Engineer weapon crafting needs to be rethought (if what we suspect is true)

[Ekar]

Having just watched the video, the main thing that turns me off is the presentation. The UI goes out of its way to show you the random nature of the operation, with even a spinning wheel of fortune which you can cheer along to... it's turned interaction with the engineers into a gambling game. You don't get the impression that this guy is tinkering away, bashing pipes with his wrench or whatever he'd be doing to overcharge a module. It's bringing the 'game' aspect of this interaction up front, in the same way that PowerPlay was presented as 'Galactic Risk', and community goals came off as a fantasy kickstarter type game.

This stuff frustrates me, because it's just another thing to get in the way of your suspension of disbelief. Travelling lightyears to meet an enigmatic character in his unique secret base, where he produces exotic one-off upgrades- sounds really cool...

Then they stick a wheel of fortune on top

 

[Han Brannigan]

agreed the wof is unfortunate....

 

[Zeta Legion]

Having just watched the video, the main thing that turns me off is the presentation. The UI goes out of its way to show you the random nature of the operation, with even a spinning wheel of fortune which you can cheer along to... it's turned interaction with the engineers into a gambling game. You don't get the impression that this guy is tinkering away, bashing pipes with his wrench or whatever he'd be doing to overcharge a module. It's bringing the 'game' aspect of this interaction up front, in the same way that PowerPlay was presented as 'Galactic Risk', and community goals came off as a fantasy kickstarter type game.

This stuff frustrates me, because it's just another thing to get in the way of your suspension of disbelief. Travelling lightyears to meet an enigmatic character in his unique secret base, where he produces exotic one-off upgrades- sounds really cool...

Then they stick a wheel of fortune on top

It reminds me of the stupid slot machine mechanics in Destiny more than anything.

 

[Spookyy]

Maybe we get DLC boosters for the wheel? =)

 

[babelfisch]

Having just watched the video, the main thing that turns me off is the presentation. The UI goes out of its way to show you the random nature of the operation, with even a spinning wheel of fortune which you can cheer along to... it's turned interaction with the engineers into a gambling game. You don't get the impression that this guy is tinkering away, bashing pipes with his wrench or whatever he'd be doing to overcharge a module. It's bringing the 'game' aspect of this interaction up front, in the same way that PowerPlay was presented as 'Galactic Risk', and community goals came off as a fantasy kickstarter type game.

This stuff frustrates me, because it's just another thing to get in the way of your suspension of disbelief. Travelling lightyears to meet an enigmatic character in his unique secret base, where he produces exotic one-off upgrades- sounds really cool...

Then they stick a wheel of fortune on top

It reminds me of the stupid slot machine mechanics in Destiny more than anything.

You might want to take a look at this thread:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=246072

Also it wouldn't harm if someone could create a poll.

 

[Mephane]

Oh .. we're pretty much all interested in using "sensible builds" (at least most of the time ... my Orca, 'Red Wine and Cheese included", is quite pointless in a min/maxing context, but fun to fly. We just prefer variation and surprises. THink of it as buying a Kinder-Surprise egg. Min/Maxer go to the shop with a scale, weight the damned thing and can infer from the serial number, release date and position of the moon EXACTLY what will be inside. They only buy the eggs with smurf figures in them because the rest is not "valuable". The non mix/maxer just take an egg and HOPE to get a smurf figure. Sometimes they do, soimetimes they don't .. sometimes they get something completely unexpected that is MUCH more fun than a smurf figure, even though it is probably less valuable.

The moment you write exactly what's inside on the surprise egg everybody will just buy those with smurf figures because the whole surprise thing isn't there anymore. Nobody will try to find an egg with something "unexpected" because there is no "unexpected" anymore. In short : everything gets a whole lot duller, smurf figures loses their value due to inflation and the min/maxer start to complain that they need more variety because everyone is sporting a stealth smurf with quad plasmas.

tl;dr : People are like water, they go the way of the lesser resistance and eventually nobody goes off route.

Okay, fair enough with that analogy, but let it move one step farther:

You have a few WH40K armies and now Games Workshop releases lots of new interesting and specialized units to all of the armies. Except you don't buy them as you used to, they decided to put all of them in sealed "mystery packs", which may contain betwen 1 and 3 miniatures, drawn randomly from all the armies. Oh and some of them are bented, dented, or have other fabrication faults, maybe a bit missing (you can still pretend your space marine has a bolter).

Suddenly, your beloved hobby turned into the equivalent of Trading Card Game, minus the trading, but with all the downsides.

And if that weren't enough, they don't just sell these mystery packs for any type of money. They only accept Euro-coins minted in specific countries in specific years. And different shops want different combinations of these specific coins. And not all shops have all types of miniatures in the mystery package, either.

And if you dedice to ignore this new scheme, you will face other armies all the time with these new miniatures, some of which have very useful unique effects, others have "only" improved stats.

 

[Zeta Legion]

You might want to take a look at this thread:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=246072

Also it wouldn't harm if someone could create a poll.

Hiding it doesn't make it any better of a mechanic.

 

[tarragon]

There is a program "grain for rare weapon components on every station". It depends on the handout of these materials. If it is possible to gather stuff for 10 rerolls of best grade weapon in one hour, it is ok. If you have to work for it for hours to get single, then it is not so good.

 

[excalibus]

I don't give a damn beyond exposing the consequences of binomial probs + low occurances.

I dun care how low an occurance you are exposed to the consequences of bi-nomial probes... you keep them the hell way from me, I only like the regular probes... like the ones the thargoids use... m'kay....


On a more serious note, I will get whatever upgrades I deem desirable for my various ships, and at not one moment will it feel like I have had to grind for them... I find this whole grind concept a real blinkered viewpoint of playing the game personally...

Must. Get. Max. Credits. is a mantra I do not understand when it comes at the cost of enjoyment of the game...

If you are enjoying what you do then by definition it is not a grind is it...

We all like to be 'efficient' but for me when I am doing something I enjoy, effiiciency is part of that but not central to it... Enjoyment is the most important factor for me during my leisuire time, when I am working, that can feel like a 10 hour grind, but thankfully I get paid well enough and enjoy it most of the time that even feeling like that is a grind does not occur too often...

 

[ironhammer500]

What they should do is more like an R&D style in weapons tech, make a prototype, then have a computer copy it. I see many other say we should have to roll on stats for a blueprint in order to make a weapon, maybe make blueprints like eve online ( yes i said eve deal with it) Where you have a limited number of uses before the blueprint has gone, meaning you would need to get that weapon again via the blueprint maker, instead of making 1 weapon at a time.

I do not want to have 4 odd weapons on my ship, if i want them all to be the same then i expect to make 4 weapons with the same stats..

 

[Oaktree]

My opinion on this matter:

It will be a huge grind fest to get that build you aim for. Players who love grinding and have the time for it, will cheer the engineers, players who dont like to grind or dont have the time will just have to dismiss this engineers stuff and wait for the next update.

 

[Han Brannigan]

There is a program "grain for rare weapon components on every station". It depends on the handout of these materials. If it is possible to gather stuff for 10 rerolls of best grade weapon in one hour, it is ok. If you have to work for it for hours to get single, then it is not so good.

I think absolutely the opposite. If its to easy its just sitting there hitting the reroll button. If its hard enough you might actually have equipment with character.

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Hiding it doesn't make it any better of a mechanic.

The mechanic is not bad the depiction is. Its one thing to know its random based - its another to be visually reminded.

 

[Trueno33]

So if I have 4 large multi-cannons I want to put on a ship, let me roll them all together so they at least match. Or implement some sort of cloning function.

But it must be like this, doesn´t it? The engineer´s upgrade is good for that weapon in every hardpoint, simply. Or did I not understand the op?

 

[Ekar]

Hiding it doesn't make it any better of a mechanic.

The ideal could be...

There's a random USS event where someone is fighting off pirates and you have the choice of helping out or not. If successful, the word could get back to the engineer (these guys are friends) about how you helped out this guy.

Then when you finally met up with the engineer one day he could say to you 'oh, by the way, I have a good friend who tells me you helped him out a while back... consider this a way of saying thanks'.

Better reasoning, better logic, better narrative. More interesting. Suddenly, helping people out or being a bad guy can have these interesting knock on effects where possibilities can open to you.

(I have no problem with a few percent randomness this way or that way on a module. I'm talking more about the special effect feature)

 

[Ian Skippy]

I don't give a damn beyond exposing the consequences of binomial probs + low occurances.

Well, considering most of us finished high-school I guess you need not worry about 'exposing' that.

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But it must be like this, doesn´t it? The engineer´s upgrade is good for that weapon in every hardpoint, simply. Or did I not understand the op?

You mod one weapon. You can have the engineers do it again for the other weapons, but there will be fluctuations. No weapon will be completely 100% identical.

 

[Kvas]

Okay, fair enough with that analogy, but let it move one step farther:

You have a few WH40K armies and now Games Workshop releases lots of new interesting and specialized units to all of the armies. Except you don't buy them as you used to, they decided to put all of them in sealed "mystery packs", which may contain betwen 1 and 3 miniatures, drawn randomly from all the armies. Oh and some of them are bented, dented, or have other fabrication faults, maybe a bit missing (you can still pretend your space marine has a bolter).

Suddenly, your beloved hobby turned into the equivalent of Trading Card Game, minus the trading, but with all the downsides.

And if that weren't enough, they don't just sell these mystery packs for any type of money. They only accept Euro-coins minted in specific countries in specific years. And different shops want different combinations of these specific coins. And not all shops have all types of miniatures in the mystery package, either.

And if you dedice to ignore this new scheme, you will face other armies all the time with these new miniatures, some of which have very useful unique effects, others have "only" improved stats.

Or you can play Infinity

 

[NullAndVoid]

But it must be like this, doesn´t it? The engineer´s upgrade is good for that weapon in every hardpoint, simply. Or did I not understand the op?

t
As per the video stream demo, you have to pick a specific single weapon to upgrade. You better pray to the rng gods to upgrade all 4 to a similar specification!

 

[Harmoniser]

A grind, nonetheless - just slower.

I disagree I think it gets rid of the stationary target to get the best weapon by putting lots of hours in. I can get the a great result no matter what the time. Of course there will be people who will keeping going back until they have the best stats, but its not guaranteed. I think for the majority of players we will roll the dice a few times and stick with what they got. This will also mean that no ship is the same, and we can all feel a bit more unique.

I think a second hand market for ships would be a neat addition alongside this. In this scenario the ship will come with the new mods and a fixed name and perhaps skin, which would sell at certain stations. This ship would then go on-sale to the rest of the community. This could also be dealt with by a new class of AI, the second-hand ship sales person.

 

[Dweezil_Moon]

The way it seems this RNG system will work out is similar to the way weapons and armours are gained in Bornderland, except that players will not get new ones every 10 seconds nor will they have to find a better one all the time. I have many misgievings about Borderland but I thought the randomized gear was very effective in building some kind of bounds between me and my weapons ("damn ... I need to switch to a higher level gun ... but I really liked that Slagged Skatergun")

 

[Urbanski101]

The OP has a point and this also occurred to me.

One ship could end up with all sorts of weird and wonderful or not so wonderful effects from rolling for the same upgrade a number of times.

If I want to modify my 3 large pulse lasers for my Python to give them a little more range (an example) it seems strange to have each one with different, power draws, fire rates, jitter etc...

I think a batch option or clone option would make sense....but maybe FD want to avoid that.