To understand where I come from, for me the Engineers feel very much like mechanics were taken from a fantasy MMO, without considering where it was transferred to. The "go mine your iron, forge a sword" system is perfectly fine for the dwarven warrior in a fantasy MMO.
In contrast, this game wants to be in the future of the real world, where even societies at stone age level were more functional than this. I mean, the Engineer wants Iron. But you can't just go and buy a ton or high quality iron from the commodities market, no, it has to be gathered by the player. This is true for all the rest of the stuff, too. The other strange thing is that you have to craft 5 copper swords so you can craft one iron sword, of which you have to make 10 so you can craft the steel version, etc... for the mentioned dwarven warrior, who just learns how to forge weapons this is fine, he first has to practice on the easier stuff before he can handle doing the harder task. But for the Engineer, who just built a tier 5 FSD upgrade for the other player, it seems strange that he now again has to learn doing so by building several tier 1 upgrades.
Of course, the idea is to raise your reputation, but hey, the last thing i'd want as Engineer would be to repeatedly upgrade the same FDS, if i could also do a proper job once and be done for. My suggestion would be like this:
Once you have sufficient reputation, you again can start upgrades. But instead of requiring some random loot, it would be some mission chain. The mission chain to get a FSD upgrade could be something like this:
1. The Engineer tells you that to do that he/she needs to buy some materials. The money has to be paid in advance.
Technically this would be a "donate" mission, where the amount of money to donate would be like 30% of the price of the item being modified, multiplied by the level of the upgrade. So yes, an upgrade can then cost 150% of the base item, which can get quite expensive.Additionally, the mission deducts some reputation. After all, the Engineer would have better things to do. Your reputation represents how much you already did for him, now you're calling in a favour in turn of all you did. Sounds fair.
2. The Engineer then informs you that while he/she orders and collects the material, you should in turn also do something for him/her. For a level 5 FSD upgrade this would be to go to somewhere like 500 LY away and scan.
3. After scanning the planet, one of several variations could happen. The basic line would be that the Engineer spots something interesting on the surface, the player has to fly there, land, launch the SRV, scan something or pick something up.Alternatively some other force might be in orbit or at the site, who are in conflict with the Engineers interests. So the player gets the task to dispose of them. The other force might have taken something interesting from the site, so the player has to fly to another location on the planet, dispose of the security there and get the cargo.
4. After the scan / cargo finally is being retrieved, the player returns to the Engineer and in return gets the upgrade. (Of course, a level 1 FSD upgrade would require that much work. It could just be a "travel 50 LY, scan, return". The length and complexity of the mission should scale up with the level of the upgrade. )
For other Engineers, other mission chains would be build. The Dweller and other shade characters might send you off for a chain of shadow delivery missions or to pick up rare goods at one place, to deliver them at another location where they are prohibited. For combat oriented Engineers the player might get a chain of missions related to a rival faction who threaten his supply lines or even stole something from him. The mission chain then would be something like "go to system X, kill y enemies, land at base z, destroy defense, pick up stolen cargo". Alternatively instead of picking up stolen cargo, it could be "scan the node, find the location of a high ranking member, eliminate".
Depending on the engineers agenda, there can be many other tasks in the mission chains. Mining materials is one of them, but there could also be a chain element like "assist our systems security by scanning ships for illegal cargo". The task could be to destroy a certain number of ships with illegal cargo, before moving to the next step of the chain. I could continue with a list of different possible tasks, but I think my idea by now should be clear enough: Engineers have an agenda, as it's clearly visible by their description and how you can already now gain reputation for them. We have a mission system, which (bugged as it still is) since the last update also creates missions based on the status and agenda of the mission giver. Most of the mission steps I mentioned already now exist, only a few ones would have to be newly created, but neither of them seems to be too complex. By using this system, players would still be guided through all parts of the game, mining, exploration, RES zones, combat zones, USS, surface activities, etc. But instead of the "now I drop into the 74th USS and hope the material I need is here... no, just again the five Anaconda ambush, run, rinse and repeat" grind of the current system, the players would be running missions for a cause. (And the cause would not only be "get an upgrade" but also to help an Engineer better his standing by hurting an rival, securing trade routes, helping him earn money, helping him to fulfill obligations or assisting in the collection of knowledge. )
The only problem: this would be so much more fun than what we have at the moment that not only Frontier but also a certain part of the player base will strongly oppose anything like this.
In contrast, this game wants to be in the future of the real world, where even societies at stone age level were more functional than this. I mean, the Engineer wants Iron. But you can't just go and buy a ton or high quality iron from the commodities market, no, it has to be gathered by the player. This is true for all the rest of the stuff, too. The other strange thing is that you have to craft 5 copper swords so you can craft one iron sword, of which you have to make 10 so you can craft the steel version, etc... for the mentioned dwarven warrior, who just learns how to forge weapons this is fine, he first has to practice on the easier stuff before he can handle doing the harder task. But for the Engineer, who just built a tier 5 FSD upgrade for the other player, it seems strange that he now again has to learn doing so by building several tier 1 upgrades.
Of course, the idea is to raise your reputation, but hey, the last thing i'd want as Engineer would be to repeatedly upgrade the same FDS, if i could also do a proper job once and be done for. My suggestion would be like this:
- Disposing of loot is not feasible any more, but I would suggest that all you do with loot is to donate it to an Engineer to increase your reputation. (The rarer the loot, the higher the reputation gain. )
- Reputation can still be gained by the existing mechanics of selling exploration data, etc.
- Reputation can be gained by doing missions for the Engineer.
- Reputation can NOT be gained by building upgrades.
Once you have sufficient reputation, you again can start upgrades. But instead of requiring some random loot, it would be some mission chain. The mission chain to get a FSD upgrade could be something like this:
1. The Engineer tells you that to do that he/she needs to buy some materials. The money has to be paid in advance.
Technically this would be a "donate" mission, where the amount of money to donate would be like 30% of the price of the item being modified, multiplied by the level of the upgrade. So yes, an upgrade can then cost 150% of the base item, which can get quite expensive.Additionally, the mission deducts some reputation. After all, the Engineer would have better things to do. Your reputation represents how much you already did for him, now you're calling in a favour in turn of all you did. Sounds fair.
2. The Engineer then informs you that while he/she orders and collects the material, you should in turn also do something for him/her. For a level 5 FSD upgrade this would be to go to somewhere like 500 LY away and scan.
3. After scanning the planet, one of several variations could happen. The basic line would be that the Engineer spots something interesting on the surface, the player has to fly there, land, launch the SRV, scan something or pick something up.Alternatively some other force might be in orbit or at the site, who are in conflict with the Engineers interests. So the player gets the task to dispose of them. The other force might have taken something interesting from the site, so the player has to fly to another location on the planet, dispose of the security there and get the cargo.
4. After the scan / cargo finally is being retrieved, the player returns to the Engineer and in return gets the upgrade. (Of course, a level 1 FSD upgrade would require that much work. It could just be a "travel 50 LY, scan, return". The length and complexity of the mission should scale up with the level of the upgrade. )
For other Engineers, other mission chains would be build. The Dweller and other shade characters might send you off for a chain of shadow delivery missions or to pick up rare goods at one place, to deliver them at another location where they are prohibited. For combat oriented Engineers the player might get a chain of missions related to a rival faction who threaten his supply lines or even stole something from him. The mission chain then would be something like "go to system X, kill y enemies, land at base z, destroy defense, pick up stolen cargo". Alternatively instead of picking up stolen cargo, it could be "scan the node, find the location of a high ranking member, eliminate".
Depending on the engineers agenda, there can be many other tasks in the mission chains. Mining materials is one of them, but there could also be a chain element like "assist our systems security by scanning ships for illegal cargo". The task could be to destroy a certain number of ships with illegal cargo, before moving to the next step of the chain. I could continue with a list of different possible tasks, but I think my idea by now should be clear enough: Engineers have an agenda, as it's clearly visible by their description and how you can already now gain reputation for them. We have a mission system, which (bugged as it still is) since the last update also creates missions based on the status and agenda of the mission giver. Most of the mission steps I mentioned already now exist, only a few ones would have to be newly created, but neither of them seems to be too complex. By using this system, players would still be guided through all parts of the game, mining, exploration, RES zones, combat zones, USS, surface activities, etc. But instead of the "now I drop into the 74th USS and hope the material I need is here... no, just again the five Anaconda ambush, run, rinse and repeat" grind of the current system, the players would be running missions for a cause. (And the cause would not only be "get an upgrade" but also to help an Engineer better his standing by hurting an rival, securing trade routes, helping him earn money, helping him to fulfill obligations or assisting in the collection of knowledge. )
The only problem: this would be so much more fun than what we have at the moment that not only Frontier but also a certain part of the player base will strongly oppose anything like this.
Last edited: