General Easy fix to the engineering material grind

[Ian Doncaster]

What's the point here? You have to decide what to spend materials for. It's an extra layer of complexity which is good™.

It's good if there's a bunch of high-quality choices and it's a meaningful decision. A lot of both ship and module outfitting isn't. Because it's so complex, it's also horrendously unbalanced on both the "underpowered" and "overpowered" sides, and as you pointed out above, basically impossible for Frontier to fix that because of the sheer number of interactions and components. (Hence some of the bandaid fixes applied to things like damage resistance, and then the number of "well, it just ignores that" the Thargoids have, to stop people having genuinely invincible ships...)

If you waste mats on something that is "A-rated and G5" but the mod is crappy, then cool, game works. You made a mistake.

If the mod is wrong for your build or use-case, sure, you made a mistake. If the mod is just plain bad, no, Frontier made a mistake.

Power plant engineering is - aside from it destroying any possibility of balancing builds with power consumption, as the pre-2.1 outfitting was - pretty good. Armoured, Overcharged and Low Emissions all have reasonably obvious uses, downsides worth mentioning, etc. If you fit the wrong one to your ship that's on you ... but you can probably save the module and find another use for it someday anyway.

Life support engineering (any blueprint) is basically always a complete waste of materials except in extremely niche cases. If you fit the wrong one (any of them) to your ship ... that's on you for thinking that Frontier would have added any positive-expected-utility blueprints to the game? And they cost exactly the same as the really useful Power Plant blueprints, also apply to a Core Module, and require access to the same tier of engineer to get the high-end ones.

I mean, that's partly because the Life Support module itself is so marginal in utility that if they'd built it into the ship in the original release we'd never have noticed its absence in the same way that we don't notice that Galaxy Map didn't get its own outfitting slot (as the DDF suggested it might), or shield generators and shield emitters being separate modules hasn't been missed. But there are plenty of modules where the base module is perfectly useful and the blueprints are a waste of space.

Do you want games without any possibility to make mistakes? Boring.

Well, this is more about the sort of mistake you can make.

All engineering mistakes are trivially avoidable by asking for advice first - there's no time pressure, Coriolis/EDSY let you see the "whole ship" results, there's plenty of build advice out there. I never make engineering mistakes as a result, because I know what I'm doing.

Actually flying the ship? Sure, I can make a bunch of mistakes in both how I fly second-to-second and what encounters I get into on a slightly longer timescale. Making those mistakes is itself potentially fun because now I'm in over my head and scrambling to recover the situation, or I win the fight but now I have to get back to the station in a hurry because the canopy is gone. There's also a tight feedback loop to aid learning "shouldn't have dodged into that plasma bolt, now my shields are down" rather than the extremely slow and patchy feedback you get from a bad (more commonly null) engineering choice. And no matter how much I ask anyone else for advice, I'm not going to get better at flying a ship without a lot of practice.



Again, Odyssey does this all a lot better:
- all basic weapon and suit upgrades are worthwhile. You can debate whether the step from G3 to G5 is actually worth the massive material costs compared with G1 to G3 but it does give a noticeable advantage when you do it.
- that every basic upgrade uses Manufacturing Instructions is a bit annoying ... but it also neatly encourages players to go for breadth-first rather than depth-first upgrade strategies, which are far more efficient.
- every single suit or weapon engineer mod has a reasonably discoverable use-case, and even if it's not optimal most of them will still have a considerably more obvious benefit than a lot of G5 ship mods.
- while the G5 equipment is somewhat overpowered, it's still not a total substitute for skill in the same way that ship engineering can be (AFK builds being the most extreme example; there's no such thing as an AFK suit), and if Frontier want to add even tougher on-foot scenarios they can do that without needing to throw in cheap stuff like "Dominator suits mysteriously explode within 10km of this enemy"

...and of course was put together following Frontier's years of experience with the ships model, so I don't think we should assume that "there are a whole bunch of blueprints which solely exist to waste beginners' time" was an intentional part of their ship engineering design.

 

[Darrack]

The Maelstrom/Titan exploration stuff really exposed some of those flaws - adding new even moderately difficult content that requires a tougher, maybe specialized ship will be met with backlash because "it's a grind". The issue isn't that the new content sucked or that requiring a specialized module/ship was unreasonable, it's that the process of getting those things sucks in general and people have been burnt and burnt out by engaging with engineering in the past, either because it's a grind or because they fell into one of the traps and had to grind even more and don't want to do it again.

Why is having to accomplish certain goals/gear for high level content a problem? Its the same with every game, do you think our Everquest guild just walked into the Plane Of Time when it opened?

O7

 

[Fixitman]

"Grind" is not a game issue. It's a state of mind brought about by a need for instant gratification.

There is no easy fix for that.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Why is having to accomplish certain goals/gear for high level content a problem? Its the same with every game, do you think our Everquest guild just walked into the Plane Of Time when it opened?

O7

Combat gameplay isn't high level content. Roadblocking this basic gameplay feature behind engineer grindwall is bait and switch and disrespectful to players investing time and money into the game.

 

[Greasetrap42]

If the mod is wrong for your build or use-case, sure, you made a mistake. If the mod is just plain bad, no, Frontier made a mistake.

IMO this is a philosophical question. Should a game offer bad choices. Choices that are just plain silly? Or useless. Or wasteful. A blunder for the player if chosen?

I think its fine. It adds some realism. Buyer beware and all that. Otherwise we wouldn't have an Asp Scout! ha ha! j/k.

 

[Disemboweled Ego]

I also have an easy fix for the material grind:
don't grind; pick up materials during enjoyable gameplay.

That's flat out impossible for certain types of materials and activities. Datamined Wake Exceptions and Raw Materials being the most obvious examples.

Unless you enjoy basically all the activities you'll be at the mercy of the RNG and short of certain materials. Deep space exploration doesn't really reward materials except for raw mats I guess and AX only rewards a limited set of materials too.

If you waste mats on something that is "A-rated and G5" but the mod is crappy, then cool, game works. You made a mistake. Do you want games without any possibility to make mistakes? Boring.

The issue here is that some things are a pure mistake.

For some mods it's basically impossible to put yourself in a situation where they matter no matter how hard you try - "Oh wow I'm really glad I had that shielded fuel scoop it really got me out of that sticky situation". Less absurd examples would be a systems focused power distributor or wide angle scanner.

Why is having to accomplish certain goals/gear for high level content a problem? Its the same with every game, do you think our Everquest guild just walked into the Plane Of Time when it opened?

It's only a problem if the task you're supposed to do for the unlocks sucks and overstays its welcome. The maelstrom example, which in my opinion got unfairly criticized, results from people being already poisoned on the idea of engineering and tech broker unlocks. Despite having some slightly new gameplay involved.

Good games use those things to funnel players toward fun content. Elite just doesn't really have that for gathering base engineering materials (thargoid/guardian stuff excluded).

 

[Brrokk]

That's flat out impossible for certain types of materials and activities. Datamined Wake Exceptions and Raw Materials being the most obvious examples.

Unless you enjoy basically all the activities you'll be at the mercy of the RNG and short of certain materials. Deep space exploration doesn't really reward materials except for raw mats I guess and AX only rewards a limited set of materials too.


The issue here is that some things are a pure mistake.

For some mods it's basically impossible to put yourself in a situation where they matter no matter how hard you try - "Oh wow I'm really glad I had that shielded fuel scoop it really got me out of that sticky situation". Less absurd examples would be a systems focused power distributor or wide angle scanner.


It's only a problem if the task you're supposed to do for the unlocks sucks and overstays its welcome. The maelstrom example, which in my opinion got unfairly criticized, results from people being already poisoned on the idea of engineering and tech broker unlocks. Despite having some slightly new gameplay involved.

Good games use those things to funnel players toward fun content. Elite just doesn't really have that for gathering base engineering materials (thargoid/guardian stuff excluded).

If it was flat-out impossible I'm sure I would have noticed that I'm not doing it by now.

 

[Greasetrap42]

Combat gameplay isn't high level content. Roadblocking this basic gameplay feature behind engineer grindwall is bait and switch and disrespectful to players investing time and money into the game.

1) Combat is not roadblocked by any kind of wall. Anybody can enter the most dangerous locations with whatever crappy ranks, skills, or equipment they have.

2) Acquiring better equipment through activities is normal in the various games I have played.

3) ED definitely offers lower level combat and higher level combat. Higher level combat will certainly pose a problem with cmdrs not adequately skilled and equipped. A player's progression is preparing for higher level combat.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

1) Combat is not roadblocked by any kind of wall. Anybody can enter the most dangerous locations with whatever crappy ranks, skills, or equipment they have.

2) Acquiring better equipment through activities is normal in the various games I have played.

3) ED definitely offers lower level combat and higher level combat. Higher level combat will certainly pose a problem with cmdrs not adequately skilled and equipped. A player's progression is preparing for higher level combat.

Yes it is. Your vanilla weapons become increasingly useless agains enemies the longer you play and the more you advance in rank. Just having a higher rank doesn't equal "higher level combat" - players are railroaded to a desired outcome by having to waste their time with pointless upgrades to combat mere hitpoint inflation. That's what your "high level combat" is: Bloated HP numbers and damage resistance scaled up.

 

[varonica]

That's flat out impossible for certain types of materials and activities. Datamined Wake Exceptions and Raw Materials being the most obvious examples.

I fly around the galaxy, if I see a body with crystal spikes and the right top tier material I fly down and harvest to max that material, that's called playing the game. if I look at my mats and say, well for the next week I am going to fly to only bodies with spikes and max out those high level mats, then fly back to the mat trader to trade down for lower ones, then fly back out to max the high tier ones etc until I am full, well that's grind, because your only aim is to max those mats, whereas mine get maxed as I fly around the galaxy doing other stuff. You see how that's different right? I spend most of my time exploring, every now and then go harvest some mats.

 

[Greasetrap42]

Yes it is. Your vanilla weapons become increasingly useless agains enemies the longer you play and the more you advance in rank. Just having a higher rank doesn't equal "higher level combat" - players are railroaded to a desired outcome by having to waste their time with pointless upgrades to combat mere hitpoint inflation. That's what your "high level combat" is: Bloated HP numbers and damage resistance scaled up.

You claimed content is roadblocked. You also mentioned a wall. There is no such thing. The lack of rank, skills, or equipment does not block access. But it might prevent success.

The really nice thing about ED is it allows an amazing natural cmdr to enter challenging situations with less equipment and less risk... because they have the skills. They can get better rewards quicker they rank up fast and get equipment faster and can fight elite NPCs and Thargoids. While a crappy cmdr like me can go slower and compensate my poor combat skills with vastly overpowered equipment as I trudge along. Do I need G5 weapons? No but it does make the PvE fight go alot faster. And the G5 shield generator and a pile of G5 shield boosters compensate for my terrible flying.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Why is having to accomplish certain goals/gear for high level content a problem?

Because the question is sufficiently abstracted that it could cover almost every single game in existence, and they aren't all equally well-designed.

Specifically for Elite Dangerous I think the problem is that Frontier messed up with the early complaints of engineering grind by introducing things like HGEs or the Crystal Shards which provide zero-skill high-tedium ways to get "all the materials you need", whereas more conventional game progression would have you use the G2-engineered ship to obtain the G3 materials (and therefore encourage breadth-first construction)

Ironically the Thargoid content does have a lot of that "beat challenge A to get the materials to beat challenge B to ..." sort of progression, it's just hindered by being inside the mess of the existing ED outfitting model.

IMO this is a philosophical question. Should a game offer bad choices. Choices that are just plain silly? Or useless. Or wasteful. A blunder for the player if chosen?

I think its fine. It adds some realism. Buyer beware and all that. Otherwise we wouldn't have an Asp Scout! ha ha! j/k.

I'm always reminded when people complain that ED has fewer flyable ships than FFE that the FFE manual said "don't buy this, it's terrible" about at least a quarter of them, presumably because their actual purpose was to provide easy targets for assassination missions / tough but outflyable pirates / etc.

I think for me it comes down to a combination of "how clearly telegraphed was it that this was a mistake?" and "how much do you actually lose as a result?". If there's a bunch of NPC chatter and Galnet articles warning about Lori Jameson's Patent Snake Oil long before you get to the stage of being able to engineer high-end Life Support, the joke lands a lot better.

 

[Darrack]

Guess some folks are just happy to fly around in a stock sidey and never bother to progress.
Scrub that, others are happy to just criticize the game without actually playing.

O7

 

[SteveWW57]

"That's flat out impossible for certain types of materials and activities. Datamined Wake Exceptions and Raw Materials being the most obvious examples."

We must be playing different games.

Datamined Wake Exceptions - so long as you have a scanner fitted, as you fly around wakes can be scanned, especially when leaving a station or nav beacon.

Raw Materials - Hello! Mining?

Steve

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Datamined Wake Exceptions - so long as you have a scanner fitted, as you fly around wakes can be scanned, especially when leaving a station or nav beacon.

Yes - the catch being that the only reason to fit the scanner (outside of some very niche PvP and PvE piracy cases) is to collect those materials, so it's not a material that you'll pick up "during normal gameplay" as such. And it takes a utility slot, which is one of the most "costly" ones because all the alternatives are really useful and most ships don't have many slots, which means doing that in any of the smaller ships is actively taking away from your ability to do the other things.

You can get most of the lower-grade Wake data class from mission rewards (can't remember if the G4 is or not...), and DWEs are only needed for one blueprint anyway, so it's not a big deal ... it's more that the wake scanner is a pretty useless module in general. Well, the Hunters made there be a reason to fit ECM after nine years, so maybe there's hope for a more significant use for wake scanners one day as well.

 

[Greasetrap42]

Yes - the catch being that the only reason to fit the scanner ... is to collect those materials, so it's not a material that you'll pick up "during normal gameplay" as such. And it takes a utility slot, which is one of the most "costly" ones because all the alternatives are really useful and most ships don't have many slots, which means doing that in any of the smaller ships is actively taking away from your ability to do the other things.

Scanning Data Mine Wake Exceptions is easy during normal gameplay, doing trade missions. Trade ship has power and utility slots to spare. If I need data mats I just scan all the wakes at busy stns just before I leave. Okay it is a slight diversion from getting the delivery made but no biggee it never bothered me. But I haven't done that in a very long time.

 

[marx]

I'm always reminded when people complain that ED has fewer flyable ships than FFE that the FFE manual said "don't buy this, it's terrible" about at least a quarter of them, presumably because their actual purpose was to provide easy targets for assassination missions / tough but outflyable pirates / etc.

I think it was also that Frontier might have originally planned for FE2 to have more complex NPC traffic, but had to scrap that due to hardware limitations. Hence why I think the Interplanetary Shuttle and the Lifter were made.

Well, the Hunters made there be a reason to fit ECM after nine years, so maybe there's hope for a more significant use for wake scanners one day as well.

Well, if Thargoid Wake Data got some use after, what, six years?, then there'd be a case to be made for wake scanners.
I wouldn't mind some equipment or synthesis that would prevent getting hyperdicted. It would be a nice QoL feature, but not mandatory, so you don't miss out on much if you decide not to spend mats on it.

 

[Aleks Zuno]

I am still quite surprised that the Wake Scanner has no A-X application yet! Thargoid Wakes have been present for as long as I remember, and ever since the (re-)introduction of the Orthrus there has been intermittent speculation about the probes it places and collects, and to where it carries them or flees if startled or attacked. If ever we gain a way to mimic Thargoid travel, I can imagine scanning Thargoid Wakes will be part of it.

Regarding Encoded materials, something to keep in mind as a possible alternative is that an avid bounty-hunter will amass a huge amount of it in the same way that an avid laser-miner will gain Raw materials. It comes from all of those standard identification scans, possible also around a starport, but which a bounty-hunter must perform to be fully sure the target is Wanted!

Between that and Massacre mission rewards, I stored so much Encoded and Manufactured material while doing something I enjoy that now only Raw requires a special journey!

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Scanning Data Mine Wake Exceptions is easy during normal gameplay, doing trade missions. Trade ship has power and utility slots to spare. If I need data mats I just scan all the wakes at busy stns just before I leave. Okay it is a slight diversion from getting the delivery made but no biggee it never bothered me. But I haven't done that in a very long time.

Yes - it's semantics about "normal gameplay" a bit, since there's also no reason for a trade ship to have a wake scanner fitted in the first place.

Compared with the other data materials which either show up from scanning NPC ships (in pretty much any gameplay involving NPC ships) or from the surface data missions or as mission rewards, without a highly specific equipment requirement, it does end up being a bit odd.

Equally, it's only used for one high-end blueprint of fairly marginal benefit over the G4. I've never seen an Improvised Component - another one which really doesn't show up in "normal gameplay" as for some reason it's not on the "Elite Anaconda" drop list - and that doesn't bother me either.

 

[Aleks Zuno]

I wouldn't mind some equipment or synthesis that would prevent getting hyperdicted.

A while back I had some ideas for additional Stabiliser modules which could be balanced a bit by being exclusive with other Stabilisers, including the Weapon stabilisers:

• Hyperspace conduit stabiliser; prevents the hyperspace conduit unstable event entirely.
• Interdiction tether stabiliser; makes Thargoid interdiction attempts feasible to stop via the Escape Vector.

The former would be quite welcome for evacuation, rescue and salvage vessels, and the latter would be lovely for medium attack vessels or for reaching a Titan with anything mass-locked by a Glaive. Six Shards at an Invasion or six Plasmas at a Spire are similar luxuries!