Focused Feedback - Balancing Ship Engineering & Material Gathering

[AMX-008 GaZowmn]

My main question on the matter is why a game that tries to take a realistic approach to things will not allow you to buy the resources you need directly with credits?

For example: I can hardly imagine that an company in need of large amounts of raw materials like phosphorus can't buy the resources it needs in bulk from a dedicated industry and would instead need to contract lots of independent third parties to go with individual ships & collect a few pieces of phosphorus at a time. Simply put, there should be places where buying these materials in bulk is possible.

It also occurs to me that to balance things out between veterans and new players, these places could offer the materials in question in bulk for credits to veterans while also have missions that reward the materials in bulk for newer players that can't afford them directly. These materials should also be available of purchase at other locations at a higher price.

Taking things a step further, engineers could also charge a premium fee (say x50) to pilots that don't bring the necessary materials. At the same time, other players could bring lots of said resources to the engineer (assuming the materials are significantly more widely available as per my previous paragraph) and give/sell them in exchange of credits, reputation and/or perhaps even some free/discounted engineering jobs.

Bottomline is, credits should make the galaxy go around (well, that and Raxxla) and there should be dedicated places where getting specific types of materials IN BULK should be possible (even easy I dare say!), preferably in a variety of ways (missions, credits, perhaps reputation or even just navy/pilot rank).

 

[meoiswa]

These are all suggestions for general improvements to reduce tedium and grind, reduce complexity, and/or introduce alternative means of acquisition for engineering materials, and not intended to be taken all together:

• Simplify the number of materials available (either reducing the types, or grades), make their sources more straightforward.
• Minimize, reduce, or outright remove material trading "taxes".
• Create a currency that is earned through gameplay and can be exchanged freely for materials (allow us to stockpile the currency you use at the Bar, and exchange it for ALL materials).
• Make engineering fully deterministic like EVA engineering (no random rolls)
• Modify mission rewards to be able to pick from materials in a category/tier (I/E instead of "Selenium", you get to pick one of any "T4 metallic element", making missions a viable source of the materials you need)
• Introduce a salvaging module/weapon that extracts materials from ship wreckages. (bonus: you introduce a new "profession", the salvager, a miner-like job that benfits from active combat zones)
• Introduce a module for collecting free floating materials much easier and faster than using limpets, or allow limpets to grab more than one material per trip.
• Allow player-to-player trading of materials in an auction-house like setting.
• Implement a passive "multiplier" for material drops, the farther away you are from "bubbles" of populated space (incentive to explore further)
• Change engineering altogether to be a series of "unlocks" you can apply yourself to your modules in the future. Grind per unlock is much more justified with a lifetime of easy access to that particular recipe, and "many modules" builds are significantly less annoying to work on.

 

[Levianova]

Greetings Commanders

Now that Update 8 for Odyssey is live, we'd like to reignite the series of balancing changes that started before Odyssey's release. Now, it's time to turn our attention to ship Engineering. We recognise there has been significant feedback for on-foot Engineering too, but we'd like to approach these one at a time due to the number of aspects involved. Specifically, we'd like to look at the balancing of the Engineering grind, which largely relates to...

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Better reward material variations from missions, add manufacturing or mining machine for your own materials using the previously Galnet news article , as for data set down scanners which would scan passing ships which you can return to later to recover the materials etc... I don't think engineering needs to change but maybe could add more extra effect variations for more variety. Definately sort out the attachments issues on firearms they need to be detachable.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

I personally always liked the concept of the Material Broker system, I just always felt the exchange rate was horribly borked. Improving that would be a great start, but being able to exchange other rare, non-commodity items for Materials would be great also.

Another fix could be the ability to leverage our Faction/Power Reputation in order to choose the materials you desire as Mission Rewards (similar to how on-foot missions work). Perhaps you would have to sacrifice a level of Reputation in order to choose your Material reward (though maybe only if the chosen reward is higher grade than what they're already offering).

It might also be good if we could have some kind of on-ship "Crafting" system (for want of a better word). The most obvious example might be breaking down certain Manufactured Materials into certain Raw Materials (or Vice-versa), or using certain Encoded Materials+Raw Materials to Craft certain Manufactured Materials. Likewise, though, it should be possible to break down select Commodities into Raw or Manufactered Materials.

On a related note, it might be nice if we could have a step between Synthesis and Engineering-where we can use a combination of the various Material types to effect a medium-term upgrade to our ship's modules.

In relation to the Engineers-and Engineering-I feel an almost complete rethink might be in order. I feel the randomness should be extremely small, and perhaps non-existent, with the only variability being down to the quality of the materials you're offering (versus the quality asked for), and your current ranking with that engineer should play a role too.

I feel this last point is best explained via an example:

Lets say I want a Grade 1 Long Range Beam Laser. This will give a fixed boost of: POWER DRAW: +3%; MAXIMUM RANGE: +20%; DAMAGE FALLOFF START: +20%; MASS: +10%....if I only provide the Sulphur requested in the recipe. However, I might be asked if I can offer Molybdenum instead, which might lead to a reduction to the Power Draw and Mass increases, whilst increasing the improvement to Range and Damage Falloff Start, by a semi-random amount.
Similarly, you might have the chance to "Call in a Favour" sacrificing 1 level of your current Rank with that engineer to gain an additional, semi-random boost to one particular part of your upgrade-on top of the fixed boost you already got (which would also make Engineer Rank a much more dynamic system). Then, of course, you'd have the experimental effects on top of that. Then again, if you wanted to be truly radical, you could scrap Blueprints altogether, and just offer a much wider array of Experimental Effects only-though the material substitution & favour system I alluded to above could still work with such a system.

Last of all, gaining rank with Engineers should be almost entirely dependant on your doing missions for them, or the Faction they're associated with, not on grinding Blueprints with them. The former should give a large gain in Reputation, the latter should provide only small, incremental gains.

 

[Martian Turtle]

Availability and Time Required​

Manufactured materials are the most problematic here. The randomness rate between G4 and G5 in the high grade emission spawns is way too high, as is the randomness in the amount of materials spawned. High Grade emissions should be more consistent. High grade drop chance from the NPC ships should also be increased: currently the only semi-reliable source of obtaining high grade manufactured materials through more engaging gameplay is doing assasination missions against corvette/anacondas. This method needs to be expanded and it should be more rewarding than HGE hunting because it takes more skill / effort.

The materias like pharmaceutical isolators, improvised components and military supercapacitors are way too hard to find in the wild.

Alternate Gathering Methods​

In my opinion, the bigger problem is the material costs for engineering things in bulk. It's fine to do the repetitive boring gameplay to engineer a single loadout for a ship, but having to do the exact same amount for every new loadout / new ship is what gets in the way of having long-term fun with many endgame activities. Reducing the long-term material costs will allow players to focus more on the gameplay loops that are rewarding and addictive, rather than on doing boring filler things. The material gathering does not keep players in the game long term, it's the activities themselves that need the engineering - e. g. AX combat, long range exploration, PvP combat - that do. Those activities are what truly makes Elite stand out, and trying out new different things in them should be easy for those for whom they are the main gameplay.

I think that there should be a way to significantly reduce the total material requirements for those who have engineered a lot of modules with the given engineer. The options could be:

• having a way to buy a module fully engineered with the pinned blueprint for a fixed material cost, similar to the recent tech broker unlocks. It should unlock after engineering, say, 5 modules with the given engineer.
• Reducing material requirement for every subsequent module after the first one, down to say 70% of the original cost minimum.

Rolling for Engineering Improvements​

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! (but without increasing the total costs)

 

[St0rmFury]

Efficient mining lasers.

 

[Lonesail]

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?

YES

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?

YES

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.

Locking behind BGS was a bad idea, remove it

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.

Couldn't hurt

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.

OMG YES, this would be awesome!

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.

Great idea!

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! YES! YES! RNG sucks!

 

[CMDR Arsinoe]

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?

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 to all. I think the time for collection should be reduced. However, I don't think the time to gather itself is the main problem with engineering. It is the time combined with having to interrupt your normal play in order to do things that get you the materials needed. And, for many of the materials, the fastest way to gather isn't playing the game, but relogging to respawn HGE signal sources, or respawning Jameson's crash site, or respawning Guardian sites. More on this later.

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.

It is extremely concerning that you have to ask this question. You really should have some of your devs or qa people try engineering a single ship. Set all the engineers to unlocked and start with any ship you need to gather (hge farmer, robigo python, etc), but start with 0 materials and just engineer a single ship. Combat ship preferable. Heck do an AX ship so you don't have to engineer weapons other than a beam laser. Do as medium or small ship so there are fewer hull reinforcements to engineer.

It's too long. I can say with my somewhat filled materials, it still took me several (3+) days of playing to gather (g5) materials and build TWO small AX ships. And that is with a carrier so I could travel to bases once for experimental effects on both ships.

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.

This is what is needed. I am an AX pilot. Every time I run out of gauss reloads or engineering materials to build new ships, I get very frustrated. I might quit the game for a few days. Or weeks. Or months. Every. Single. Time. It is incredibly frustrating to have found a way I love to play this game, but then every so often I get forced out of that play style and have to spend hours and hours grinding materials in ways I don't find fun. Sure drinving the srv for crystal/guardian sites is a nice change of pace. But doing it over and over again? no. Flying for half an hour just to get to the crystal shard sites? Miserable.

We need to be able to acquire the materials we need by doing things we find fun. You could do this by offering ways for all sorts of pilots to earn materials through normal gameplay. But even missions don't work for this as many play styles (such as AX and exploration) don't really deal with missions.

The best way to do this is allowing us to buy materials and data with credits. I think this makes sense to be implemented as a player to player economy. Players should be able to sell their excess materials to players that need them. People unlocking guardian modules can sell the excess materials to AX pilots. Explorers can sell their raw materials to everyone. Someone that finds pharmaceutical isolators can farm a bunch and sell them for a huge windfall (assuming they stay as rare as they are). Combat pilots who collect wreckage can sell those core dynamics composites and other materials to everyone else.

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 seems like a fine idea as a quicker way to gather stuff for people who enjoy running random missions. Unless they are specific types of missions for each engineer, which could at least alleviate the problem of the most efficient method for many materials being to log out and back in to the game itself.

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.

Just use credits. Restricting to specific items like this is just going to shift the annoyance with the grind somewhere else. (Collecting thargoid hearts for example. Almost no AX pilots want to wait around to collect the heart even if people will buy it at max price on fleet carriers)

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.

Yes. I see this as an absolute win.

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.

Just to re-iterate: we should just be able to buy materials and data. I imagine this would work incredibly well as a player sourced economy, but if you want to allow us to buy from npcs/stations as well that seems fine. This would allow cooperation across different segments of the community, and allow players that have found their niche in the game to thrive in that role instead of being demoralized and leaving the game for weeks or months every time they run low on materials.

If You Don't Add Credit Purchasing of Materials As I Suggest:
We need guardian material traders
We need better rates for regular material traders.
We need methods of farming that don't involve relogging and are still more efficient than the current relogging methods.
We need mechanisms in place to make relogging unnecessary (guardian sites need to be able to get reset, including the breakable panels, sentinels, and blueprint structure).

 

[CMDR BillBoonz]

Here's a neat idea.

Why don't you guys implement a sort of "module use progression level system". I'm a mechanic and normally people obtain a better understanding of their machines from continued use and tinkering. How this works is that we get experience from using modules in our ship (e.g. autocannon, FSD, Shields) and when we've used them to a certain threshold we can upgrade their engineering in a chosen path (e.g. autocannon - large capacity, rate of fire) then instead of materials we can use credits (which everyone has) to upgrade the chosen module path ( e.g. grade 1 = 10M/lvl, grade 2 = 30M/lvl so on...) as for materials, when we have enough, we can use them to immediately bypass levels instead of leveling up a module through use, we can use materials to upgrade them immediately. I don't know about you people, but instead of grinding exploits and scanning FSD wakes, I'd rather be trading and find out later that all that jumping from point A and B has leveled up my thrusters and FSD so I can upgrade them later when I reach the next station.

As for experimental effects, when you've engineered a module (autocannon) you immediately unlock another use progression bar, when you've used an engineered module enough you can apply Experimental effects, its basically the same system but in an advanced level. normally you can pay credits for the ExpEff, but you can use materials if you are in a hurry.

The object behind this concept is sort of an "immersive mechanic" system where continued use enlightens you to how it works how to fix it, and how to improve it. if you don't understand it, you can pay someone else to do it (e.g. in game engineers). Let me guys know what you think. It's a great game and I plan to play it for years to come. Thank you for the consideration Devs.

 

[Bonesaw]

Will you allow us to trade guardian and Thargoid materials and data for other materials ? Also letting us add more then one engineering affect? size 4 Rail guns and the ability to engineer modular renforcements

 

[Fr33k]

Yes! about time! (also please have another look at odyssey's material system and requirements, pleaaasse.)
Totally agree, there should multiple ways to get each type of material, and some good suggestions in Bruces notes (I really like the engineer missions idea) as well as this thread.
I've not read the whole thread, but in case these haven't been mentioned:

We should be able to recycle modded gear and get a chunk of marterials in return (materials dependent on the grade they were modded to), rather than selling it.

I agree the RNG on upgrades should be removed. However, I would suggest the rolls at each grade of upgrade should be the same. e.g. every grade takes say 5 rolls to max, or progress to the next tier grade after 3 rolls, rather than 1 roll for grade 1 and 10 for grade 5. This would then use more low grade materials and less high grade, making the high grade rarity less of an issue and make going out for the low grades more worthwile.

edit:
Oh, and if it's not too off topic, please add a 'simulator' at the engineers bases so we can 'test' engineering before commiting. Would be really handy.

 

[prototype27]

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?

Speaking personally, speed isn't necessarily the key reason I prefer to trade down from Grade 5 materials to lower Grades; it's much easier for me to only worry about where to find a particular kind of material and go fill up on that, then trade laterally and down to get everything I need. Making lower Grades of materials more available or faster to collect would help optimal gathering efficiency but would actually increase the mental workload of tracking each material collection method and location, and would in fact increase the "grindiness" I would feel when gathering engineering materials.

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?

As above, I feel like this isn't the right direction to move (though at least with Grade 4, it's more competitive with Grade 5 in terms of gathering efficiency making a bigger impact). What would really address this is if it were easier to gather multiple levels of materials (say, in the same category) at the same time, like scanning the beacons at Jameson's Cobra; being able to pick up some Grade 3 and Grade 4 data scans at the same time as I fill up on Grade 5 scans makes grinding for data take less time, since I have more source materials with which I can trade across or down to whatever I need. If we could get lower Grade materials along with Grade 5 materials in, say, High Grade Signal Sources, without reducing the quantity or rate of Grade 5 materials, that would help reduce the grind in my opinion.

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 think this would be great! Diversifying the sources for engineering materials is a great idea, and I think that making all of the materials available via missions (instead of just some that are currently obtainable this way) would be really cool.

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.

This is definitely an interesting idea, and I think it would make engineering a ship much easier for people who prefer not to go through the materials collection grind.

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.

Yes! The random factor in engineering results has always felt a bit unnecessary, and in practice I've always tried to budget enough to guarantee engineering my modules to a particular level. I think removing the randomness and converting these effects to fixed steps would be fantastic by making the required material counts more predictable.

 

[Bonesaw]

Greetings Commanders

Now that Update 8 for Odyssey is live, we'd like to reignite the series of balancing changes that started before Odyssey's release. Now, it's time to turn our attention to ship Engineering. We recognise there has been significant feedback for on-foot Engineering too, but we'd like to approach these one at a time due to the number of aspects involved. Specifically, we'd like to look at the balancing of the Engineering grind, which largely relates to...

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

When would we see these changes, if implemented ?

 

[CMDR The Riz]

I've seen many great ideas and suggestions with regards to the primary points of the OP, so I'd like to dedicate my post as a response to this one sentence at the end:

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

I do apologize in advance if what I am about to state has already been brought up by others; I have only skimmed through the various pages of suggestions here, but I feel strongly about the following issues and have been searching for a solution to them via in-game means since the Engineers themselves were introduced back in the 2016 2.1 Engineers update - five years ago.

-------------------------

Hitpoint Inflation

Of the many improvements to our ships that the Engineers allowed us to do, increasing the health of our ships either by directly increasing HP, boosting damage resistances, or commonly both is perhaps the one most visible throughout the game. Normal NPC ships inside of Conflict Zones have Engineered Bulkheads and Hull Reinforcements, leading to each engagement feeling like a prolonged slogfest. Ammo becomes a significant concern by the halfway mark in High CZs; Small ship loadouts will be running dry at that point, even when factoring in Plasma Slug Railguns and targeting Powerplants [1].

NPC HP pools pale in comparison to what players can achieve with fully optimized Engineered loadouts. Examples of these ships include, but are not limited to:

• The Classic Meta-De-Lance: https://s.orbis.zone/g_hj
  • Shields [2]:
    • Absolute HP: 10 GJs [3]
    • Kinetic HP: 20 GJs
    • Thermal HP: 14.6 GJs
  • Hull:
    • Absolute HP: 841 MJs
    • Kinetic HP: 699 MJs
    • Thermal HP: 839 MJs
• My Tri-Rail Hybrid Federal Assault Ship: https://s.orbis.zone/g_hm
  • Shields [2]:
    • Absolute HP: 788 MJs
    • Kinetic HP: 1.2 GJs
    • Thermal HP: 1.5 GJs
  • Hull:
    • Absolute HP: 4 GJs
    • Kinetic HP: 7 GJs
    • Thermal HP: 7.5 GJs
• My Hybrid Vulture: https://s.orbis.zone/g_ho
  • Shields [2]:
    • Absolute HP: 1.8 GJs
    • Kinetic HP: 2.8 GJs
    • Thermal HP: 3.3 GJs
  • Hull:
    • Absolute HP: 2 GJs
    • Kinetic HP: 3.4 GJs
    • Thermal HP: 7.4 GJs, thanks to a 72.5% Thermal Resistance value.
    • This build theoretically Engineers-out the omnipresent threat of Long-Range Railgun damage to modules, assuming resistances affect incoming module damage.
• A Combat-Oriented Cutter: https://s.orbis.zone/g_j5
  • Shields [2]:
    • Absolute HP: 40 GJs
    • Kinetic HP: 80 GJs
    • Thermal HP: 68 GJs
  • Hull:
    • Absolute HP: 7.5 GJs
    • Kinetic HP: 17 GJs
    • Thermal HP: 14 GJs

These HP values lead to absurdly prolonged PVP engagements that can average around 20 minutes per fight between equally skilled opponents. Moreover, inflated HP pools strongly encourage face-tanking / DPS racing over a positional dogfighting approach. This further accentuates the need for high-damage weaponry with large Total Potential Damage pools (such as Plasma Accelerators and Plasma Slug Railguns) and elevates a small subset of weapons far above the rest, which are largely forgotten (e.g. Shock Cannons, laser weaponry due to low DPS output / high Distributor draw).

-------------------------

Permaboosting

Permaboosting is defined as a ship's ability to indefinitely chain boosts together; boosting in a ship increases the velocity as well as the power of vertical / lateral thrusters and rotational speed. The increase in rotational speed ignores the "Blue Zone" and provides the maximum rotational rate regardless of how fast the ship is moving. Further boosts to maneuverability can be made by employing "Boost Bleeding" techniques, whereby the player slams the throttle in full reverse to divert the boost power away from the main engines to the other thrusters, resulting in a type of supermanuverability for ships with decent boost multipliers and boost durations.

A ship attains permaboosting capabilities most often as a result of applying the Charged Enhanced Distributor blueprint to the A-class of the largest Distributor size it can equip and further enhancing it with the Super Conduits Experimental Effect. It can likewise be attained through the Engine Focused blueprint, though the former is much preferred due to benefits to the other capacitors. The majority of ships with permaboosting capabilities require four pips in the Engines capacitor to maintain permaboost; the two Krait variants are a notable exception, needing only two pips to maintain it.

Permaboosting becomes problematic as it allows ships to effectively bypass their flight models and become far more maneuverable than intended. This is compounded by the improvements to overall ship maneuverability from the G5 Dirty Drives blueprint and Drag Drives / Drive Distributors Experimental Effects [4]. For example:

• Typical FDL: 60 deg/s nominal | 80 deg/s boost
• Chieftain: 63 deg/s nominal | 90 deg/s boost
• FAS: 60 deg/s nominal | 100 deg/s boost
• Corvette: 40 deg/s nominal | 52 deg/s boost
• Vulture: 69 deg/s nominal | 111 deg/s boost

The above rotational rates are in addition to increases to vertical/lateral thruster power thanks to boost multipliers; some ships, predominately the FDL, have such high boost multipliers that they handle better than most Small ships and can permanently keep that up. This has a knock-on effect with how combat plays out in-game, as most engagements devolve into jousting runs or face-tanking/DPS racing as neither side can gain a positional advantage due to such on-demand high rotational rates, further favoring weapons that deliver their damage in as short a window as possible during merges (i.e. Plasma Accelerators).

-------------------------

The Medium Ship Problem | The Small Ship Conundrum

The above issues that arose as a result of the Engineering system can be demonstrated on most combat-oriented Medium ships. For instance, recall the Classic Meta-De-Lance build [https://s.orbis.zone/g_hj]:

• Upwards of 10-20 GJs of Shield HP depending on damage type [2]
• 60 deg/s nominal | 80 deg/s boost with permaboosting capabilities and a very high boost multiplier
• 294.5 MJs of raw damage from a single volley of 3 PAs | 471.2 MJs when under the effects of the Thermal Conduit Experimental Effect.

Contrast that with the following two small ship builds, both of which I actively use:

• Plasma Slug Eagle: https://s.orbis.zone/g_hh
  • Shields [2]:
    • Absolute: 417 MJs
    • Kinetic: 571 MJs
    • Thermal: 686 MJs
  • Hull:
    • Absolute: 842 MJs
    • Kinetic: 1.3 GJs
    • Thermal: 1.35 GJs
  • Rotationals: 83 deg/s nominal | 120 deg/s boost; no permaboosting capabilities
  • Maximum 70.9 DPS when all weapons are firing at optimal ranges
  • The Lightweight Plasma Slug Railguns can dish out a total of 12.5 GJs worth of raw damage under optimal ranges with 12t of fuel; actual damage is less due to resistances
• Lightweight Combat Courier: https://s.orbis.zone/g_tc [5]
  • Shields [2]:
    • Absolute: 1.2 GJs
    • Kinetic: 2.2 GJs
    • Thermal: 2.6 GJs
  • Hull:
    • Absolute: 948 MJs
    • Kinetic: 1.3 GJs
    • Thermal: 1.9 GJs
  • Rotationals: 63 deg/s nominal | 85 deg/s boost; no permaboosting capabilities
  • The single Modified Guardian Plasma Charger can deal ~17 GJs of pure Absolute damage, which can be increased further against hulls with the help of the Corrosive Shell Experimental.

Herein lies the issue: when presented with the above information, why would a player opt for the Small ships when the FDL has it all: the firepower, the maneuverability, and the durability? The FDL (and indeed many of its peers) will absolutely be able to dictate the terms of any engagement with a Small ship; the Small ship will be in the FDL's forward firing arc for the majority of the engagement and be unable to leave it unless the Small ship withdraws. If the Small ship manages to land some hits on the FDL, it needs to grind through the FDL's massive HP pool to bring it down, which many can't do due to ammo limitations (or risk prolonging the fight by using Laser weaponry) - the FDL only needs to land a hit or two to significantly damage the Small ship, at which point it can employ Long-Range Railguns to effortlessly destroy the Small ship's modules. As a result: Small ships don't have a place anywhere in the current combat meta. There is no reason to choose one outside of personal enjoyment/challenge seeking over an FDL (or other Medium vessel) as it would be detrimental to a player's effectiveness to do so in any combat-oriented activity, such as PVP engagements, any significant BGS work involving combat, and Anti-Xeno combat.

For example, take the two videos below. The first features the lightweight Courier as described above. The second showcases my Federal Assault Ship [https://s.orbis.zone/h016] - one of the FDL's peers.

Source: https://youtu.be/dIUHPoexqEU

Source: https://youtu.be/TsRDXyZbEiM


Due to having much better damage output, durability and maneuverability, the FAS is able to handle the High CZ much better than the Courier. The first two are to be expected of a Medium ship; the latter, especially when considering the differences in weight (77 vs. 881 tons), is not. The Courier's relative lack of maneuverability prevented it from obtaining advantageous positions to attack critical modules like the Powerplant to end engagements faster against the maneuverable Alliance Medium ships (well, at least the ones that decided to continue attacking - the CZ AI has been temperamental as of late), whereas the FAS had no difficulty doing so at all thanks to its forgiving permaboost capabilities.

This issue is largely the result of the inherent imbalance in the way the Engineering system improves our ships: percentage based gains. Ships with higher-class equipment will benefit greater from a 50% increase in a stat compared to ships with lower classes, such as with the Distributor blueprints. Using the Charged Enhanced blueprint with the Super Conduits Experimental Effect that increases capacitor recharge rates by 50.8%:

• A 6A Distributor gains an increase of 1.03 MJ/s to both ENG and SYS (4.83 MJ/s total); WEP recharge rate is increased by 2.6 MJ/s (7.8 MJ/s total)
• A 3A Distributor gains an increase of 0.66 MJ/s to both ENG and SYS (1.96 MJ/s total); WEP recharge rate is increased by 1.4 MJ/s (4.2 MJ/s total)

A Courier with a 3A Charged Enhanced/Super Conduits Distributor can get its boost back in about 5 seconds, running out of Engine capacitor charge in 2-3 boosts when 4 pips are put into Engines; an FDL or FAS with a similarly configured 6A Distributor can get its boost back in 3 seconds and maintain it indefinitely.

Similar disparities can be demonstrated with the various classes of Hull Reinforcement Packages with the Heavy Duty blueprint and Powerplant power generation with the Armored / Overcharged blueprints, among others. This leads to lower overall increases in effectiveness on Small ships for the same material costs as larger vessels.

-------------------------

Suggestions

Suggestions to redress the issues stated above and help bring Small ships up to parity will widely impact the way combat functions in Elite, and could include the following:

• Massive reductions to HP pools / reduced effectiveness of stacking Shield Boosters and Hull Reinforcement Packages / adjustments to Shield Cell Banks
• Removal of Permaboosting capabilities for Medium and Large ships through either adjustments to the Charged Enhanced blueprint, the Distributors themselves, or both
• Reductions to out-of-Blue-Zone rotational rates of Medium and Large ships
• Increases to the boost duration of most Small ships
• Reductions to the Distributor Draw for boosting in most Small ships
• Increases to the strength of vertical / lateral / retro thrusters of most Small ships (particularly lightweight Smalls)
• Removal of the rotational rate increase from boosting / ability to ignore the flight model from boosting
• Adjustments to the percentage gains on higher-class modules to keep the increases more in line with ones from lower classes

Further effects from these changes, such as the interplay between Trading and Combat ships, relative performance of Large vessels, the balance between shield and hull tanks, and Anti-Xeno combat, would need to be closely monitored and adjusted as needed. A long public Beta where these adjustments could be tested to their fullest extent would be the ideal place to do so.

-------------------------

Footnotes
[1] Ships with Medium Sized Short Range Blaster Plasma Slug Railguns can have massive Total Potential Damage pools exceeding 90 GJs with 24 tons of fuel; this is impractical for most Small ships without significant compromises to their builds, however, so smaller fuel stores are used.
[2] When 4 Pips are placed into Systems for a 2.61x increase to shield strength.
[3] GJ: Gigajoule, 1,000 MJs.
[4] The latter of which is typically only employed on Small ships with Enhanced Performance Thrusters in lightweight configurations.
[5] Due to the introduction of Modified Guardian Plasma Chargers, this build is undergoing active optimizations.

 

[Carthbet]

I love the IDEA.

Current system is not design for casual players like myself so changing the way how the materials are being obtained and making it Faster in process and less "Grind-ier" would Have thubs up from Most (if not All) of us.

I like the Idea that engineer would give you mission in order to get the upgrade itself instead of Materials for it.
Example.
You would like to Engineer Your FSD Jump range therefore mission would be to make few jumps over a certain distance which in turn produces some sort of calibration data, that engineer needs for your upgrade. Also after the upgrade mission would still continue. SO You would make another few jumps (This time longer as Your FSD is upgraded) in order for engineer to be sure upgrade is done properly. By handing over last bit of telemetry Upgrade would become permament to your FSD.
On other hand if You'd like to get Your Multicannons upgraded It would require you to shoot some things in order to gather calibration data for this upgrade. And again it would measure Damage and things like that (All for story telling purposes only. I know you have your ways to deal with this issue) on different types of armor and so on. Maybe Todd McQuinn should have shooting range nerby where you could fly and shoot some wrekages for this purpose.
The sky is limit here guys and it would add New content to the game. If done right with a bit of story telling it could be great to play those missions.

This way there is potential for completly new type and unique missions.

Also I think that Engineer should get paid for their work. I always thought Materials are used in order to improve The Item that we are upgrading, Therefore In a balance things I would Add "Service Cost" to upgrade which is a payment for Engineer services. That would offset lower requirements in materials needed. I also believe engineers should have their own Material shop available.

I always said that: "Getting New spoiler to my car doesn't require me going and destroing other cars in order to get parts needed to syntesize spoiler. I just go shopping and buy one."
In other words I shouldn't be require to destroy Cargo ships in order to get some manufacturing materials (There are people on those ships). Somebody used those materials to build this ship in first place and I am pretty sure they didn't destroy anything in order to get it. Therefore we should also have ability to purchase (or sale) those materials. That could also potentially create new game loop where You just go out and Gather some materials in order to sell them for pure profit.

Also I wouldn't mind if drop rate would increase as well as chance of rare materials is increased (as well as not binded to only one state of Background simulator). Trust me, I have been there where I was turning off game and logging back in because I found (After countless days of searching) That RARE and Specific HGE that I needed with enough time to get full load of it. As far as I know logging in and out is not part of the game design but it is more effecient then spending another few days to find that ONE HGE that I needed.

So Guys I would like to thank you for this as I love Elite and I am happy that You are wiling to listen to Your community of players.

Good luck on O7.

 

[Tividar]

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?

This would be appreciated, but probably won't change my behavior - the increase would have to be substantial for me to stop trading down.

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?

I don't really notice the difference between Grade 4 and Grade 5 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.

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.

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 very much like the idea of trading Void Opals and Thargoid Hearts for materials. You could use the rate of materials given for missions as a benchmark - e.g. 5 G5 Mats for a heart.

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.

I really dislike random rewards. Standardizing the progress rate would be much appreciated. Alternatively I'd like to see the progress rate increased the more you use a particular modification.

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

I'd like to see the Pinning mechanic extended to Experimental Effects. Having to travel all over the bubble multiple times to get engineering done gets tedious after the nth ship.

 

[Damgalnuna]

Firmly in the "BUY OUTRIGHT" camp on this and always have been. We have billionaires mugging ships for parts, that should be READILY AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE. Be done with the whole "gather" game around them entirely and just let people buy the parts they need. Could you imagine the chaos if every time someone wanted to mod their car they had to Road Warrior 15 Kia Optimas hoping for one of them to have a new spark plug?

EDIT: Expanding on this a bit. Let's work in a reason to have some of these permits maybe? Need a new Flux Capacitor? Well it looks like you can only buy those in the Noroads System. Which you need a Permit for. See where I'm going here? Have the materials hunt occasionally take you into places you need a permit for, leading to other things. We have lots of Permits for systems that are in no way special currently. Make them special.

I agree that the logic is bad, but I also think that money is too easy to come by and would make engineering maybe too easy and take some of the achievement out of getting it done, and the decisions about what to do given that your resources are not unlimited.

I like the idea of more ways to get engineering mats, and increasing the number you get from those ways and/or reducing the number you need (and making what you get out of it more predictable).

To make the logic make sense, the materials need to be special in some way, like strictly controlled parts only available to ship manufacturers, illegal black market items that aren't as easy to come by, etc. Instead like you say you are just hacking up optimas for alternators that you should just be able to buy.

 

[Guyperson]

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?

It stands to reason that you should be able to gather lower grades faster. The rates for trading also really need to be looked at since this is what ends up driving players to trade down their G5 materials and hardly ever trade up. Trading currently operates on a large static multiplier and this rapidly compounds to ridiculous levels such that even though the opportunity exists to gather low tier materials yourself or to trade up for rarer materials, it never makes sense to do so and the opportunity is completely wasted.

Why spend time gathering the lowest tier materials at all when you can max out the bins with a small handful of G5s?
Likewise, why should a single G5 material be worth gathering 1296 G1 materials from the same category to trade up? Or 7776 if you want to go cross-category. I'll bet you wouldn't take that deal either.

RNG and BGS is something else that compounds on itself until it it reaches silly levels. First you have to find someplace in the correct BGS state or make a concerted effort to force it, and then the ride's just getting started. You add a layer of RNG on top of the BGS play with the actual spawning of high grade signal sources, then there's another layer of RNG compounding that where the HGSS that spawns has to actually contain the correct material you're looking for, then another layer of RNG in terms of how much of it spawns in the instance. Then as if all that weren't enough you stack a fifth layer when it comes time for the RNG roll for the upgrade.
Players relog these HGSS instances and make a mockery of the material gathering loop just to remove ONE layer of this RNG stack and make the experience slightly less onerous.

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.

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.

Having more concrete methods to achieve what you actually want would go a long way towards making players feel like they can actually accomplish what they set out to do and not just end up frustrated by randomness that's out of their control.

Offering material rewards for missions sounds like a good idea on its face but not if they work like mission boards currently do. Again you have compounding RNG that prevents you from finding what you want. The material type offered is random and the grade and quantity is based on the value of the mission, which is also random. You'd also have to open it up to more material types than mission boards currently offer, but that just makes the RNG 10x worse because now the odds of landing on the item you want are that much lower.

It would be better if you could choose what you're actually interested in and then have an engineer or whatever mission giver offer some tasks to you that are commensurate with the value.

As for finding materials in space, why not put them in scenarios more appropriate to their value and allow players to tune their ship's sensors to the specific materials they want? Then you'd know exactly which POIs to approach, complete the scenario within if you can and earn the correct materials. For example those distress signal POIs everyone just flies right past could actually have a use. Save the NPC in trouble, get some of the items on your wish list.

tl;dr: Several of your gameplay loop implementations currently stack multipliers and RNG to such a degree that it has become a meme and you should probably do something about that.

 

[Damgalnuna]

The fundamental problem is not the time required to gather materials. Fully G5 engineering a ship should be a long-term goal toward which to strive and an inducement to play more.

The real problem is that the gameplay loops needed to gather some of the materials, are mindless, repetitive, and plain not fun.

Consider, for example, Datamined Wake Exceptions. Right now, I need to play mail slot COVID screening simulator for an hour or two to get a couple dozen DWEs. This is about as engaging as washing dishes.

We need more engaging loops or missions that guarantee specific materials as a reward. Off the top of my head for DWEs: combat-zone style mission where you need to take out the fighter escort of a capital ship so that it jumps out, and then scan its wake. Make that guaranteed to spawn, say, 5x Datamined Wake Exceptions or 10x Eccentric Hyperspace Trajectories.

This is dead on, I appreciate the work I've put into my ships and I'm glad it wasn't something I could just go buy with cash that would reduce the satisfaction of having done it, the problem is its just about impossible to get the materials in a way that isn't mind numbing unless you are willing to go years doing missions and not taking shortcuts.

 

[Tom Swan]

500 hours, so I have a few opinions. I'll confine myself largely to your questions, though:

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?

Yes.

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?

NO INCREASES IN TIME OR DIFFICULTY ON ANYTHING. Please. Grade 5 should be somewhat easier than it is, and then you can scale from there.

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.

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.

Long enough that I almost quit - and even now I'm not really interested in that grind along with the other grinds. I may never see another Thargoid because I don't want to have to grind my way to a ship that won't get vaporized pretty fast.

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.

Boy howdy, have I got an idea for you: make materials purchasable, but balance the cost so Grade 5 is pricey, somewhat scarce, but purchasing is still an alternative to weigh and consider. Maybe gathering is cheaper in the long run and you pay for convenience. I think that's how real markets work. I'd much rather bounty hunt and buy my way to an upgrade than gather. Others might prefer trade or exploration.

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 the idea. I don't have any numbers to give you, though.

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.

Trade? Sure. Seriously, real markets work that way.

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.

A little spice is nice but I don't like to burn my tongue. Make it more predictable and throw in the occasional critical success. We all like extra bonus points.

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.

Add engineers to powerplay instead of the special weapons: Powers will have an edge or two in a certain area (weapons, drives, applied phlebotnium, etc).

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Thanks for asking!

O7

O7