How to make material gathering fun?

[Muetdhiver]

Trivial really. The root issue is the RNG combined with the wait for SS mechanic and disjointed gameplay loops.

This is bad design.

What we should have is something like that :

Instance wide semi-persistent signal sources. When someone enters SC, generate 5-6 of them with their type visible from the get go.

We should be able to investigate a distress signal, get back in SC and go investigate that previously spotted wreck signal.

If you generate 5-6 with a few more as time goes, you don't have to pray RNJesus for something interesting.

Also, make stuff like HGEs part of missions as location. I.e. give players a tool to find them reliably while having fun. Like recovering experimental medicine along with PI from a wreck from the pirate's grasp.

Same goes for rare raw elements: why not have them drop when pirating high value miners along with the regular cargo, both during missions and out.

What I'm saying is that collection gameplay should be a sub-loop of the main gameplay loops like mining, piracy, missions and so on. And that players should be able to reliably be able to find what they seek without engaging in RNG based wait-to-play pseudo gameplay loops.

 

[Hellakitty]

Pretty much this as well. I understand Frontier want a progression path toward Engineering our ships, but being at the mercy of being unsure how well things will spawn and drop for you is rather tedious in its own way. Working toward things at a reasonable rate (YMMV) is fine, being unsure of how your efforts coming to fruition, not so much.

In general though, this is why I'm as pleased as I am with the changes to the Engineers overall compared to what we have. Still some room for improvements here and there though.

As I said in another thread, but will echo here:

I think the biggest problem with engineering for me is frustration at how close they've come to making it a good system. They improved some of it in 3.0, but not all of it. In the end RNG and tedious time-gates have had the last say, again.

I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they'll fix, improve or at least alleviate some of the symptoms in further iterations.

 

[John Xenir]

The only way I can see for this to be fun is to take a vodka shot every 5 minutes you don't find anything worth picking up.
At least you're happily tipsy at the end of play session

 

[Cmdr-Wotherspoon]

Why not take missions that reward the grade 5 materials. I personally like the kill pirate lord/terrorist missions, the missions usually reward G5 materials, and the exploding ship frequently drops them as well. double win and its fun.

Absolutely. There are many ways to gather materials, so use whatever method you find fun. I quite like surface prospecting, as it lets me explore some fantastic landscapes. Some people don't enjoy a drive in the wilderness; I quite like it. If you don't, collect your materials another way.

 

[DarthRavadge]

Netflix and gather. Got me through 28 ships worth of mods

 

[WR3ND]

As I said in another thread, but will echo here:

I think the biggest problem with engineering for me is frustration at how close they've come to making it a good system. They improved some of it in 3.0, but not all of it. In the end RNG and tedious time-gates have had the last say, again.

I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they'll fix, improve or at least alleviate some of the symptoms in further iterations.

Sorry for the late edit on my post to clean it up a bit and add some stuff in, but yeah, that's the gist of it for me either way.

Cheers.

 

[CMDR Carbo]

I actually posted 2 suggestions in the feedback forums just today.

1. Scanable POIs (ore-veins) on planet surfaces

These would basically be like asteroids buried in the planet surface, could be detected from orbit with the surface scanner, and scanned either from the ship or the SRV and give you their compositions similar to asteroids. If they contain the materials the player is looking for, he could then land and mine the ore vein with his SRV. They should give increased amount of materials compared to rocks or outcrops.
This would reduce the requirement to drive around on planet aimlessly shooting rocks and hope that the correct material drops by chance.

2. Debris fields, Junk yards

These would be (semi-)persistent huge debris fields either similar to asteroid fields (junk yard, persistent) or resource extraction sites (debris field, semi-persistent) where a war might have taken place once. They are big debris fields that contain ship wrecks and basically all manufactured materials in varying amounts (varying by rarity). Players could drop into them and fly around looking for components they need. These sites could be scattered with explosive traps, mines and pirates for added game play.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/414416-Reduce-RNG-for-mat-gathering

 

[Lily from anim.o.v.e]

Hmm, let me things, how about some consistency.

When mechnical scrap drps from halung ships any damn hauling ship should drop them with a high chance, not just a superrare amount in USS.

Same for imperial shielding, basically every imperial ship with a specific internal should drop it, yet it's so rare and iirc cannot be dropped in CZ's (where the most shielded Empire ships fly around).

It is the basic lack of logic that makes materials painful to obtain.

Also, player trading for materials. It massively reduces the "forces people to do what you don't want to do" into: "do what you like and trade it with others who don't like to do what you like to do"
And trading should include, credist vs material, as well as material vs material. But I guess since FD lost control about credit balance this would be ahard task to do so. Yet hardly helps the Solo players, so the core currency, credist, is already broken.

They could also include PP by allowing the player to spent merits as a kind of "supply support" by the power to the player, so someoen can trade merits gained for materials

And of course, cooler material focussed missions. Like: paying some informant to get a juicy material location named, that then requires fighting through some more or less challanging opponents to obtain the stash.

Also, detailed surface scanner (you know that magical scanner tht can even tell you of how many % your planet consists of) should be calibrateable to a specific material, revealing a planetary location whre there is a higher scanned density of said material. This now gives you a location where you can find this material with a much higher chance of success in yoru srv.

There is tons of simple ideas but the inconsistent illogical randomness we have gotten is quite sad.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

I guess the one thing that bothers me most about materials, especially Manufactured Materials, is this:

These materials are produced by someone, somewhere, probably shipped across the galaxy in huge cargo containers brimming with these things, delivered to somewhere else, where they're put into whatever is being built that requires them, and...

Why can't we purchase these sorts of things?

Let's look at Chemical Manipulators, as defined: "Chemical manipulators provide a means to control a chemical process."

Let's liken that to a Catalytic Converter - yep, I can run out to the auto parts store and buy as many of these as I want.

Or perhaps... on the more exotic side, I can buy a complete Electroporation system: https://www.fishersci.com/shop/products/btx-gemini-x2-electroporation-system/btx452007

Sure, they're not selling these down at the corner store, but they're available.

Manufactured Components simply are not - so we rely on either finding them, usually where something else has been destroyed, or by destroying something else ourselves.

We're already treated like criminals if we happen to pick up the cargo of a destroyed ship (it's labelled as Stolen in most cases), so how is this any different? The only way we could come to possess most of these things is either to have destroyed a ship for it, or found it among the wreckage of a ship someone else destroyed.

If the Left Hand Brotherhood can pay me with a box of Exquisite Focus Crystals, they had to be able to get those Exquisite Focus Crystals from somewhere. Why can we not go to Somewhere and get them ourselves?

---

As I recall, there are number of different kinds of Facilities out there - usually designated with a + or ++ or +++.
The only real function of these is to give us somewhere to steal data from - so why not make them actually useful? Allow us to drive up to them in an SRV (they don't have landing pads, but slipping some garages into them wouldn't be a big deal, and purchase a quantity of some manner of appropriate component? Instead of the "Board Ship" option we get in SRV hangers right now, give us a "Facility Services" instead? These places could even give missions - bring in X amount of Raw Materials for Y amount of other Materials instead. Wow, gameplay. Options. Choices.

 

[operant]

I am both appalled and fascinated by the fly around space and pray to RNGesus approach to acquiring G5 manufactured material poop. Fascinated because, assuming FD are not idiots, their must be a (business) reason why they insist on this aspect of the game being this way, when it is utterly stupid and in many respects insulting; and would be so easy to change.
So what are FD 'afraid' of, so to speak: why cannot the gathering of G5 materials be easier and more enjoyable?

 

[John Xenir]

I am both appalled and fascinated by the fly around space and pray to RNGesus approach to acquiring G5 manufactured material poop. Fascinated because, assuming FD are not idiots, their must be a (business) reason why they insist on this aspect of the game being this way, when it is utterly stupid and in many respects insulting; and would be so easy to change.
So what are FD 'afraid' of, so to speak: why cannot the gathering of G5 materials be easier and more enjoyable?

I think it all boils down to RNG and procedural generation, which seems to be getting in the way of meaningful game play.

 

[WR3ND]

Anyway, to address the OP beyond just my preferences for the game's development, I see it more as just a hobby pastime of sorts. Maybe have a drink of whatever you might prefer, tea, coffee, or otherwise, and listen to some tunes while going about your business. Too much of a rush will grind your gears, or at least that's what I find. This is kind of how I address the game in general too. Enjoy it for what it has to offer and don't stress yourself out about it too much.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

I'd like to have my ship resolve USS in supercruise, without me having to target it and do a 180 turn, only to find that it's a convoy.

I'd also like a scanner modification that reduced the waiting for USS to appear.

 

[CMDR Dragonclau]

Make the materials drop from destroying certain npc ships, and make the RNG reasonable for the drop. This would move farming to a combat zone or HAZRES, which could be a lot of fun.

 

[CMDR Redcrest]

I hear the 'just play the game' argument again...
I just be able to set a reasonable objective foe my time in game and achieve that. Last play session I made about 80million and got some MEF from missions. Goal achieved.
Set goal to find stuff only obtainable from HGE: I might or I might not. If I do the rewards tend to be underwhelming.

 

[WR3ND]

I'm currently out at Dav's Hope, lazily collecting this bit or that, and having fun messing around in an SRV. I'm getting pretty good at moving the turret view and the SRV around independently of each other or as needed to see where I'm going. I don't mess around in SRVs all that often otherwise, so it's a bit of a break in its own way. Not much at all in the way of drops for what I'm looking for, but at least those that are there are just lying around for the taking at my leisure. Maybe a bit too boring for some, maybe for myself too after a while. Maybe I can trade some of this stuff in for what I'm after. We'll see.

 

[WR3ND]

I hear the 'just play the game' argument again...
I just be able to set a reasonable objective foe my time in game and achieve that. Last play session I made about 80million and got some MEF from missions. Goal achieved.
Set goal to find stuff only obtainable from HGE: I might or I might not. If I do the rewards tend to be underwhelming.

Not much point in playing the game if it doesn't seem worth your while as a whole, so there is some merit to the argument in that context at least. Sure, we all have our preferences and would like things to be better here and there. Still the game is there to be played and made the best of for ourselves for what it's worth and at our own discretion.

I generally don't find the rat race all that enjoyable, so I'm very slow to progress in the game compared to many others, but I get a fair amount out of it none the less, or perhaps even more so because of it, and manage to still do very well for myself, all things considered. I guess it comes down to what you want to spend your time doing in the game, what you want to achieve, and how you care for going about doing it. If these things conflict with each other too much, you likely won't enjoy your time in the game all that much, which is somewhat understandable, but also unfortunate.

Hopefully some of these sort of concerns are further addressed by Frontier in time, but in the meantime, this is the game we have.

 

[Drunkenmonk]

The most unfortunate part of this material gathering grind,is that you can not get all the mats as mission rewards,and are forced to do the HGE/Wake scanner crap

 

[BlackSpaceCowboy]

As the title asks: what suggestions do we have to take the RNG of material gathering and make it fun?
Personally I'd love to see the RNG taken out of engineering all together.
For instance if you go to the Guardian sites you know if you do the job you get the materials you're after.
Flitting about trying to find HGE requires very little skill and a LOT of luck.

Other games have long solved this problem. Materials are used to upgrade. Most games allow you to unlock upgrades as you progress in experience.

Whether you're a bounty hunter, miner, pirate or explorer you should unlock upgrades as you progress. And the most efficient way to progress should be playing your role like bounty hunting.

If you bounty hunt, all the materials you need should come from bounty hunting.

If you're mining, all the materials you need should come through mining.

If you're pirating, all the materials you need should come through pirating.

Same with exploring.

There should be no shooting rocks or scanning wakes because those are not activities central to any role.

 

[Hellakitty]

Just a thought.

Navy rank could give you access to some pre-engineered modules. I mean, I'm sure an Admiral would have enough contacts throughout the defence industries of their respective Navies to be able to get their hands on some juicy tech.