and add layers to if needed.

Thanks... That's the goal. Minimal changes, with the goal of simply "relaxing" its behaviour...

 

[Muetdhiver]

It would be a nice system, I quite like it. (though it feels too smooth, but adding some extra crunchy
parts would be easy IMO).

• If different engineers want different type of materials, you can tie each engineers to 1-2 different activities. That is nice, since you don't force people in the one activity that provides for material X.
• Materials could still be used to affect the experimental effect roll for example.

However, I don't think FD will go down that road at this point. IMO the best we can hope for it some materials exchange/barter markets.
(as there are in nearly all other crafting systems involving large numbers of "graded" materials)

 

[NeilF]

Materials could still be used to affect the experimental effect roll for example.

That suggestion is in the OP, and indeed has been suggested by FD to some degree too I believe?

IMO the best we can hope for it some materials exchange/barter markets.

I can see that as useful, but, the problem with this is, it only creates more "faff" or alternative faff IMHO. ie: So you still need to monitor materials carefully, and if/when you reach your limit, you'd then need to decide if/what to do with hundreds of materials quite carefully (eg: I need to swap A for B and X for Y and....)

With the suggestion in the OP, it's more laid back. Rather than having to fixate on specific materials, you can deal with them in two categories, ones an Engineer is interested in, and ones they are not. (They are of course possibly more interested in some, such as rare ones, so will reward you with more reputation)

 

[frostypaw]

It's a far far saner idea than many that have come about, but I don't think it'll stop the whiners or people managing to make it feel like a full time job.

They will still helplessly hoard easily available mission rewards, they'll still do nothing else until they're grade 5 on all their kit as soon as is reasonably practical, they'll still complain about how long it takes, how boring it is and how there's nothing to do when it's done.

There'd just be fewer specific "where do i find this?" threads and more "this is the most efficient item to farm to rank up with Felicity" threads telling users how to spend a few hours in the right place and get it all, and we're back to a situation where any newbie faces an unconditional grind to compete at all as nigh on everyone will be grade 5'd on every component

More and more I'm *liking* how awkward and unpopular it is for long-term players as I consider the newbies. They've been put on levelish footing for once, with billions of grinded credits virtually worthless. With the play to solely improve your kit dull on it's own there's a chance newbies will pop out and not be facing an endless ocean of fully modified ships and they themselves will casually rank up and get mods as they just play and explore the game as newbies would - and they'll get to try everything in the process with no "just go do this -> elite and an annie!" shortcut.

So yeah, while I think it's a fairly nice idea I don't think it'd fix things and maybe I now see good reasons for it staying the way it is.

 

[Quineloe]

Alas - I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or funny?

I can tell you right away he is not funny.

 

[NeilF]

I now see good reasons for it staying the way it is.

I'd have to be frank... The way it is at the moment, if you simply want to deal with The Engineers as a side quest (& not a full time occupation), is impractical. You need to manage your materials, collect/do stuff you don't want to if you want to level up/craft.

It's just (for me) too over-bearing, given, (a) what you're being asked to do is nothing new or more challenging or fun, (b) for anything more noble that 25% more pewpew.

It's so clunky (IMHO) it's actually one of the things that's made me stop playing. It needs to take a step back and become less onerous, and simpler to take part in if/when you want to.

 

[frostypaw]

I'd have to be frank... The way it is at the moment, if you simply want to deal with The Engineers as a side quest (& not a full time occupation), is impractical. You need to manage your materials, collect/do stuff you don't want to if you want to level up/craft.

This only applies if you're trying to keep them optimal so you have bits for lots of things

I've got two upgrades to look at on my list, so there's barely anything I need and a buttload of commons i can chuck. I'm really bemused why people find this inventory business such an issue - and I'm absolutely terrible at throwing stuff away at home, if it still works or is useful I've got stuff from far too long ago.

In the game if I came by it easily enough that I have lots then what's the worry? just lob it, the chance will come around again. There's no need to be an Elite hobo pushing around shopping trolley full of parts, things can be done one at a time without penalty

 

[Quineloe]

rank 1 upgrades don't do anything, and rank 2 upgrades already require the stuff you need to chase half across the galaxy and commodities which clogg up your inventory.

That's the problem. No one is talking about rank 5 being too hard.