Engineers...
A pretty nifty addition from the game, and they've come quite a ways since their introduction. They offer expansive customisation, powerful shipbuilding flexibility, and even turn borderline useless modules into fearsome tools. But I don't think anyone here would say the current implementation of the engineers is flawless. There's a huge gate to accessing the dream of "a fully engineered ship"--namely, the distance between workshops. And of course, the host of third party tools dedicated solely to streamlining the engineering experience should make it clear that its in-game state is not quite as smooth as it could be.
Don't get me wrong, I love delving into labyrinths of customisation and the ability to tweak builds down to the hair's breadth to achieve exactly what you want. I used to be a huge Armoured Core player, if that's any indication of my love for sprawling technical adjustment options. That said, here's my quick-and-dirty laundry list of tweaks I'd like to make to the galaxy's favourite tweakers:
Let's quickly break these items down.
Aftermarket Upgrades
This proposition is the heart of my entire suggestion. As it stands, engineering is completely and totally gated behind the engineers themselves, and their workshops. Sounds like that's how it should be, doesn't it? But there's a better way, one that more accurately reflects what aftermarket upgrades look like in real life. Expert technicians (like our Engineers) do indeed exist in real life in many fields: automobile technicians, specialty gunsmiths, computer upgrade specialists...maybe even just your friend who has a cool job and will install stuff on your favourite gadget for free.
But in real life we also have a significant, if not larger, presence of aftermarket upgrades available for purchase (and sometimes installation) as long as you have the coin. My proposal is that we shift Grades 1 and 2 of the currently available non-experimental effects to be available for purchase, with standard credits (CR), from any stations that stock them. If you want to take things a level further to Amazon Fulfillment levels of accessibility, then we can consider making these upgrades purchasable from any station at all. But what fun would that be, right? Elite wouldn't be Elite without the onerous chore flights to accompany the action. Many of us play the game explicitly for that cruising, space trucker experience anyhow.
More universal aftermarket availability would have threefold purpose: first and foremost, ease players into engineering on a gentler curve; secondly, the engineers themselves would be enhanced as characters; thirdly, we can introduce a richer corporate presence into the game's atmosphere and lore.
Let me explain.
The first effect should be obvious. There's an intimidating wall of entry to engineering. We're trying to solve that with aftermarket, CR-purchasable parts.
The second effect will come about because with the advent of CR upgrades, the Engineers will seem even more special. They're such experts that they can go beyond (heh) the realm of standard aftermarket upgrades, and even offer experimental effects! Surely, individuals worth your respect and trusted consultants, as opposed to the unforgivingly monopolistic upgrade tycoons they currently are.
The third effect would be the flipside of the second. We can begin to attach corporations and brands to the newly-minted aftermarkets, bringing a richer, more integrated atmosphere to the game world. Core Dynamics, for example, can provide a stellar brand for Hull Reinforcement Plate upgrades (looking at you, High Grade Emissions). Lakon can provide a host of weight lightening aftermarkets for its explorer consumer base, Zorgon Peterson can offer funky weapon upgrades to complement their funky ship shapes, and so on. We can even introduce new corporations, or tie in corporations that currently only have a Codex presence and do not offer anything for direct purchase (ex Mastopolos Mining can provide mining tool upgrades). A much more immersive experience, and one that allows us to even further tie together the lore's corporate histories and the items they have for sale.
Upgrade Tier Re-adjustment
With the shifting of Grades 1 and 2 into the more pedestrian market, that leaves only Grades 3 through 5 in the hands of the engineers. We might consider renaming these the new Grades 1 through 3, so that the aforementioned aftermarkets can just have name-brand monikers. The engineers that can currently only upgrade to Grade 3 will then only have the new Grade 1.
This makes sense from a lore perspective--"I could upgrade your thrusters, but I only have passing knowledge here. My specialty is frameshift drives, Commander. I could refer you to Palin, though..." Farseer says to you when you ask after the legendary Dirty Drives. This sounds more like a "I can do a Grade 1 upgrade and refer you elsewhere," rather than a, "I've got up to Grade 3 and someone else has got Grade 5."
Re-adjusting the Grade table to reflect aftermarkets would also alleviate the bottlenecking of supposedly common (Grade 1/Grade 2) materials, and allow those to be reserved for basic synthesis instead. I'm sure it's not a huge problem for players who are capped out on materials, but for those of us who have found ourselves sitting around with 3 units of Phosphorous left after too many Grade 1 modifications generated... You get the idea.
Universally Browsable Blueprints
Seeing the myriad third-party tools dedicated solely to browsing the recipes of all the blueprints, I'd say this one is a no-brainer. Though pinned blueprints were a great victory, there's really not a great reason to withhold all blueprints from being accessed, say, from the Codex or the Engineers menu. I understand limiting the amount of pinned blueprints accessible from the Remote Workshop, but it really just feels spiteful to not let us view all recipes from anywhere in the galaxy.
Really, this is just tidying up. The aftermarkets are the main thing, and the re-tiering just a small necessity after that. This is just a quality of life change, and one likely requested many times already.
Wrapping Up
So if you didn't want to read all that, and somehow missed the bulleted list at the top, here's the recap:
Shift Grade 1 and 2 upgrades to be purchasable for CR, re-adjust Grades 3 through 5 accordingly, and let us browse blueprints from anywhere.
Please let me know what angles you think I might've missed, and I wish you all safe (or dangerous, depending on your flavour) travels in the Big Black!
A pretty nifty addition from the game, and they've come quite a ways since their introduction. They offer expansive customisation, powerful shipbuilding flexibility, and even turn borderline useless modules into fearsome tools. But I don't think anyone here would say the current implementation of the engineers is flawless. There's a huge gate to accessing the dream of "a fully engineered ship"--namely, the distance between workshops. And of course, the host of third party tools dedicated solely to streamlining the engineering experience should make it clear that its in-game state is not quite as smooth as it could be.
Don't get me wrong, I love delving into labyrinths of customisation and the ability to tweak builds down to the hair's breadth to achieve exactly what you want. I used to be a huge Armoured Core player, if that's any indication of my love for sprawling technical adjustment options. That said, here's my quick-and-dirty laundry list of tweaks I'd like to make to the galaxy's favourite tweakers:
- Introduce aftermarket upgrades, purchasable for credits from any station that stocks them.
- Adjust module upgrade tiering to reflect the new marketplace.
- Allow all blueprints to viewable at any time from anywhere, but only one per engineer to be pinned.
Let's quickly break these items down.
Aftermarket Upgrades
This proposition is the heart of my entire suggestion. As it stands, engineering is completely and totally gated behind the engineers themselves, and their workshops. Sounds like that's how it should be, doesn't it? But there's a better way, one that more accurately reflects what aftermarket upgrades look like in real life. Expert technicians (like our Engineers) do indeed exist in real life in many fields: automobile technicians, specialty gunsmiths, computer upgrade specialists...maybe even just your friend who has a cool job and will install stuff on your favourite gadget for free.
But in real life we also have a significant, if not larger, presence of aftermarket upgrades available for purchase (and sometimes installation) as long as you have the coin. My proposal is that we shift Grades 1 and 2 of the currently available non-experimental effects to be available for purchase, with standard credits (CR), from any stations that stock them. If you want to take things a level further to Amazon Fulfillment levels of accessibility, then we can consider making these upgrades purchasable from any station at all. But what fun would that be, right? Elite wouldn't be Elite without the onerous chore flights to accompany the action. Many of us play the game explicitly for that cruising, space trucker experience anyhow.
More universal aftermarket availability would have threefold purpose: first and foremost, ease players into engineering on a gentler curve; secondly, the engineers themselves would be enhanced as characters; thirdly, we can introduce a richer corporate presence into the game's atmosphere and lore.
Let me explain.
The first effect should be obvious. There's an intimidating wall of entry to engineering. We're trying to solve that with aftermarket, CR-purchasable parts.
The second effect will come about because with the advent of CR upgrades, the Engineers will seem even more special. They're such experts that they can go beyond (heh) the realm of standard aftermarket upgrades, and even offer experimental effects! Surely, individuals worth your respect and trusted consultants, as opposed to the unforgivingly monopolistic upgrade tycoons they currently are.
The third effect would be the flipside of the second. We can begin to attach corporations and brands to the newly-minted aftermarkets, bringing a richer, more integrated atmosphere to the game world. Core Dynamics, for example, can provide a stellar brand for Hull Reinforcement Plate upgrades (looking at you, High Grade Emissions). Lakon can provide a host of weight lightening aftermarkets for its explorer consumer base, Zorgon Peterson can offer funky weapon upgrades to complement their funky ship shapes, and so on. We can even introduce new corporations, or tie in corporations that currently only have a Codex presence and do not offer anything for direct purchase (ex Mastopolos Mining can provide mining tool upgrades). A much more immersive experience, and one that allows us to even further tie together the lore's corporate histories and the items they have for sale.
Upgrade Tier Re-adjustment
With the shifting of Grades 1 and 2 into the more pedestrian market, that leaves only Grades 3 through 5 in the hands of the engineers. We might consider renaming these the new Grades 1 through 3, so that the aforementioned aftermarkets can just have name-brand monikers. The engineers that can currently only upgrade to Grade 3 will then only have the new Grade 1.
This makes sense from a lore perspective--"I could upgrade your thrusters, but I only have passing knowledge here. My specialty is frameshift drives, Commander. I could refer you to Palin, though..." Farseer says to you when you ask after the legendary Dirty Drives. This sounds more like a "I can do a Grade 1 upgrade and refer you elsewhere," rather than a, "I've got up to Grade 3 and someone else has got Grade 5."
Re-adjusting the Grade table to reflect aftermarkets would also alleviate the bottlenecking of supposedly common (Grade 1/Grade 2) materials, and allow those to be reserved for basic synthesis instead. I'm sure it's not a huge problem for players who are capped out on materials, but for those of us who have found ourselves sitting around with 3 units of Phosphorous left after too many Grade 1 modifications generated... You get the idea.
Universally Browsable Blueprints
Seeing the myriad third-party tools dedicated solely to browsing the recipes of all the blueprints, I'd say this one is a no-brainer. Though pinned blueprints were a great victory, there's really not a great reason to withhold all blueprints from being accessed, say, from the Codex or the Engineers menu. I understand limiting the amount of pinned blueprints accessible from the Remote Workshop, but it really just feels spiteful to not let us view all recipes from anywhere in the galaxy.
Really, this is just tidying up. The aftermarkets are the main thing, and the re-tiering just a small necessity after that. This is just a quality of life change, and one likely requested many times already.
Wrapping Up
So if you didn't want to read all that, and somehow missed the bulleted list at the top, here's the recap:
Shift Grade 1 and 2 upgrades to be purchasable for CR, re-adjust Grades 3 through 5 accordingly, and let us browse blueprints from anywhere.
Please let me know what angles you think I might've missed, and I wish you all safe (or dangerous, depending on your flavour) travels in the Big Black!