As a fairly new player I have some questions. I have played for a little while and have managed to aquire a decently upgraded Python and I enjoy Bounty Hunting mostly. Sometimes I just explore and try different things but mostly I stick to Bounty Hunting. Now I do have some questions regarding engineering in particular. I would like to know the reasoning behind the material requirements for the upgrades. Clearly ED offers many different play styles like exploring, bounty hunting, mining, running cargo/passengers and piracy. But the material requirements for the upgrades seem to disregard this fact completely. Why do I as a law abiding bounty hunter have to find a material for engineering that only drops from destroyed cargo ships that are never wanted for example? Why do I suddenly have to become a pirate? Like Jerry Seinfeld said:"...but I don't wanna be a pirate!", Some material requirements require me to completely reconfigure my ship to a mining vessel and engage in an activity I don't have an interest in since many materials cant be bought. And same goes for other material requirements whereby the player has to reconfigure their ships, install modules, change playstyle, invest time, money and effort into things they don't like doing or even undermines some aspects of what they have been doing and enjoy doing. It would be like a looooong quest-chain in WoW that is entirely based on stealth, poisons and backstabbing being presented to a Paladin or Mage...Or having to solve an interesting puzzle about late 17th century dutch farming techniques in order to unlock higher weapon upgrades in Call Of Duty. Doesn't make much sense to me. How about adjusting the engineering material requirements so that players withing a certain "profession" can acquire materials through their normal gameplay activities or let them buy them at an inflated price directly from the engineer. As it stands I wasted too much time already just getting a few upgrades and I can clearly see how I would end up frustrated and hating the game if I continued trying to engineer my ship further so I will have to disregard engineering as a feature completely as it stands now, which is a shame because the upgrades would certainly help me in my Bounty Hunting. Now I'm off to some yellow "community goal" dot in my galaxy map, why? I have no idea, nothing is explained, what am i looking for? A ship? the gondola thing? Where is it? Can't see it. There's another mega ship there, should I scan it? Ram it? Analyse it? Get data from it? How? Why? Then what? Nothing is explained in this game, only thing always present besides 10 web-browser tabs about ED is just a building sensation of frustration... Maybe they sell hot dogs in the nearby space-station and I can eat one of those instead and find a decent High Extraction Site for some Bounty Hunting action and just leave it at that. Sorry to sound negative, ED is a great game it just sometimes punishes me and treats me like dirt at the same time as it says I love you.
Engineering GameMechanic Question
- Thread starter TK-303
- Start date
I think that material "gathering" has been designed in a way to lure people away from their usual playstyle and give them a reason to explore other in-game activities. I think it's not that bad actually, at least the main concept. But I do agree that it can result in frustration if players are forced to do something they really dislike, especially since it's not really "gathering" but grinding.
Not sure if you have missed this, but at times some missions will offer materials as rewards - so some of those can be acquired that way; and since missions are available for different playstyles, there should be material rewards for everyone, no matter what missions they pick (at least in theory).
Some of the farming grounds also introduce players to in-game mechanics that they haven't explored yet. If you never have bothered with wake scanning, gathering certain materials will give you that experience. If you never landed on a planet before and have used the SRV to collect (or shoot at) stuff, there are crash sites on some planets that offer that experience, etc.
I think if the material grind was less grindy, the frustration might be minimal for some players. Personally, I try to be efficient at games so I try to figure out the best ways to achieve a particular goal. For engineering materials, it is doing a number of different things for a limited amount of time each session, then engage in the content that I enjoy the most for the rest of the session.
A positive aspect of the current system is that it allows me to gather materials in different places by doing different things, so it's not really forcing me to do the same thing over and over - ofc, that's also a legit approach and many do this since it's the most efficient for almost all materials, it's just not for me (I'm talking about re-logging).
But I do agree, the way the game sometimes forces you to abandon what you love and engage in content that isn't for you, as well as the tedious grind in general, sure can result in a negative experience, especially if one can't shake that perspective; the more you get upset about something, the more it will bother you. You are basically feeding yourself with negative emotions until you hate something.
Ofc, the game also offers cross-trading with NPCs - which I'm using quite frequently because I can't be bothered to gather everything myself. So if you are not aware of that, make sure to check that out. It's not really a great trade deal, but it's a good way to avoid more grinding if you just want a break from it. Plus, in some cases it's actually not too bad, since you will trade materials you hardly ever need for something that you are in constant need of; it's even more efficient if non-relevant materials are abundant.
As for actual changes: I'm really not sure what the devs could do to improve the current system without making it worse overall. Sounds impossible, but I promise you it isn't.
Providing more materials as mission rewards and/or make it possible to gather all materials while focusing on a single type of content only sounds not too bad - but how will it impact the long-term experience of a player if they are never pushed into a different direction to try something else? Maybe this won't impact your Elite experience, but it might be different for others.
If any changes are made, I'd love to see some sort of logic implemented as well, meaning if I'm looking for something specific, I want to rely on some sort of consistency. Also, it should make sense for these "material sources" to drop those specific materials. A tourist ship shouldn't drop military components, etc.
Not sure if you have missed this, but at times some missions will offer materials as rewards - so some of those can be acquired that way; and since missions are available for different playstyles, there should be material rewards for everyone, no matter what missions they pick (at least in theory).
Some of the farming grounds also introduce players to in-game mechanics that they haven't explored yet. If you never have bothered with wake scanning, gathering certain materials will give you that experience. If you never landed on a planet before and have used the SRV to collect (or shoot at) stuff, there are crash sites on some planets that offer that experience, etc.
I think if the material grind was less grindy, the frustration might be minimal for some players. Personally, I try to be efficient at games so I try to figure out the best ways to achieve a particular goal. For engineering materials, it is doing a number of different things for a limited amount of time each session, then engage in the content that I enjoy the most for the rest of the session.
A positive aspect of the current system is that it allows me to gather materials in different places by doing different things, so it's not really forcing me to do the same thing over and over - ofc, that's also a legit approach and many do this since it's the most efficient for almost all materials, it's just not for me (I'm talking about re-logging).
But I do agree, the way the game sometimes forces you to abandon what you love and engage in content that isn't for you, as well as the tedious grind in general, sure can result in a negative experience, especially if one can't shake that perspective; the more you get upset about something, the more it will bother you. You are basically feeding yourself with negative emotions until you hate something.
Ofc, the game also offers cross-trading with NPCs - which I'm using quite frequently because I can't be bothered to gather everything myself. So if you are not aware of that, make sure to check that out. It's not really a great trade deal, but it's a good way to avoid more grinding if you just want a break from it. Plus, in some cases it's actually not too bad, since you will trade materials you hardly ever need for something that you are in constant need of; it's even more efficient if non-relevant materials are abundant.
As for actual changes: I'm really not sure what the devs could do to improve the current system without making it worse overall. Sounds impossible, but I promise you it isn't.
Providing more materials as mission rewards and/or make it possible to gather all materials while focusing on a single type of content only sounds not too bad - but how will it impact the long-term experience of a player if they are never pushed into a different direction to try something else? Maybe this won't impact your Elite experience, but it might be different for others.
If any changes are made, I'd love to see some sort of logic implemented as well, meaning if I'm looking for something specific, I want to rely on some sort of consistency. Also, it should make sense for these "material sources" to drop those specific materials. A tourist ship shouldn't drop military components, etc.
I've never pirated or attacked any 'innocent' NPCs for materials.
Don't need to.
Never been mining to get materials either.
Edit: Apologies, after rereading OP, I can see this is not about 'questions' after all.
Don't need to.
Never been mining to get materials either.
Edit: Apologies, after rereading OP, I can see this is not about 'questions' after all.
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The idea was to introduce new parts of the game to people who were repeatedly doing the same thing over and over again.
Which seemed to be a LOT of people.
The problem is, they went way too far.
They could have introduced these game elements through the initial unlocks of the engineers, (bonus for making the unlocks make sense considering what upgrades the engineer does)
But they did that, and THEN on top, made getting the materials themselves, have mostly one single method to gain them.
Shame really.
Which seemed to be a LOT of people.
The problem is, they went way too far.
They could have introduced these game elements through the initial unlocks of the engineers, (bonus for making the unlocks make sense considering what upgrades the engineer does)
But they did that, and THEN on top, made getting the materials themselves, have mostly one single method to gain them.
Shame really.
I think the the one thing missing is some ability to trade materials types between dealers. For me natural material taders should accept data and synthetic materials, possibly restricted to Grade 1 (which you can then trade up with the trader) and vice versa.
I think most people can find Grade 1 materials pretty easily no matter what they do. An SRV and a few geological sites will give you a sheload of naturals, stop and scoop if you're pew-pewing and you can fill up Grade 1 pretty quick. Data is fairly slow to gather still though, unless someone else has a trick they use.
I think most people can find Grade 1 materials pretty easily no matter what they do. An SRV and a few geological sites will give you a sheload of naturals, stop and scoop if you're pew-pewing and you can fill up Grade 1 pretty quick. Data is fairly slow to gather still though, unless someone else has a trick they use.
Good idea!
I can't think of a single material which fits that description - I have near full material reserves on G1-G4 and have never destroyed a clean ship for its materials.
The "Cargo" ones can generally also be obtained from
- high-rank pirate Anacondas
- salvage (signal sources, rarely from surface sites)
- material traders
Which materials are you looking for?
Data is hard to rush (a couple of special sites aside) but easier than the other types to pick up "along the way", I think - scanning ships in supercruise, wake scanning as a habit on the way out of a station, and taking surface scan missions once in a while will fill up most data buckets without really trying, and there are very few blueprints which need more than one type of data anyway, compared with the amount of manufactured materials engineering gets through.
I wonder - how many materials will be needed for the synthesis of fuel for aircraft carriers, which are announced by the developers? How many materials and what kind of materials will be needed to make fuel for one jump in 500 light years? Where is the amount of material to store? And how long will it take to find and extract these materials in order to gain fuel for a single jump? Questions, questions…
Their previous statements are that the carrier fuel will be a purchasable or minable commodity (like Gallite is now, for example), rather than a material.
I would guess from that: relatively quick to refuel in the bubble by hauling the commodity, probably pretty slow to move in deep space by mining. Seems a reasonable compromise.