Any Improvements on Engineering / Combat Balance?

[Fenwe]

If I remember correctly, during one of 2.x betas Frontier wanted to do something with ship hull hardnesses to make larger ships more resistant to all guns except rails and plasmas along with cannons, all while significantly reducing shield booster stacking effectiveness. IMO that would have been a change for good. But forums went batshit insane with negative replies and Frontier just quickly withdraw it, and never really dared to do anything like that. So, part of why they "think ship balance is okay" is that they are simply afraid of huge negative feedback should they try to do things right. It was pretty sad that they couldn't muster some courage to do it, it was a good change.

If anyone could link that thread, I'd be really grateful. Couldn't find it myself.

EDIT: Found it - https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/shield-booster-and-ship-armour-changes-feedback-thread.332706/
For those who are too lazy to click it - large 3's hardness would go up from 65/70 to ~180, so would piercing of C4 weapons. C3 weapons would get +80% piercing (on example of C3 pulse laser - 52 goes to 93). Shield stacking would have had a hard cap at 150% of shield's max MJ after being engineered, so for example max shield for Corvette with 7A standard reinforced shield would be ~3k shield. But hull would have been much, much tougher. And I believe so would be sniping out modules with anything but rails and plasma due to piercing changes.

Right and wrong in this instance is a matter of perspective, isn't it though? You want the game 'balanced' too dramatically drop TTK of all ships. That directly affects every player. I'm a dead hand at the stick. I don't fly FA Off. I'm perfectly happy if it takes longer to kill NPC ships, because that means it takes them longer to kill mine.

See the difference in perspective boss?

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

When I first started engineering I do admit it felt like a horribly complex and tedius uphill grind. There are certainly aspects about it I still don't like, but I settled down and just started getting it done.

The game-changer was the whole downtrading of G5 mats. Being able to focus on just those and ignoring the rest makes Engineering bearable. Before that the sheer number of materials required to do anything was making my head spin.

I didn't really start engineering for a long time after it came out. I picked up materials as I play the game, they are readily available everywhere and upgrade my stuff when I can so zero grind, unlocking them was a cinch too. I don't think I have one single ship with all G5 modules. There is no rush. Some engineers in the bubble I haven't even unlocked.

 

[fus roh potato]

If I remember correctly, during one of 2.x betas Frontier wanted to do something with ship hull hardnesses to make larger ships more resistant to all guns except rails and plasmas along with cannons, all while significantly reducing shield booster stacking effectiveness. IMO that would have been a change for good. But forums went batshit insane with negative replies and Frontier just quickly withdraw it, and never really dared to do anything like that. So, part of why they "think ship balance is okay" is that they are simply afraid of huge negative feedback should they try to do things right. It was pretty sad that they couldn't muster some courage to do it, it was a good change.

If anyone could link that thread, I'd be really grateful. Couldn't find it myself.

EDIT: Found it - https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/shield-booster-and-ship-armour-changes-feedback-thread.332706/
For those who are too lazy to click it - large 3's hardness would go up from 65/70 to ~180, so would piercing of C4 weapons. C3 weapons would get +80% piercing (on example of C3 pulse laser - 52 goes to 93). Shield stacking would have had a hard cap at 150% of shield's max MJ after being engineered, so for example max shield for Corvette with 7A standard reinforced shield would be ~3k shield. But hull would have been much, much tougher. And I believe so would be sniping out modules with anything but rails and plasma due to piercing changes.

Well of course people objected. The idea was bad. Recognizing that engineering offered too much shielding wasn't the bad part, it was their logic behind hull hardness. This means people on both sides of the isle, the fair combat vs overpowered shields for a select few, are both going to disagree because the idea doesn't help either side. Frontier knew this and proposed the suggestion under the pretense that no other solution was possible, then used negative feedback as an excuse to do nothing.

I mean, do I really need to explain why strictly limiting meta loadouts to rails and plasmas is bad after they had already figured out another way to accomplish that anyways?

Hardness probably would have been better as a stat acting to reduce module damage. Not only does it make sense for gameplay, but it makes sense intuitively as well. That is what you would guess it to be prior to looking it up at least.

 

[Starshot_Jigawatts]

I didn't really start engineering for a long time after it came out. I picked up materials as I play the game, they are readily available everywhere and upgrade my stuff when I can so zero grind, unlocking them was a cinch too. I don't think I have one single ship with all G5 modules. There is no rush. Some engineers in the bubble I haven't even unlocked.

Cool. I'm almost done with G5'ing my Krait but have hit the Pharmaceutical Isolators cliff... Ugh. Scanning 20 Outbreak systems for a rare signal that has a *chance*of them is super fun game play!

 

[C54560]

Cool. I'm almost done with G5'ing my Krait but have hit the Pharmaceutical Isolators cliff... Ugh. Scanning 20 Outbreak systems for a rare signal that has a *chance*of them is super fun game play!

Many missions give out class 5 comp, and there are mats traders now. If there's something we don't like or can't reliably farm we have an alternative. It's not like we're stuck anymore.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

There is no road black to combat gameplay. I got my 10 million in combat bonds in an un-enginered ship when the NPC had upgrade. Just go in the correct ship and choose your targets. Its pretty easy. The only roadblocks are the ones you put up yourself.

I didn't put the engineers in.

 

[fus roh potato]

Cool. I'm almost done with G5'ing my Krait but have hit the Pharmaceutical Isolators cliff... Ugh. Scanning 20 Outbreak systems for a rare signal that has a *chance*of them is super fun game play!

Well, it's good that their unbalanced nature has given you the motivation to have all that fun.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I didn't put the engineers in.

Never said you did.

 

[Starshot_Jigawatts]

Well, it's good that their unbalanced nature has given you the motivation to have all that fun.

Everyone has access to the same things. What imbalance?

 

[Yvarov]

Just lost dropship after short fight with nonexperienced meta fdl fighter. My 400 hp fsd with 5D module reinforsment left after 3-5 mins of a fight due to railgun spam. In face. Through all the armour. From 2 guns. With all enginiering i had. Even cobra or eagle could kill me with this easily.
So you literaly have point and click gun with no real penalties to negate ALL of advantages of ship such class as a hulltank. You don't need to shot from some specifed direction, just target module and click from any distance you want - you have enough of it all the time. No mater how strong armour is.
And i don't even mind plasma canons wich works ass well against percents of armour as percents of shields. An you can stack less armour then shields as we know.
And i don't even mind corosion effect wich you can put on gimble weapon and negate percentage of armour streingh. But you have no any kind of such efect wich you could use against shield stacking meta wich also could be gimbled and such efective.
Cascade mines? Cascade torpedos? Oh it works so good. Oh wait no they don't. But you know what works good? Two snaps from pack hounds wich shot down all of your weaponry from your ship. Realy after 30 seconds you have two 4D brocken module reinfrosments and no weapon at all on your ship. And if you'r sneaky one - we have special effect for you mindfull silentranning button tapping - hello emission effect. HELLO.
Phasing sequence? Oh yeah. Lets calculate all the resistance it needs to get through. And no module targeting, ah ah ah lil boi no need that. So after 20 mins of constant shooting you'l probably shred this puny FDL to 80%. You would be dead from powerplant click sniping at first 5 mis but at least you can dream about it dontcha?
Malfanction lasers wich works at hull only? Shure. Roll over this space like russian balerine in the midle of fight. You deserved. You was stupid enough to chuse this abandond type of ships.
Useless hulltanks.

 

[Haradrim]

Sadly, the game still has bullet-sponge heavy combat and lacks any challenging combat you'd expect in a sim game. The game is incredibly limited in what weapons and ships are seriously used in PVP which is absolute proof it's a stale and unhealthy meta. We need much more variety as what weapons and ships are effective in pvp. Going for more years of the same limited game is not going to be fun.

 

[Brrokk]

Engineering isn't "crafting". It's simply enabling silly, overpowered, misaligned and unbalanced crap. It's so unbalanced that I'd describe it as toxic when you can have a MP game where some grindlord (or "crafter" to use your euphemism) lolstomp a bloody noob with no plan and then spawn camp the sheep range for even more lolz.
No MP game I ever played that showed this kind of unfettered imbalance stayed a well-played MP game.
But ED pretends to be both and limps along the hopes of players matchmaking a decent playmate to spend time with. They just haven't realised that match-making is also just as random number driven like the rest of the game.

I like engineering. I like the theorycrafting, ship design in EDSY, getting materials together and flying to engineers. Finally testing a ship out and seeing how different it feels "before" and "after".

I also play ED a lot so I know more about it than someone who doesn't.

 

[Haradrim]

I like engineering. I like the theorycrafting, ship design in EDSY, getting materials together and flying to engineers. Finally testing a ship out and seeing how different it feels "before" and "after".

I also play ED a lot so I know more about it than someone who doesn't.

As a side note, I have all the relevant engineers unlocked already. However, I think they should have been side grade options rather than straight upgrades. It would make for more interesting gameplay and combat options. As it is, you essentially just go for pure upgrades which leaves no room for experimenting in different ways without being at a disadvantage to the extremely shallow combat meta