Engineers Does anyone get enjoyment from the current system?

[Arkadi]

I like the Guardian grind better then the Engineer grind. Also Guardian unlocks are unlocks. Unlock them once and be done. Doing the tired same old engineering for every new ship again and again is more then frustrating for me.

But new engineers are a bit better then old engineers.

I enjoyed the unlocking of the engineers themselves though. I liked that I had to play actual game content to unlock them, you know, travel, mine, trade, combat. This stuff.

 

[Chaparral]

Most MMOs use a persistent resource node model with a refresh timer. It's still grindy, but it's predictable. Since surfaces are generated procedurally, it makes sense that raw material nodes could also be generated similarly (but with a reasonably high frequency).

I don't mind the base run / mission mechanics for CIF and MEF (but I would like to see a guaranteed minimum for base runs), or some sort of Board mechanic where CIF and MEF data beacon locations can be purchased.

I would like a better manufactured mat pinata release rate, or a flat out piracy mechanic treating these as microcommodities.

The USS / HGSS mechanic is absolutely painful gameplay and a flat out lazy approach to the problem.

 

[Arkadi]

When I think about it, it's not so much the material gathering that annoys me, but that traveling all around the bubble to visit all the different engineers to get the special effects done. Pinning blueprints and having workshops at every stations definitely was one of the best things ever done to the engineering system. But there needs still a lot of flying back and forth to get a ship engineered to the desired point.

It's the traveling not the gathering that is annoying for me.

 

[Trollymctrollerson]

I kind of got a trip from the randomness of the old RNGineers. Collecting crap has always been boring. Was then, still is. At least in the old system it fed the gambling cortex. It was kind of fun to watch the slot machine thing followed by the wheel of fortune. Now, it just feels like drop coins into a parking meter. The outcome is usually slightly better but so is everyone elses too.

 

[Krash]

When I think about it, it's not so much the material gathering that annoys me, but that traveling all around the bubble to visit all the different engineers to get the special effects done. Pinning blueprints and having workshops at every stations definitely was one of the best things ever done to the engineering system. But there needs still a lot of flying back and forth to get a ship engineered to the desired point.

It's the traveling not the gathering that is annoying for me.

I use a jumpconda to ferry modules around the bubble for engineering. So it's not that bad, usually no more than 2 jumps.

 

[idahosurge]

My answer to the OP.

No I do not. The only reason I Engineering anything when this came out was because I was already Combat Elite so when trading and running any missions I only got interdicted by Engineered Deadly and Elite NPC's. I had to Engineer the shields on all my ships just to be able to survive long enough to jump away. I had to Engineer the weapons on my Vulture just to be able to take down the Engineered NPC's of that time.

I think this whole process is stupid and a waste of time. I also think that for whatever reason the only design process that Frontier knows is add more grind because close to all new content they add really just adds more grind.

 

[ebbrell]

I don't think it that bad, since they added the material traders. Was harder before I've don't over 1200 g5 rolls. I can live with it

 

[bullfrog]

Besides the Red Queen mechanics with engineering Frontier use obstruction mechanics all the time, where if you are given a target they suddenly create an obstruction to achieving it ex nihilo, which is another class of Red Queen mechanic.

The current system is clumsy and I judge it unethical, probably because it simply has not been given enough attention and refinement because trhey are too busy making dinosaurs and rollercoasters, which is why they wont fix the blasted godawful galaxy and system maps for 6 g years.

An example of an ethical impasse which should not exist, you cannot get G5 Detailed Surface Scanner engineering without doing wrong, either trading landmines (arms dealing via Liz Ryder for Hera Tani), getting combat bonds (violent means for Juri Ishmaak) or trading in black market goods (via The Dweller for Lei Cheung). There ought to be an ethical way, especially considering anyone wanting a detailed surface scanner is an explorer and they ought to be earning the G5 DSS opportunity via exploration related activity, instead Frontier are dictating they must undertake unethical gameplay. Its your karma Frontier!

 

[Yaffle]

Never done any grind, I seem to accumulate materials doing the stuff I do. If I'm missing any, then I go to a broker.

 

[Ethaidan]

I agree with Frank, Dean and some of the other posts.

Engineering is far better now than it was - increased mat storage has been a game changer, mat/data traders are a nice cherry on top of that. Add pinning a blueprint /per engineer & remote engineering, experimentals from any engineer who can even do G1... It's barely comparable to the previous version. I have a small fleet (7 ships) that are all G5 engineered - not evetyone OCD to the last. 05%, but mat storage & remote engineering and they all move slowly forward. The last three have gone from purchase to A-rated G5 (occasional G4) on the date of purchase. What's not to enjoy?

As for mat/data collecting, that can be a bit meh, but as already mentioned, every game with a version of player crafting/upgrading has a parallel collection system. As much as USS can be frustrating, we're not picking herbs at a known and established source that can simply be returned to whenever needed. We're scavenging in space, so it's bound to be frustratingly random at times. Could it be more interesting, sure. Like others, I don't 'go sesrching' for mats - that way lies madness! I do, however, keep an eye on mission rewards for G5s that are good for trading, I do submit and destroy all anacondas that interdict me, I do try to check most USSs to see if they're Encoded or High Grade., and if on the right planet for a scan mission I will take the scenic route in my SRV to top up. That seems to do me just fine. I'm pretty sure that by the time I can actually afford another ship, I'll be able to G5 it straight away.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

An example of an ethical impasse which should not exist,

The nature of ethical dilemmas is that doing the "wrong" thing gets you some sort of personal benefit. If it didn't it wouldn't be an ethical decision in the first place.

you cannot get G5 Detailed Surface Scanner engineering without doing wrong, either trading landmines (arms dealing via Liz Ryder for Hera Tani), getting combat bonds (violent means for Juri Ishmaak) or trading in black market goods (via The Dweller for Lei Cheung). There ought to be an ethical way, especially considering anyone wanting a detailed surface scanner is an explorer and they ought to be earning the G5 DSS opportunity via exploration related activity, instead Frontier are dictating they must undertake unethical gameplay. Its your karma Frontier!

Bill Turner also offers G5 Detailed Surface Scanner. You do need to have collected 15 bounty vouchers and hand in 100,000 credits of those to Tod McQuinn to get as far as meeting Turner - but those criteria can be met as a result of self-defence, unlike Ishmaak's bonds.

 

[bullfrog]

The nature of ethical dilemmas is that doing the "wrong" thing gets you some sort of personal benefit. If it didn't it wouldn't be an ethical decision in the first place.


Bill Turner also offers G5 Detailed Surface Scanner. You do need to have collected 15 bounty vouchers and hand in 100,000 credits of those to Tod McQuinn to get as far as meeting Turner - but those criteria can be met as a result of self-defence, unlike Ishmaak's bonds.

Ah! I must admit he was so far down the page on INARA I missed Bill Turner. But my point still stands, a pacifist cant use that route, a purist explorer who relies on speed to run away from trouble has no way in to the G5 DSS, you have to be a pugilist or an arms trader.

The nature of ethical dilemmas is to consider consequences, especially the long term harms of short term gains, what your description fails to adequately describe is the harm landmines do. IMHO meeting an ethical challenge is about minimising harms and if necessary making sacrifices and finding other ways to meet objectives. What Frontier have done is define the routes players can take to technology which they have made significant to the game and where none of the routes are ethical they compel the ethical player to play at a disadvantage.

Frontiers ethical dilemma is when to fix the galaxy maps, everything is painful because of them, perhaps it is more convenient for them to believe the world is dystopian.

Regarding the OP, besides the criticism of the two types of Red Queen mechanics Frontier employ, materials are very inconsistent with existing gameplay. When my CMDR is ganked and ship destroyed he loses bounties and cartographic data but not data samples and raw materials. It beggars belief and destroys self consistency of the game design.

These are the reasons playing Elite annoys me so much. Perhaps the simple answer is, I should not play it.

 

[Manticore]

I don't get enjoyment from it, but it doesn't diminish my enjoyment form the other aspects of the game.

Well said.

 

[Skip Rockbounder]

Ah! I must admit he was so far down the page on INARA I missed Bill Turner. But my point still stands, a pacifist cant use that route, a purist explorer who relies on speed to run away from trouble has no way in to the G5 DSS, you have to be a pugilist or an arms trader.

The nature of ethical dilemmas is to consider consequences, especially the long term harms of short term gains, what your description fails to adequately describe is the harm landmines do. IMHO meeting an ethical challenge is about minimising harms and if necessary making sacrifices and finding other ways to meet objectives. What Frontier have done is define the routes players can take to technology which they have made significant to the game and where none of the routes are ethical they compel the ethical player to play at a disadvantage.

Frontiers ethical dilemma is when to fix the galaxy maps, everything is painful because of them, perhaps it is more convenient for them to believe the world is dystopian.

Regarding the OP, besides the criticism of the two types of Red Queen mechanics Frontier employ, materials are very inconsistent with existing gameplay. When my CMDR is ganked and ship destroyed he loses bounties and cartographic data but not data samples and raw materials. It beggars belief and destroys self consistency of the game design.

These are the reasons playing Elite annoys me so much. Perhaps the simple answer is, I should not play it.

Yeah, always makes me laugh when I think of the pilot of an exploding ship frantically stuffing his pockets full of rocks while not bothering to grab the datastick with 3 months of Exploration data on it.

It could be because the 'non explorers' use far more of these things for buffing up all of their guns on each ship and would cry if they lost them in the battles they wish so much.... oh the grind!

 

[bullfrog]

Yeah, always makes me laugh when I think of the pilot of an exploding ship frantically stuffing his pockets full of rocks while not bothering to grab the datastick with 3 months of Exploration data on it.

It could be because the 'non explorers' use far more of these things for buffing up all of their guns on each ship and would cry if they lost them in the battles they wish so much.... oh the grind!

Well I think you are on the right track but imho its not necessarily an explorer / pugilist duality for Frontier, but is PC / console. They added this mechanic after they decided to go for console and presumably saw some kind of shiney profit projection for console sales if they could make the game "popular" so they have tried to make it easy to play on a casual basis and introduced CQC to appeal to "console players" and I think the same belief system was responsible for the way they handled materials so inconsistently with the rest of the game.

In the end we are all just human beings and console players are PC players using a different box, the main difference between platforms is controller and so the real key to cross platform success is the UI and this has been sorely neglected, certainly for PC, to prioritise short termist gimics, when the UI should be top of the agenda for all platforms.

 

[Wasp0]

HUGE improvement OP.

IMHO you have 3 choices.

Do It.
Don't do it.
Play another game, until FD make it exactly how you want it to be....(Can i haz your stuff?).

 

[Skip Rockbounder]

Well I think you are on the right track but imho its not necessarily an explorer / pugilist duality for Frontier, but is PC / console. They added this mechanic after they decided to go for console and presumably saw some kind of shiney profit projection for console sales if they could make the game "popular" so they have tried to make it easy to play on a casual basis and introduced CQC to appeal to "console players" and I think the same belief system was responsible for the way they handled materials so inconsistently with the rest of the game.

In the end we are all just human beings and console players are PC players using a different box, the main difference between platforms is controller and so the real key to cross platform success is the UI and this has been sorely neglected, certainly for PC, to prioritise short termist gimics, when the UI should be top of the agenda for all platforms.

You could very well be right about Console users being more casual players (plug&play) and though I play on the PC and would rather not play if I only had a console option, I feel that the console market has helped to move the game forward with the income generated from that side... I'm happy we have the cross platform because of that, I do still seethe a little that I can't use the mouse/keyboard as fluidly as I would in other PC games though.

 

[Eminor]

Been doing some materials gathering over the past week or so.
I came to the conclusion that SRV prospecting was OK (apart from the nausea !); materials traders are a good improvement; going to specific sites (crashed cobra/anaconda/geysers) and base-running was also fine. But the HGE mechanism is NOT good. Basically I won't be doing any more USS-spotting until the next update. Hopefully that will improve the HGE mechanic.
Also prefer the new Engineer upgrade method (compared to 2.x).

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Ah! I must admit he was so far down the page on INARA I missed Bill Turner. But my point still stands, a pacifist cant use that route, a purist explorer who relies on speed to run away from trouble has no way in to the G5 DSS, you have to be a pugilist or an arms trader.

The nature of the setting gives a lot of disadvantages to pure pacifists - in the previous three games, you basically couldn't be one at all without restricting yourself to endlessly flying back and forth around a few systems.

You can use 5 black markets without necessarily trading in unethical goods - since the local government defines which goods are illegal, some systems outlaw goods which would ordinarily be uncontroversial. "Stolen" goods are also traded there regardless of what they are - for example, you could get a friend to drop 5 tonnes of water for you without abandoning them. Sell one at each black market, and you've met the requirement. Or smuggle 5 tonnes of consumer goods or beer to people suffering under a hard-line theocracy. Or drop Thargoid Sensors off at the black markets of 5 anarchy stations to shut down their slave markets.

The nature of ethical dilemmas is to consider consequences, especially the long term harms of short term gains, what your description fails to adequately describe is the harm landmines do. IMHO meeting an ethical challenge is about minimising harms and if necessary making sacrifices and finding other ways to meet objectives.

That doesn't mean that there has to be a way to meet that objective. You can get G3 detailed surface scanner by other routes - the "sacrifice" for being ethical is that you don't get G5.

 

[bullfrog]

The nature of the setting gives a lot of disadvantages to pure pacifists - in the previous three games, you basically couldn't be one at all without restricting yourself to endlessly flying back and forth around a few systems.

You can use 5 black markets without necessarily trading in unethical goods - since the local government defines which goods are illegal, some systems outlaw goods which would ordinarily be uncontroversial. "Stolen" goods are also traded there regardless of what they are - for example, you could get a friend to drop 5 tonnes of water for you without abandoning them. Sell one at each black market, and you've met the requirement. Or smuggle 5 tonnes of consumer goods or beer to people suffering under a hard-line theocracy. Or drop Thargoid Sensors off at the black markets of 5 anarchy stations to shut down their slave markets.


That doesn't mean that there has to be a way to meet that objective. You can get G3 detailed surface scanner by other routes - the "sacrifice" for being ethical is that you don't get G5.

Some good suggestions for devious means but the fact one would have to do such things demonstrates a dystopian bias, one cannot advance by wholesome means such as persuing a trade and staying legal which is due to the second type of Red Queen mechanic, as Frontier try to add an obstacle to any reward and they use criminality to do this too often for enough of the engineers in strategic positions on the engineering network that it precludes making an honest living. What kind of example is that to set young spacefarers?

The nature of Red Queen mechanics is they arise when the reward arises, they dont emerge as a result of a consistent state of the universe, effectively the game cheats to try to upset people.