While Engineers were improved in 3.0, the actual logic behind them bothers me to this day, and I really wish Frontier had implemented an entirely different system.
Engineers feel like a copy-n-paste of the crafting system in games like ESO. In that game, you "farm" materials - plants for clothes, animals for leather armor, and metal for weapons and heavy armor. It's logical, and it's kinda fun for those of us who like picking flowers out in the beautiful countryside. However, one can get high-quality weapons and armor without ever touching a crafting table. I also believe (it's been a long time since I've played), that one can buy and sell these materials. I enjoy crafting in ESO.
In ED, you are not crafting, you are gathering common materials from illogical places to give to an Engineer. Need iron or zinc? Go smash some rocks. This makes a bit more sense in medieval ESO, not so much in a galaxy where rare palladium is sold on the open market. Need electronic parts? Blow up some spaceships. A clothier killing a wolf for leather makes sense, but even in 2018, I don't go blowing up cars to get capacitors, I order them from Digikey or Mouser. And if I, a mere hobbyist, have an account with Digikey, surely the Engineer would as well. Oh, and don't get me started on the massless, weightless qualities of these materials.
Thing is, I do like the actual process of customizing my weapons and armor, which is the purpose of the Engineers. So what is my alternative? Arms Dealers.
Here's how it would work - you would "unlock" arms dealers similar to how we currently unlock Engineers. Instead of "engineering" the weapons you currently own, they would sell customized weapons. The higher the grade of weapon, the more you pay. And simplify things - 5 grades, each at their max (none of this RNG percentage crap). Speaking of simple, this simplifies the game considerably, because we're using the "universal solvent" - money. It just makes sense.
We interrupt this rant for the following message - CREDITS ARE NOT EVIL!
Now I'm not suggesting that we remove farming from the game. You could still pick up parts from destroyed ships and metals from planets and asteroids. There are two things I would change: 1) make materials have weight and take up space, thus requiring a cargo bay to gather, and 2) make materials just another commodity that can be bought and sold. This way a person who enjoys farming can still do so with a benefit, but it's not forced on us. And on this note,
We end this rant with the following message - CREDITS ARE NOT EVIL!
Credits allow me to play the game my way. I can deliver passengers to earn those credits, I can explore to earn those credits, I can bounty hunt to earn those credits. And credits just make sense - if I want a 50cal rifle with infrared scope, I'm not going to take a pickaxe to the rocks in the backyard and blow up a car to strip it of electronics. No, I'll pay top dollar to a arms dealer. Now if I chose to earn that money by stripping cars of their parts, well, that actually happens in the real world (legally: junkyards, illegally: car thieves).
[/rant]
Engineers feel like a copy-n-paste of the crafting system in games like ESO. In that game, you "farm" materials - plants for clothes, animals for leather armor, and metal for weapons and heavy armor. It's logical, and it's kinda fun for those of us who like picking flowers out in the beautiful countryside. However, one can get high-quality weapons and armor without ever touching a crafting table. I also believe (it's been a long time since I've played), that one can buy and sell these materials. I enjoy crafting in ESO.
In ED, you are not crafting, you are gathering common materials from illogical places to give to an Engineer. Need iron or zinc? Go smash some rocks. This makes a bit more sense in medieval ESO, not so much in a galaxy where rare palladium is sold on the open market. Need electronic parts? Blow up some spaceships. A clothier killing a wolf for leather makes sense, but even in 2018, I don't go blowing up cars to get capacitors, I order them from Digikey or Mouser. And if I, a mere hobbyist, have an account with Digikey, surely the Engineer would as well. Oh, and don't get me started on the massless, weightless qualities of these materials.
Thing is, I do like the actual process of customizing my weapons and armor, which is the purpose of the Engineers. So what is my alternative? Arms Dealers.
Here's how it would work - you would "unlock" arms dealers similar to how we currently unlock Engineers. Instead of "engineering" the weapons you currently own, they would sell customized weapons. The higher the grade of weapon, the more you pay. And simplify things - 5 grades, each at their max (none of this RNG percentage crap). Speaking of simple, this simplifies the game considerably, because we're using the "universal solvent" - money. It just makes sense.
We interrupt this rant for the following message - CREDITS ARE NOT EVIL!
Now I'm not suggesting that we remove farming from the game. You could still pick up parts from destroyed ships and metals from planets and asteroids. There are two things I would change: 1) make materials have weight and take up space, thus requiring a cargo bay to gather, and 2) make materials just another commodity that can be bought and sold. This way a person who enjoys farming can still do so with a benefit, but it's not forced on us. And on this note,
We end this rant with the following message - CREDITS ARE NOT EVIL!
Credits allow me to play the game my way. I can deliver passengers to earn those credits, I can explore to earn those credits, I can bounty hunt to earn those credits. And credits just make sense - if I want a 50cal rifle with infrared scope, I'm not going to take a pickaxe to the rocks in the backyard and blow up a car to strip it of electronics. No, I'll pay top dollar to a arms dealer. Now if I chose to earn that money by stripping cars of their parts, well, that actually happens in the real world (legally: junkyards, illegally: car thieves).
[/rant]
Last edited:
