Is this about the F.S.D.? Increasing the jump?
Or the weapon effect - long range?
In Engineering 1.0, the overlap between grades mods was considerable, regardless of the type of modification you were doing. Thus, it was quite possible for a G5 overcharged PowerPlant, for example, to be a downgrade from a G3 one. A lot of players considered that a flaw. I considered that a
feature. When the common forum advice was to ignore any lesser materials, I was eagerly vacuuming them up, and then heading to an engineer when my bags of holding were full.
This is because G3 materials were much more common than G5 ones back in the day. The effort it took to visit enough HGEs to find a single G5 material, could be used to acquire dozens of G3 materials, which meant dozens of G3 rolls to acquire a “god tier“ G3 or experimental effect, which was just as good, or better than, most G5 rolls.
Engineering 2.0 changed all that, guaranteeing that any G4 roll would be better than a G3 roll, and a G5 roll better than a G4, which worsened the existing power creep. But G3 engineering still requires the
least amount of effort compared to G5 engineering. A G5 material can be traded down to provide nine G3 materials. A G3 mod provided about 90% of the benefits of a completed G5 mod, 60% of the disadvantages, and cost, on average, about 1% of the materials.
This math holds relatively true under today’s Engineering 3.0. Materials may be easy to acquire to the point of ridiculousness, but data and raw materials still require effort to acquire. Between the lowering of the cost of completing G5 mods, and increasing the cost of completing a G3 mod, it now costs only one fifteenth if the materials to gain the same benefits, but that is still fifteen G3 modules acquired for the same effort of a single G5 module.
Which is why I recommend G3 engineering for those who don’t want to “grind” to engineer their ships. Low effort, high reward, and can be done with only a few engineers.