Grind requirements are insane

I think they disabled the relogging thing with the last patch...

But as a explorer myself, I would rather pay a horrendous sum ingame for a fully updated suite than doing pew pew, it just does not interest me that much.
As an explorer, all you need is an Artemis and maybe add one or two modules for utility so I don't think a ton of this applies to those who have no interest in "pew pew"; there is no "pew pew" for gathering mats anyway, except for the CZs required to unlock the engineer. That's an issue, in my opinion (that we cannot get mats via combat). It's all scavenging and RNG data hunts. Actually, a ton of upgrading is done via "exploration" :D Perhaps maybe not deep space exploration but it's certainly more exploring than shooting I can say that.

I upgraded quite a bit in Alpha and Fdev did listen a little to our feedback; the mats requirements you see in the OP are much lower than that in the alpha for the same things. I've made fast progress since the expansion launched and have found the "grind" to be limited to just gathering MIs (and by extention, I got some PRs too). After that, I've not ground a thing. It's all been quite fun gathering as I did missions or actively hunted it. But that's all "ground" to a halt now that I need 40 Opinion Polls and 20 media data to unlock two engineers (and behind both are at least two mods I want).

I think what's needed is:

  • Get mats from looting killed opponents (including MIs)
  • Trade data across types (HAB data for HAB data, SEC data for SEC data etc) and so this also includes MIs (IND types)
  • Allow us to remove inserted mods at a cost of a % of the mats for that mod (so you lose the mod, get some mats back but retain the weapon/suit itself) and a cost of credits.
That's really all I think is needed. Getting specific data from missions for engineer blueprints is fast (and you can get all of that data via missions, which is better than Horizons). Getting most other mats from scavenging is fine (and would be better if those of us who do want to upgrade for combat reasons could actually do so via combat). Data is a huge bottleneck, particularly for unlocking engineers and the second point above would help with that (it renders the process less RNG if you can trade across).
 
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As an explorer, all you need is an Artemis and maybe add one or two modules for utility so I don't think a ton of this applies to those who have no interest in "pew pew"; there is no "pew pew" for gathering mats anyway, except for the CZs required to unlock the engineer. That's an issue, in my opinion (that we cannot get mats via combat). It's all scavenging and RNG data hunts. Actually, a ton of upgrading is done via "exploration" :D Perhaps maybe not deep space exploration but it's certainly more exploring than shooting I can say that.

I upgraded quite a bit in Alpha and Fdev did listen a little to our feedback; the mats requirements you see in the OP are much lower than that in the alpha for the same things. I've made fast progress since the expansion launched and have found the "grind" to be limited to just gathering MIs (and by extention, I got some PRs too). After that, I've not ground a thing. It's all been quite fun gathering as I did missions or actively hunted it.

I think what's needed is:

  • Get mats from looting killed opponents
  • Trade data across types (HAB data for HAB data, SEC data for SEC data etc)
  • Allow us to remove inserted mods at a cost of a % of the mats for that mod (so you lose the mod, get some mats back but retain the weapon/suit itself) and a cost of credits.
That's really all I think is needed. Getting data from missions is fast. Getting most other mats from scavenging is fine (and would be better if those of us who do want to upgrade for combat reasons could actually do so via combat). Data is a huge bottleneck, particularly for unlocking engineers and the second point above would help with that (it renders the process less RNG if you can trade across).
And honestly the material storage with it's limits and unsorted appearance reminds me of the engineers V1, feels a bit like a step back.

But your tips for mapping and checking out settlements in the other thread helped a lot 👍
 
And to max out an Anaconda, Cutter and Corvette you need a lot of rank grind, three billion credits and 150 of all materials. Does this sound daunting to you?
Read the OP. It was ok as it didn't require FPS. Mat gathering and making a lot of credits was rather easy in Horizons.
 
And honestly the material storage with it's limits and unsorted appearance reminds me of the engineers V1, feels a bit like a step back.

But your tips for mapping and checking out settlements in the other thread helped a lot 👍
Yeh that 1000 limit gets hit real fast for the tech/chems/circuits! Real fast. I've had to burn so many mats to make room and the trader won't work even if the trader is attritive to your total stock count (it just shows some placeholder error). So you have to kill mats to make room for more.

Not so much for goods or data (and they did increase goods from 200 to 1000 after alpha, so again probably listened a bit). But I'm getting there! I'd say assets should have a limit of 1500. No point asking them to sub-categorise them all now, I don't think.
 
Read the OP. It was ok as it didn't require FPS. Mat gathering and making a lot of credits was rather easy in Horizons.
Just to clarify, why do you think it requires "FPS"? The only part of upgrading that requires FPS is unlocking one engineer so far.
 
Yeh that 1000 limit gets hit real fast for the tech/chems/circuits! Real fast. I've had to burn so many mats to make room and the trader won't work even if the trader is attritive to your total stock count (it just shows some placeholder error). So you have to kill mats to make room for more.

Not so much for goods or data (and they did increase goods from 200 to 1000 after alpha, so again probably listened a bit). But I'm getting there! I'd say assets should have a limit of 1500. No point asking them to sub-categorise them all now, I don't think.
Are there really that many new mats? I normally stay away from too detailed guides so I just heard "rumors"
 
I farmed everything in Arouca system. Missions' rewards are pretty good.

Just to be clear:

Did you focus on mission rewards or looting the settlements? I have mainly been looting settlement and this does not seem to help. In my REP system I am able to almost double any mission rewards offered by the NPCs in the concourse. Is this the way?
 
Just to clarify, why do you think it requires "FPS"? The only part of upgrading that requires FPS is unlocking one engineer so far.
As I currently understand you get the most mats with settlement missions, i.e. looting the lockers. And I'm not good at fighting scavengers and guards in settlements.

In wreckage and irregular marker missions I jump into ship when the scavengers turn up, kill them with dumbfire missiles and get out again.
 
Are there really that many new mats? I normally stay away from too detailed guides so I just heard "rumors"
It's just that you have to stop one focus to upgrade (and burn mats) before you can switch focus. You feel bad having to sell assets rather than trade across. So having just 50 of everything will get you close to the limit and 50 of everything won't get you far when upgrading. It is, as you said, exactly how it used to be with Horizons. It'd be less of an issue at 1500 and given the high volume of requirements for assets, compared to everything else, I'd think that was about right.
 
It's just that you have to stop one focus to upgrade (and burn mats) before you can switch focus. You feel bad having to sell assets rather than trade across. So having just 50 of everything will get you close to the limit and 50 of everything won't get you far when upgrading. It is, as you said, exactly how it used to be with Horizons. It'd be less of an issue at 1500 and given the high volume of requirements for assets, compared to everything else, I'd think that was about right.
Okay the I just have to win over my inner hoarder (all other mats for crafting always maxed out) :)
 
As I currently understand you get the most mats with settlement missions, i.e. looting the lockers. And I'm not good at fighting scavengers and guards in settlements.

In wreckage and irregular marker missions I jump into ship when the scavengers turn up, kill them with dumbfire missiles and get out again.
You don't need to fight anything to gather mats. It helps though.

POIs you can burn down the incumbent scavs with the SRV (it's not too difficult to do, certainly very little aiming) and then you can actually avoid detection thereafter for repeated runs. For settlements, you can just sneak in and take what you like. But this does require some guidance (and I'm on that, I'm creating my first of many guide videos today).
 
The game should be offering the first upgrade at only the cost of natural gameplay. That should be the hook to go and explore more about what you need to do to level up further. You should naturally progress into lv2 weapons if you are just enjoying the missions & frontline solution stuff, but that doesn't happen. Even if you collect quite a bit of stuff at crash sites and settlements you need a very large range of upgrade mats and to specifically know what to find. The first one should be something you stumble upon shortly after having some fun and warming up.

The climb to that first upgrade is so steep and doesn't open up upgrades to the player in a natural way.
 
To make a positive note here:
You can drop materials from your backpack and others can pick them, no?
It is the first time you can actually exchange anything (apart from releasing commodities in space) between players.
 
To make a positive note here:
You can drop materials from your backpack and others can pick them, no?
It is the first time you can actually exchange anything (apart from releasing commodities in space) between players.
You can?
 
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