Serious question. I don't mean 'do you enjoy having an engineered ship' or 'do you enjoy trying out different engineering modifications', I mean do you actually enjoy the process, the things that you do to get to that engineered module?
Acquiring vast amounts of materials, trading them when (inevitably) you don't have the one you want, at a massive loss, getting a series of lousy rolls that eat all your mats before you complete the mod you're aiming for?
I read posters on here stating that they've engineered whole fleets of ships in next to no time. I believe them- why wouldn't they tell the truth?- but I'm not enjoying anything like the same rate of progress. I decided to fully engineer my mission runner, an 'A' rated Python, back in November. I'd been tinkering with it for a while, I had what I thought was a huge amount of materials stockpiled and I'd unlocked a few engineers. I gave up half way through December and, in spite of having a whole week off at the end of the month, I didn't even flash Elite up. I just couldn't face it any more.
For most of the last four years I've put in a couple of hours a night, two or three times a week. Not exactly a power player, but not 'casual' either. Now I'm watching ED videos instead of playing- what kind of saddo does that?
It's over a fortnight since I last played and I don't have any particular urge to change that.
Each completed mod has been a revelation. The Python is transformed. I really can't express how much of a difference the engineering makes- it's vastly more than finally installing 'A' class modules when I started the game.
But that's just hacking me off. It's painfully obvious just how pants stock ships are compared to engineered ones. I've got a whole fleet of vanilla ships that are a real struggle to just survive in. I don't mind running away every now and then, but the AI is balanced against much tougher kit than I'm flying. I can see where the 'git gud' crowd are coming from- my partly engineered Python is just melting AI opponents! But I'm about as 'gud' as I'm going to 'git', my fleet needs a ton of work and
yeGodsinHeaven I'm burned out just getting one of them up to scratch!
I'd love to try out some of the newer ships, but I know that stock, even 'A' rated, they'll be easy pickings for dumb as a brick AI with ridiculously strong weapons and shields. It's not about skill, or lack thereof, the game's set-up is suffering from power creep. I wouldn't object to that, if engineering to the new standard wasn't such a massive pain in the posterior for me.
Am I looking at this all wrong? Is engineering actually a fun activity that I'm just not 'getting'? [uhh]