FD, I implore you, do not bulldoze over our existing gear and upgrades

[Adept]

I am not the only one that fears that the rather vague hints about "new weapons" may either mean more powerful guns, shields etc. than the current ones, higher grade engineer mods than the current ones, or just a special variant of either that specifically works against Thargoids, but is no more powerful against other human ships (or any combination thereof).

I implore you, FD, please do not go down this path. Do not bulldoze over our current gear, invalidating it all with an dreaded MMO style item reset.

There is a way to achieve your goals without invalidating our current gear: new item slots.

While many an MMO likes to add new equipment that replaces existing gear, another common approach is to introduce all new item types that go into all new item slots!

This has many advantages:

• Existing gear keeps its value, the effort we have put into it is not devalued.
• The new gear does not compete with existing gear, but adds on top of it.
• New players do not bypass all the old content and equipment, but face a broader set of things to achieve.
• It is much easier to keep up the game balance when the old items keep their role intact instead of having to rebalance everything from scratch with new, more powerful gear.
• Opening up the new slots can be part of (if not the most significant part) of the effort to acquire the new gear.
• New types of items would naturally lend themselves to new, different types of effects that may not come in the form of damage.
• It might be a good idea to implement these not as slots on the ship, but slots on existing items, like gem sockets in various RPGs.

I have compiled a few examples what these new items may be, all in the form of add-ons that are equipped into new slots on existing modules:

• EMP Jammer. The Thargoids have the ability to completely shut down human ships. With this add-on to the power plant, you can withstand their EMP and keep your reactor going, and thus your ship alive. This could either be a passive effect or something you have to activate in the right moment.
• Bioship Scanner. Thargoids have biological ships that function totally differently from ours. With this add-on to your sensors, we can identify modules and weak spots in the Thargoid ships to attack. (Thargoid ships could even be game-designed so that only those weak spots can be attacked to damage them!)
• FSD Hypermodulator. While we are not able to utilize the advanced hyperspace technology of the Thargoids, with this add-on to the wake scanner it is possible to fly through a Thargoids hyperspace portal intact.
• Hyperdiction Countermeasure. A hyperdiction is not instantaneous, and this add-on to the FSD detects it as soon as it starts, and allows you to counter the effect in a manner similar to supercruise interdiction escapes.
• Meta-Alloys Nanites. Some Thargoid weapons deploy effects similar to how the Unknown Artifacts damage ships and starports. These nanites made out of Meta-Alloys can repair the internal damage caused by these weapons. This is an add-on to the regular AFM unit.
• Quantum Shield Modulator. Thargoids weapons are actually not much more powerful than human weapons in terms of energy, but utilize new quantum effects only recently discovered through research into Thargoid incidents. This add-on to the shield generator utilizes the same effect to protect against Thargoid weapons, preventing them from simply bypassing our shields.

Some of these items may be easier to achieve because they are very fundamental of mounting any form of resistance (i.e. the EMP Jammer - you can't even think of defending or fleeing if your ship is just shut off) and would thus be easier to acquire, while other gear is more advanced and takes a greater effort (of whatever the new grind may be) to get.

P.S.: Once we have add-on slots on the equipment, it might be a good idea to revisit engineer experimental effects; these could be available also in the form of add-on to put into these slots on your guns, thus allowing you to add the effect to an existing weapon, swap out different add-ons (they would function like modules that you can swap, store, transfer etc. in this regard) etc.

Good stuff, Mephane. Supported.

While they are at it, measures should be taken to at the very least strip out the gear generated by using exploits. The existence of secondary god-rolls should be seriously toned down, maybe just so that they can only bring equipment to the normal theoretical maximum.

 

[m0rl0ck]

Do not bulldoze over our current gear

This is a great chance to bulldoze over the current system i agree and an opportunity that FD should not miss.
This circumstance is a great chance to take pvp back from the engineers grindwall and introduce a new class of superior grade weapons and defensive modules available exclusively for credits.

This is a chance to make the game more fun and ditch the RNGineers. A chance for FD to actually make skill a factor in the game, rather than luck and a chance to rid the game of the gambling onus of the engineers.

Go for it !!!

 

[StiTch]

See all that stuff you wrote, in particular the parts about the 'kind of people'? It's only a problem if you're the 'kind of person' who can't get to sleep knowing that someone got a 2% better roll on their drive than you ever managed.

To be so dismissive of the situation you clearly don't actually have an understanding of what's going on, or its impacts.

If you enjoy the current mod system then good on you. But Elite is a multiplayer game at heart, whether you like that or not, and while "get insurmountable power advantages if you have one in several thousand luck on your side" is acceptable in a single player game (though it'd still be galling), it's not acceptable for a multiplayer game.

As it happens "2% better" is a ludicrous notion. Read up on what's been discussed. It's a little more than that.

I'd personally be happy for engineers to be properly ironed out, but FD have shown little intention of doing so thus far. I'm not after "ruining progress" by any stretch of the imagination; in fact I'm fighting for people to be able to make progress constructively, instead of being told to spend hours farming mats and hoping the leprechauns are praying for you that day.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Word.

I think (always did) the proper solution would be no more RNG. Each mod comes with its fixed set of stats and that's it. In turn, the cost of an individual mod could rise (let's say by a factor of 10) because you don't have to repeatedly apply it in hope for a better roll.

as a player who believes their ship should not be getting destroyed as a matter of course and as such should mean something.... one way would be to make the ENG items unique... just as they are in the lore.

no need to make them more expensive then. just make them replaced by standard modules on destruction. i cant imagine this is a v popular view however so not even suggesting FD should do this... its just a thought.

to soften the blow we could even salvage them from our carcases but with only an X% chance of getting them back as they may be ruined....

it would mean those who want to do organised PvP however would probably only be wanting to use their "weaker" rolled gear.

I imagine this suggestion would hit the PvPers quite hard..... tho

 

[Schmack]

You are the type of player who constantly wants some new gear to work for. That's not a criticism, that's fine. Plenty of games indeed are tailored to that preference.

Elite Dangerous came along as one of the rare games where such is not the case. You could play how you like, earn credits, buy whatever gear you want, and eventually reach a finite gear ceiling together with everyone else, then only skill mattered.

More than once did I commend FD for precisely this.

Enter 2.1 and we have the same old "grind and RNG and grind and RNG for gear with bigger numbers" treadmill that 10000 other games already cater to.

I understood the OP to say "please don't wipe the engineering mods" but you're actually saying you don't want to have to start over with your game every few months. I agree with that. When there's never a point where you can have your reward, which in this case is a ship or 5 that you've outfitted for specific endeavors, for more than a few weeks before you have to start over, you eventually walk away from it because the very best you could achieve is to get back to where you already were.

 

[Punished Mobius]

obviously we only speak for ourselves. i do not know how much time you have put into the eng dance, and you have no idea how much time i have.... but just because i do not like pvp does not mean i have not put a lot of time in.

for instance some pvpers (not saying you) have mode swapped, mission stacked, crack trained yada yada yada to an inch of its life and as such may well have done 10x more roles at the wheel of RNG than I.

but as someone who has tried NOT to do any of the above, it is quite possible i have done more ENG than you may think, if all you were to do was to look at my number of rolls.

I STILL would take being put back to stock if it is the only way to get rid of the cheated rolls / get rid of god rolls in general... and i dont even pvp

that said, we are all entitled to our view, none are wrong (apart from those who claim cheating is fine in a multplayer game which i do not think you are one)

Not to say PVE players don't put the time in. But for them they are bound to be more satisfied with an average roll than going for the Min Max like many pvp players feel compelled to aim for to be able to compete.

And as for the cheated modules I think people are over blowing it. The number of exploiters are miniscule compared to the number of legit players. And to wipe everyone or something like that basically just means the terrorists win. Yes they should punish cheaters. No one else should be caught in the crossfire.

 

[mono]

I'm currently 45KLy from Sol as the crow flies and won't be rushing back to the bubble any time soon, so any reset engineered components (not carrying any weapons) is bad news for my game. I'm sure I'm not the only explorer who would be similarly affected.

 

[Mephane]

I understood the OP to say "please don't wipe the engineering mods" but you're actually saying you don't want to have to start over with your game every few months. I agree with that. When there's never a point where you can have your reward, which in this case is a ship or 5 that you've outfitted for specific endeavors, for more than a few weeks before you have to start over, you eventually walk away from it because the very best you could achieve is to get back to where you already were.

I mean both. I don't want some of my progress wiped (or superseded) again and again, and I don't want to have to repeat engineering my gear. The focus for me is on the latter prospect. I have clarified the OP a bit now.

 

[masCh]

as a player who believes their ship should not be getting destroyed as a matter of course and as such should mean something.... one way would be to make the ENG items unique... just as they are in the lore.

no need to make them more expensive then. just make them replaced by standard modules on destruction. i cant imagine this is a v popular view however so not even suggesting FD should do this... its just a thought.

to soften the blow we could even salvage them from our carcases but with only an X% chance of getting them back as they may be ruined....

it would mean those who want to do organised PvP however would probably only be wanting to use their "weaker" rolled gear.

I imagine this suggestion would hit the PvPers quite hard..... tho

I too have proposed this as one of the best solutions to promote PVP. Once your destroyed, a mission pops up with a timer to go to a USS and retrieve your gear. This way most PVPers won't be using engineered modules, but standard modules. This would lessen griefing for no reason.

 

[m0rl0ck]

And as for the cheated modules I think people are over blowing it. The number of exploiters are miniscule compared to the number of legit players. And to wipe everyone or something like that basically just means the terrorists win. Yes they should punish cheaters. No one else should be caught in the crossfire.

Are you kidding? Every engineers mod is a cheat to the degree that it gives an uneven advantage. The engineers IS cheating. That its FD santioned cheating to draw in the suckers does not make it less so.
The engineers rewards luck and dumb persistence over skill and if you are out there winning with engineers mods, you are a loser.

 

[Surprised Brony]

I mean both. I don't want some of my progress wiped (or superseded) again and again, and I don't want to have to repeat engineering my gear. The focus for me is on the latter prospect. I have clarified the OP a bit now.

Now this is a viewpoint I think many share. If engineers cost 10x more but the effect was always the same, it wouldn't be so bad. I'd even save some mats that way. Hell, I'd support 20x more if RNG was eliminated entirely.

 

[Punished Mobius]

Are you kidding? Every engineers mod is a cheat to the degree that it gives an uneven advantage. The engineers IS cheating. That its FD santioned cheating to draw in the suckers does not make it less so.
The engineers rewards luck and dumb persistence over skill and if you are out there winning with engineers mods, you are a loser.

Ahahahahahahahahahaha oh hohohoho. So I guess every pvper is a cheater for ever engineering? That's some good stuff there. Get off my forums with this nonsense.

 

[m0rl0ck]

Get off my forums with this nonsense.

Afaik you are not a mod, so i will get off the forums when you start doing pvp sans engineers.

 

[Adept]

Now this is a viewpoint I think many share. If engineers cost 10x more but the effect was always the same, it wouldn't be so bad. I'd even save some mats that way. Hell, I'd support 20x more if RNG was eliminated entirely.

Yup. Just bring back the weapon variants and grades from late Beta / Gamma, and scrap the RNG. It's ok if you need to rep-grind the engineers to have access to grade A modded weapons, for example.

 

[Punished Mobius]

Afaik you are not a mod, so i will get off the forums when you start doing pvp sans engineers.

I don't need to be a mod. It's my world. You just live in it.

But that still doesn't change the fact that was possibly the stupidest comment I have ever seen.

Correction. The stupidest comment I have ever seen. So far.

 

[Red Anders]

To be so dismissive of the situation you clearly don't actually have an understanding of what's going on, or its impacts.

If you enjoy the current mod system then good on you. But Elite is a multiplayer game at heart, whether you like that or not, and while "get insurmountable power advantages if you have one in several thousand luck on your side" is acceptable in a single player game (though it'd still be galling), it's not acceptable for a multiplayer game.

As it happens "2% better" is a ludicrous notion. Read up on what's been discussed. It's a little more than that.

I'd personally be happy for engineers to be properly ironed out, but FD have shown little intention of doing so thus far. I'm not after "ruining progress" by any stretch of the imagination; in fact I'm fighting for people to be able to make progress constructively, instead of being told to spend hours farming mats and hoping the leprechauns are praying for you that day.

First thing I'll say is that were it not for the fact you have some credit in the bank with me as a result of me remembering you aren't a complete clown from previous forum posts, I'd have stopped reading after your first line. Don't burn it all up in one go by doing that again mate.

I am actually fully aware of the kind of differences we're talking about. The fact that I don't go chasing full God ships myself doesn't mean that I'm not aware of what's possible.

Within the specific context of my comment though, the 2% was actually about the differences that people who are motivated to try to get a god roll to begin with might get, i.e. if you have two people who are so desperate to try to get the best possible gear that they are both spamming 200+ rolls on say grade 5 dirty drives, the likely difference between their outcomes will be small in that one might get the absolute maximum that the game engine can possibly deliver, whilst the other one may get very slightly below it with his best shot. Clearly you're going to see far greater differences between someone who takes his first roll for everything and someone who is rolling up 150 DD grade 5s every day to try to max it out.

The point is that players who are that anally retentive about it are in fact in a subset. Even amongst players who pay in open and enjoy combat they are in a subset. I know this because min/maxers are in a subset in every game population ever in the history of gaming.

 

[Han_Zen]

Ahahahahahahahahahaha oh hohohoho. So I guess every pvper is a cheater for ever engineering? That's some good stuff there. Get off my forums with this nonsense.

PvE in an engineered ship, does feel like cheating to me. In PvP I guess it just made a mess.

I still think engineers just emphasized a problem with the outfitting model that existed well before them.

 

[Ian Phillips]

Get off my forums with this nonsense.

Hi Punished Mobius.

Your forums? Really?

I guess I'd better just go and inform DBOBE about this.

 

[wrmiller]

Eliminate the engineers and zero out all of the mods on the current modules. Go to a simple grade E to A rating for modules and require unlocking new engineers to gain access to them. Have mission types targeted for specific engineers and module grades.

This way when two players square up in fully A-rated ships, the only differences will be those inherent to the particular ships, and the players skills. Have fun.

EDIT: Forgot weps. Zero those out as well, and follow the procedure above to unlock the new engineers and their weps. And NO special effects on the weps.

May the best CMDR win...

 

[RamirezKurita]

The engineers rewards luck and dumb persistence over skill and if you are out there winning with engineers mods, you are a loser.

Not entirely, they reward planning, strategy and scheming rather than simply testing twitch reflexes in the heat of the moment.

There's even a very applicable quote from Sun Tzu (if you haven't read the Art of War, I'd strongly recommend it) regarding this point: "Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win."