Yeah but those small variations will not affect the effectivness of the weapon by much if done by a experienced smith. Like you buy gun today. Manufacturing tolerances will not have big impact on the performance
Engineer weapon crafting needs to be rethought (if what we suspect is true)
- Thread starter DrBo42
- Start date
Yeah but those small variations will not affect the effectivness of the weapon by much if done by a experienced smith. Like you buy gun today. Manufacturing tolerances will not have big impact on the performance
These are not shipwrights; they aren't white-coat dudes and dames out the back of Lakon's design bureau, defining the size of self-sealing stem bolt they will use to affix plate aj7-56-8 to bracket aj8-56-9.
Engineers don't just wear glasses and flannel and laugh a bit weird maybe with a bit of a nasal snort. But you could be forgiven for assuming that, based on all the commentary.
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These are not shipwrights; they aren't white-coat dudes and dames out the back of Lakon's design bureau, defining the size of self-sealing stem bolt they will use to affix plate aj7-56-8 to bracket aj8-56-9.
Engineers don't just wear glasses and flannel and laugh a bit weird maybe with a bit of a nasal snort. But you could be forgiven for assuming that, based on all the commentary.
I did edit the post a bit.
What name would you give the "engineers" FD is going to introduce?
Mad Max named them "Black-Hands".
The variation for a lot of stats seemed to be very minor, so it's really about min/maxing only a few percentage at best.. in most cases (from what I can remember).
I really hope people would stop saying "if you don't like it don't use it" though.
These RNG processes are a valid concern and can make or break an entire game and the OP has some very valid point that needs to be considered (if not done already).
Maybe we just don't have enough details to come to the right conclusion, good thing beta will start soon
I really hope people would stop saying "if you don't like it don't use it" though.
These RNG processes are a valid concern and can make or break an entire game and the OP has some very valid point that needs to be considered (if not done already).
Maybe we just don't have enough details to come to the right conclusion, good thing beta will start soon
Duane Dibbley
Banned
4 different class 2 h/ps on your FDL? Those who suffer from OCD will never get out of the engineer's base - they'll still be there when 2.4 drops..trying to get the RNGs to match! hehehe
Primary Group, Secondary Group, and Tertiary Group fire controls, perhaps will be added.
Hmm I look at it this way, the "engineers" and master craftsmen crafting samurai steel swords in Japan during the medieval period followed processes and crafting techniques often thought of as "magical", one man's technology is another man's magic.
From The Mysterious Art Of Crafting Samurai Swords Published by Peter Van Buren June 1, 2015 12:43 pm
Hmm I look at it this way, the "engineers" and master craftsmen crafting samurai steel swords in Japan during the medieval period followed processes and crafting techniques often thought of as "magical", one man's technology is another man's magic.
From The Mysterious Art Of Crafting Samurai Swords Published by Peter Van Buren June 1, 2015 12:43 pm
found here:http://xpatnation.com/the-mysterious-art-of-crafting-samurai-swords/#.W39W11e9A
Actually, I am expecting the opposite. FDL can now carry a combination of weapons to basically become the perfection of obnoxious. Rail gun to punish SCB use. Torpedo or launcher to cause FSD issues. Huge multi-canon to just shred everything.
Why have 4 identical weapons, when you can have 4 different solutions that basically make you a space swiss army knife.
For those saying wait and see how it works, we saw how it works last night.
Every stat is randomised within certain bounds, as well as the spin the wheel special effect.
It's a horrible, horrible mechanic giving us the illusion of content as well as being as blatant a Skinner box as I've seen.
I get the 'there will be some variation line' but if you look at what's randomised these aren't small tolerance variation, they are huge in engineering terms.
There are loads of better ways to add variation. E.g let the player set the sliders themselves, as you boost somethings, others go down. The higher your ranking, the more you are allowed to fiddle.
Every stat is randomised within certain bounds, as well as the spin the wheel special effect.
It's a horrible, horrible mechanic giving us the illusion of content as well as being as blatant a Skinner box as I've seen.
I get the 'there will be some variation line' but if you look at what's randomised these aren't small tolerance variation, they are huge in engineering terms.
There are loads of better ways to add variation. E.g let the player set the sliders themselves, as you boost somethings, others go down. The higher your ranking, the more you are allowed to fiddle.
Going to lend some support to the OP.
To all those that think each and every "stat" being random is a good thing then allow me to draw your attention to Diablo 3 - it had the same idea.
TL/DR
- Diablo 3 had up to 8 stats per item, all subject to RNG from a pool of around 30-40 affixes. This meant to craft something useful was very, very unlikely and it wasn't a fun process.
- Took 3 iterations and a major expansion to change this to something enjoyable. You as a player can now pick 1 stat and reroll it (for a fee)
- Even today most items that drop are garbage, but it's better than it used to be.
To all those that think each and every "stat" being random is a good thing then allow me to draw your attention to Diablo 3 - it had the same idea.
Most items that dropped could have 6 primary stats from a very large pool and 2 secondary stats (again from a large pool). The chances of getting something that was actually useful was very, very low.
For example - some item slots were designated combat slots and best used with a particular set of stats as they could roll no where else. (Crit chance / Crit damage / attack speed on rings, amulets, gloves) If the RNG gods did not favour you the item irrespective of other attributes was garbage. On top of that your character had a primary stat (str / dex / int) and if the item had its primary stat as something else (so you're a barbarian and the RNG gods gave you in effect a wizard item) again it was garbage.
To give you an idea of the numbers:
You see - Blizzard thought they were being smart but instead it just frustrated players immensely - the looting system in D3 was rubbish and you had to be very, very lucky to get something good otherwise 99.9% of all drops/crafts were garbage.
Blizzard took note and introduced SmartLoot 2.0 ... that meant most of the drops were at least designed for your character. Play as a barbarian and on the whole barbarian items dropped (taking care of 1 stat to be the correct type) That means more of the loot was appropriate but still RNG meant most of it was garbage.
That was primarily why Blizzard introduced the Mystic NPC who had the ability to take an item from you, you selected a stat to reroll and for a fee would roll it through the RNG machine again. You could do this as many times as you liked but each time the cost was a little higher. This helped solve partially the problem so that a semi-perfect crafted item with 1 wrong stat could be rerolled and maybe that 1 wrong stat would come out good.
For example - some item slots were designated combat slots and best used with a particular set of stats as they could roll no where else. (Crit chance / Crit damage / attack speed on rings, amulets, gloves) If the RNG gods did not favour you the item irrespective of other attributes was garbage. On top of that your character had a primary stat (str / dex / int) and if the item had its primary stat as something else (so you're a barbarian and the RNG gods gave you in effect a wizard item) again it was garbage.
To give you an idea of the numbers:
- To get a perfect item (Trifactor stats & 2 other useful ones) you would craft it once every 142,500 attempts.
- To get an item close to perfect (Trifactor stats & Armour) you would craft it once every 210 attempts.
- To get an item reasonable (just Trifactor) you would need to craft 110 items.
You see - Blizzard thought they were being smart but instead it just frustrated players immensely - the looting system in D3 was rubbish and you had to be very, very lucky to get something good otherwise 99.9% of all drops/crafts were garbage.
Blizzard took note and introduced SmartLoot 2.0 ... that meant most of the drops were at least designed for your character. Play as a barbarian and on the whole barbarian items dropped (taking care of 1 stat to be the correct type) That means more of the loot was appropriate but still RNG meant most of it was garbage.
That was primarily why Blizzard introduced the Mystic NPC who had the ability to take an item from you, you selected a stat to reroll and for a fee would roll it through the RNG machine again. You could do this as many times as you liked but each time the cost was a little higher. This helped solve partially the problem so that a semi-perfect crafted item with 1 wrong stat could be rerolled and maybe that 1 wrong stat would come out good.
- Diablo 3 had up to 8 stats per item, all subject to RNG from a pool of around 30-40 affixes. This meant to craft something useful was very, very unlikely and it wasn't a fun process.
- Took 3 iterations and a major expansion to change this to something enjoyable. You as a player can now pick 1 stat and reroll it (for a fee)
- Even today most items that drop are garbage, but it's better than it used to be.
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No, we saw how a *pre-beta* build worked.....one which they admitted has already been changed since the video was made. It is almost certain to change, multiple times, during the course of the beta. What we still don't know, & probably won't know until the beta is released, is what elements (like rank & upgrade category) impact on the level of variability we will see. Either way, though, what you call a "horrible mechanic" is actually a mechanic that has been used very successfully in a number of different games.
Your rant just leaves me convinced that you're a Min-maxer who is upset that your ability to create the "ideal weapon", every single time, is being taken out of your hands.
I do agree with one thing the OP said, however, & that is that multiple weapons of the same type-on the same ship-should be able to be fitted with an identical upgrade. i.e. once you've had something built off of a blue-print, then every other identical weapon on your ship ought to be able to be fitted with an identical weapon (especially given that insurance can cover replacement of such modules)
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First of all, the numbers are not truly *random*, only "random" within a narrow range of possibilities. Second of all, we have no idea whether there are things that narrow the existing level of variability still further. Third of all, looking at the video again, it does seem like the modifier you get on one stat has some kind of impact on how much of a modifier you get on other stats-thus further reducing the potential for true "randomness". Last of all, it seems like only weapons have a large number of stats to vary. I suspect that most of the modules will have 2-4 at most.
It *could* have been changed, but if you read between the lines and look at the reaction of them to the chat it's pretty clear it hasn't been significantly altered.
People band the term minmaxer around like its some sort label, like cheater. I'm not a min maxer but I do like to optimise my ship for how I like to play and with this change means I'm at the whim of the computer or I collect stuff some more and try the slot machine again.. And again... And again...
Our ships and how we equip them are the equivalent of our character in other online games, so what this is is in effect a RNG roll for character stats which is widely recognised as a bad idea.
I'd be interested to know which games have implemented RNG crafting successfully as I can think of more that have failed than have succeeded. Destiny, Diablo 3, the division, Aion, fantasy star online 2 have all been heavily critised both by players and reviewers for it.
Skinner boxes are recognised in the industry as bad game design, and should only be used when there are no better ways to keep players interested. This mechanic is a Skinner box as blatant as I've seen in years
Well beta is tomorrow so I will be testing it and feeding back, but I fear it won't be much different from what we've seen so far.
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In practise we will know tomorrow.
However today there's a lot of RNG - it sounds great on paper .. it really does .. but we shall see won't we how "great" this RNG actually translates to.
They're engineers, they should make identical changes to things within tolerances, those tolerances being microns back when I did my apprenticeship in the 80s. I'd expect the same tolerances (or smaller) since we're many centuries in the future, not an RNG, but I guess that's there for gameplay/balancing.
Anyways, not even in beta yet so things can change.
Anyways, not even in beta yet so things can change.
Now the new stream has made me hopeful getting modifications won't be a matter of rerolling until you get a perfect roll for A+ gear; what we saw had clear thresholds that at best yielded 0% downside on some stats, and Sandro's comment suggested that the system is constrained so you can't expect any theoretically possible combination of stats. Maybe it'll be really that you cannot get a positive without incurring a negative on some other stat.
However that leaves me with one rather personal gripe: I want blue lasers. For now we know of one modification that makes lasers blue, we now know it exists for burst and beam lasers, so I assume it also exists for pulse. But this comes as one of those rare procs that go on top of a modification. This leaves me with several problems:
Getting all blue lasers on a ship requires lots of rerolling for each individual gun, and a rather long and annoying in-between state with mixed colors. I'd rather fly around with all orange and then in one go make all of them blue - the randomness and of course maximum material storage prevents that.
But the actual gripe is that the rare mod that makes them blue comes coupled with the regular statistic modification. I already imagine getting a particular bad roll that one would rather decline, but then it proccs the blue laser bonus...
If Sandro or Mark or someone else at FD reads this, please hear my plea:
Please allow us to choose to accept or reject the stat modifications and the special mods (e.g. blue laser with bleed-through, shield regen beam etc.) individually, and allow us to re-roll the stats without losing the special mod (and vice versa).
So you could keep the old stats but take the special mod, or take the new stats but reject the special mod, or of course accept both. And if you already had a special mod, you could try your luck again at the stats without probably forfeiting the special mod.
However that leaves me with one rather personal gripe: I want blue lasers. For now we know of one modification that makes lasers blue, we now know it exists for burst and beam lasers, so I assume it also exists for pulse. But this comes as one of those rare procs that go on top of a modification. This leaves me with several problems:
Getting all blue lasers on a ship requires lots of rerolling for each individual gun, and a rather long and annoying in-between state with mixed colors. I'd rather fly around with all orange and then in one go make all of them blue - the randomness and of course maximum material storage prevents that.
But the actual gripe is that the rare mod that makes them blue comes coupled with the regular statistic modification. I already imagine getting a particular bad roll that one would rather decline, but then it proccs the blue laser bonus...
If Sandro or Mark or someone else at FD reads this, please hear my plea:
Please allow us to choose to accept or reject the stat modifications and the special mods (e.g. blue laser with bleed-through, shield regen beam etc.) individually, and allow us to re-roll the stats without losing the special mod (and vice versa).
So you could keep the old stats but take the special mod, or take the new stats but reject the special mod, or of course accept both. And if you already had a special mod, you could try your luck again at the stats without probably forfeiting the special mod.
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Frontier have already admitted that engineers are as much 'tinkerers' (and partly crazy) as anything else. These aren't all men in white coats with multiple doctorates in dozens of fields. Those are employed by Lakon and other ship builders.
The 'engineers' we're being introduced to, are pilots, mechanics, crazy people; who have figured out smart ways to hotwire stuff and make it more cool. If you are thinking these guys are into exacting tolerances, and get overly excited (below the belt) when someone whips out a micrometer, you haven't been paying attention.
So what they do is part science, part 'force it till you break it'. This isn't actually that unusual; cutting edge technology is often made up of a combination of highly engineered components, and some theory driven guesswork. Engineers aren't building modules from spec sheets and designed plans. They are hot-wiring and forcing and pushing all the dials to 11.
In short; the partial RNG is to represent that a lot of this is theoretical guesswork and straight up hacks. As much as I don't think RNG was a good idea, it does support that 'out there' tinkering and tweaking model they've chosen.
Besides "Disruptive Synergies Update" and "Emergent RNG in Design Update" or "Hackathon 12000 Update" don't really have the same ring, as "The Engineers Update", to be fair.
This - also OP is concentrating on weapons too much. The only problem I see is ending up with a multitude of different weapons but still only two fire buttons. I am generally more interested in other modules so that is less of a problem to me.
I like it. It is more Han Solo then Scotty but then I really used to like Star Wars ( in 1985 when I first played Elite on my C-64 ) and never liked Star Trek so.. ( but come to think about it aren't there quite a few episodes where Scotty has to use the trial and error approach to come up with an approximation of what they need - like I said never watched to much Star Trek ).
I really like it.
Yeah because crafting and outfitting menu are the only changes coming with 2.1. Why didn't they work on some overhauls for missions, USS mechanics, bookmarks, ice mining, AI updates ans NPC faces instead? You are wasting your time FDEV, I am not going to pay your bills anymore. *totally disappointed*
/sarcasm
Process variation may effect stats, but not add huge amount of explosives to shell that doesn't have any in first place. Random stats can be explained but are still bad idea. Random special effect can't be explained with process variations. As Engineers have made thousands of modules that are healing laser and they then don't know how to make one?????