Does anyone else think the concept of engineers is terrible?

[Greasetrap42]

It just there is soooo much to take in! Right at this moment I turn here (for help), because I am at Marco Qwent trying to figure if Power Dist needs an upgrade. .... Anyone have an easy answer for Power Dist?

Quick Answer:

Assuming the rebalance didn't change the engineering that can be applied...

While some modules are often engineered with something specific for a purpose there are a several modules that get engineered with the same thing 96% of the time.
A bunch of people on the forums will likely say "well..actually...". Who cares. If you don't know any better, just do this. It will make your ship better.

• Ship Hull Armor: Heavy Duty + Deep Plating
• Thrusters: Dirty + Drag Drives
• Frame Shift Drive: Increased Range + Mass Mgr - Don't purchase the regular old style FSD and engineer it. Get the new SCO model available in normal ship outfitting.
• Power Supply: Armored + Thermal Spread. Not enough power? Then consider Overcharged and/or Monstered
• Power Distributor: Charge Enhanced + Super Conduits
• Life Support: Don't bother or Lightweight
• Sensors: Don't bother or Long Range or Light Weight
• Shields: Thermal Resistant + Fast Charge or Hi Cap (either is good)
• Shield Boosters: Resistance Augmented (the first couple) then Heavy Duty. (there's a balance to meet, but short answer... don't worry) + Super Cap Special Effect.
• Hull Reinforcement Packages (HRP): Heavy Duty + Deep Plating
• Limpet Controllers: Don't bother or lightweight.
• Detailed Surface Scanner (DSS): Expanded Radius. But try to purchase the pre-engineerd one from a Human Tech Broker. It is much better.
• Heat Sink Launcher: Lightweight for long range exploration. Increased capacity for everybody else (purchase the better capacity Sirius Pre-engineered ones from the Human Tech Broker at Spirit of Laelaps at Luytens Star)
• Weapons: Very application & ship specific. More than a 20sec forum post. Until you know better just engineer with something that makes it more powerful (damaging) or uses less energy. This will give you better weapons.

As you do more engineering use the 3rd party tool EDSY to make better decisions. It works out the numbers for you.

As you make more refined ships that run the power demands to the edge with weapons... or heat, or whatever it becomes very hard for normal idiots like myself to predict the modules that should be selected and engineered. Especially the Power Supply. This is where EDSY is very useful. It allows you to fully design the ship selecting between the various modules you might use allowing you to see results of the final outcome. Without wasting ingame time and resources.

 

[Jay8454]

This makes it easy, thanks! I couldn’t remember EDSY was what Iused to use. I hope I remember how to use it. Here’s what I’ve been doing instead of what EDSY is really useful for: “It lets you fully design the ship by selecting various modules and seeing the final outcome without wasting in-game time and resources.”

If I’m modding one ship and pinning, can I pin those modifications to ships I have stored that need upgrades to make them operational? I also seem to have Guardian boosters and a booster from a human tech broker. I’m currently getting around with my old Diamondback because it has a 52 LY jump range with no cargo. My other ships have less than 20 LY range, so the many jumps can be arduous (I think they should go a bit further). Plus, I don’t have hardpoints for fuel scooping—the Diamondback does. I put an SCO (Frame Shift Drive) on a ship and almost blew it up a few times and ran out of fuel too.

What's funny is it was the first ship I bought (equipped SCO), that I changed the cockpit narrator to German, so there could be a hilarious vlog in this somewhere. Imagine hearing all this in German, my ship sounded so angry! I’m not sure what to do with SCOs. And my turbo thrust key is 'Tab,' which is problematic since 'Alt+Tab' causes issues on my desktop, so those shortcuts are a bit scary for me! YEEAH?

 

[Greasetrap42]

I forgot to mention:

If you don't know any better, Fully G5 engineer these. There are some cases were you might rather not, but generally... yes.

• FSD
• Thrusters
• Power Plant
• Power Distributor
• Hull Armor

 

[Greasetrap42]

If I’m modding one ship and pinning, can I pin those modifications to ships I have stored that need upgrades to make them operational?

Blueprints:

• You can pin one blueprint per engineer.
• The blueprints you have pinned can be applied to any ship you own.
• I recommend you pin a blueprint from each engineer you unlock. Make sure the engineer is unlocked to grade 5, and the blueprint you pinned.
• If you have unlocked two engineers that upgrade the same modules, you can still pin a blue print from both engineers. Example: You can pin Dirty Drive Thrusters and Clean Drive Thrusters.
• There are four engineers in far away in Colonia. Eventually you will likely go there. They are easy to unlock but make sure you have unlocked the prerequisite engineers in the bubble first.
• Before going to the Colonia consider the best blueprints those four engineers have to offer. Based on that you might want to strategically change the blueprints you pinned in the bubble. A good example is in the Bubble I pinned Hull Reinf Package (HRP) with Selene Jean. In Colonia I pinned Armor with Petra O. That's a good combo.
• You can pin the blueprints but you still must visit the engineer in person for the Experimental Effects. You don't need a grade 5 module or grade 5 Engineer to apply the Experimental Effect. This means a single visit to Felicity Farseer and you can apply the Experimental Effects to half your new ship modules.
• Another trick for commonly used modules like Shield Boosters and Hull Reinforcement Packages is you can purchase a bunch of them, G1 engineer them and apply the Experimental Effect and store them for future use. G5 Engineer them later.

 

[metatheurgist]

And people say it's not a flat upgrade system.

 

[heathenlamb]

I personally think Engineering is the single worst aspect of this game, and probably the only truly negative aspect I can think of. If I could bypass it and just purchase upgrades I would in a heart beat. It's labourious and not enjoyable in anyway.

This is just my opinion. Not a universal truth.

 

[varonica]

Just for the record, I think engineers are a good idea, it was the implementation that I thought was very bad, I have thought so from the very first moment they were launched in game, I was dissapointed then but there's little I can do about it. My idea's would have probably been hard to implement and would have annoyed many players, I guess the only difference between my ideas and implementation and FDEV's ideas and implementation would be that a different group of players would be complaining, oh well.

 

[Jay8454]

I am coming around on the engineering because today I just upgraded 4 weapons 2 suits opened/unlocked 4 engineers. I am coming around the more I use and mess with it and ask for help. I said some nasty things but I also didn't expect anyone to offer help. Now on to upgrading 6 Power plants is there one?

 

[Jay8454]

How does the SCO work? Maning can you stop the turbo charge?

 

[varonica]

How does the SCO work? Maning can you stop the turbo charge?

Press the boost button again....that's all

 

[Jay8454]

OMG...you got to be kidding me ROFL! I didn't know it was that easy. I think I will put one on my Chiefton as I am trying not to burn in Thargiod space.

 

[Northpin]

It took two years but this comment finally didn't age well

Online games are always subject to change. I'm glad FD listened to this particular issue and have revisited it. I've never understood this stance though. The game has been changing consistently since it launched 10 years ago. I'm very glad FD haven't abandoned it so that this stance was merited.

Well, to me these sort of changes look like desperate measures. They seem to really want people get back in the game and buy arx so silly things seem acceptable now (including p2w and silly "fixes")

The engineering "fix" - it's really silly to have the rare materials way more common than the common materials.
They may as well remove all materials and allow engineering for credits*.


* but that would require effort and dev time, adding an order of magnitude to loot tables does not require much coding nor any clever design to make the game more interesting.

 

[Greasetrap42]

At this point, ship engineering could be made free after the engineer unlock.

And to 'fix' the annoying travel time for unpinned engineering and experimental effects, get rid of blueprints and make engineering available in station outfitting.

And to 'fix' the confusing aspect of engineers and ship building, just offer pre-built ships. Doh!

 

[metatheurgist]

It's just the equivalent of making credit fountains. Now they won't have people complaining every week like we used to get with the "I can't buy a conda" threads. We all know the game improved immensely and the player base grew steadily after that.

 

[fus roh potato]

OP...

This game would have been perfectly fine with a disciplined progression system: As your ship gets bigger, it gets more firepower and/or more cargo space at the cost of maneuverability. Along side that, you get permits and liscenses. The bigger you are, the more potential you have to do bigger things. The better you do them, the more complex and difficult things you get access to. It's fitting for a sandbox.

One major factor of game theory has been missing from FD's design philosophy and it's the progression of the self. Your experience, practice, planning, craftsmanship, crew, tenacity, and intensity, are all factors that determine the strongest sense of progression. This has been proven with the divergent path that was required to make AX combat interesting and engaging. You were limited to 4 guns, required special equipment, had to do things a certain ways, couldn't engineer any of it, and for many on the lower end of skill -- bring friends.

I thought it was bad enough that modules themselves had a vertical ABCDE pattern. This was the first area things could have split off horizontally. Engineers multiplying on top of that in the same way for every extra upgrade we got just cranked the numbers so high that 95% of the game's mechanics and nuances were rendered pointless. A number of people thought it was fun and great for pvp but all the youtube videos and streaming died off pretty fast. Most of what existed to greater quantity than the PvP competitions was flat out seal clubbing of people who couldn't combat log fast enough. Early Horizons was a killer for most and drove off tons of new players.

Engineers always had a chance though. There were plenty of ways they could have kept things balanced and disciplied by ensuring upgrades were not upgrades, but instead modifications that made certain play styles more optimized at the cost of others. What the game really needed from the beginning was better combat and conflict scenarios. Sensors needed a major expansion (7k range lol no), flight model needed some improvements (silly speed and moment of inertia rules), the complexity of combat zones needed significant enhancements (not just a random furball in space), ground settlements needed to be a lot closer together (for conflict scenarios), wing missions needed to be missions that actually require a wing (like multi-stage hack limpet or diversion, not just kill 10x more things sharable), but instead we got exponentially growing numbers that didn't result in any form of fun gameplay at all.

 

[CMDR 1936]

You have these magic space gurus, the only dudes in the galaxy who know the hidden secrets of how to get the most out of your modules and weapons... except somehow the entirety of the Federal and Imperial Navies having access to these secret tinkering techniques as well. Not to mention, these modifications are so common that even some dinky little pirates have them! And out of nations of trillions, apparently only a few dozen know how to pop the hood of your ASP Explorer and fiddle with the engine. They must get a ton of business if literally millions of pilots are popping by on the daily, and it's totally immersion breaking in that regard.

The fact that so many activities near demand vast amounts of engineering is mindnumbing to say the least, to even fly safely in open if you aren't rocking G5 meta builds on a dedicated combat ship you're a little fish to anyone with even the slightest bit of engineering on their space-boat. The amount of time just to get one ship up to par, mining iron (Iron of all things, one of the most common metals in the known universe and we can't buy it but we can buy literal tons of gold off the market?) just to trickle up your stats little by little is monotonous. As a person with limited time to play, it just makes me want to go play something else instead of slogging through another job just to be able to do the things I enjoy without being at a disadvantage.

Playing a game shouldn't feel like a chore, having billions of credits and not being able to spend it on the simplest things like iron to give to your magic space guru is dumb, there's no way FDev can spin it where I won't think that it has been a terrible addition to the game.

I can't be the only one who feels this way?

I've seen where they are looking at making engineering "more accessible" but the fact remains is that I believe it's a poor mechanic to begin with. I don't think there's a single way it can be spun to where it makes the slightest bit of sense.

I just don't see why material trading has to exist at all. If you squint a bit you might be able to make a slight case for raw materials (though lol at the idea of having to fly to the middle of bum nowhere on a planet to farm carbon), but everything else...

You're telling me that there's entire industries around building ship parts, software companies writing code for ship systems (that can magically be transferred to a USB drive by just scanning something) and yet you can't just go into any station and just buy them? How the do these parts enter the market in the first place? What sort of rubbish proprietary contracts and space-DRM prevents me from walking into a Core Dynamics station with my billions of credits and just securing a contract with them to supply my magical spaceshipmancer with all the materials they need to make my FSD suck less? If I need a specific material why are the only options farming them myself or trading them like Pokémon cards?

If engineers need these materials, why don't they arrange a contract with the manufacturer and just bill us for the cost? Material traders would only work in practice if they're sitting on an unlimited amount of materials, so why are they trading a small amount of their unlimited stash of G5 mats to add to their unlimited pile of G1 mats and not trading something universally useful like, oh I dunno, credits? How the did they get all that polonium anyway without being classed a security risk?

Nothing about the mat grind makes any sense and that's why it's so frustrating. The only purpose it serves is preventing CMDRs with fast stacks of credits engineering their way to the max without any difficulty, but really it just makes engineering unnecessarily tedious for everyone. It's rubbish, it doesn't make any sense both in-universe and out, and it's also a major reason why people don't stick with the game and just needs to go.

It is not. Almost every game has some sort of crafting and it is a basic activity in absolutely every open-world game like Elite.

 

[metatheurgist]

It is not. Almost every game has some sort of crafting and it is a basic activity in absolutely every open-world game like Elite.

Most of those games have dragons and fairies and it makes sense for those worlds. Arcane weirdoes doing strange things to give you a "magic" bonus from collecting unicorn farts and pixie toe-jam.

When you lazily copy that system without thinking about your world and lore and just replace "mystical" stuff with "sciencey" stuff like elements, data and parts - you get people asking perfectly sane questions like "why can't I copy data?", "Why can't I just buy a conductor?". You know why you can't just go down to the market and buy some Pegasus poop in those worlds they cut and paste the idea from, those are not capitalist economies and getting some of that stuff is hazardous. There aren't factories just pumping that crap out in those worlds.

When you have no imagination except to badly copy an idea you clearly don't understand, you get a tragically bad crafting system. There are games that have done it right for a sci-fi setting. This is not one of them.

 

[heathenlamb]

It is not. Almost every game has some sort of crafting and it is a basic activity in absolutely every open-world game like Elite.

Except in other games it's actually enjoyable and/or rewarding, not mention structured in a way that actually makes sense. In ED it is an utterly laborious and frustrating activity that make absolutely zero sense in the context of the game.

 

[Cmdr Alphonso Dementia]

Does anyone else think the concept of engineers is terrible?​

Yeah, it sucks, but it's a lot better now.

Plus, we're stuck with it, so...

 

[Shurimal]

Tinkering with weapons and trying out different engineering is one of my favourite activity. Could it be better? Sure, there is a lot of redundant blueprints and lack of useful blueprints for certain modules like AFMU-s and fuel scoops; personal weapon and spacesuit mods shouldn't be unremovable; there are some balance issues mainly in PvP but also NPC-s could use more teeth to their ships. But the system as a whole is pretty neat, and some of the main grievances I had, namely lack of different materials as mission rewards and RNG rolls when applying the blueprints have been now dealt with. So yeah, the concept of engineering is awesome, even if the actual system can be a bit lopsided at times.

divergent path that was required to make AX combat interesting and engaging. You were limited to 4 guns, required special equipment, had to do things a certain ways, couldn't engineer any of it, and for many on the lower end of skill -- bring friends.

Well, lack of tinkering and variety of feasible weapons/ship builds is one of the reasons why AX combat has never been my favourite part of the game. It has become way better since the war, though. At least we can now choose between Gauss, modshards and (to an extent) eAXMC-s/ Azimuth AXMC-s and Titanbombing is a whole different ballgame altogether.