Degraded Power Regulators should be able to be refurbished for a cost

[londonx]

A lot of the Odyssey upgrades need Power Regulators, these seem quite costly in terms of "value" and their importance ie taking down the power of an entire settlement but are often required in many multiples in recipies. Compared to other lootable items this feels off. Degradable Power Regulators can easily be looted however but they are relatively worthless. It would make more sense to have the ability to be able to refurbish the degraded items at a Starport services like the Bartender or Pioneer Supplies or even many of the Odyssey Engineers and have them returned as a fully functional item that can count toward Engineering materials. The cost could be high, say 5 million Cr per refurbishment. This would also solve the clumsy workaround where Settlement activation missions are renegaded to keep the power regulator, although this missions seems quite rare also.

This idea of a costly Credit alternative to access materials could be enlarged to paying large sums of money (say 100 million Cr) to Engineers to recycle engineered modules so that they can be applied to other weapons and suits.

 

[metatheurgist]

I agree that something should be done with degraded regulators (because legal ways of getting them are sparse) but not CRs. CRs are a joke. 5M is nothing, that's half a ground CZ. Materials would make more sense.

Settlement activation missions are renegaded to keep the power regulator, although this missions seems quite rare also.

This is a valid playstyle. And rare? I just did like 20 of them yesterday and I easily find them every week. As long as the state of the system hasn't changed I could do it all day today as well. And if it did change, the next system offering reactivation missions is probably less than 3 jumps away.

 

[Tyres O'Flaherty]

+1 for degraded power regs. I'm sure it's been mentioned before.

Oh, and data trading would be nice too but, again, I'd think this has been raised oodles of times

 

[Felix DiCestria]

From my experience there's a 10% of getting a viable power regulator from a wrecked SRV/ship.
Missions handing them out as rewards are fairly common.
I do agree it would be good if there was some charging point that we could slot a degraded power reg into, like the process to produce the unknown relics.

 

[Factabulous]

I'd like to be able to find them more often, I've stopped looking in wrecked SRVs etc at settlements as they are so rare.

Or even allow us to reconstitute them - maybe Industrial settlements could have another machine that takes a Degraded PR and if you wait 3 minutes you get a complete one. Add it in a secure area and gameplay is added. Woohoo!

(I wouldn't add it for credits - credits are cheap, gameplay is golden.)

 

[HRDiagram]

I agree with the idea of the possibility to refurbish degraded power regulators, and the usage of materials to do it.

My fear is that the implementation would lead to yet another instance of "gather 10x Cocktail Recipes to repair this unit"!

 

[Florenus]

It's not really hard to get Power regulators if you're willing to cheese your way to them by accepting and abandoning restoration missions and paying a fine.
But existence of that exploit means we should be able to actually just buy them somehow. If not straight for cash, then travelling merchant who sells power regulators in exchange for degraded ones, ion battery and memory chip with his favorite music?
It also bugs me that I can buy SRV (or a ship) that has power regulator, but I can't just take it out. Those things are everywhere, but only way to get them is to steal them or look for them in the trash.

 

[Cmdr John Lyn]

The most ideal places to fix degraded or worn items should the devs embrace such an interesting concept would be industrial and high tech systems. I keep saying all the ingredients are within Elite for it to be a really nice multiplayer sandbox game. The devs should replicate the kinds of "loops" that occur in real life. They shouldn't be afraid of getting granular with npcs, items, special features, and objects and not be afraid to show off these concepts at first person perspective.

If I'm touring an industrial port in the game on foot, I want to see raw materials going into furnace-like processors and the end product being packaged and loaded for shipping.
I bet they could really impress us with enough time and thought put into it.

 

[SteveWW57]

Power Regulators are so easy to come by if you know the game. No need for any additional method of getting them, such as repairing degraded ones.

Take salvage missions and you are ideally looking for the "distress"* rather than the "crashed" POI. Drive your SRV to the ship, check your contacts panel to see if live PRs are revealed. If they are, jump out, grab and return to the SRV. Take nothing else. Log out to main menu and back in. The POI will have respawned. If no live PRs this time, log out and in. Repeat till you have enough.

* The ship has landed and there is a container containing the mission item close to the ship. Ships with two PRs (Eagles) are the most efficient.

Steve 07.

 

[Jmanis]

Can damaged escape pods also be refurbished into animal meat slaves fertilizer... occupied escape pods?

 

[Morbad]

Can damaged escape pods also be refurbished into animal meat slaves fertilizer... occupied escape pods?

I'd assume you just dump them out, hose them off, and replace a few seals.

 

[Factabulous]

Can damaged escape pods also be refurbished into animal meat slaves fertilizer... occupied escape pods?

That would require a Hi Tech / Military settlement with a Med building

 

[Morbad]

That would require a Hi Tech / Military settlement with a Med building

Pressure washer and duct tape.

 

[metatheurgist]

From my experience there's a 10% of getting a viable power regulator from a wrecked SRV/ship.

I agree with that assessment. If you find a distress beacon with a ship with both panels accessible it rises to about 1/4. It was so easy before they fixed relogs.

 

[londonx]

I'd like to be able to find them more often, I've stopped looking in wrecked SRVs etc at settlements as they are so rare.

Or even allow us to reconstitute them - maybe Industrial settlements could have another machine that takes a Degraded PR and if you wait 3 minutes you get a complete one. Add it in a secure area and gameplay is added. Woohoo!

(I wouldn't add it for credits - credits are cheap, gameplay is golden.)

Yes I like this idea

 

[MacHurto]

This is a valid playstyle. And rare? I just did like 20 of them yesterday and I easily find them every week. As long as the state of the system hasn't changed I could do it all day today as well. And if it did change, the next system offering reactivation missions is probably less than 3 jumps away.

Do you lose REP with the faction giving you the mission?

 

[metatheurgist]

Do you lose REP with the faction giving you the mission?

If you rob them? Yes, and you get fined 100K. Handy if you want to lose Rep. Which was not what I was doing btw. I did that for Sirius, which was handy.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

Would be awesome to trade in multiple degraded regulators for a single fully working power regulator, Minecraft-style.

 

[zikolach]

Why we cannot simply buy (and sell) power regulators the same way we can buy power generators? We actually can. Maybe we should see some trade offers generated from power generators sold by commanders at bertender (or other) contact and the price fluctuating based on the demand?

 

[vanFace]

Log out to main menu and back in. The POI will have respawned. If no live PRs this time, log out and in. Repeat till you have enough.

I think the many re-log loops of ED are a bit of a design flaw and so I tend to avoid them if possible. I mean, even the accept&abandon harvesting has more "game-play" to it. Heck, the SC reset of POIs is better than re-logging.

In this light, I'd welcome a better game loop for PRs. Being able to refurbish them, or having a proper price range for bartender sells would be a good start indeed.