I'm not mad, only disapointed.

[Riverside]

While we aren't rolling physical dice, consider how when the engineers first came out, there was even less in-game information on where to find a given material. The only info there was the flavor text description of the item, which often gave you no hint, or hinted completely incorrectly. The devs apparently thought this was fine. Just wander around in random systems, in random states, dropping in random types of USSs (which spawned randomly- shipping lanes etc. weren't a thing yet), until you happen to both get the right combination, and it randomly spawns the right material from it's internal random spawn table.

...which we then took to an engineer, got a random (with huge ranges) result from the blueprint, and had a random chance of also getting an experimental effect. Favors didn't exist yet. This is what was initially released. FDev spent considerable time designing and building this, presumably thinking it was all great up until the released it and saw the player base's reaction.

I was happy enough with the original implementation of Engineers, I can understand why it would have been frustrating for others though, and had no complaints when it was consistently made easier and now in 3.0 it's so accessible I've been able to almost fully engineer several ships (including an Adder that's just huge fun) only visiting each actual engineer once to pin a blueprint.

Now my ships aren't optimal, for one thing most don't have any side effects but it's fun to be able to go back to (close to) just buying a ship & kitting it out for a bit of a laugh. I still have my Corvette that has all it's legacy engineered stuff, only the thrusters & shields are really optimised in case I need to fend off another player.

The desire to min/max to the extreme that people do, using spreadsheets & stuff to make sure everything is perfect holds little interest for me, frankly I'd rather lose the hull than lose the will to continue playing.

But you go ahead & spend all your time optimising and getting frustrated about it, if that's actually what you want to do. I'm just here for the fun

 

[Frenotx]

I was happy enough with the original implementation of Engineers, I can understand why it would have been frustrating for others though, and had no complaints when it was consistently made easier and now in 3.0 it's so accessible I've been able to almost fully engineer several ships (including an Adder that's just huge fun) only visiting each actual engineer once to pin a blueprint.

Now my ships aren't optimal, for one thing most don't have any side effects but it's fun to be able to go back to (close to) just buying a ship & kitting it out for a bit of a laugh. I still have my Corvette that has all it's legacy engineered stuff, only the thrusters & shields are really optimised in case I need to fend off another player.

The desire to min/max to the extreme that people do, using spreadsheets & stuff to make sure everything is perfect holds little interest for me, frankly I'd rather lose the hull than lose the will to continue playing.

But you go ahead & spend all your time optimising and getting frustrated about it, if that's actually what you want to do. I'm just here for the fun

My stuff, surprising though it may be, actually isn't that wonderfully optimized. That video I posted of my viper fighting the wing mission target? Still grade 4 engineering on the shields, and I think the only module actually "done" is the thrusters. The vulture video I posted recently? Besides going to Broo for the weapon special effects, I just threw that together with pinned blueprints. I DO like, however, having my specific build I'm working towards. I like the ship do be as I designed it. Not necessarily "the best" or perfectly min / maxed, but very much "mine", vs. feeling like something I just found.

 

[Riverside]

My stuff, surprising though it may be, actually isn't that wonderfully optimized. That video I posted of my viper fighting the wing mission target? Still grade 4 engineering on the shields, and I think the only module actually "done" is the thrusters. The vulture video I posted recently? Besides going to Broo for the weapon special effects, I just threw that together with pinned blueprints. I DO like, however, having my specific build I'm working towards. I like the ship do be as I designed it. Not necessarily "the best" or perfectly min / maxed, but very much "mine", vs. feeling like something I just found.

Yeah I liked that vid, IIRC you commented that you had your fuel scoop on board & stuff. Then a couple of others got competitive about it, min/maxed the thing & said it was easy.

imo you got it, in that respect we are on the same page (although you are a much better pilot than me). To use that scenario as an example, I'd be more impressed by someone managing it in an un-optimised ship than just doing it in an FDL or whatever. Don't get me wrong doing a wing mission solo in less than 2 minutes is impressive, but I was more impressed by yours. When I did it in my Corvette (and failed) I had an A7 scoop on board & no shield boosters, just an A7 shield (engineered). I took that same loadout to Beagle Point and it nearly managed to solo a wing mission with me at the helm

But you know the type of player I mean, don't you? The ones who follow the path rather than the ones (like you) that leave a trail.

 

[EISENHORN01]

Isnt a Anarchy goverment a oxymoron?

could be but balanced discord on the forum certainly is

 

[Frenotx]

Yeah I liked that vid, IIRC you commented that you had your fuel scoop on board & stuff. Then a couple of others got competitive about it, min/maxed the thing & said it was easy.

imo you got it, in that respect we are on the same page (although you are a much better pilot than me). To use that scenario as an example, I'd be more impressed by someone managing it in an un-optimised ship than just doing it in an FDL or whatever. Don't get me wrong doing a wing mission solo in less than 2 minutes is impressive, but I was more impressed by yours.

But you know the type of player I mean, don't you? The ones who follow the path rather than the ones (like you) that leave a trail.

Oh I certainly know. I'm of the opinion that a game like elite should give the players the OPTION of plenty of player agency, but also have plenty of opportunities to go with the flow, too. People that have a specific goal can work towards it with active efforts, and less focused players can still just see where the solar winds take them.

 

[Auronio]

As always there a different ways to address a task.

As I consider myself predominantly a powerplayer I accidentally ran over a couple of traders just running missions for the power and fortifying.
Finding out my home system had a data trader as well.

Data and mats are just picked up via ship kills, picking USS stuff on the way and scanning ships. And maxed out 60% of everything already.

Still I only maxed two FSD drives so far and nothing else post 3.0, the rest still legacy g5 modules which serve all my purposes very well.

Some time in the next weeks when I am up to do a nice buggy evening I will collect missing elements and that's it.

Can then spend some time running another engineer cycle but it will come more as a side effect but as a matter of grind.

Anyway I perceive the new system as a significant nerf and much easier than the old one PLUS delivering better rolls.
Why would I complain?

 

[ebbrell]

A bit silly. Isn't this where a pirate would call home, surely they need access like everyone else.

if they cannot access due to c&p in a normal system where do they go.

 

[Riverside]

A bit silly. Isn't this where a pirate would call home, surely they need access like everyone else.

if they cannot access due to c&p in a normal system where do they go.

To the place where you pay off your bounty?

 

[ebbrell]

I'm not convinced a pirate won't pay it off, they live with the bounty over her head basically

 

[Riverside]

I'm not convinced a pirate won't pay it off, they live with the bounty over her head basically

I'm not saying whta's right or wrong for the BGS, but part of life on the run is going to be paying off the guards every now & again so you can access 'legitimate' services, right?

I mean if you get shot & need to go to the hospital, maybe you accept that you'll get arrested (or die from the wound), maybe you can find a bent doctor & pay for them to treat you.

 

[DoodlyStudmuffin]

Personally I don't see why Material Traders aren't in every station. I feel Frontier made a few missteps here, they scattered them around, and then made it so that the galaxy map only reveals them in systems you've visited. All this does is force us to use Inara. That's it. Nobody is flying around randomly docking at stations hoping to get lucky. Nobody. We try the galaxy map first, see if anything happens to be close. If nothing pops up, we immediately alt tab and look it up online. This system as been the oddest implementation of a time sink I've seen so far, and Elite has some strange ones.

It's yet another example of Fdev's half-youknowwhat game design that relies on third party's to do the real work.

And don't forget that when Fdev makes one thing more convenient, it makes something else less convenient so as to keep the average frustration level the same.

 

[Strangepork]

So apparently anarchy factions disable the local material traders. It's not like anarchys didn't already have enough going against them and material traders were too rare to begin with or anything.

I smell a Turgin quote here somewhere...

Are you a fan too?

 

[Auronio]

I'm not saying whta's right or wrong for the BGS, but part of life on the run is going to be paying off the guards every now & again so you can access 'legitimate' services, right?

I mean if you get shot & need to go to the hospital, maybe you accept that you'll get arrested (or die from the wound), maybe you can find a bent doctor & pay for them to treat you.

I believe I mentioned it in another thread but I see no point in crippling criminals in an anarchy system. All services should be available regardless of whether you fly a hot ship or not. Of course still paying off only with notoriety zero.

Whether traders should be available or not I can't tell I would suggest to check a few Delaine systems. But even if not what's the heck? The next trader can't be away more than a few jumps.

 

[Eidolon]

Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment...

 

[Riverside]

I believe I mentioned it in another thread but I see no point in crippling criminals in an anarchy system. All services should be available regardless of whether you fly a hot ship or not. Of course still paying off only with notoriety zero.

Whether traders should be available or not I can't tell I would suggest to check a few Delaine systems. But even if not what's the heck? The next trader can't be away more than a few jumps.

I'm inclined to agree with your logic, but if part of the criteria for having a mats trader is system security then FDEv's approach does make sense. Perhaps a different mats trader with higher markup for wanted criminals? Or the lower the security, the less good the deal becomes?

Personally I just pay off the bounty on the ship.

 

[Mohrgan]

I believe I mentioned it in another thread but I see no point in crippling criminals in an anarchy system. All services should be available regardless of whether you fly a hot ship or not. Of course still paying off only with notoriety zero.

Whether traders should be available or not I can't tell I would suggest to check a few Delaine systems. But even if not what's the heck? The next trader can't be away more than a few jumps.

Just as criminals enjoy ways to draw the unsuspecting into anarchy systems, so do law enforcement seek to draw criminals into systems with security levels, financial gain. For a most times clean commander to have to venture into an anarchy system to clear surprise bounties, so should criminals need to risk the authorities when they need to fiddle with their materials inventory. When you throw off the shackles of the law, you just can't expect everyone to go with you.

It's a give and take. Most peeps just want to ignore the give part though.

 

[Auronio]

I'm inclined to agree with your logic, but if part of the criteria for having a mats trader is system security then FDEv's approach does make sense. Perhaps a different mats trader with higher markup for wanted criminals? Or the lower the security, the less good the deal becomes?

Personally I just pay off the bounty on the ship.

That's for me more of an illogical thing now. The bounties for murder still are ridiculously low, nothing what any veteran player would stop committing crimes if you are up to. But now I can sit in a clean ship and just wait for notoriety went down again and then pay the few bucks to clean the ship.
I have the feeling crimes have even been incentivized now.

Anyway - I have checked EDDB now. Yes, I couldn't find a pirate system with a material trader.
But EDDB lists 1.481 !!! stations with a material trader.

I believe everybody should be able to find one close to whatever location he/she is currently in the bubble.

 

[askavir]

A bit silly. Isn't this where a pirate would call home, surely they need access like everyone else.

if they cannot access due to c&p in a normal system where do they go.

Wanted criminals still are completely free do hop into another ship that isn't "hot" and dock everywhere.

That's the whole reason bounties are now tied to ships instead of players.

 

[PocketPsycho]

Trouble with wanting us to have a personal narrative is that they don't give us a narrative. We have to make that up too. How about I just pretend my buddy "Inara" called me and told me where to find a dude that'll take my crappy materials and give me some good ones. There. Done.

It's a little bit ridiculous that I have to travel 80 light years to find a dude who will exchange Iron for Nickle.

I find it ridiculous that I can buy 600 tons of Gold at the corner shop but if I want Iron I have to drive around a planet shooting rocks for it.

 

[Alex Havoc]

I find it ridiculous that I can buy 600 tons of Gold at the corner shop but if I want Iron I have to drive around a planet shooting rocks for it.

haha, yeah, we can even buy Xihe Companions but not some dirt. But back to OP, didn't know it's working that way. I can't see any reason why it should. Anarchists should be able to trade mats too, right?