The rationale here, I believe, is that under the old system due to the randomness people were rolling N times with a grade 5 blueprint to get a result they were happy with. So, that's N times grade 5 materials required and no actual guarantee of a good result.
Under the new system you roll M times, but start with grade 1 blueprints (and grade 1 material costs) and ramp up until you're happy with the result. So, that's M times grades 1 thru X materials required but with a guaranteed result.
The real Q's then were what was N actually? (no-one really knows and I doubt it was recorded to be queried) and what value should M have given the additional benefits of lower costs for early rolls and a guaranteed result? .. in order for these systems to be vaguely comparable in terms of amount of player effort IN and results OUT.
It's actually easier, in practice (I've found) to find the materials required for those M rolls, because they vary more (so I haven't used them all up on N grade 5 rolls). So, it's actually easier (aka less grind) to create a module with a decent result. This varies a bit depending on the blueprint and how rare the required materials are. And .. if you really want to max a module (under the new system) out you might (due to bad luck) have to roll as many as N times at grade 5, but this comes down to luck almost no different to the old system, however leaves you having to additionally spend those lower grade materials under the new system. But, generally, the new system is better, especially given the material trader (where you can turn a grade 5 material into multiple rolls at a lower grade in many cases). And, for someone maxing things out you might need more rolls, but at least every roll is an improvement and you have a definite result at the end of the process.
The biggest issue with the new system in the first beta was actually how many time you had to physically click to do all this. So, simply lower the number of clicks, somehow, would have helped an awful lot. What they've actually tweaked is that they have lowered M, thus lowering clicks but also costs, but importantly only for players who have already ranked up with an Engineer. This is actually a great idea, as it rewards those players without also making it "too easy" for newer players (that would remove that sense of achievement you got first time round, right?). I'm looking forward to trying this, to continue engineering my beta Chieftain.
