Good job frontier! Engineer exploit fixed in 24 hours!

[Truesilver]

I'm a Lifetime Pass holder but I would pay hard cash for Alien Tech in Season 3 ... if and only if the green guys' E-rank modules are better than A-rank vanilla plus +42% RNGineered god roll.

Basically, if the alien stuff starts at +50% we can forget this mess.

Great, heal the powercreep! With even more powercreep. That will surely fix the issue.

Jason has already replied exactly as I would have done:

I'll hazard a guess that Truesilver would support the removal of the engineers altogether as a dream option. As would I. I've been on record numerous times offering to pay extra for that game. However, he and many others of us recognize that this will simply not happen; Fdev will not remove them.

Exactly this.

My preferred solutions, in order of preference:

1. Delete RNGineers in entirety

2. Remove secondaries and cap primary at blueprint published maximum

3. Make all blueprints require only one g1 mat

Items 1 and 2 are not going to happen. Both would be unfair to those who have ground in good faith.

Item 3 could perhaps be the way forwards. It is late in the season. It is not unknown for games companies to grant unlocks when a new season comes out. Nobody would lose anything, except for exclusivity. Everyone could roll using g1 mats for as many modules and ships as they like.

A solution?

 

[bitstorm]

Jason has already replied exactly as I would have done:



Exactly this.

My preferred solutions, in order of preference:

1. Delete RNGineers in entirety

2. Remove secondaries and cap primary at blueprint published maximum

3. Make all blueprints require only one g1 mat

Items 1 and 2 are not going to happen. Both would be unfair to those who have ground in good faith.

Item 3 could perhaps be the way forwards. It is late in the season. It is not unknown for games companies to grant unlocks when a new season comes out. Nobody would lose anything, except for exclusivity. Everyone could roll using g1 mats for as many modules and ships as they like.

A solution?

I mean we are talking drastic solutions here but yes I think if it could be framed correctly then maybe it is.

For example giving players G5 for G1 is just going to make the player/NPC discrepency even worse.

So this change accompanied with an increase in NPC ability (maybe give them all engineer mods) could work, since all you are then doing is moving everything up a notch towards the exploit level.

I know it's not clear cut but to divide it down....

The PvE player gets an increase in power towards the exploiters to even things out, and the NPCs get an increase so the player/NPC gap is managed.

The PvP player (non-exploiting) gets an increase making it (as much as Engineers permits) a level playing field.


I guess the issue then is that non-engineer players get left behind, so new players become even more prone (to NPCs and players).

And possibly folk who haven't bought Horizons, but in all honesty if the game needs to move on.... and Horizons is cheap enough.


All this is still on the assumption that Frontier does not know who has exploited though, which we still have no idea about. I'd prefer the mods were just removed and the CMDRs perma-shadow banned.

 

[Han_Zen]

Jason has already replied exactly as I would have done:



Exactly this.

My preferred solutions, in order of preference:

1. Delete RNGineers in entirety

2. Remove secondaries and cap primary at blueprint published maximum

3. Make all blueprints require only one g1 mat

Items 1 and 2 are not going to happen. Both would be unfair to those who have ground in good faith.

Item 3 could perhaps be the way forwards. It is late in the season. It is not unknown for games companies to grant unlocks when a new season comes out. Nobody would lose anything, except for exclusivity. Everyone could roll using g1 mats for as many modules and ships as they like.

A solution?

An old trick would be to introduce A+ modules, that are on par with normal A with engineering. These would then be available to all players and NPCs.

They could be either unengineerable or far more restricted. They could also be incompatible with undesirable things like stacked SBs.

Still power creep, but a flatt power creep.

 

[sewerratuk]

Jason has already replied exactly as I would have done:



Exactly this.

My preferred solutions, in order of preference:

1. Delete RNGineers in entirety

2. Remove secondaries and cap primary at blueprint published maximum

3. Make all blueprints require only one g1 mat

Items 1 and 2 are not going to happen. Both would be unfair to those who have ground in good faith.

Item 3 could perhaps be the way forwards. It is late in the season. It is not unknown for games companies to grant unlocks when a new season comes out. Nobody would lose anything, except for exclusivity. Everyone could roll using g1 mats for as many modules and ships as they like.

A solution?

I'm all for No.2
I don't see why this should be a big issue to have a balance pass and downgrade everything that is engineered above the max.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Jason has already replied exactly as I would have done:



Exactly this.

My preferred solutions, in order of preference:

1. Delete RNGineers in entirety

2. Remove secondaries and cap primary at blueprint published maximum

3. Make all blueprints require only one g1 mat

Items 1 and 2 are not going to happen. Both would be unfair to those who have ground in good faith.

Item 3 could perhaps be the way forwards. It is late in the season. It is not unknown for games companies to grant unlocks when a new season comes out. Nobody would lose anything, except for exclusivity. Everyone could roll using g1 mats for as many modules and ships as they like.

A solution?

It might. Maybe. Untying the requirements would make it accessible for a larger number of players thus evening the balance. I still detest the very concept of the ridiculous buffs available.

 

[CAPT. Ho Chi Minge]

Personally id be happy with sliders and the removal of secondary effects , this i think ould be my preffered middle ground where pilots can tailor their own builds exactly how they want.

 

[Winter Jasra]

Personally id be happy with sliders and the removal of secondary effects , this i think ould be my preffered middle ground where pilots can tailor their own builds exactly how they want.

I think giving us the ability of fine tuning our ships using sliders via the engineers would go along way to enhancing the games simulator credentials.

 

[Truesilver]

Personally id be happy with sliders and the removal of secondary effects , this i think ould be my preffered middle ground where pilots can tailor their own builds exactly how they want.

I think giving us the ability of fine tuning our ships using sliders via the engineers would go along way to enhancing the games simulator credentials.

I would always have loved this - I've always been in the slider camp.

But that ship sailed long ago ... if Frontier were going to go down that route they would have done so a year ago. They won't re-code or re-position on that now, I'm afraid.

 

[Faybs]

hmm, today i watched a video of a sidewinder getting through harry potters shields and damaging his hull.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda

This is not the first time SDC use youtube this way. Dollars to donuts Harry just fit normal shields and paraded himself ready to get shot at, with a buddy filming him.

 

[MottiKhan]

I would always have loved this - I've always been in the slider camp.

But that ship sailed long ago ... if Frontier were going to go down that route they would have done so a year ago. They won't re-code or re-position on that now, I'm afraid.

Most likely so, but it's obvious that Engineers is broken. Will FD do something about it?

Sliders and removing secondaries would be a real fix. I'll remain cautiously pessimistic.

 

[Bunkerkind Anni]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda

This is not the first time SDC use youtube this way. Dollars to donuts Harry just fit normal shields and paraded himself ready to get shot at, with a buddy filming him.

nope, thats no "buddy" i have watched. just a notorious sidewinder captain with some mighty enforcers

 

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda

This is not the first time SDC use youtube this way. Dollars to donuts Harry just fit normal shields and paraded himself ready to get shot at, with a buddy filming him.

Harry's clipper is a hulltank, that bi-weave is just a cherry on top. Plus, I think he runs enhanced low-power shield generator to save mass. And Archon ain't no buddy.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Yes. Of course I obtained these legit through a lot of hard work and a lot of personal time.

We may have one or two over spec upgrades that we did earn legit... But based on what I have observed, the Cheat Ships have over spec everything. Everything that matters at least. THAT is not something a legit player is likely to achieve simply do to the rules of probability whenever an RNG is involved.

Hope that helps clarify things for you.

P.S. My encounter last night in Open Beta had nothing to do with piloting skill. The cheater was just parked in space shooting G5 fish in a barrel.

So all of those arm chair PvP experts in this thread who were not actually there, should just STHU. You have no idea what you are talking about, and you look like fools or apologists to those who were actually there and witnessed this obviously exploited ship and the cheater who was flying it.

Psss, CMDR Mini-Kill has a youtube series of extreme engineering and he has modded a variety of modules to be virtually as good as it gets and it was all legit, because of the nature of RNG it's impossible to tell a person who cheated just by their specs. As a side note when you fight a person in a duel there is no way to confidently tell what their stats are unless they are keen to give them to you so I'm excited to hear how do you know if your oponent has god rolls in things like armor, power distributor, power plant, heatsinks, SCB's, etc.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Harry Potter might be many things, but he's no cheater. SDC isn't 13th.

Cough cough, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PGU0lyKSHA, cough.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

If you erase the history and persona completely and just look at the mathematically probability of achieving those god rolls legitimately, it's on the order of 1000000 to 1 against. An honest CMDR would literally have a better chance of being struck by lighting. That doesn't mean someone is definitely a cheater. It just just means that the mathematically probability of possessing such a ship by legit means is extraordinarily low.

Well sir, there are more than 100000 players in the game so it's not that unlikely, also you have to consider that we don't know how hard it is to really get a god roll, some people get them very quickly and others never get them even after trying hundreds of times.

 

[DeRazer]

Psss, CMDR Mini-Kill has a youtube series of extreme engineering and he has modded a variety of modules to be virtually as good as it gets and it was all legit, because of the nature of RNG it's impossible to tell a person who cheated just by their specs. As a side note when you fight a person in a duel there is no way to confidently tell what their stats are unless they are keen to give them to you so I'm excited to hear how do you know if your oponent has god rolls in things like armor, power distributor, power plant, heatsinks, SCB's, etc.

Surely Frontier log materials use? And also Ship Stats. It should be straightforward enough to scan databases for instances where Ship Stats changed but #Materials didnt = Exploiters.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Surely Frontier log materials use? And also Ship Stats. It should be straightforward enough to scan databases for instances where Ship Stats changed but #Materials didnt = Exploiters.

FD might be able to do what you say but I was talking about players, how does a player know between a cheater and a legit player?

 

[Querty Out]

Jason has already replied exactly as I would have done:



Exactly this.

My preferred solutions, in order of preference:

1. Delete RNGineers in entirety

2. Remove secondaries and cap primary at blueprint published maximum

3. Make all blueprints require only one g1 mat

Items 1 and 2 are not going to happen. Both would be unfair to those who have ground in good faith.

Item 3 could perhaps be the way forwards. It is late in the season. It is not unknown for games companies to grant unlocks when a new season comes out. Nobody would lose anything, except for exclusivity. Everyone could roll using g1 mats for as many modules and ships as they like.

A solution?

If we can't have sliders then how about simply removing randomness? A G1 rolls gives you a a guaranteed G1 god roll, a G2 roll gives you a guaranteed G2 god roll, and so forth. Every effect applied by an engineer gives you the guaranteed best result that is possible today including secondary effects.

With one more G5 roll everyone would on par with the god roll ships in game with their chosen module. Then it becomes more of an outfitting game, mixing and matching modules and effects to personal taste.

 

[Aris_]

FD might be able to do what you say but I was talking about players, how does a player know between a cheater and a legit player?

simple null all modules to legit max, problem solved

 

[Han_Zen]

FD might be able to do what you say but I was talking about players, how does a player know between a cheater and a legit player?

FD presents their solution. If it's good and you trust that it removes the cheats, all players you meet are clean.
If FD's solution is inadequate, only players you know and trust should be considered clean.

This is from a tactical perspective of cource. In reality, 99.9% of players are probably clean. If you are not in the latest CG system, Founders or at the US barnacles, it's probably ~100% clean.