Engineers Confused on what is good about modified components...

[Frigidman]

After looking through the first 5 engineers it gave me, and their offerings, both first and higher rep modifications... I wonder where the benefit is in it all? They all have negatives which mirror or outweigh any meager positive. What makes the new component any better? Its just a 're-balance' that ends up essentially the same as a stock item.

If it still takes 5 minutes to kill something with modded parts, vs standard, where is the benefit? Just to say you have modded parts?

I guess this is where the issue of MP ruins what could be fun. They had to balance all the mods out, so no one will whine and cry from the MP side of things about some items being too unfair to someone who has stock. We cant have nice things because of the MP loud mouths.

So, am I missing some obvious key here with the engineering mods... reading all these stats wrong... or what. I guess I thought that a reverse-engineered, or enhanced component, would actually be something better than random junk I could buy from an outpost.

Help... I want to be excited about the engineers stuff (ever since SWG, where you COULD engineer better parts above stock, I've been jonesing for something like it in modern games)... but so far what I'm finding is ... extremely underwhelming to say the least.

:S

 

[dutchy2000]

I think you are reading the information wrong. For instance take multi cannons. I think one of the down sides you can get is more capacitor draw, like 2x more or whatever for 2x more damage. Now you are like well that doesn't help me at all since 2x more capacitor draw means I can fire half the time so its a wash. But now consider that the capacitor draw of a multi cannon is almost nothing. Now suddenly it makes more sense as the extra capacitor draw is insignificant compared to the recharge rate, so in essence you do double damage with a very minor drawback.

Pretty much all of them have something similar, like lets say mass, if your shield booster gets double the weight, but the original weight is only 0.1, then it really doesn't matter much.

So don't concentrate just on the little bars, consider the advantages/draw backs in the larger picture, and suddenly every single one is an upgrade in a lot of situations, just not all situations.

 

[Ian Skippy]

After looking through the first 5 engineers it gave me, and their offerings, both first and higher rep modifications... I wonder where the benefit is in it all? They all have negatives which mirror or outweigh any meager positive. What makes the new component any better? Its just a 're-balance' that ends up essentially the same as a stock item.

If it still takes 5 minutes to kill something with modded parts, vs standard, where is the benefit? Just to say you have modded parts?

I guess this is where the issue of MP ruins what could be fun. They had to balance all the mods out, so no one will whine and cry from the MP side of things about some items being too unfair to someone who has stock. We cant have nice things because of the MP loud mouths.

So, am I missing some obvious key here with the engineering mods... reading all these stats wrong... or what. I guess I thought that a reverse-engineered, or enhanced component, would actually be something better than random junk I could buy from an outpost.

Help... I want to be excited about the engineers stuff (ever since SWG, where you COULD engineer better parts above stock, I've been jonesing for something like it in modern games)... but so far what I'm finding is ... extremely underwhelming to say the least.

:S

50% better jump range, 100% MC damage, 100m/s faster? Make sure you understand how 'optimal mass' and such work, and how it relates to module properties. A 'huge' increase in MC heat doesnt mean much if the things dont create much heat to start with, for example. In Beta we got to do whatever we want practically for free and we've seen fully armed explorer condas jump 40LY, armed iCouriers going 600m/s etc. Pretty wild stuff!

 

[Belthize]

Depends on what you want I guess.

I typically bounce around in either an Asp, a T7 miner or a vulture.

Asp modules that make a huge difference:
FSD range increase, dirty drive cleaning, shields, shield boost, hull, power plant and power distributor mods all mean that I now have a faster harder hitting Asp that can jump further than my pure explorer could.

T7 miner with 4 lasers, rest all cargo and collectors.
Power plant increase and weapon focused distributor and shield mods now mean I can sit and run all 4 mining lasers for longer, mine faster and have a better chance of surviving an encounter.

Vulture with fixed laser and fixed cannon, heavy shields and heavy armor
Dirty drive cleaning, power plant, power distributor, shield upgrade, armor upgrade, overcharged weapons means I can fly faster, turn sharper, fire more frequently, hit harder and take more hits than my original design since I can live with 4pips to engines at all times.

 

[Frigidman]

Hmm... all good points to consider. Thank you all above.

I guess I need to setup a spreadsheet like the olden days to see what possibilities something actually brings to the table.

And yeah, you guys mentioned that some of the negatives may be a 200% downgrade, but 200% on 0.01 is still tiny.

I may have to switch preferred combat ships though, as so far anything I can do to that vulture, really puts it in a hurt on power. I really should get used to lumbering bigger vessels and learn to fight in such things...... I'm just so used to small light nimble attack ships.

Thanks guys.

 

[Monk]

I got a fully combat equipped and power starved Imperial Clipper to have enough power to run everything I've got, with minimal prioritization.

I got its jump range near 20ly

Increased shield resistance to all kinds of damage (focused on a certain kind of damage per shield booster, and only took ones with minimal negatives).

Reduced weight, for faster turning

All with Grade 1 upgrades...I'm happy with all of them

I'm working towards drive upgrades for even greater maneuverability.

Each and every upgrade I could feel the performance boost when taken into combat. (as you probably know, the Clipper can get absolutely trashed in combat if not careful)

 

[dutchy2000]

Hmm... all good points to consider. Thank you all above.

I guess I need to setup a spreadsheet like the olden days to see what possibilities something actually brings to the table.

And yeah, you guys mentioned that some of the negatives may be a 200% downgrade, but 200% on 0.01 is still tiny.

I may have to switch preferred combat ships though, as so far anything I can do to that vulture, really puts it in a hurt on power. I really should get used to lumbering bigger vessels and learn to fight in such things...... I'm just so used to small light nimble attack ships.

Thanks guys.

Well unless you find the guy that can improve your power generator. Then you can put lots more stuff in your vulture. I remember seeing a video in the beta of a guy putting in the new generator/distributor/enhanced engines/fsd/2x enhanced plasma accelerator and having power to space for all of it. He had a 450m/s plasma cannon.

 

[Frigidman]

Well unless you find the guy that can improve your power generator. Then you can put lots more stuff in your vulture. I remember seeing a video in the beta of a guy putting in the new generator/distributor/enhanced engines/fsd/2x enhanced plasma accelerator and having power to space for all of it. He had a 450m/s plasma cannon.

Hm. Me thinks I need to go find those other 25 engineers ......

 

[Brian of Ardagh]

Make sure you understand how 'optimal mass' and such work, and how it relates to module properties.

I think there are many of us that could use a master class in understanding how our ships work and what all the specs mean. Something as simple as "Faster FSD boot sequence" was misunderstood by many. I think I'll spend the next 6 weeks just watching youtube videos on Elite!