Does anyone actually enjoy engineering?
- Thread starter Bill Clement
- Start date
1, 2, skip a few... Wait, 63 PAGES!? 
A significant chunk of the player base could probably come up with a book on why they love and / or hate (or both) the engineers. Oh wait, in 63 pages some of them probably did, lol.
It's a lot easier now. Gone are the days of having multiple spare A grade FSD's in various sizes at Farseer's base in case you popped in with enough materials for a roll or three and didn't want to risk messing up what RNGsus blessed you with previously, swapping in and rolling the worst module first.
Gone are the days of having to throw away valuable mats that took time to collect in favour of what you needed for a mod right now when the storage was limited to 500 / 1000 total instead of individual slots but they could still tweak it to make some of the Grade 5's a little easier to find and stockpile.
With the brokers, Dav's Hope and Jameson's Cobra the only thing that's still a bit awkward to get is some of the raw materials but EDDB.io can help you locate 2-3 high end ones at a time, land the SRV on a flat spot, pick a bearing and keep driving until you burn through a (free) tank of fuel before leaving.
Picking up everything until it's full then trading it all back down to around 70% capacity at the brokers I don't seem to have any problem running out while engineering, especially now any module is going to eventually get to max and with sensible blueprint selection I can G1 experimental mods to finish later.
Liz Ryder is useful for putting experimentals on G1 Armour, and I can finish it to G5 elsewhere. Same for Elvira or Felicity with DDT and power plant mods but I tend to leave them til last, buy the right plant from LHS 20, disable weapons and fly out to Marco's base to put the final experimental effect on.
Utilities like shield boosters I'll buy cheap, store some and take the rest to Leesti on the Conda, dock and transfer the rest across then go eat / sleep before coming back to mod the whole batch at once. Heavy Duty on D's because, less base mass and a bunch of A's for the Resistance Augmented.
Conda also comes in handy to run weapons down to Broo or Tod and back. In short it's WAY easier than it used to be, once you've completed the unlocks. I've engineered a fleet of 30+ ships, twice now, or I will have when I finish off the last few although I do still have the odd god-mod shield floating about.
One thing I would suggest though, is put a wake scanner on all your non-combat ships and take a few minutes to look for Datamined Exceptions any time you're leaving a station or surface base instead of trying to deliberately grind for them if you're not going to use the brokers, to preserve your own sanity.
Collecting mats here and there during other activities is better than grinding imo
A significant chunk of the player base could probably come up with a book on why they love and / or hate (or both) the engineers. Oh wait, in 63 pages some of them probably did, lol.
It's a lot easier now. Gone are the days of having multiple spare A grade FSD's in various sizes at Farseer's base in case you popped in with enough materials for a roll or three and didn't want to risk messing up what RNGsus blessed you with previously, swapping in and rolling the worst module first.
Gone are the days of having to throw away valuable mats that took time to collect in favour of what you needed for a mod right now when the storage was limited to 500 / 1000 total instead of individual slots but they could still tweak it to make some of the Grade 5's a little easier to find and stockpile.
With the brokers, Dav's Hope and Jameson's Cobra the only thing that's still a bit awkward to get is some of the raw materials but EDDB.io can help you locate 2-3 high end ones at a time, land the SRV on a flat spot, pick a bearing and keep driving until you burn through a (free) tank of fuel before leaving.
Picking up everything until it's full then trading it all back down to around 70% capacity at the brokers I don't seem to have any problem running out while engineering, especially now any module is going to eventually get to max and with sensible blueprint selection I can G1 experimental mods to finish later.
Liz Ryder is useful for putting experimentals on G1 Armour, and I can finish it to G5 elsewhere. Same for Elvira or Felicity with DDT and power plant mods but I tend to leave them til last, buy the right plant from LHS 20, disable weapons and fly out to Marco's base to put the final experimental effect on.
Utilities like shield boosters I'll buy cheap, store some and take the rest to Leesti on the Conda, dock and transfer the rest across then go eat / sleep before coming back to mod the whole batch at once. Heavy Duty on D's because, less base mass and a bunch of A's for the Resistance Augmented.
Conda also comes in handy to run weapons down to Broo or Tod and back. In short it's WAY easier than it used to be, once you've completed the unlocks. I've engineered a fleet of 30+ ships, twice now, or I will have when I finish off the last few although I do still have the odd god-mod shield floating about.
One thing I would suggest though, is put a wake scanner on all your non-combat ships and take a few minutes to look for Datamined Exceptions any time you're leaving a station or surface base instead of trying to deliberately grind for them if you're not going to use the brokers, to preserve your own sanity.
Collecting mats here and there during other activities is better than grinding imo
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So all those gone days, do you want them back or are you saying that with feedback the game changed for the better? Or were people just "moaning" enough about them?
Preface, right at the start of paragraph 2: "It's a lot easier now."
Summary, paragraph 8: "In short it's WAY easier than it used to be,"
Do I like it better then or now? Um, would that make any difference?
FDev are going to torture us regardless, but it's conveniently different.
DeletedUser191218
D
I'll take your word re Max. He seems okay from the tiny bit of engagement we've had. Most probably are ok. Quite often the thing is the few with the loudest and most toxic voices drown out everyone else. I've observed many of the usual suspects turn perfectly polite disagreements into just muddy hostility. It seems to be the way with online engagement in general. My view is that it ties with the ganking phenomenon. Some guys feel tough from the comfort of their keyboard - it often compensates for not feeling so tough away from that same comfort....but I digress.
DeletedUser191218
D
Fair point. But it's also a game. It isn't actually the future. It's supposed to be fun.
This is my main issue with the system. It is entirely result driven in that I want to tune my ships. However, getting to the point where I can actually do that sucks. I think that there should be an element of unlocking the items, but it could be much more engaging. Take the guardian weapons for example. While far from perfect, these introduce some fresh gameplay that is not found within the normal scope of activity. It is fun to go questing in the ruins to unlock the technology (now this even gets tedious with having to unlock every size and turret/non turret version, and the requirements are needlessly high).
I think if they did more things like this to would be better. They have a set number of engineers, IMO I think that they should make the basic tier ones accessible with the "fetch me x amount of y" stuff, but the more advanced engineers should have better missions, maybe even scripted ones with a little creativity. I think this would go a long way.
DDastardly00
D
I wanted to participate more in this Palin thing, but mat gathering got in the way. I went into an AX zone the first night after the attack and fought, but then the last few days were spent on gathering up mats (Manufactured and Raw mainly) all while trying not to fall asleep. It's a shame mat gathering constantly gets in the way of having fun and ysually after a solid couple of days of mind-numbing mat gathering, I just want to play something else. It has a hangover effect on me.
At a minimum, Frontier needs to fix the High Grade SS spawn rates, or as an alternative, they could just allow us the option to purchase Materials at Material traders. That would be better than the Pawn Shop scheme they have going at Material Traders right now.....
At a minimum, Frontier needs to fix the High Grade SS spawn rates, or as an alternative, they could just allow us the option to purchase Materials at Material traders. That would be better than the Pawn Shop scheme they have going at Material Traders right now.....
But not all of them, mate. There's no 'just making the best of it' when your aim or ambition proves to be unachievable and the attempt is sheer misery. There are better things to do with your time. Like I posted earlier, I can get a huge amount done in the limited amount of time I have available in other titles, but there isn't any way past the time sink in Elite Dangerous, for me , at least. Many posters tell me they can engineer a vast number of ships or modules in virtually no time at all. That's nice, I'm glad for them. But my rate of progress is so slow it's really not worth the throw any more. As you say, it is what it is. I don't want to walk away, but I'm not spending what's left of my life on an unpaid second job!
But not all of them, mate. There's no 'just making the best of it' when your aim or ambition proves to be unachievable and the attempt is sheer misery. There are better things to do with your time. Like I posted earlier, I can get a huge amount done in the limited amount of time I have available in other titles, but there isn't any way past the time sink in Elite Dangerous, for me , at least. Many posters tell me they can engineer a vast number of ships or modules in virtually no time at all. That's nice, I'm glad for them. But my rate of progress is so slow it's really not worth the throw any more. As you say, it is what it is. I don't want to walk away, but I'm not spending what's left of my life on an unpaid second job!
Just to have some kind of foundation here, just how limited is your time? 15 minutes a day? Half an hour ever other day?
I see far too many people make statements like this, few ever specify how little time they actually have.
I think back many decades, when one of my favorite board/table top games to play was Axis and Allies. In the time I had then, this usually meant one person setting up the game during the week, then getting together a couple of hours over the course of three or four weekends to actually play.
Elite reminds me of this, as it really is meant for long-term play, unlike far too many other games that blow out the entirety of their content in an hour, and usually lack any replay value.
Not just that, but why does the game have to value their time. Isn't it up to them to prioritise?
SI just now read this thread...but posted a topic specific to engineering (and nerfing it) in suggestions...
OP seems to be very aware of the performance disparity gap engineering creates, and how much it devalues the base ship modules. This in turn feeds into many other problems...notably PvP and the lack of players willing to fight.
OP seems to be very aware of the performance disparity gap engineering creates, and how much it devalues the base ship modules. This in turn feeds into many other problems...notably PvP and the lack of players willing to fight.
On a different note, I've significantly engineered only two ships (and not completed either) since Elite launched on PS4:
-Diamondback Explorer
-Federal Corvette
Right now, I'm focused on the DBX to 'perfect it' because I love it so...and it's a lot less hassle to fly it around and do what needs doing. It's my fully A-Rated 'do it all' ship (yep, even combat) and I just love the little sucker. I really wish I could make one of the Alliance mediums out to be a strong multi-role (those darn military slots) because they look so daggum cool!
Anyways, to the OP, engineering sucks - yes, I agree. The unlock mechanics alone lack any original thought. There could be story or mission arcs, but instead they are blind massive fetch quests that lack any decent explanation or incentive.
The materials grind isn't too bad until G4 and G5 in my opinion, then it's like you fall off a cliff into a black hole of misery - and this is after god rolls were balanced into 'everybody wins' caps on performance (which, in all fairness, was a good change). I think the issue with G4 and G5 is that the materials don't require skill so much as just RNG to find...which is lame. Some do, mind you, like those coming from planetary compounds. Those can be a pain to get...but a pain because of skill, not mindless grinding.
Beyond that, like my previous post, the real problem for me is that engineering essentially devalues the base ship and module system - and reinforces the notion that if my ship is G3 or less, it isn't worth picking fights in because it'll get hammered 9 times out of 10. The disparity in performance between the grades is hugely out of proportion. I don't want engineers to go away...but they need to be nerfed hard.
Good luck getting that cat back in the bag, though.
It's called power creep, and it has been the scourge of balanced gameplay for a loooong time.
-Diamondback Explorer
-Federal Corvette
Right now, I'm focused on the DBX to 'perfect it' because I love it so...and it's a lot less hassle to fly it around and do what needs doing. It's my fully A-Rated 'do it all' ship (yep, even combat) and I just love the little sucker. I really wish I could make one of the Alliance mediums out to be a strong multi-role (those darn military slots) because they look so daggum cool!
Anyways, to the OP, engineering sucks - yes, I agree. The unlock mechanics alone lack any original thought. There could be story or mission arcs, but instead they are blind massive fetch quests that lack any decent explanation or incentive.
The materials grind isn't too bad until G4 and G5 in my opinion, then it's like you fall off a cliff into a black hole of misery - and this is after god rolls were balanced into 'everybody wins' caps on performance (which, in all fairness, was a good change). I think the issue with G4 and G5 is that the materials don't require skill so much as just RNG to find...which is lame. Some do, mind you, like those coming from planetary compounds. Those can be a pain to get...but a pain because of skill, not mindless grinding.
Beyond that, like my previous post, the real problem for me is that engineering essentially devalues the base ship and module system - and reinforces the notion that if my ship is G3 or less, it isn't worth picking fights in because it'll get hammered 9 times out of 10. The disparity in performance between the grades is hugely out of proportion. I don't want engineers to go away...but they need to be nerfed hard.
Good luck getting that cat back in the bag, though.
It's called power creep, and it has been the scourge of balanced gameplay for a loooong time.
Blowing out content in an hour seems a bit hyperbolic. If anything it feels like we're seeing more games designed to have players jump through hoops to stretch every 10 hours of content over hundreds of hours of play. ED and the engineers feels exactly like an example of that. On a fundamental level they don't change what we do, but try to give us reasons to do each part longer or more often whether you like that particular segment or not.
At the very least we've gotten content that at least tries to scale to our new peaks so it's not a complete exercise in pointless overprovisioning.
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You just dont go and lock gameplay of yesterday suddenly behind a grindwall (CZ) and expect players to be happy with that.
Explain in detail, please.
I've done my share of pre-3.3 CZ's... load up on missions to kill X number of ships, for Faction Y, to receive Z in Credits, plus whatever else you might make from them in combat bonds (not much). I've sat in these until my ammo supply has been exhausted, and I was too.
So they've changed them a bit, from what I understand, to be a bit more like a "tug of war" to push one side or the other to a "win". I haven't actually seen one yet, I've gone walkabout and am 40k+ light years from the nearest human system.
So I have to ask for details - as many as I can get to make anything like an informed hypothesis before I get a chance to actually look into these for myself.
Individual CZ instances are effectively small battles with a defined end point now. Kills fill a bar and the first bar full wins. NPCs are generally more resilient than they were prior, some with engineering. Additionally more heavily engineered ships can spawn in the form of spec ops squads (groups of medium ships typically from my experience, FDLs/Asps/etc) and Captains (Usually large ships).
Overall everything feels more resilient than prior so I can understand the feeling of being nerfed out of the activity since your ammo won't go as far, especially unmodified, and your resilience may be further tested as you're trying to get kills.
I hear ya, and yes it can be tedious depending on what you actually need because some things are ridiculously difficult to isolate but as mentioned above, a little bit of mat collecting while doing other activities can significantly reduce the monotony, like fitting a wake scanner to all your non-combats.But not all of them, mate. There's no 'just making the best of it' when your aim or ambition proves to be unachievable and the attempt is sheer misery. There are better things to do with your time. Like I posted earlier, I can get a huge amount done in the limited amount of time I have available in other titles, but there isn't any way past the time sink in Elite Dangerous, for me , at least. Many posters tell me they can engineer a vast number of ships or modules in virtually no time at all. That's nice, I'm glad for them. But my rate of progress is so slow it's really not worth the throw any more. As you say, it is what it is. I don't want to walk away, but I'm not spending what's left of my life on an unpaid second job!
Another example might be if you're heading down to a planet for whatever reason, say a delivery, scan or salvage mission you have the option to either complete the mission first, or leave it for half an hour depending on the risk. You don't want to get shot at for your cargo so drop it off first or don't pick it up yet.
Every time you dock the station is going to refill the fuel tank on your SRV (for free) so what I tend to do is make sure my hold is empty so pirates won't see any bait worth harassing me for and then I'll find a flat-ish space, pick a compass heading and drive until I'm almost out of fuel before calling the ship back.
Keeping the lower level materials storage at around 70% capacity means I've always got room to pick up more rubbish I can then trade up at the broker and it's less mucking around scooping things up on the surface as I just take all of it until full. Keeping eddb.io open on the other monitor also aids efficiency.
As suggested by others, a combat all rounder like the Krait Mk II allows you to carry a Class 5 fighter bay for training pilots and a Class 3 Collector Limpet Controller for free floating Manufactured mats after combat. Anacondas in HIGH res zones are a great (current) source for Pharmaceutical Isolators.
For almost everything else manufactured I'd highly recommend "Dav's Hope" (and other, similar surface bases), if you don't already have it bookmarked. It's a bit of a hike out of the bubble but worth the effort as you can scan the local beacon for data, drive a quick circuit of 10-12 drops then relog / repeat.
Also in that neck of the woods is CMDR Jameson's Cobra Mk III, a surface crash site where you can land, drive the SRV to a single spot, scan the data beacons, relog and repeat until overflowing. The selection of data is a bit limited but one is a G5 you don't really need so it's ideal to swap at the broker.
Again, collecting mats while doing other activities significantly reduces the grind
Oh yeah, while on the subject of grind reducing habits, it can be an utter pain to locate the brokers but you can get that information from the Nav Beacon in any system where it's not compromised. I set my Security filter to HIGH in the galmap and drop to scan any beacons en-route while going to other places.
The bonus upside is you collect trade data and resolve all High Grade Signal Sources.
Fortunately I don't have to get Broo Tarquin's tea anymore, on another thread I was advised to try out multicannons with the incendiary exp efx. Yep, don't need no lasers now!
Well, as it turns out, I completed Broo Tarquin faster than I thought. Because the mats which I had previously grinded for were also relevant.
Clear Liz Ryder in a flash. Just upgraded a couple of missile racks then threw them aside in the store for future use.
Brought that idiot his Fujin Tea..... which I have to sidetrack a bit to complain about.
Damned game makes it such that it intentionally forces you to make more than one run to supply him the tea. He wants 50 units of FT.
You go to Fujin, and there's only 23. You pick them all up, and think, OK I'll wait till it resupplies.
Leave the game for an hour, to go out, came back and still no FT resupp. So I log off for the day and come back tomorrow, still no FT.
Switched to the Long Range ASPX, and make the 3 jumps to Muang and drop off 23, back to Fujin, and lo and behold, 35 more units of FT are available immediately.
Really, FD, your goddamned timesink mechanics and artificial grind inflation is ridiculous.
Anyway, back to the game. Engineered most of my ships with G5 Efficient beams.
Now my Cutter can keep pips centralized.... and my 2 x huge and 2 x Med beams can just fire away without overheating or running out of juice for the better part of 20 secs.
Melts most small ships in one pass, and takes down the shields of larger ships pretty quick, just in time for a boost-in, head-on ram + G5 double shot frag cannon mix.
Now I have to find some more mats for the Corvette, two Anacondas, Python, FDL, Mamba, Krait MkII, Challenger and Vulture to be similarly equipped.
Here comes the borefest again.
So the plan is to bring them all to Broo for a G2 upgrade + Experimental effects.
I can do the rest via remote engineering.
How I wished we could pin Experimental effects too... so we don't have to bring all our ships, one by one by boring one to that old balding coot.