Anyone else trying to G5 everything before the change?

[Agony_Aunt]

no

sandro stated that the old modules cant be pimped any further

so pimp em now or never

No, what he said is you can pimp them, but first they get rolled at a rank down, and you have to build back up.

You will be able to keep rolling to get towards the new max levels. Those new max levels probably won't be quite as good as an old god roll, but better than the old average good roll. The cap is going to increase so those who use the new system won't be disadvantaged by those who have old system engineered items.

In theory anyway. I'm sure there will be a lot of hand wringing and arguments once FD announce the new values.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Yeah I have to agree on the whole with this statement.

Blaming the players for how they play the game is ludicrous, ED have designed it, we the players (mostly) are just trying to get the most from it.

Engineers have actually given many players a purpose in this game...it's just a shame it's been designed as a huge time sink. You can't blame players for wanting to minimise that time sink.

There always has to be a time sink, otherwise you might as well just give people things on a plate, then people get bored and move on. It might seem counter intuitive, but time sinks are what keeps people playing, and it works.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Human nature, especially when applied to gaming. Many people will want to avail themselves of the best the game has to offer; it's not surprising, nor is it 'wrong'.

Well, not every human feel that way - and I understand desire, but as I pointed out, game design has to serve larger goal.

Anyway, it is all 'agree to disagree' anyway (thanks for discussion Red Anders), so before it gets anyway circular, I bow out.

 

[Gusty]

The problem (if it is one?) you can find in every game.
There are some players that will have with little play time the same like other players with more playing time.
They try to cheat, or to spawn the forums for changes to serve their playing style.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

The problem (if it is one?) you can find in every game.
There are some players that will have with little play time the same like other players with more playing time.
They try to cheat, or to spawn the forums for changes to serve their playing style.

And they get very...animated if they don't get their way and devs don't yield to their pressure.

 

[Viking84]

Why it is always personal attacks with you guys? You are keen to make your ships best they can be, ok, but game does not have to serve this goal on a plate. It is your choice.

Because you are infecting every single thread about the Engineers with your zen philosophy rubbish. To put things a different way, given that you don't care about power creep, balance, in game challenges or anything else - why would it be a problem for you if this was changed to accommodate those of us (and we are not few) who wish to both be able to tailor our ships to be "the best they can be", and to have the game balanced around the assumption that this is what we will do?

If Elite remains centered around ageing hippies with arthritis, poor eye sight and a 20 year old keyboard and mouse setup then it will forever be too easy for the vast majority of players. As it stands the Engineers are part of this problem - by making them extremely time consuming to use, you ensure that no content can ever be balanced around the assumption that players will have engineered ships.

 

[Viking84]

Well, not every human feel that way - and I understand desire, but as I pointed out, game design has to serve larger goal.

Anyway, it is all 'agree to disagree' anyway (thanks for discussion Red Anders), so before it gets anyway circular, I bow out.

But this is the issue, what is the larger goal? If that is to ensure that anyone in a base sidewinder can complete any task in the game, then you end up ensuring that anyone with a bigger ship (or heaven forbid a G5 engineered ship) will have zero challenge at all. By making the engineers less time consuming and more accessible to players you achieve two things:

1. You encourage experimentation. A low cost for swapping mods means players can tinker around with their builds, optimizing them for a variety of different purposes.

2. You can introduce content specifically for engineered ships. Missions that require fast runs at 700+ m/s. Missions that require low heat signatures for longer periods than silent running will allow. Missions that require pure hull tanking builds. And so on and so on, there are endless opportunities for intelligent mission design that gives players a chance to plan out some fun ship builds to achieve the goals they want.

If you require a weeks worth of grinding to get to a G5 mod then you remove any chance of the above ever happening. You may be happy with this, I am most certainly not.

 

[Gusty]

Because you are infecting every single thread about the Engineers with your zen philosophy rubbish. To put things a different way, given that you don't care about power creep, balance, in game challenges or anything else - why would it be a problem for you if this was changed to accommodate those of us (and we are not few) who wish to both be able to tailor our ships to be "the best they can be", and to have the game balanced around the assumption that this is what we will do?

If Elite remains centered around ageing hippies with arthritis, poor eye sight and a 20 year old keyboard and mouse setup then it will forever be too easy for the vast majority of players. As it stands the Engineers are part of this problem - by making them extremely time consuming to use, you ensure that no content can ever be balanced around the assumption that players will have engineered ships.

Ehhm, i am an old hippo with a 20 year old Microsoft Sidewinder keyboard and mouse.
Why you just dont play another game instead of forcing ED to change this one ?
Maybe because you need to grind in the other game, if you want to have some goods ?
Ppl like you will be sattisfied if they can buy ingeneers with your credit card

 

[zaikoji]

Flippin eck, I’d barely got my head around the present system.

 

[Viking84]

Ehhm, i am an old hippo with a 20 year old Microsoft Sidewinder keyboard and mouse.
Why you just dont play another game instead of forcing ED to change this one ?
Maybe because you need to grind in the other game, if you want to have some goods ?
Ppl like you will be sattisfied if they can buy ingeneers with your credit card

What about an even older person who is now blind. Shouldn't he be able to complete all missions based purely on voice prompts?

My point is not to make the game easier (or make it pay to win by using real money as you for some reason seem to think). My point is to give a variety of options in the game. Some easy missions for the people who prefer that (like yourself, or even me if I'm just out in VR cruising around while enjoying a beer), and some harder ones for those who have got their ships engineered and spent some time on getting good at the game (both in combat, and understanding how the ship stats actually work). In this scenario the engineers could become part of the challenge. You would need to spend time creating the right build with the right stats to even get close to completing such a mission.

There is no reason we both can't be happy and find lots to do in this game. Currently though there are only easy and quick, or easy and time consuming things to do. The Thargoids went some way to changing this, which is a great first step. However even they had to be balanced around non-engineered ships due to the immense grindwall that the current engineers implementation represents.

 

[Gusty]

Immense grindwall ?
I have missed this one.
If somebody feel like need to do 100 rolls, well, its his joice to grind the mats for it.
Getting mats for 5 rolls , and having some luck, is nothing of grinding. You can collect the stuff you need sidewise while doing other stuff.

Do you really expect ED will code the game new for your wishes ?
Maybe if you pay them

 

[Comandante]

I thought that the new RNGineer stuff meant that each time you re-rolled it would be at least as good as the last? Or am I wrong?

Was waiting for the new system since I've hardly done any engineer modifications (grade 1 FSD is all). So thought the new system was more stable and less RNG. Can someone clarify for me please?

 

[Viking84]

Immense grindwall ?
I have missed this one.
If somebody feel like need to do 100 rolls, well, its his joice to grind the mats for it.
Getting mats for 5 rolls , and having some luck, is nothing of grinding. You can collect the stuff you need sidewise while doing other stuff.

Do you really expect ED will code the game new for your wishes ?
Maybe if you pay them

Well it depends on what materials you are looking for. If what you need is found during your normal and fun gameplay, then no problem. Sadly some materials are tied to activities such as wake scanning, ship scanning in supercruise, searching for high grade USS's that may or may not spawn what you are looking for.

The proposed changes help alleviate this to a degree with the material broker. Sadly the devs seem to think that this would reduce the time required for a mod too much, and then introduced the new G1 to G5 forced progression for every module, which is the reason I started this thread to begin with.

 

[Viking84]

I thought that the new RNGineer stuff meant that each time you re-rolled it would be at least as good as the last? Or am I wrong?

Was waiting for the new system since I've hardly done any engineer modifications (grade 1 FSD is all). So thought the new system was more stable and less RNG. Can someone clarify for me please?

You are right, with one exception. In the old system you could, once you had an engineer unlocked to grade 5, apply a grade 5 mod to any module you brought in. With the proposed system you will have to take EVERY SINGLE MODULE through 3-4 rolls on grade 1 to 4, before getting to grade 5. So if you have, say, 5 shield boosters on your ship, then you will have to take each booster through at least 12 rolls (60 in total) before even getting started on the G5 rolls.

Now if you want the very best possible roll, the new system will be better. If you were happy with a nice but not great G5 in the current system, then the new system will entail a minimum of 12 extra steps (with different materials) before you can get your average G5 roll.

 

[CMDR _BigJay_]

Wow... I'm late to the party and I see this thread is already pretty well off the rails.

But, it is relevant to how I've been spending my time in the game for the last couple weeks, so I'm going to go back to the original topic and reply.. lol

I had 25 fully engineered ships and around 6,000 engineer rolls when Sandro announced the new system. I clearly understood from his first livestream on the subject that we were going to have to roll G1 to G5 on each module. I also believe that Sandro and the rest of FD don't REALLY understand what is possible with engineering right now. I have some modules that may not be completely maxed out, but they're high, like a powerplant that is 40.5% increased power output while only having 20% increased heat. I have no doubt that the new system will allow me to easily get 41% increased power output, but I think the fixed negative effects will mean that I will have higher than 20% heat. Regardless of all of that, I really like my ships and where they are right now. I want to be able to experiment with the new engineers without messing up my current ships.

So I did what any multi-billionaire with 6,000ish engineer rolls would do. I flew directly to Jameson Memorial and bought EIGHTEEN new ships. I made exact copies of about 14 of my ships and made slight alterations to 4 others. Then I set out to put ONE G5 engineer roll on every single module. I completed this task just a couple days ago. I call them my "Grandfathered Fleet". When the new engineering comes out I will convert these 18 ships to the new system and roll them to the max and see how that compares to my old ships. If the new ships are better, then great. If not, then I still have my old ones. I now have around 7,000 engineer rolls haha.

Going to write another reply based on some experience from this project and also the last couple pages of this thread.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Because you are infecting every single thread about the Engineers with your zen philosophy rubbish. To put things a different way, given that you don't care about power creep, balance, in game challenges or anything else - why would it be a problem for you if this was changed to accommodate those of us (and we are not few) who wish to both be able to tailor our ships to be "the best they can be", and to have the game balanced around the assumption that this is what we will do?

If Elite remains centered around ageing hippies with arthritis, poor eye sight and a 20 year old keyboard and mouse setup then it will forever be too easy for the vast majority of players. As it stands the Engineers are part of this problem - by making them extremely time consuming to use, you ensure that no content can ever be balanced around the assumption that players will have engineered ships.

Games are here to be fun. And fun is relative of course, but for majority of players fun isn't min maxing. It is something of trait for minor, yet vocal group of players. And I said, it is all fine (my best friend is min maxer and we constantly poking fun each other about being so different in our play styles), and I have seen FD finding or trying to find middle road for all of us. And despite my white knight status I have no clue what Sandro will say or how will respond in long run. There might be compromise in works and that's why Sandro hasn't responded to forum yet.

However no matter how you clash against 'casuals', they are forming majority of base for the game. And Engineers review isn't taking only PvP community into account. It takes every inch of feedback. And FD won't change something in their proposal just because it makes harder to create god ships to do god dance on whatever system.

Also it helps not to attack other group of players.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Imo there are multiple bones of contention in this and I think it is natural to be worried.
IF the current god rolls can't be matched in the new system then even as a non pvper I can see how this is disastrous for encouraging new blood into PvP.

OTOH IF the new system makes the many hrs some players spent getting god rolls obsolete then I can sympathise that this would feel like a bait and switch.

Now me, I am not worried about either of the above personally. My fears are as follows

1) that the game becomes stupidly easy with high level eng ships but OTOH the game needs to be playable for those without high end eng ships

2) new content such as thargoid content is so hard without God rolled ships that it forces people who currently ignore the meta builds into doing them.

It's a real can of worms imo

 

[Comandante]

You are right, with one exception. In the old system you could, once you had an engineer unlocked to grade 5, apply a grade 5 mod to any module you brought in. With the proposed system you will have to take EVERY SINGLE MODULE through 3-4 rolls on grade 1 to 4, before getting to grade 5. So if you have, say, 5 shield boosters on your ship, then you will have to take each booster through at least 12 rolls (60 in total) before even getting started on the G5 rolls.

Now if you want the very best possible roll, the new system will be better. If you were happy with a nice but not great G5 in the current system, then the new system will entail a minimum of 12 extra steps (with different materials) before you can get your average G5 roll.

Thanks for the clarification, Viking.

 

[CMDR _BigJay_]

If you read my previous reply you know that I currently have 18 ships that are modularly (I made up a word!) identical. The 18 that I have owned for a long time have had MANY engineer rolls done to fine tune each module, max out DPS, max out power output, max out range, minimum weight, max out shields, etc. The 18 NEW ships that I just built all got exactly ONE G5 roll so that they could act as a base for me to build on with the new engineers.

The significant thing I learned from this exercise.... The single G5 roll ships are WAY better than stock non-engineered ships. My actual ships, that I have hundreds and hundreds of rolls on, are only marginally better than the single G5 rolled ships.

Here's my racing Courier:
Ship Type Speed Boost Hull Resist Shields Resist DPS Unladen Laden Cargo
Strega Courier 627m/s 851m/s 184 -14/6/-33 287mj 40/-20/50 0 35.8ly 30.22ly 12t
X-Strega Courier 604m/s 820m/s 184 -13/5/-34 287mj 40/-17/50 0 34.7ly 29.49ly 12t

Really close right?

Here's my FAS:
Ship Type Speed Boost Hull Resist Shields Resist DPS Unladen Laden Cargo
What the FAS? FAS 309m/s 515m/s 2,204 34/33/33 268mj 52/58/68 93.2 21.9ly 21.81ly 4t
X-? FAS 291m/s 486m/s 2,209 29/22/23 250mj 48/56/67 91 18.76ly 18.69ly 4t

Top ship, many rolls, bottom ship ONE G5 roll.

Combat Anaconda:
Ship Type Speed Boost Hull Resist Shields Resist DPS Unladen Laden Cargo
Miranda Anaconda 266m/s 355m/s 2,890 35/36/32 2,686mj 60/44/66 167.9 26.59ly 25.95ly 32t
X-Miranda Anaconda 253m/s 338m/s 2,932 34/28/32 2,254mj 55/44/66 161.2 24.87ly 24.28ly 32t

So here's what this tells me.... Everyone on here who is complaining because in the current system they do ONE G5 roll, or 3 G5 rolls, take the best one and call it done. They have a 100% legitimate concern. Look at how close these ships above are. It's like that across all 18 ships that I did. Really close.

On the other hand, guys like me... I'm in my end-game on my main CMDR. I do CGs, I check out the latest found "thing" from the forums, and I collect materials and re-roll modules. That's all I have left, I've done nearly everything else and I have billions of credits. For myself, I am worried about the new system because there will be a fixed cap on each module. I will roll each module G5 however many times and it will be maxed, can't go any farther. There will be NOTHING left for me to do on that module, and eventually I will have my entire fleet to that level, and then what do I do?

This new system seems like a lose/lose for casuals and also for hardcore engineering CMDRs. It seems to me the only players who will really benefit from the new system are the PVP players who want to be able to fight each other in fully engineered, but identical ships. And that seems silly to me, if you want to fight in identical ships, just don't engineer them.

I guess we'll see in the weeks/months to come.

 

[Urbanski101]

No one's blaming players to play game their way. That's big design issue challenge for open world games - while game design is going in one direction, there will be players who will hit their collective heads against the wall to achieve something totally opposite.

And that's cool and fine. Problem is there are many players that me that don't care for this particular gameplay style. And game can only fasciliate some sort of middle road, which still will find it's roots in one direction or another.

No one has asked to max engineer ships, players have chosen this approach themselves. Suddenly for many players it is seen as must have. Why? And why devs should see it same way?

Much as I appreciate some of what you are saying I think you are directing your ire towards the wrong group.

FDev designed this game...they brought in the engineers for better or worse. The players are just trying to work out the best way to utilise them. If there is an issue with engineers the only group responsible and have the ability to change it are FDev.

Telling players they are wrong for the way they engage with engineers or wrong for wanting to have the best possible ship or wrong for disliking the thought of wasting time and effort on unwanted upgrades doesn't make any sense.

The proposed changes actually might make it more of a 'shop' which appears to be the thing you are protesting about the most. The only thing is it will be a rather stupid shop where you can't 'buy' what you actually want but instead have to buy tonnes of stuff you don't want to get to the item you came in for in the first place thus wasting everyone's time and effort.

I'd actually prefer them to start from scratch and redesign the whole thing from the ground up but that's not going to happen.