Focused Feedback - Balancing Ship Engineering & Material Gathering

[Orbificator]

Apologies if this has been said already but:

1. My main gripe is with the way we collect the materials. When I have to explain to my friends that (for example) logging in and out at a crash site is the best way to get data mats... it's pretty hard to convince them the game is worth their time and money.

2. I agree with us doing missions to receive mats as an alternative. Only stipulation is that these missions must actually be worth our time. The grind in this game is already starting to reach levels even I have trouble tolerating.


3. As for other suggestions I've seen posted here, I also strongly agree with the whole "Player Economy" side of acquiring engineering mats. Fleet carriers were an amazing step in the right direction. The tritium trade in Colonia is a cool little player-run economy as the stations are always bone dry. Those willing to grind offer it to people who are willing to pay. As of right now, tritium and rare goods needed to unlock engineers are essentially the only goods that players actually consume, and the engineer unlocks are a one-time thing. It would be absolutely amazing if this could start to be expanded to other aspects of the game, such as these engineering mats.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Engineering isn't too bad now since we got traders.

What i would like to see is things being more deterministic.

Say material X is available in a system with Y state in Z location. But you go there and spend hours looking, going to the locations stated it should be, and not finding. If you go to the place which meets the conditions it should not be that hard to find the stuff. Make things rare either through RNG or conditions - not both RNG and conditions.

 

[DemiserofD]

IMO, the biggest problem with engineering is that it's all or nothing.

I actually looked for specific stuff about twice, when I was getting started. Then I realized it was a massive waste of time and immediately just started grinding G5 mats so I could engineer on a massive scale.

Engineering is very painful getting started, and then practically effortless once you've accumulated a stockpile and know how to refill it.

This is made worse by the fact that, if you're just looking for one specific thing, a G5 mat is just about as hard to find as a G3, or even a G1 sometimes. That's just the nature of randomness.

I think something that might help bridge the gap is a similar approach to the one they took with Odyssey; allow players to acquire G3 engineering in other ways.

My personal favorite idea isn't buying them, but rather having them be a random reward for missions. If a new player just getting started stumbles randomly on a G3 engineered fixed cannon with Overcharged, that could significantly alter their course of play. And since it's random, everyone will have their own random luck, and their own unique gameplay. You'll see a lot of different weapons used in the start; maybe someone gets a G3 rapid fire burst laser turret, and they'll probably use it for 20 hours!

Engineers could, once unlocked, offer missions with G3 modules as rewards, too. That way you're not JUST going out to hunt for mats, you're also doing a mission for a specific module.

 

[Fus_Roh_Potato]

I can't wait to see the next Yamiks video about this thread. If you're asking what better ways to acquire or trade materials, then I'd have to presume you still don't understand the fundamental problem with the entire engineering concept. Odd considering this has been discussed thousands of times in here by now.

Most everything in this game, from the galaxy to the bgs, base ship stats, and weapon stats, are all based around a horizontal sandbox ideology. You can upgrade to a larger ship that carries bigger guns and armor, but is generally slower and more expensive. Before engineering, you had a small hump to get over called the Eagle, but once there, most things were generally balanced except for mining. When engineering was thrown into the mix, power became vertical and dramatically unbalanced. Engineering became a necessity for pvp. It was not about theory crafting, experimentation, or build diversity, but rather pulling a slot machine handle over and over again to upgrade your power. PvP and the general multiplayer experience was destroyed. It was a bad move. Doubling down on it for Odyssey was a fatal flaw and cannot be undone.

 

[Thaurane]

(Haven't read the comments to this point)

My feedback falls under "other": Return geological sites back to how they are on Horizons.

It is ridiculous that if you want to gather ship elements at any reasonable rate you have to load into Horizons and use its geological sites. Is Odyssey's version more accurate irl? Sure. Yes, I'm aware the larger ones still exist in Odyssey. But they are far too rare to be considered a reasonable replacement. What this new geological system actually did is take ED's worst aspects (grinding that puts WoW:BC to shame) and made them FAR worse. All Odyssey's geological system did is reinforce ED's nickname "Elite Grinder".

Right now this issue is in top #3 reasons that I am staying on Horizons even though I own Odyssey. If you remove Horizon's geological site system then I will simply quit. I enjoy ED. But not that much.

 

[Hyperion250]

Thanks fdev. Great ideas. To limit material grind, you can make it more interesting with a risk reward system.
Engineers mission is a really interesting way. I'd prefer 1 or 2 hard and long mission with a big reward over 20 times the same easy. So maybe balance mission difficulty, easy for not engineered players with an interesting little reward and hard ones for our full grade 5 combat ship with a very big reward. I mean i'd like to struggle with a g5 fdl ,cutter or corvet... against a superlord pirate or against a more powerfull war megaship ( those we see in conflict zone)
Gathering much more grade 5 mats by pirating the megaships and stations ( i don't remember the english name of those stations we can already pirate, sorry).
The idea is to balance difficulty. We don't have ennemy strong enough against our g5 ship, only thargoids.

 

[Hyperion250]

Thanks fdev. Great ideas. To limit material grind, you can make it more interesting with a risk reward system.
Engineers mission is a really interesting way. I'd prefer 1 or 2 hard and long mission with a big reward over 20 times the same easy. So maybe balance mission difficulty, easy for not engineered players with an interesting little reward and hard ones for our full grade 5 combat ship with a very big reward. I mean i'd like to struggle with a g5 fdl ,cutter or corvet... against a superlord pirate or against a more powerfull war megaship ( those we see in conflict zone)
Gathering much more grade 5 mats by pirating the megaships and stations ( i don't remember the english name of those stations we can already pirate, sorry).
The idea is to balance difficulty. We don't have ennemy strong enough against our g5 ship, only thargoid.

Edit: once we have g5 ships, everything turns into grind, cuz everything become easy.

 

[bmfazio]

Alternate Gathering Methods​

We'd like to hear your feedback on the idea of unique missions offered by Engineers themselves. These could be repeatable and offer materials specific to the upgrades offered by the Engineer who issues them. Let us know what you think of this idea and how many materials this might offer relative to gathering the materials manually.

I like this idea but I'd like to suggest a twist: these should not be of the traditional transport/combat type, but rather involve offbeat tasks that double as "achievements" while reinforcing the engineering flavor of things. Some examples below.

• For FSDs: pass through a planet's orbital cruise zone above 1c without crashing into it // drop from supercruise in a neutron star cone // get interdicted for 30 seconds without escaping or getting caught
• For lasers: deal 1000 cumulative damage hitting targets from max range // deal at least 5% damage to each of an enemy's subsystems while specifically targetting them // hit enemies for a cumulative 1 minute while above 150% heat
• For hulls: deal 1000 cumulative damage from ramming targets while shieldless // take >90% hull damage in less than 5 seconds and survive // take damage from hitting a planet, a station, another ship and an asteroid in the same life without repairing in between

The specific tasks and numbers would of course need to be tuned or be made more specific (e.g. must drop at a specific neutron star or pass near a planet with at least X size) but the idea would be to make players do some things they wouldn't normally do so as to "switch it up" and in keeping with the theme of engineers seeking to further their understanding of the technology they work with.

 

[Dane Icaza]

1) The gap between engineered and non-engineered means PvP is entirely one-sided for min-maxing gankers. A non-engineered ships has absolutely zero percent chance against an engineered one, all else being equal. The gap between non-engineered and engineered modules needs to be closed by about 25%.

2) Engineering grind, especially for Odyssey suits and weapons, is too long. A 25% reduction would help significantly.

 

[Marzyx]

To obtain them as fast as possible, materials within Grades 1 to 3 are typically traded down from Grade 4 and 5s. To make them worthwhile to gather by themselves, should their availability and the rate at which they are obtained be increased?

Similarly, Grade 5 materials can be traded down into 3 Grade 4 materials within the same category. However, Grade 4 and Grade 5 materials take similar amounts of time to gather. Should the number of materials picked up per instance be increased to account for this?

We're also aware that some materials are much harder to find than others as they are tied to rarer BGS states. Let us know which materials ought to be made more readily discoverable.

Yes, Please. Maybe making the material amount given vary within a range (3-7 for Grade 1, 3-6 for Grade 2, 3-5 for Grade 3, 3-4 for Grade 2, only 3 for Grade 5s for example) and the range also be effected by the type of collection point (a random rock jutting from the ground maybe less likely rolls for a higher amount vs a Biological Signal giving more amounts at a higher chance).

Make the BGS-related materials occur in a small radius of systems around the target state system at a reasonable rate, and appear more often on top of that in the specified system itself? If ships are going in and out of a system due to trade routes among other reasons, you'd expect components that are more often used from the system to spread a bit. This will allow them to be much more available, just faster in whichever system state.

We'd like to hear your feedback on the idea of unique missions offered by Engineers themselves. These could be repeatable and offer materials specific to the upgrades offered by the Engineer who issues them. Let us know what you think of this idea and how many materials this might offer relative to gathering the materials manually.

Yes, Engineer missions for some of the more difficult materials to get for upgrades they give (specific to the engineer), would be appreciated. Especially Data, and BGS related materials. Besides, I doubt Liz Ryder would mind a few extra explosives, nor Wellington Beck the extra Cat memes.

Another idea is to allow materials to be "bought" with items that are not obtainable at Commodities Markets. This could include things such as Exploration Data, Bounty Vouchers, Void Opals and Thargoid Hearts and would allow players to earn materials while playing within their chosen disciplines.

I like the idea in conjunction with the first; through missions as well, but not necessarily the only thing they accept. Maybe The Sarge needs some classified documents to get to an old military contact one day, or sometimes The Dweller might need someone to "disappear" once in a while too...

Another idea, for Odyssey players, is to allow the Arc Cutter on the Maverick Suit also work on Horizons materials, (i.e. cutting a fragment of a mineral off of a geyser, fumarole, or crystal), or maybe different, specialized cutter on the Artemis Suit optimized for use on geological and biological sources rather than metal. We already have the bits of materials that can be cut free from some storage racks on foot near crash sites and caches. Spread that to all materials that can be harvested by SRV (that is, shoot it then scoop it), even in Guardian Sites and for Meta-Alloys in Thargoid Sites, and allow us to pick them up on foot, aside from the Horizons data materials.
This would also give the Artemis Suit a reason to actually use those guns away from Settlements which they're rarely near anyway, to help deal with Guardian Sentinels or Thargoid Scavengers. Those racks make me just ram into the empty husk of the container repeatedly in an SRV to pick them up anyway, if the cargo scoop can even reach them. You could even incorporate the ranged amount idea of materials earlier, in that on-foot extraction would probably be more delicate, so a higher rate of high amounts, or even a flat rate of extra amounts over what you would get from staying in an SRV and just shooting it (an extra 1-2 materials gathered added on top?) perhaps. This also becomes an actual small incentive to get the expansion; faster material gathering and a more immersive way of collecting them.

Maybe also enable a small amount of Synthesis also in an Artemis suit, for a spare Power Cell or Medkit? Adding that can of worms into FPS combat for ammo or damage would make balancing that even harder, and worse than it already is if it mirrors ship synthesis options too much, but extended survivability for exploration seems to be what that suit is going for anyway.

And let us carry more materials in all 3 suits on top of that. Filling up the ship inventories of 1000 going 30 by 30 when you already have to individually hunt down the components is very tedious as it is. When its 10 by 10 for Data, it's ridiculous.

Some time ago, Engineering was changed so that some improvement was guaranteed with each roll. However, the amount by which your progress towards the next module grade is still random. This means sometimes the same number of materials will produce a minimal increase. Should this be changed so that the same number of materials are always required to reach the next tier? This would allow Commanders to know exactly how many materials are needed.

Yes, Please. A clear, set amount would be great. It's especially annoying when you need another 2-3 rolls to finish the last 5% of an upgrade tier on top of that (Heatsinks...). Knowing how much is needed for each tier, and a not- entirely percentage based approach to the amounts would help a lot. The amounts of dropped materials may need to change also in balance with the amounts of required materials if that changes.

Also Guardian and Thargoid (maybe black market) Material Traders would be amazing. It's not like Thargoids or Guardians are poorly kept secrets anymore, especially with the NMLA using Thargoid-derived explosives, and between Ram Tah, Aegis, and Salvation, clearly people have heard of the Guardians in relation to the Thargoids. And we have little to no use of many Guardian or Thargoid Materials as it is.

 

[MrHatMan]

Let materials be buyable with credits and tradable by commanders.

To expand. Let credits be the base units of the game. Everything else can be traded or converted back and forth.
That way you can do your choice of activity, vouchers, or bounty or exploration, all of those are converted into credits.

Why do I have to do some silly side-conversion from exploration to materials? Just let me convert exploration to credits, then credits to materials.

 

[Jikesaijo]

I agree that some grind is necessary and makes difference between player and hardcore player but would it be possible to
1) link the grind to pilot ranking (federation / empire). Higher ranking gives more opportunities
2) link the grind to multiple steps mission like space (find information for ground location) / fight at ground location to take either material or object for material trader
3) trade with player via fleet carrier (from UI or via on foot new service)
4) allow multiple pinned upgrade for different experimental effects
5) reverse engineered module at engineer base and get back a fraction of the material (at least 50%... )
6) getting more material as mission reward: getting 5 pieces of a grade 5 ok ... getting 5 pieces of a grade 1... hmm not ok. Make it 20 or above

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Greetings Commanders
Material Gathering

Availability and Time Required​

To obtain them as fast as possible, materials within Grades 1 to 3 are typically traded down from Grade 4 and 5s. To make them worthwhile to gather by themselves, should their availability and the rate at which they are obtained be increased?

I think grade 1-3 materials need to be made easier to get. The lower the grade, the more common they should be. But I needs to be balanced so that getting higher grade materials is still worthwhile instead of just collecting lower grade and traded up.

Similarly, Grade 5 materials can be traded down into 3 Grade 4 materials within the same category. However, Grade 4 and Grade 5 materials take similar amounts of time to gather. Should the number of materials picked up per instance be increased to account for this?

We're also aware that some materials are much harder to find than others as they are tied to rarer BGS states. Let us know which materials ought to be made more readily discoverable.

Yeah, I don't think that materials should be tied to BGS states.

Any estimates regarding how long it took to earn a given Engineered module by gathering materials will also be helpful in addressing this aspect of balancing.

That I can't give unfortunately as I don't play to engineer, I just engineer when I have some materials.

Alternate Gathering Methods​

We appreciate that the repetitive nature of material gathering may not be for everyone. Some have called for ways to earn materials while engaging in the specific types of content they already enjoy.

Yup, there needs to be at least two ways of getting certain materials, for raw materials that could be surface prospecting and pirating cargo ships that contain raw commodities.

We'd like to hear your feedback on the idea of unique missions offered by Engineers themselves. These could be repeatable and offer materials specific to the upgrades offered by the Engineer who issues them. Let us know what you think of this idea and how many materials this might offer relative to gathering the materials manually.

Not interested in never ending repeatable missions from an engineer, but I would like to see some milestone missions from an engineer that would reward you a selection of materials for your upgrades.

Another idea is to allow materials to be "bought" with items that are not obtainable at Commodities Markets. This could include things such as Exploration Data, Bounty Vouchers, Void Opals and Thargoid Hearts and would allow players to earn materials while playing within their chosen disciplines.

Not against the idea.

Rolling for Engineering Improvements​

Some time ago, Engineering was changed so that some improvement was guaranteed with each roll. However, the amount by which your progress towards the next module grade is still random. This means sometimes the same number of materials will produce a minimal increase. Should this be changed so that the same number of materials are always required to reach the next tier? This would allow Commanders to know exactly how many materials are needed.

This would be more inline with the personal weapons system. Personally I don't mind the semi random part, but I would also be happy with fixed values.

Other Feedback and Suggestions​

Feel free to respond with other ship Engineering balancing feedback and suggestions that go beyond the ideas mentioned above. To keep the conversation on-topic and help us collect the feedback, this thread will be closely moderated. Please only reply with responses to the topics mentioned and keep feedback constructive. Unrelated or unhelpful posts may be removed during clean-up. If you find this has happened to your post, consider raising your points in another thread within the Dangerous Discussion section.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

O7

I'm not sure if this is technically on or off topic, this is to do with the opening of engineers. I would much prefer a proper mission system to open up an engineer instead of getting a load of cigars or dynamite.

Thanks for these focus feedbacks, they are great.

 

[Nickolai]

We'd like to hear your feedback on the idea of unique missions offered by Engineers themselves. These could be repeatable and offer materials specific to the upgrades offered by the Engineer who issues them. Let us know what you think of this idea and how many materials this might offer relative to gathering the materials manually.

YES! Missions that award each tier of materials for a given upgrade would be great. For example, Felicity Farseer could offer an exploration related mission for each grade of the FSD upgrade. They could get progressively more difficult for the higher grades. Being able to complete a sequence of missions to upgrade an FSD would be great. But also keep in mind they shouldn't be so repetitive as to feel like you are doing the same thing for each module.

Some time ago, Engineering was changed so that some improvement was guaranteed with each roll. However, the amount by which your progress towards the next module grade is still random. This means sometimes the same number of materials will produce a minimal increase. Should this be changed so that the same number of materials are always required to reach the next tier?

It seems silly that it's random. The upgrades should be very specific...for example to engineer an FSD to grade 3 increased range is a specific type of technology, and the engineer knows how to do that. Having the amount of material be random implies the engineer doesn't know what she is doing all the time.

Feel free to respond with other ship Engineering balancing feedback and suggestions that go beyond the ideas mentioned above

Please focus on combat related engineering, and doing a balance pass on that.

The major problem with combat engineering is this - if you have an upgraded cargo ship or exploration ship, you stand ZERO chance of doing any damage to an engineered dedicated combat ship. If a skilled pilot is at the helm of a fully upgraded and armoured freighter, he should stand a chance at beating a novice pilot in a combat vessel. As it stands today, it is impossible for the freighter to do any damage. The combat ship is so grossly overpowered (mostly due to shield engineering) that it becomes pointless to even engage.

One example of overpowered engineering is Heavy Duty shield boosters, which stack so much that all combat ships (especially player/PvP min-maxed ones) have turned into impossible-to-kill shield tanks with up to tens-of-thousands of shield HP in the worst cases (for example the imperial cutter). Shields should not be essentially impenetrable. It seems wrong that a player can fill out 6 or 7 utility slots with all engineered shield boosters and make their ship indestructible. It turns PvP matches into hour-long engagements where skill becomes less important than how much engineering you applied. In addition, the other shield-related engineering such as resistance augmented also have too much of an effect with practically zero downside. I suggest either making the engineering effects less overpowered, or increasing the downsides more to balance them out.

Engineering should complement or augment a ship...it shouldn't put it completely in another league.

In addition to the combat engineering, there are a large number of modifications that are never used because they are completely useless and these should be trimmed from the game. For example - shielded fuel scoop. Instead of a shielded fuel scoop, how about engineering that increases the scoop rate? Something useful.

 

[HellsBackupPlan]

I'm a Mentor at the New Pilots Initiative, and have 5000+ hours of expereince, with the last 2000 or so spent helping new pilots with almost every aspect of the game. So I have a fairly decent interaction with both extremely experienced, and extremely new pilots on a regular basis.

Engineering is one of the best aspects of the game for me, and this focused feedback makes me extremely excited. The almost endless possibilities in making a ship do exactly what I want drives me to keep playing and experimenting with different ideas (I own 150 ships, of which about 80 are fully engineered). However, the process of gathering the materials is one of the worst aspects of this game. It is currently a mindless grind I do while watching youtube, logging in and out of the game, over, and over, and over (with the exception of the Crystal Shard Sites, which are cool). This isn't good for the playerbase, and it can't be good for the servers.

To obtain them as fast as possible, materials within Grades 1 to 3 are typically traded down from Grade 4 and 5s. To make them worthwhile to gather by themselves, should their availability and the rate at which they are obtained be increased?

I believe that Grade 1-3 materials should be a "bonus" reward for all mission rewards, and the Grade 4-5 reward pools should include all Grade 4-5 materials as a possibility.

As an example, if you're Neutral with a faction, you should get 1-5x Grade 1 materials, AND the INF/REP reward as you complete a mission. This means as a new player completes missions, they are already gathering Grade 1 materials as they work their way out of the starter area. As you become Allied with a faction, the grade of materials should be increased on average as such that you should get a bonus 1-5x Grade 1-3 materials on top of the normal mission rewards of INF/REP.

This shouldn't impact the mission rewards for Grade 4 and 5 choices, such as Embedded Firmware. If you want to pick the Material reward over a INF reward, you should get both the Grade 1-3 "bonus" AND the Grade 4-5 reward being selected. Also expanding the Grade 4-5 reward pool to include all Grade 4-5 materials will go a long way to increasing the availability and quantity of materials across the board. Also note that I mean all materials types; Manufactured, Encoded, and Raw should spawn in the reward pool.

Similarly, Grade 5 materials can be traded down into 3 Grade 4 materials within the same category. However, Grade 4 and Grade 5 materials take similar amounts of time to gather. Should the number of materials picked up per instance be increased to account for this?

Increasing the number gathered per instance doesn't solve all the problems with gathering them. Finding Pharmaceutical Isolators is almost impossible, so even changing it to getting 25 of them per pickup means most players will still have NONE. Opening the reward pools for missions is a good way to increase the availability of all material types, and gets people interacting with the content that you've had in the game since launch.

Making Dangerous, Deadly, and Elite enemies have guaranteed drops for Grade 4-5 materials is also a great option.

We're also aware that some materials are much harder to find than others as they are tied to rarer BGS states. Let us know which materials ought to be made more readily discoverable.

Please completely detach it from BGS and system states.

The materials that need to be a lot more discoverable are Improvised Components, Military Supercapacitors, and Pharmaceutical Isolators. Biotech Conductors, and Exquisite Focus Crystals are tied to being mission only (outside of rare pirate anacondas sent from missions), and are easy enough to get, but more options to get them would be better. Also I don't think I've discovered all the Grade 5 Encoded materials in my 5000+ hours, as I've only ever traded them. Again, more options to get all the different material types and grades is required.

Any estimates regarding how long it took to earn a given Engineered module by gathering materials will also be helpful in addressing this aspect of balancing.

Engineering is such a core aspect of the game compared to when it was first introduced, as many players have never played without engineering being in the game. Currently, material grind aside, I can fully engineer a ship in a couple hours running around from engineer to engineer just to grab experimental effects. There's nothing wrong with the time it takes to physically engineer something for an experienced player.

If I had to estimate how long it takes to earn a given engineering module changes, depending on how much time I want to dedicate to farming. If I had to estimate it, I'd say a single Grade 5 module would take me about 5+ hours of dedicated farming, but a whole ship can take days even using the most efficient material gathering methods we have available to us. This can't be good for the Servers, with players constantly logging in and out for no other reason than material gathering.

Additionally the time it takes to get the materials in the first place, as well as unlocking the engineers need to be changed. Some engineers, like Lei Cheung or Selene Jean simply require too much time for players to invest. Lei Cheung requiring 50 markets is a couple days worth of time investment, going around delivering one commodity at a time, one, by one, by one. A simple solution is lowering it to 5 markets. Similarly Selene Jean requiring 500t of ore to be refined can take days in something like an Asp Explorer or Type 6 for a newer player playing a couple hours per day. Changing this to 50t should be much better.

The engineering unlock requirements could use a balancing pass by themselves. I get that they're meant to be a "teach yourself tutorial" in a sense, by forcing players to interact with many aspects of the game, but some of them require too much time and investment.

We'd like to hear your feedback on the idea of unique missions offered by Engineers themselves. These could be repeatable and offer materials specific to the upgrades offered by the Engineer who issues them. Let us know what you think of this idea and how many materials this might offer relative to gathering the materials manually.

This would be a great addition. These engineer missions should have a more focused reward pool of materials than the idea above about opening up the reward pools. Both of these ideas can exist at the same time. Need general materials? go do general missions. Need specific materials? go see the engineering missions and get the ones you need.

Another idea is to allow materials to be "bought" with items that are not obtainable at Commodities Markets. This could include things such as Exploration Data, Bounty Vouchers, Void Opals and Thargoid Hearts and would allow players to earn materials while playing within their chosen disciplines.

The more methods of obtaining materials, the better. Materials should be commonplace. Allowing the Miners, Explorers, AX Pilots, and Bounty Hunters the ability to reliably get materials is the right way to go.

Some time ago, Engineering was changed so that some improvement was guaranteed with each roll. However, the amount by which your progress towards the next module grade is still random. This means sometimes the same number of materials will produce a minimal increase. Should this be changed so that the same number of materials are always required to reach the next tier? This would allow Commanders to know exactly how many materials are needed.

RNG and the uncertainty it comes with, while good in some cases (mission board), is bad in others (engineering). Engineering grades currently have many levels of uncertainty, such as the ability to even find the materials you need in the first place, to actually requiring more materials than "normal" just because you get a bad roll. Changing this whole system to be a straight upgrade that you can "purchase" like Experimental Effects are currently would be a welcome addition.

Feel free to respond with other ship Engineering balancing feedback and suggestions that go beyond the ideas mentioned above. To keep the conversation on-topic and help us collect the feedback, this thread will be closely moderated. Please only reply with responses to the topics mentioned and keep feedback constructive. Unrelated or unhelpful posts may be removed during clean-up. If you find this has happened to your post, consider raising your points in another thread within the Dangerous Discussion section.

A full ship engineer unlock balance pass needs to happen. Unlocking some engineers is a lot more time intensive then it should be. We have pilots putting of unlocking specific engineers for months because they don't want to mine 500t of ore.

A Guardian Material Trader would be a great addition, however I suspect that the AX crowd will have more specific ideas, so I'll leave it for them to post.

Well, there's my ideas and comments. Use them, or don't, but Either way thank you for asking this from your playerbase. Despite everything, we're all here because we love the game, and wish it the best.

o7 CMDR's

 

[Tori Yamazaki]

It's so hard to balance this because of the vast disparity of time commitment between players. Someone who plays 5+ hours a day isn't going to want the same changes or make the same suggestions as someone who plays maybe 5 hours a week.

For me...

To obtain them as fast as possible, materials within Grades 1 to 3 are typically traded down from Grade 4 and 5s. To make them worthwhile to gather by themselves, should their availability and the rate at which they are obtained be increased?

Hell no. Why would I want to waste more time picking up loads of low grade stuff? That would invalidate the usefulness of material traders. I want to continue to only bother collecting grade 5 materials and trade for anything lower.

Similarly, Grade 5 materials can be traded down into 3 Grade 4 materials within the same category. However, Grade 4 and Grade 5 materials take similar amounts of time to gather. Should the number of materials picked up per instance be increased to account for this?

Definitely. It makes no sense that a G4 and a G5 take the same amount of time to collect. Can I add something? Trading UP should not be penalised. If I trade 1xG5 for 3xG4s then I should be able to trade 3xG4s for 1xG5. Stop the ripoff, the effort in gathering materials is hard enough.

We're also aware that some materials are much harder to find than others as they are tied to rarer BGS states. Let us know which materials ought to be made more readily discoverable.

Holy cow. Pharmeceutical Isolaters, Abnormal Compact Emissions Data, Peculiar Shield Frequency Data and Classified Scan Fragments are the worst in the G5 section. I always have to trade for those and suffer the penalty of 6xG5s for 1xG5. That's the biggest issue I have with ship engineering.

Any estimates regarding how long it took to earn a given Engineered module by gathering materials will also be helpful in addressing this aspect of balancing.

With or without trading??? It is essentially impossible to get enough Abnormal Compact Emissions Data naturally.

We'd like to hear your feedback on the idea of unique missions offered by Engineers themselves. These could be repeatable and offer materials specific to the upgrades offered by the Engineer who issues them. Let us know what you think of this idea and how many materials this might offer relative to gathering the materials manually.

I hate this idea if the missions have to be picked up and handed in at the engineer's location. It would make those locations even more of a ganker hotspot. If the missions are available in the mission board (at one's own station), then I love the idea!

Another idea is to allow materials to be "bought" with items that are not obtainable at Commodities Markets. This could include things such as Exploration Data, Bounty Vouchers, Void Opals and Thargoid Hearts and would allow players to earn materials while playing within their chosen disciplines.

It highly depends on how much time investment for how many G5 materials. I certainly don't want to have to travel 10KLY exploring for a week to get 10 ACDEs. If doing an hour at a HazRez earns maybe 10x G5 materials, that might be a help. I like the idea of being able to earn materials while doing what I like, but if the payout is too small, I'll still go back to doing whatever is fastest.

Should this be changed so that the same number of materials are always required to reach the next tier? This would allow Commanders to know exactly how many materials are needed.

Absolutely! Many like me have a touch (or more) of OCD and that little bit left on the completion ring is just not acceptable and spending the same amount of materials again to try to close that tiny gap is incredibly annoying. A slap in the face tbh.

Feel free to respond with other ship Engineering balancing feedback and suggestions that go beyond the ideas mentioned above.

The best way to help balance this is firstly to get rid of the penalties for trading across categories and for trading up. A simple ratio of 3:1 seems like a good balance going up or down. Across categories?? Why should 1xG5 in one category be worth 6xG5 in another? Going across categories should not be so nasty - that creates a real barrier. To get 20x Abnormal Compact Emissions Data, you have to find 120x another G5 material. I wonder how many times people have cursed at the person responsible for that particular time waster.

 

[Seerreus]

I'm up for any changes as long as it remains challenging and rewarding.I put a lot of time into engineering and crafting my ships as well as a lot of other commanders have, this in itself is rewarding to me shouldn't come easy.

 

[3navis]

I would like to sell modules designed in FC.

 

[NM-UFA]

Please increace storage of on-foot items, data and all. 1000 is too small for all engineering stuff. Modifications on suit and weapons must be removable or the best - stored. Or at least just deleted as for ships. You've added too much data in game but why? People are grinding hundreds of annoying gameplay just for get ing Settlement defence plans. Cannot get it in mission reward, just in random places. I must store tons of data, i don't know will i need it in future or not(for example coctail recipes). And 1000 slots are full too fast. Make data also exchangable as other materials. If i sell engineered suit or gun - make possible other player, or me to buy it in this station. The items which needed very often must spawn in bigger amout, for example weapon component, manufacturing instructions, weapon and suit schematic, needed for almost all modifications.The feature to drop-and-get items between players are amaizing and realy great move forward it this direction, for example drop horizons data and materials between players.

 

[NM-UFA]

About the rolls - the very crap feature... The engineer progress the same- needed only the one time and then we just forget about it. My opinion is to remove this rolls - one hit - one grade. Or at least one grade- one roll, 5 grade- 5 rolls. Fixed and understandable. Maybe it good itea to spawn engineered ships to stations for buy as do for suits and wepons?