Focused Feedback - Balancing Ship Engineering & Material Gathering
- Status
Collecting materials from the ships with our specific Suit (A brand new "Scavenge Suit" for example) in the Space (require Odyysey add-on), flying to ships and cutting materials, puzzling them (with a new mini-game), crashing them (with a hammer maybe) is a great idea.
Also Recovering escape pod is necessary for honorable fight! In Elite (1984) game, i remember, i was destroying escape pod with my Military lasers for revenge (Yes sometimes i am a bad person). But in ED, i want to delete my bad Karma
Irrevelant but i must say, please pay more attention to Capital Class ships in the game (I know FCs are Capital ships and i am sooo happy to have it but i am talking about The Farragut-Class Battle Cruiser & Majestic-Class Interdictor) I miss them so much...
First, thank you for looking into this and asking for feedback in advance.
I like ALL of the ideas you proposed, but have comments on some…
I would like G1 - G3 mats to be ridiculously easy to gather (mostly to help new players get “into” engineering in the first place). Particularly for things like the FSD range upgrade, which was always my first choice. So yes, either lots more per drop or more frequently found sources or modify the engineer’s recipe to demand less (or fewer). Yes, reduce the Mat traders commission a little, too.
As a casual player, I would rather not spend more than an hour or so gathering enough mats for a module update to G3, less if possible.
Grade 4 & 5 should be harder to find. Although I haven’t done many G5 mods yet, myself, I understand from reading others’ comments that a few are insanely hard to find. (Oh, BTW, a good in-game guide as to where to LOOK, "officially", for each mat would be a great help. I don’t like having to keep switching to 3rd party apps to do this.)
Yes, repeatable Engineer missions, but maybe limited to G4 & G5 mats and allow another hour or two (max) to find enough to complete the mod once.
Yes, yes, YES, to buying mats with Void Opals, Bounty vouchers etc. (Perhaps you could even add Rare commodities to the list?). Only caveat is this:
Please DON’T make it: Mat (A) costs 1 VO
Mat (B) costs 1 Bounty voucher
etc
Make it: Mat (A) costs
1 VO OR
1 BV OR
1 Exploration Data unit (whatever that may be!), OR
1 Thargoid Heart, OR
etc
That way we can pay for anything with whatever currency we have to hand.
Yes, I agree that we should remove the randomness from the upgrade process itself. Much better QoL to arrive at the Engineer KNOWING you have the right number of mats! Other games I have played work this way.
In general, I would like to see a system where EACH mat can be obtained in at least 5 different ways:
1) The current “official” method for that mat (as documented in the in-game guide).
E.g. SRV/Mining, pew-pew and scoop, wake scanning or whatever.
2) Trading (“up, down” or “across”) via the Mat traders, (As now but with tighter “margins” in some specific cases).
3) Simple “purchase”, using one of the proposed new “currencies” - from all Mat traders and specific Engineers, barmen, random individuals having around in stations or settlements, etc. Again source(s) to be listed in the in-game guide.
4) Mission reward. From Factions for G1 - G5 (as now) and from Engineers for G4 & G5 only, where a successful mission guarantees enough to complete the upgrade.
5) Something appropriate ON FOOT. Particularly for data, I guess, but there is, perhaps, scope here for a “mining grenade” or “-charge” to blow up the rocks, and a hand scanner tool to find out what’s in the rock first!
6) How about “synthesis” for some of the manufactured items? This would offer an ideal alternative to pew-pew for those (like me!) who prefer peaceful means.
Re-logging to farm one particular node should not be necessary (but by all means leave it available, now it Is there, so that anyone can, if they wish, “forge their own path” this way).
[Aside: While thinking about my contribution to this thread, I had, in the back of my mind, my next goal: I am saving up for my first Anaconda, in which I would like to get my Exploration Elite rank. (I am already Trader Elite). I was thinking that the FSD range mod and Guardian FSD would be needed. But then I thought “maybe not so much if I only explore towards the galactic core”!]
If you have been, thanks for reading, and… keep up the good work!
I like ALL of the ideas you proposed, but have comments on some…
I would like G1 - G3 mats to be ridiculously easy to gather (mostly to help new players get “into” engineering in the first place). Particularly for things like the FSD range upgrade, which was always my first choice. So yes, either lots more per drop or more frequently found sources or modify the engineer’s recipe to demand less (or fewer). Yes, reduce the Mat traders commission a little, too.
As a casual player, I would rather not spend more than an hour or so gathering enough mats for a module update to G3, less if possible.
Grade 4 & 5 should be harder to find. Although I haven’t done many G5 mods yet, myself, I understand from reading others’ comments that a few are insanely hard to find. (Oh, BTW, a good in-game guide as to where to LOOK, "officially", for each mat would be a great help. I don’t like having to keep switching to 3rd party apps to do this.)
Yes, repeatable Engineer missions, but maybe limited to G4 & G5 mats and allow another hour or two (max) to find enough to complete the mod once.
Yes, yes, YES, to buying mats with Void Opals, Bounty vouchers etc. (Perhaps you could even add Rare commodities to the list?). Only caveat is this:
Please DON’T make it: Mat (A) costs 1 VO
Mat (B) costs 1 Bounty voucher
etc
Make it: Mat (A) costs
1 VO OR
1 BV OR
1 Exploration Data unit (whatever that may be!), OR
1 Thargoid Heart, OR
etc
That way we can pay for anything with whatever currency we have to hand.
Yes, I agree that we should remove the randomness from the upgrade process itself. Much better QoL to arrive at the Engineer KNOWING you have the right number of mats! Other games I have played work this way.
In general, I would like to see a system where EACH mat can be obtained in at least 5 different ways:
1) The current “official” method for that mat (as documented in the in-game guide).
E.g. SRV/Mining, pew-pew and scoop, wake scanning or whatever.
2) Trading (“up, down” or “across”) via the Mat traders, (As now but with tighter “margins” in some specific cases).
3) Simple “purchase”, using one of the proposed new “currencies” - from all Mat traders and specific Engineers, barmen, random individuals having around in stations or settlements, etc. Again source(s) to be listed in the in-game guide.
4) Mission reward. From Factions for G1 - G5 (as now) and from Engineers for G4 & G5 only, where a successful mission guarantees enough to complete the upgrade.
5) Something appropriate ON FOOT. Particularly for data, I guess, but there is, perhaps, scope here for a “mining grenade” or “-charge” to blow up the rocks, and a hand scanner tool to find out what’s in the rock first!
6) How about “synthesis” for some of the manufactured items? This would offer an ideal alternative to pew-pew for those (like me!) who prefer peaceful means.
Re-logging to farm one particular node should not be necessary (but by all means leave it available, now it Is there, so that anyone can, if they wish, “forge their own path” this way).
[Aside: While thinking about my contribution to this thread, I had, in the back of my mind, my next goal: I am saving up for my first Anaconda, in which I would like to get my Exploration Elite rank. (I am already Trader Elite). I was thinking that the FSD range mod and Guardian FSD would be needed. But then I thought “maybe not so much if I only explore towards the galactic core”!]
If you have been, thanks for reading, and… keep up the good work!
Hire NPC to gather materials for a salary/fee
I enjoy the engineering aspects of the game, I like being able to continually improve my ships as I own them.
A few general thoughts:
1. The random improvement on each “roll” seems okay to me in principle but it feels like it’s a random amount of whatever “is left” of that tier? If that could be made a random amount of the tier in general - or maybe some other tweak - so that you don’t get 90% of the way with 3 rolls and then need another 5 rolls to complete the tier, I think that would be good. Just take the frustration out of maxing out the tier when you’re essentially done.
2. Rather than Engineer missions rewarding materials perhaps they could reward specific modules with some engineering pre-loaded? So a low rated mission might get you a G1 something or an Elite mission a G5 and so on in between.
3. For getting materials … how about the Material Traders themselves offering missions that reward you with mats? It would make sense that they would use materials as currency since that’s what they have lots of?! Mission rewards could have options of different material rarities: so you could choose a low number of any (or perhaps subset of?) rare material they have or a higher number of less rare ones? That would give a guaranteed way to get the exact materials you need from a source that makes perfect sense in the game universe.
* EDIT *
Last thought … maybe add the option to dismantle an engineered module and gain back some of the materials that were used to engineer it? Or do that when you remove the engineering effect through the current option. Would allow us to “recycle” when moving to bigger / different ships and free up module storage space without feeling like you’re throwing (as much) progress away.
A few general thoughts:
1. The random improvement on each “roll” seems okay to me in principle but it feels like it’s a random amount of whatever “is left” of that tier? If that could be made a random amount of the tier in general - or maybe some other tweak - so that you don’t get 90% of the way with 3 rolls and then need another 5 rolls to complete the tier, I think that would be good. Just take the frustration out of maxing out the tier when you’re essentially done.
2. Rather than Engineer missions rewarding materials perhaps they could reward specific modules with some engineering pre-loaded? So a low rated mission might get you a G1 something or an Elite mission a G5 and so on in between.
3. For getting materials … how about the Material Traders themselves offering missions that reward you with mats? It would make sense that they would use materials as currency since that’s what they have lots of?! Mission rewards could have options of different material rarities: so you could choose a low number of any (or perhaps subset of?) rare material they have or a higher number of less rare ones? That would give a guaranteed way to get the exact materials you need from a source that makes perfect sense in the game universe.
* EDIT *
Last thought … maybe add the option to dismantle an engineered module and gain back some of the materials that were used to engineer it? Or do that when you remove the engineering effect through the current option. Would allow us to “recycle” when moving to bigger / different ships and free up module storage space without feeling like you’re throwing (as much) progress away.
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Another thing to relieve the grind for odyssey:
For the love of all that is good and holy, ALLOW ENGINEERS TO REMOVE MODIFICATIONS AS WELL AS ADDING THEM.
If I even want to see what a mod is like then I need to grind a weapon/suit up. If it turns out I don't like a particular mod, or combo of mods, then I might as well junk the entire suit and some mods are only worth trying out on a suit you've ground up to the level you expect to actually use it at.
Like, I had extra ammo on my starter maverick suit with the backpack space. When the AA guns were added to CZs, I built another mav up to G5 on a more combat oriented build - obviously with extra ammo, but no need for extra backpack space. Now, when I take my lootin' suit into a mission where I don't expect to see much combat (or I'm taking it slow and don't need to do as much fighting back to back as I would in a CZ or settlement raid) the extra ammo is near-useless, so now if I want to get myself a new missionrunning maverick with backpack space and something else in the mod slot I'm spending on extra ammo, I'd have to grind a third maverick up to grade 5 and slap all those mods on it.
Not to mention the godawful hassle of having to redo all the cosmetics on the new suit as well as redo all my loadouts to put it at the front of the list again.
For the love of all that is good and holy, ALLOW ENGINEERS TO REMOVE MODIFICATIONS AS WELL AS ADDING THEM.
If I even want to see what a mod is like then I need to grind a weapon/suit up. If it turns out I don't like a particular mod, or combo of mods, then I might as well junk the entire suit and some mods are only worth trying out on a suit you've ground up to the level you expect to actually use it at.
Like, I had extra ammo on my starter maverick suit with the backpack space. When the AA guns were added to CZs, I built another mav up to G5 on a more combat oriented build - obviously with extra ammo, but no need for extra backpack space. Now, when I take my lootin' suit into a mission where I don't expect to see much combat (or I'm taking it slow and don't need to do as much fighting back to back as I would in a CZ or settlement raid) the extra ammo is near-useless, so now if I want to get myself a new missionrunning maverick with backpack space and something else in the mod slot I'm spending on extra ammo, I'd have to grind a third maverick up to grade 5 and slap all those mods on it.
* Material Gathering
** Availability and Time Required
- Should Grade 1-3 Materials be more plentiful to be more worthwhile than trading down?
I think so, but I think the amounts used should be less to begin with (getting
and using all 300 from G5-1 tradedown is absurd).
- Should G4 and G5 be rebalanced to match the above?
No, personally ok with drop rates, though would like G4-G5 trading and
up-trading in general to be more fair what was it, 9 G4 for 1 G5? That's pretty
brutal for being similar rarity.
- Some materials are scarce due to rare BGS states, which should be made more discover-able
I don't mind scarcity, but I would like consistency, currently a High Grade
Emissions USS has a huge pool to drop from, in Outbreak this includes
Pharmaceutical Isolators, I'd like a strong bias towards the state specific one.
Slightly open ended, but I think individual micro-managing is doomed for failure.
- Any estimates on how long it took to earn a module by gathering materials?
Hard to say, the randomness makes it wildly inconsistent, I usually farm in
batches so I have many spins.
I've generally been spending 1-3 days of ~6 hours on each set of same type mods.
That is quite long, spread across entire ships it could take weeks to engineer
even with lots of free time.
** Alternate Gathering Methods
- Context specific materials
Yes, this would be great, currently most materials aren't very well anchored in
game lore or gameplay.
For example, USS (Unidentified Signal Source) materials have very odd spawn
rates, a whole debris field of ship and only ~4-8 materials sometimes? Surely
there should be tens, hundreds?
Another example, Datamined Wake Exceptions, the gathering process makes no
sense, an arbitrarily low random chance of getting them on a High Wake Scan???
Because??? Why not say, make further jumps or exotic ships like ATR data rarer
data. Consistency is key here.
- Any feedback on the idea of unique engineer missions?
Love it. Would be interesting since people naturally 'gank' +murder+ and
congregate around engineers and important areas, could make an interesting
dynamic for defending/attacking others.
It's hard to say what reward numbers make sense, might I suggest, instead of
looking at numbers why not, offer "regular" customers materials based on
materials they don't have many of? (that is also used at the engineer you're at).
Also may I suggest regular bounty hunting / material/ cargo supply missions, to
give a lore excuse for combating 'murders' and producing materials out of thin air.
- Thoughts on allowing players to 'buy' materials with niche commodities?
In my mind that's a bespoke-gameplay-feature which is source/return missions
with extra steps. Though more options is a good idea in theory.
I would not mind full blown material commodity markets. Or black markets
rather. (I prefer black market more). And yes, this is a subtle nudge towards
player trading, because people are already doing it on-foot and with carriers.
Currently you can't drop ship materials, but on-foot materials you can.
** Rolling for Engineering Improvements
Yes, I would outright remove the randomness on each modification, it no longer
serves any purpose since there are no significant random downsides anymore.
But, the "removal" of random engineering really struck me as odd.
It was supposed to save me time and reduce frustration, what it actually did was
take away the unique stats between player-player modules, everything took
significantly longer.
Before, although it was a random system, I could jump straight to G5 mods once
unlocked. Now you must tediously generate multiple rolls of every
modification for every grade, for, every, single, module.
This bothers me more than the randomness. (burning hundreds of materials in the
process by the way). I'd rather go back to when you'd "level up" with the
engineer and use the grades you had access to, or even per-modification unlock
I'd be happy with.
If you must keep the G1-5 workup, at least let players generate all rolls up to
their desired grade in 1 button press (this would require the removal of the
randomness).
** Other Feedback
Generally I think halfway between the last version and current ship engineering
is fairly comfortable.
My main concerns roughly:
- Consistency of drops and control over rarity
Randomness is ok, no way to find better odds is not ok. If told you can only
find Meta-Alloys from barnacles, barnacles should drop a lot, polluting the drop
tables with too many other high probability things is just unfair.
To clarify, if 5 different materials all come from only the same, single,
location, and some are rarer, there should be a way to target the rarer items.
For example, if blowing up ships many different materials, it might be helpful
if Core Dynamics Ships dropped Core Dynamics Composites with reasonable
consistency, or ships in federal systems.
- Numbers balance
Even assuming everything is perfect, the material quanity requirements for
engineering and the tech broker doesn't match gameplay mechanics, for reference
the cost of the guard FSD booster (according to Inara) is approximately-
8HN Shock Mount (0)
1 Guardian Module Blueprint Fragment
21 Guardian Power Cell
21 Guardian Technology Component
24 Focus Crystals
The game's networking and physics starts to break (and delete floating entities)
at around 20 items, the cost of the FSD booster is nearly 3 times that. This is
why it's so difficult to find this many items in 1 trip/instance. Even in 3
seperate trips (or relog/supercruise) this is a stretch, ignoring material
tripling (is a slightly odd fix to me). This is a game limitation, mechanics are
build around these numbers, except for engineering, evidently.
So, I caution number adjustments to bear this is mind -
The approximate hard limit per-instance is around 20.
If you balance around 1 trip of time, total material cost should be under this
(x3 for materials which triple themselves on collection).
- Options
I think the main gripe is being pigeon-holed into specific methods used for
collecting materials, to which I say, more options! CQC, bounty hunting,
exploration, Thargoid hunting, freelace trading/smuggling, you name it.
(please, better credit/material rewards would breathe so much life into CQC)
** Availability and Time Required
- Should Grade 1-3 Materials be more plentiful to be more worthwhile than trading down?
I think so, but I think the amounts used should be less to begin with (getting
and using all 300 from G5-1 tradedown is absurd).
- Should G4 and G5 be rebalanced to match the above?
No, personally ok with drop rates, though would like G4-G5 trading and
up-trading in general to be more fair what was it, 9 G4 for 1 G5? That's pretty
brutal for being similar rarity.
- Some materials are scarce due to rare BGS states, which should be made more discover-able
I don't mind scarcity, but I would like consistency, currently a High Grade
Emissions USS has a huge pool to drop from, in Outbreak this includes
Pharmaceutical Isolators, I'd like a strong bias towards the state specific one.
Slightly open ended, but I think individual micro-managing is doomed for failure.
- Any estimates on how long it took to earn a module by gathering materials?
Hard to say, the randomness makes it wildly inconsistent, I usually farm in
batches so I have many spins.
I've generally been spending 1-3 days of ~6 hours on each set of same type mods.
That is quite long, spread across entire ships it could take weeks to engineer
even with lots of free time.
** Alternate Gathering Methods
- Context specific materials
Yes, this would be great, currently most materials aren't very well anchored in
game lore or gameplay.
For example, USS (Unidentified Signal Source) materials have very odd spawn
rates, a whole debris field of ship and only ~4-8 materials sometimes? Surely
there should be tens, hundreds?
Another example, Datamined Wake Exceptions, the gathering process makes no
sense, an arbitrarily low random chance of getting them on a High Wake Scan???
Because??? Why not say, make further jumps or exotic ships like ATR data rarer
data. Consistency is key here.
- Any feedback on the idea of unique engineer missions?
Love it. Would be interesting since people naturally 'gank' +murder+ and
congregate around engineers and important areas, could make an interesting
dynamic for defending/attacking others.
It's hard to say what reward numbers make sense, might I suggest, instead of
looking at numbers why not, offer "regular" customers materials based on
materials they don't have many of? (that is also used at the engineer you're at).
Also may I suggest regular bounty hunting / material/ cargo supply missions, to
give a lore excuse for combating 'murders' and producing materials out of thin air.
- Thoughts on allowing players to 'buy' materials with niche commodities?
In my mind that's a bespoke-gameplay-feature which is source/return missions
with extra steps. Though more options is a good idea in theory.
I would not mind full blown material commodity markets. Or black markets
rather. (I prefer black market more). And yes, this is a subtle nudge towards
player trading, because people are already doing it on-foot and with carriers.
Currently you can't drop ship materials, but on-foot materials you can.
** Rolling for Engineering Improvements
Yes, I would outright remove the randomness on each modification, it no longer
serves any purpose since there are no significant random downsides anymore.
But, the "removal" of random engineering really struck me as odd.
It was supposed to save me time and reduce frustration, what it actually did was
take away the unique stats between player-player modules, everything took
significantly longer.
Before, although it was a random system, I could jump straight to G5 mods once
unlocked. Now you must tediously generate multiple rolls of every
modification for every grade, for, every, single, module.
This bothers me more than the randomness. (burning hundreds of materials in the
process by the way). I'd rather go back to when you'd "level up" with the
engineer and use the grades you had access to, or even per-modification unlock
I'd be happy with.
If you must keep the G1-5 workup, at least let players generate all rolls up to
their desired grade in 1 button press (this would require the removal of the
randomness).
** Other Feedback
Generally I think halfway between the last version and current ship engineering
is fairly comfortable.
My main concerns roughly:
- Consistency of drops and control over rarity
Randomness is ok, no way to find better odds is not ok. If told you can only
find Meta-Alloys from barnacles, barnacles should drop a lot, polluting the drop
tables with too many other high probability things is just unfair.
To clarify, if 5 different materials all come from only the same, single,
location, and some are rarer, there should be a way to target the rarer items.
For example, if blowing up ships many different materials, it might be helpful
if Core Dynamics Ships dropped Core Dynamics Composites with reasonable
consistency, or ships in federal systems.
- Numbers balance
Even assuming everything is perfect, the material quanity requirements for
engineering and the tech broker doesn't match gameplay mechanics, for reference
the cost of the guard FSD booster (according to Inara) is approximately-
8HN Shock Mount (0)
1 Guardian Module Blueprint Fragment
21 Guardian Power Cell
21 Guardian Technology Component
24 Focus Crystals
The game's networking and physics starts to break (and delete floating entities)
at around 20 items, the cost of the FSD booster is nearly 3 times that. This is
why it's so difficult to find this many items in 1 trip/instance. Even in 3
seperate trips (or relog/supercruise) this is a stretch, ignoring material
tripling (is a slightly odd fix to me). This is a game limitation, mechanics are
build around these numbers, except for engineering, evidently.
So, I caution number adjustments to bear this is mind -
The approximate hard limit per-instance is around 20.
If you balance around 1 trip of time, total material cost should be under this
(x3 for materials which triple themselves on collection).
- Options
I think the main gripe is being pigeon-holed into specific methods used for
collecting materials, to which I say, more options! CQC, bounty hunting,
exploration, Thargoid hunting, freelace trading/smuggling, you name it.
(please, better credit/material rewards would breathe so much life into CQC)
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My first post to the ED forum. I support the idea of reducing some of the grind associated with material gathering for engineering upgrades. At the same time, I worry such efforts might "dumb things down" too much and over-simplify this aspect of gameplay. Maybe a minority position, but speaking for myself, I don't mind the material gathering (esp. when spiced up with a bit of pirate intrusion). I think the idea of a market for engineering-related materials where they might be bought or sold and not just traded is a good idea. The existing material traders provide a starting point for this, I think. Those like myself that enjoy the search and gathering process can continue and, by selling any "extra", have a new way to earn credits. Those that would rather skip such, could buy materials outright.
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I'll add my tuppence worth, although I realise that this is just my opinion which a lot of people will disagree with.
I have never been a fan of engineering and I honestly think the way it has been introduced is one of the biggest mistakes made in the development of this game. Leading up to the release of engineers I got the impression that engineering a module would give a relatively small (10% - 15%) boost, but would also incur a similar negative effect (eg overheating or damage). This sounded reasonable and meant non engineered players could still compete.
However, engineering benefits are mental, with hardly any downsides, and left non engineered players in a different game.
That said I don't think you are about to do away with engineering, and so I think that materials should be much easier to obtain or even do away with them.
Some materials require people to do things they may not want their Commander to do, like destroying innocent ships. Some people like to play the good guy, you know.
Likewise, some engineers can't be accessed unless you ally with criminal factions. Again, good guys don't want to do that.
If you do decide to keep material gathering which is more than likely, then here are my suggestions:
Increase the number of materials gathered each time.
A much better exchange rate at material traders.
Materials should have several ways to be obtained, rather than one specific way.
Missions should give much higher material rewards, given that the credit sacrifice can be millions of credits.
How about if instead of a mission giving a specific material reward, it would be a grade of material reward (eg grade 4), then on completion of that mission you could choose the grade 4 material you required. Or if the reward was 20 grade 4 mats, you could get 10 of one type, 5 of another and 5 of another. You get the idea.
I have never been a fan of engineering and I honestly think the way it has been introduced is one of the biggest mistakes made in the development of this game. Leading up to the release of engineers I got the impression that engineering a module would give a relatively small (10% - 15%) boost, but would also incur a similar negative effect (eg overheating or damage). This sounded reasonable and meant non engineered players could still compete.
However, engineering benefits are mental, with hardly any downsides, and left non engineered players in a different game.
That said I don't think you are about to do away with engineering, and so I think that materials should be much easier to obtain or even do away with them.
Some materials require people to do things they may not want their Commander to do, like destroying innocent ships. Some people like to play the good guy, you know.
Likewise, some engineers can't be accessed unless you ally with criminal factions. Again, good guys don't want to do that.
If you do decide to keep material gathering which is more than likely, then here are my suggestions:
Increase the number of materials gathered each time.
A much better exchange rate at material traders.
Materials should have several ways to be obtained, rather than one specific way.
Missions should give much higher material rewards, given that the credit sacrifice can be millions of credits.
How about if instead of a mission giving a specific material reward, it would be a grade of material reward (eg grade 4), then on completion of that mission you could choose the grade 4 material you required. Or if the reward was 20 grade 4 mats, you could get 10 of one type, 5 of another and 5 of another. You get the idea.
Here is a fun thought exercise for people.
Think for a moment of what it takes to evaluate a weapon. You probably gotta go out, haz rez it up a bit. Maybe do some PvP and some Tharg action, try it out on SRVs and infantry to make sure it doesn't break anything. Then tweak the numbers and do it again, iterate on that a few times.
Estimate how long that will take and write it down.
Multiply estimate times 750.
That is the number of blueprints times effects there are for weapons.
That is only 72 of 176 blue prints. So double that number from above, there are fewer combinations for non-weapons per BP. This is the final number.
Take a look at the final number. That is the ballpark number of work hours a single balance pass will take.
This is the scope of "balancing" engineering, assuming it is perfect the first time.
I'm sure I miscounted by one here or there. It doesn't materially change the estimate in a meaningful way. The point stands, the time of even a single balance pass and testing is truly absurd.
That is only 72 of 176 blue prints. So double that number from above, there are fewer combinations for non-weapons per BP. This is the final number.
Take a look at the final number. That is the ballpark number of work hours a single balance pass will take.
This is the scope of "balancing" engineering, assuming it is perfect the first time.
I'm sure I miscounted by one here or there. It doesn't materially change the estimate in a meaningful way. The point stands, the time of even a single balance pass and testing is truly absurd.
I'd like to see ships have a chance to drop modules and weapons when destroyed, not just engineering materials. These could then be broken down into materials if desired, sold for cash, perhaps traded for materials or even occasionally be engineered already (based on their combat rating) and usable in our own ships if desired.
I think I'd increase the qty collected from each material source and increase the available sources.
I think I'd increase the qty collected from each material source and increase the available sources.
After many hundreds of hours grinding mats, this is what I always wanted to change:
- Increase the onboard bin size of materials by a factor of 3, 5, or higher. I don't mind the grind so much as having to run back & forth to traders for very poor trade down rates. Make it an earnable module upgrade if you like.
- Put material traders at the engineer's stations.
- I can sell back my modules & ships so why can't I sell back my engineered modules to engineers & get back the mats I spent on any given modules? I have bought many ships just to use as storage for engineered modules. So you may as well increase the number of available storage slots for modules too. Because we'll only find a way around that, as I just described.
- Many of us play exclusively in VR. Please give us a way to gather those mats in ways other than the vomit-inducing SRV. Want to get more players in CQC? Give materials as rewards. We've been asking for canyon racing for years. Add it as an option in CQC. Timed trials, Player vs AI, player vs player. The ability to pit our custom builds against each other. Oh boy, would that increase the player base! Mats as rewards would really put the fun back into mat gathering. (Imagine an official ED Cannonball Run LOL).
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Ye Fargods, forty pages. So apologies if this has been said before.
At the moment the effective drop rate at Jameson's Cobra for G5 data other than Adaptive Encryptors Capture, after trading, is about thirty items, or ten drops, an hour (that's at least twice the rate you'll get from the tedious but relogging-free method of farming Datamined Wake Exceptions at a Famine Distribution Centre).
Alternative and preferably more engaging sources would be welcome but if they don't offer the same drop rate or pretty close to it, most people will try them once then go back to Jameson's Cobra.
At the moment the effective drop rate at Jameson's Cobra for G5 data other than Adaptive Encryptors Capture, after trading, is about thirty items, or ten drops, an hour (that's at least twice the rate you'll get from the tedious but relogging-free method of farming Datamined Wake Exceptions at a Famine Distribution Centre).
Alternative and preferably more engaging sources would be welcome but if they don't offer the same drop rate or pretty close to it, most people will try them once then go back to Jameson's Cobra.
Collector limpets :
i often do bounty hunting and collect some material along the way.
but limpets have issues:
- they are beiing targeted by enemy point defences and die
- they are slow, a lot slower than my ship, slowing my gameplay loop of glorious destruction
- both of the above discourage greatly to play as a sniper bounty hunter because you would have to get close to your dead enemy anyway before collecting mats
- you need a lot of internal space to efficiently collect mats, discouraging small combat ships to do it WHILE bounty hunting (part of the issue come from the "1limpet = 1ton")
- having your cargo hatch open slows your ship, not good in combat
so the way to do it today is : kill enemy, go near the wreckage, deploy limpets/open cargo hatch, wait, close cargo hatch, kill next enemy and hope he does not destoy your limpets
waiting is no fun
having your limpets destoyed by enemies is no fun
either give limpets more range, make them much faster and ignored by enemies if the limpets themself are not agressives
remove the need for ammo, or dont make limpets expire, make them refuel in the ship instead (depositing a mat in the ship resets their death timer)
maybe make the limpets a material themself ? so they dont take cargo space
and pls, think about a universal limpet controller
or introduce a fast and nimble material collecting autonomous space srv, (not a fighter because you want everyone to be able to launch this one.)
that is automonus and does not need a pilot, has his own material inventory and does not require to get back to the main ship each time he pick up one mat.
kinda a set and forget material gatherer. (size 3 internal module that can reprint new ships, just in case)
that will allow me to speard absolute destruction around me while having my cargo hatch closed.
i often do bounty hunting and collect some material along the way.
but limpets have issues:
- they are beiing targeted by enemy point defences and die
- they are slow, a lot slower than my ship, slowing my gameplay loop of glorious destruction
- both of the above discourage greatly to play as a sniper bounty hunter because you would have to get close to your dead enemy anyway before collecting mats
- you need a lot of internal space to efficiently collect mats, discouraging small combat ships to do it WHILE bounty hunting (part of the issue come from the "1limpet = 1ton")
- having your cargo hatch open slows your ship, not good in combat
so the way to do it today is : kill enemy, go near the wreckage, deploy limpets/open cargo hatch, wait, close cargo hatch, kill next enemy and hope he does not destoy your limpets
waiting is no fun
having your limpets destoyed by enemies is no fun
either give limpets more range, make them much faster and ignored by enemies if the limpets themself are not agressives
remove the need for ammo, or dont make limpets expire, make them refuel in the ship instead (depositing a mat in the ship resets their death timer)
maybe make the limpets a material themself ? so they dont take cargo space
and pls, think about a universal limpet controller
or introduce a fast and nimble material collecting autonomous space srv, (not a fighter because you want everyone to be able to launch this one.)
that is automonus and does not need a pilot, has his own material inventory and does not require to get back to the main ship each time he pick up one mat.
kinda a set and forget material gatherer. (size 3 internal module that can reprint new ships, just in case)
that will allow me to speard absolute destruction around me while having my cargo hatch closed.
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Sorry, I just wanted to add to this.
One of my biggest long-term complaints about Elite is the accessability of the features.
There is quite a lot to do in the game- fun things -and lots of tricks you you can learn,
and places you can go to get things done more efficiency. But it's almost universally
never presented in a way most people can figure out on their own. It's why we have
things like inara and the canonn database.
This has a knock-on-effect on enginering too, because people don't know what's available to thme.
Even simple stuff like "where do Manufacturing Instructions appear?" Takes actual persistent studies
to determine definitively...
Where good gameplay should make it easy to figure out after ~<10 appearances if you pay attention.
The codex tried to solve this, but it is lackluster at best, mostly it is useful to finding a niche set of
existing things like plants and you own pre-discored logs.
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This thread is incredibly enlightening and frustrating at the same time. Almost all of the suggestions are geared toward just making g5 modules faster to achieve.
At this point, i think a power creep level set is the best idea going forward. Roll the most used g5 mod stats into the base modules and go back to what engineers were designed to be in the first place...largely side grade tweaks that actually allowed for useful but unique builds.
At least that way, if a player feels compelled to grind away to shift a few stats a few percentage on 25 ships all at once, then that is on them, as there would be no viable argument for it to be a necessity.
As far as side grades would go, make them a set cost, one and done like current experimentals.
At this point, i think a power creep level set is the best idea going forward. Roll the most used g5 mod stats into the base modules and go back to what engineers were designed to be in the first place...largely side grade tweaks that actually allowed for useful but unique builds.
At least that way, if a player feels compelled to grind away to shift a few stats a few percentage on 25 ships all at once, then that is on them, as there would be no viable argument for it to be a necessity.
As far as side grades would go, make them a set cost, one and done like current experimentals.
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