Horizons Crafting/synthesis is horribly gamey

I agree.

So, if we accept this, why not accept the synthesis system?
I agree... :D
Instant Hot Chocolate was once thought to be impossible. Smashing Atoms for energy was as well. Particle Manipulations must be a part of what causes our ships to travel so far and so fast, so why not Synthesis for Crafting because it seems to work for mining elements?
A one way play game gets boring after a time, no matter how long that time is... :(
~Space Time~:rolleyes:
 
Hey all,

the whole system feels weirdly bolted on top of the HUD in the cargo section, first thing. That tells me that it wasn't planned in the first place, and for good reason.

The entire mechanic is horrible in my opinion. Your ship can magically turn some minerals into temporal "buffs", causing weapons to do more damage or your FSD to jump further. Really? What is this, WoW or rather some cheapass asian F2P MMORPG?

Why not add golden stars that we can fly through to start colourful flashing, become invincible for a certain amount of time and play the super mario tune during that? Would be about as fitting and immersive as this sorry excuse for looting and crafting that holds no long term gameplay interest at all other than "buffing" your ship.

But what really gets to me about this is how in gods name can development ressources for such a stupid and low-priority feature can be wasted instead of doing some of the much needed work on other aspects of the game that don't work in the slightest yet?

Do you agree or am I missing something?

Best,
-Prussian


You're all completely wrong on all accounts.

Apparently you haven't spent enough time flying around or exploring to realize the need for this. In exploration, Refuel, Repair, and Ammo Restock + DMG should be very clear. The idea behind having the mats isn't so that you can farm hasrez and then refuel on a planet, but as you explore you start to pick up extra goodies. When you get the 300 and have enough rares, it could actually be worth equipping something like railguns if you have the bonus refills or +DMG.

It's actually really great, but apparently you just skimmed over the idea of it without even using it.

Crafting and looting make sense.

Synthesis does not, at least not in its silly crude state. There's no mention that every ship has an extensive workshop on board to build munitions, maybe I could stretch to the SRV having a self-repair module that needs the right materials, but not the ammo restock and certainly not the x2 to jumprange boost buff.

Maybe be able to take the mats to a station and have the repair free.
Maybe certain elements could overdrive the hyperdrive, but never by x2-- and there should be risks, damage to the drive and/or a mis-jump (small chance of mis-jump). A mis-jump would put you out in 'empty' galactic space.

How manual of a game do you want? Should would complain about the insta-repairing ships at the station, or how about when we rebuy a ship at a station that didn't have our parts in the outfitting?

Honestly, regarding FSD, have you not noticed out of reach systems? Why would you synthesize something in deep space if there was a risk?

Why can't I buy a couple of tonnes of Sulphur and Phosphorus to keep on my ship and never worry about refueling my SRV again? I hope that the surface elements are replaced by compounds, and I hope that synthesising complex items (eg ammunition) is explained.

Just roll with it, it's a game.
 
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I agree with the OP. The system seems added kind of clumsily, similar to Power Play and CQC. The game could use some better direction in its design. It's turning into a bit of a Frankenstein.

Or a themepark, as someone else put it. An area with totally unconnected elements that you can chose to ride and enjoy, or not, but that don't interact between each other at all, but thats kinda off topic.

We need a refinery at least for planetary mining and synthesis just as for anything else.

This they didn't plan in from the start though, so all the "balancing" with internal hardpoints etc is now out the window, when the system in itself was never even necessary in the first place.
Way to go about development. Implement something badly because doing it properly would ruin the already existing parts of the game, and the system in question serves no real purpose anyhow.

"Giving explorers something to do" can be achieved by a ton of ways more elegant and more interesting. Also a ways of more selfsufficiency could be achieved differently, but it would, and I think it should, require large ships that hold the necessary facilities.

Just rubbing some space rock on your gun to make it go more boom is ridiculous.
 
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I also agree with the OP and commented on the resemblance to SuperMarioKart elswhere. Started a thread reflecting on this update a while ago.

I find it very disappointing and TBH distasteful that the self-consistency of Elite's core mechanic, commodity trading, is completely ignored by the synthesis / materials mechanic. What were they thinking?

Also the consistency and intuitiveness of the fuel mechanic has been disregarded, the chemistry involved is not even close to science based (unlike the rest of the game), not even science fiction its just nonsensical whimsy (P4S3 makes match heads, requires oxygen or chlorate to burn and not well known as a generator of electromotive force).

Also mining with weapons is inconsistent with space mining, ignoring their own lore and ruleset?

Crass gamey moves like this come across as a complete non-sequitur, its not Elite any more, its a different game. Its like being sold a Ferrari and driving away a Robin Reliant.

Yeugh...
 
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I find it kind of cool that we can find and pick up stuff.
Stuff that can add something extra.
But it really bothers me that this is the only way to fuel the car, outside of a base.
Today I found a nice, long valley on some planet.
Of course, I was looking at the landscape mostly and didn't find any God damn shiiity stones to shoot at and had to leave without any more driving.
I want to be able to fuel my car from the ship!
And with the same fuel as the ship is using.
My God, it's 3302 and we are able to suck fuel directly from stars!
 
Integrate commodities, materials, mining/refining, mat harvesting, AFMU, synthesis etc. into one connected system.
Echoing what other have said but it all feels very disconnected at the moment.

- Iron (for example) is a material but not available as a commodity.
- Materials spawn fully refined.
- The materials used to manufacture things seem kind of random.
- Materials are only available on the surface, can never be found in space.
- Commodities can be mined in space but never on the surface.
- Materials cannot be sold or traded in any form.
- Materials are not lost on death, but bounties and exploration data are.
- There is no module or power drain or anything for the synthesis device.
- The SRV can self repair without any help from something like an AFMU.
- We can find Technetium lying around in significant quantities (maybe one unit of Technetium represents a truly tiny amount of material, I dunno).

I'm also okay with things being instant at a station. It's kind of a time-out area.
Once back in space though I'd like to see ammo manufacturing take time.
There's a vid of a guy reloading mid-combat, seems silly. Feels more like something you do when there is a proper lull in the fighting.

CMDR CTCParadox
 
Crafting & synthesis are two completely.seperate mechanics-& crafting, when it comes out, will actually require a "crafting guy" as a contact. Maybe synthesis will undergo an evolution as the year progresses. Either way, though, I'm perfectly Okay with synthesis overall.
 
I find it kind of cool that we can find and pick up stuff.
Stuff that can add something extra.
But it really bothers me that this is the only way to fuel the car, outside of a base.
Today I found a nice, long valley on some planet.
Of course, I was looking at the landscape mostly and didn't find any God damn shiiity stones to shoot at and had to leave without any more driving.
I want to be able to fuel my car from the ship!
And with the same fuel as the ship is using.
My God, it's 3302 and we are able to suck fuel directly from stars!

Give it time, it doesn't take long to collect more sulphur and phosphorous that you can use. Keep in mind, not every material is available on every planet so if you don't find what you are looking for after a little while, try another planet.

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- Materials are not lost on death, but bounties and exploration data are.
CMDR CTCParadox

Maybe we should add permadeath too while we're at it?

Making people re-collect materials would do nothing other than just limit the amount of surface interaction completely, considering a pebble can cause the SRV to explode.
 
Give it time, it doesn't take long to collect more sulphur and phosphorous that you can use. Keep in mind, not every material is available on every planet so if you don't find what you are looking for after a little while, try another planet.
What if I run out of fuel?
 
Maybe we should add permadeath too while we're at it?

Making people re-collect materials would do nothing other than just limit the amount of surface interaction completely, considering a pebble can cause the SRV to explode.

Permadeath should be an optional game mode for those who want it. Agreed on that.

Bugs shouldn't define how game mechanics work.
Also I don't think harvesting rocks should be the main reason for planetary interaction, but I guess it's almost all we have at the moment.

CMDR CTCParadox
 
What if I run out of fuel?

Head back to the nearest station?


I personally like the mechanics as they are.
A good example:
I've only recently been spending time Res BH'ing. Up until now I've primarily been exploring and trading.
While BH'ing the other night, I ran out of ammo for my canons (still had operational beam lasers). I was just about to head off to the nearest station to re-arm and then decided to have a look over my right shoulder to see if I had materials to re-arm. I had enough to re-arm 8 times. This made it so much easier as I did not have to leave the Res Site.

Yes, some people find the whole searching for rocks boring, but I enjoy the scenery on the ground. It does not take me long to find materials.
The other day, I could not pick up a targeted material, and found that I had hit my 300 limit. At this point, I had to make decisions on which materials I could afford to reject to keep the more rarer ones.
 
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I agree with the gist of this thread, that there's too much disconnect in Horizons from how Elite operates everywhere else. When I was told there would be mining on planets, I was hoping that meant I'd be able to search for ore spots, and either set up a mining rig, or else just mine directly from the SRV somehow. The lack of requirement for a refinery is an oversight as well. The SRV should be simply collecting materials, that a refinery is then used for, to create materials that can be used for synthesis.

These materials should be one-and-the-same with the materials that we can mine from asteroids, so we can opt to use them for synthesis, or simply trade/sell.

The fact that your material collection follows you, regardless of what ship you're in, is also against how Elite operates, and is simply unrealistic within the game itself.


What's sad is, I doubt we'll see any major revamp that would get things back on track, at least not anytime soon. That really sucks.
 
While I agree, I can't sympathize with the whining. ED has had "gamey" mechanics since Alpha, you've just gotten used to the rest of the shenanigans that Frontier uses to fill gaps in the mechanics and don't see them anymore.

It's a video game, of course it's going to be "gamey" and you are sorely mistaken if you think that the slap-dash nature of synthesis is somehow out of place. It fits in perfectly with all of the other half-baked features.
 
Head back to the nearest station?


I personally like the mechanics as they are.
A good example:
I've only recently been spending time Res BH'ing. Up until now I've primarily been exploring and trading.
While BH'ing the other night, I ran out of ammo for my canons (still had operational beam lasers). I was just about to head off to the nearest station to re-arm and then decided to have a look over my right shoulder to see if I had materials to re-arm. I had enough to re-arm 8 times. This made it so much easier as I did not have to leave the Res Site.

Yes, some people find the whole searching for rocks boring, but I enjoy the scenery on the ground. It does not take me long to find materials.
The other day, I could not pick up a targeted material, and found that I had hit my 300 limit. At this point, I had to make decisions on which materials I could afford to reject to keep the more rarer ones.

Well, if one is out on one of those really long trips, to "head back to the nearest station" isn't really the greatest of options, is it?

And as I said before; I think the crafting thing is really cool.
That you CAN find stuff to use, fuel cars, making ammo, buff you ship; wonderful!
But not being able to fuel from the ship....
That is just plain silly.
Silly, silly, silly. :)
 
This game does not need crafting, it was tacked on cos people play games with crafting and like it so they want every game to have crafting.
 
I've been out in NGC 7822 for a few days now, charting the area, collecting and enjoying the sights. On the way back I landed in OUTORST- HI-J B51-0 to perform some repairs.. By chance I ended up in a huge dark canyon abundant in Germanium, Yttrium, Polonium.. Been all over searching for this stuff since Horizons launched.

Ship is now repaired and I have plenty of Basic/Standard and Premium FSD injection materials for the distant worlds expedition...
Is that really what happened to Elite? Can the game become even less credible? I doubt it (

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This game does not need crafting, it was tacked on cos people play games with crafting and like it so they want every game to have crafting.
^^^^This
 
Elite has a lot going for it but it has taken a decidedly iffy turn by failing to integrate the SRV fuel and planetside commodities with the rest of the game. Its not too late to put it right, but if they keep it like this and add to it I feel it will be a major flaw in the game henceforth and will spoil the rest of development like trying to build a house on a wrongly laid foundation, it will just end up a mess. They need to lay the foundation properly. So they need to admit there is a problem and then fix it.

FD should heed what people are saying, they are not saying it just to be mean, they are trying to let them know how they feel, the impact of the choices FD made.

IMHO the reason for this is FD are trying to do too much at once and not getting the 10,000 foot directors overview for Elite, they are all too close to it. Someone needs to be taking a cool dispassionate look at it from a distance.

I understand they have been fighting to keep the books balanced and keep the company solvent so they have been pushing ahead for console and the episodic release as well as other rollercoaster themed titles because these bring in the money needed to fund the game, but I fear they have taken their eye off the ball in all the kerfuffle.

And as I said already, if they had continued to consult the DDF we would have helped them avoid this, at no extra cost! I dont say that out of sour grapes or anything, I am just saying it because its true. Almost every design idea that went through the DDF got real player feedback and helped them see the bright light of reality and inspired them to make significant changes before it was too late. What I mean by that is FD decided to change a lot as a result of feedback and may still do so. But it would have been a lot easier for them if they had continued to make use of the DDF. Analysing the reasons they decided not to is for them to do but IMHO they threw away a crowd sourced service and didnt realise that just because it was free did not mean it was not of value to them.
 
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This game does not need crafting, it was tacked on cos people play games with crafting and like it so they want every game to have crafting.

On the contrary, crafting is a good piece of content if it is done properly. Saying the game doesn't "need" crafting is saying it doesn't need content.

You know what else is good content? A working economy. Now, while crafting isn't 100% essential to making a working video game economy, it makes it monumentally, by orders of magnitude, easier. Crafting isn't it's own mechanic in the larger picture. As ED continues to develop it will be worked into the economy, and the economy is set to be improved dramatically itself.

Right now we're basically doing an extended beta test of the crafting system while Frontier tries to hash out how it's going to work with the rest of the game. Most of the rest of the game that crafting is going to be expected to mesh well with and contribute to, doesn't even exist yet.

So, a second point. You can't say the game doesn't need crafting unless you have a crystal ball from which you have divined everything that Frontier not only intends to do with Elite: Dangerous but also everything that will actually end up being implemented, and how exactly it is implemented.
 
Well, if one is out on one of those really long trips, to "head back to the nearest station" isn't really the greatest of options, is it?

And as I said before; I think the crafting thing is really cool.
That you CAN find stuff to use, fuel cars, making ammo, buff you ship; wonderful!
But not being able to fuel from the ship....
That is just plain silly.
Silly, silly, silly. :)

You do have a point about being out on a long trip, maybe I should have been more clear in my post. However, I'm sure most of us explorers would spend time in and around the bubble collecting materials before heading out. This is what I would do. Currently I have enough materials for 38 refuels. Therefore, this would not be an issue when out in the black.
 
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