Loving Engineers!
- Thread starter Galdatron
- Start date
Actually, I come onto the forum when the grind gets me to the point I want to punch something!
Believe me, the long winded posts are much more about calming down before I break some very expensive IT kit than some plea for help! (Although help is most welcome!)Having said that, I'm intrigued by your notion that I'm, what, avoiding G5 mats or something?
HGEs haven't been spawning for me. Others are claiming to see three at a time, I'm seeing fewer than before.
Killing whole fleets of merchants isn't going to happen, nor is (ye Gods, I can't even call it combat logging without some pedant getting their panties in a twist!)- logging out by killing the game instead of using the game menu.
I use material traders. At six to one, I run out of mats pretty darn quick.
My latest 'quest' is for emissions data. It's random as an insanely random thing, if you know where I can get high value emissions I'd be very grateful. As it stands the only place I can find where decoded emission data regularly spawns is hazardous rez sites. Combat zones don't seem to spawn at all, nor do other rez sites and just taking missions in the vague hope that the target might offer one strikes me as a colossal waste of time, even if it works!
I've been on since about midday, I collected a grand total of two. Fortunately, FD have generously allowed me to give them an obscene amount of other emission types to get to the pre-requsite 50 I needed for the unlock. Of course now I don't have anything left for upgrading modules, but hey, that's great, just think of all the 'fun' I can have replenishing weeks worth of materials...
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It is more than that. The uneven distribution is partly due ot the fact, that there is basically only one viable way to get hold on certain types of mats and data. If you don't do those activities, it is very unlikely, that you gather any meaningful amount of corresponding materials. In addition to that there are also bugs responsible for a shortage of certain mats. This is a problem since Engineers were introduced. Most will probably remember, when you could find one EFC per day (or so). But after an update you could acquire a multitude of them in a shorter period of time. This happened and happens after every update. I find that ridiculous due to the arbitrariness (keyword: game world integrity).
The other point is, that the activities surrounding Engineers are actually pretty shallow for the most part. I.e. HGEs in general (even though 3.3 improved the spawn mechanics), Davs Hope and the like (also includes geological sites). I mean it is great that those sites serve an actual purpose now, but the actual mechanics surrounding them are very simple nonetheless.
Conclusion: The process is unbalanced and involves simple mechanics for the most part. The distribution is skewed due to several reasons. The outcome greatly imbalances both PvP and PvE. Overall Engineers is a great concept poorly implemented (technically and design wise).
I honestly wouldn't care if I could just play the game my way and not get shoved pimped AI in my face. Engineers is a masterpiece in souring content for those that are not willing to grind. Don't want to do the powercreep hamsterwheelie? Enjoy your peashooters and overpowered environment spawning at random on you.
Although I think some sort of progression should be possible or even mandatory, the only solution would be FDev starting to actually use the huge game world they created by scaling the difficulty according to security states even more. That way there would be dangerous and safe places. The player could make a choice which one to visit.
A no-brainer, imo.
I made a post a couple of weeks ago about being a returning player and happy credits are easier to come by now, and how it opened up a lot of different avenues especially in the ship department. Many folks warned that whilst credits are easy, the real grind was engineers.
I have to admit, the prospect of starting down this path was daunting and putting me off, and after getting owned by some NPC's then realising engineering is a must, I got that sinking feeling and started to question whether coming back was a mistake. 'Do I have the time, energy and patience for engineering?' I asked.
All the advice was to start with FSD, and after MUCH reading and watching many YouTube you tube videos, what was initially very confusing started to make sense. Mat gathering, which initially seemed complicated, became straight forward, and going out to do the various tasks that netted the required mats was really enjoyable.
In fact, it really added to the game. It gave me something to do, something to focus on and a purpose. Before, SRVing around on a planet seemed like a gimmick, but now I'm doing it with purpose, and I LOVE exploring planets.
I'm under no illusion that some engineers are harder to unlock than others, and some mats harder to obtain, but hey, I'm taking it slow and just enjoying the process.
So in short, whilst I initially thought engineers made a fairly simple game unnecessarily complicated (and an excuse to make planets viable), in reality, I'm loving it
I wouldn't want to play the game without the engineers anymore. For me they are an important part of the ED universe.
Of course I could list a few things I would still like to see changed or improved, but no game is exactly as I want it to be, so I accept it as it is.
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Engineers are extremely fun. They definitely used to be frustrating, wasting materials over and over, making compromises... I remember having screaming fits over comms rolling the damn things. Now though, every roll does something and it's actually fun.I made a post a couple of weeks ago about being a returning player and happy credits are easier to come by now, and how it opened up a lot of different avenues especially in the ship department. Many folks warned that whilst credits are easy, the real grind was engineers.
I have to admit, the prospect of starting down this path was daunting and putting me off, and after getting owned by some NPC's then realising engineering is a must, I got that sinking feeling and started to question whether coming back was a mistake. 'Do I have the time, energy and patience for engineering?' I asked.
All the advice was to start with FSD, and after MUCH reading and watching many YouTube you tube videos, what was initially very confusing started to make sense. Mat gathering, which initially seemed complicated, became straight forward, and going out to do the various tasks that netted the required mats was really enjoyable.
In fact, it really added to the game. It gave me something to do, something to focus on and a purpose. Before, SRVing around on a planet seemed like a gimmick, but now I'm doing it with purpose, and I LOVE exploring planets.
I'm under no illusion that some engineers are harder to unlock than others, and some mats harder to obtain, but hey, I'm taking it slow and just enjoying the process.
So in short, whilst I initially thought engineers made a fairly simple game unnecessarily complicated (and an excuse to make planets viable), in reality, I'm loving it
I'm glad some people enjoy it. It takes a wee bit of the edge of of my frustration.
Still and all- how much worse was it originally for this new RNGfest to be fun?
Yeah so what I didn't realise was it used to be RNG based. I couldn't understand how the tutorials I watched were different to what I was experiencing, but reading through some more stuff I understand they made changes for the better. I would definitely not have made this post if it was still RNG and you could lose mats on a terrible roll. I see now that's probably why a lot of the stuff I read were people hating on engineers.
Still and all- how much worse was it originally for this new RNGfest to be fun?
God, it was terrible. They gradually improved it. Remember when there was no material trader, every material counted as 1 unit, you had a cap on the materials you could hold, the blueprints required a lot of materials, PLUS cargo that was delibrately located at least 200ly away from any engineer which couldnt be stored, you couldnt purchase special effects at all, and the rolls were often worse than stock, and you couldnt engineer pinned blueprints at stations. Every little thing made it better. Now it's pretty much perfect except for the fact that when you are at 95% complete each roll only takes it up 1%. Stick with satisfying amounts, 10% minimum I say.
Ме тоо. Engineers are super special stuff to me, I love tweaking, finding mats (organically!) and bringing it there. I even like the slight suspense of whether the gankers would appear оr no, so quick chasing and escaping could occur. Also, if Elite is about your ship(s) then engineers are a natural workout.
All I'm saying is about the engineers that are NOW, not what they used to be.
All I'm saying is about the engineers that are NOW, not what they used to be.
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I've been thinking about this a bit more recently, particularly after reading that 'Water finds a crack' article someone linked to yesterday in another thread, and I'm starting to firmly believe that the thing most wrong with Engineers is that the required activities often don't have anything to do with what they unlock.
For those of us fortunate enough to find many aspects of the game enjoyable, they're great. 'There is no grind, you just don't like the game' I used to say, but in that respect I think I'm finally getting a bit more perspective - I didn't really understand why people forced themselves to do things they don't enjoy for the sake of something that's ultimately optional, but I guess that really is just human nature. You don't have to have a fully engineered ship because you don't have to go fight in CZs or do Wing Assassination Missions solo, but apparently that's much easier to say than to do. And I do understand completioninsm.
So, yeah, I now think there really is something a bit wrong with the system, but it's that, for example, combat mods shouldn't be locked behind mining Painite, and racing thrusters shouldn't be locked behind exploration, and building better guns shouldn't really require driving around desolate planets in the SRV no matter how spectacular the view. Because I'm now finally starting to appreciate that people will put themselves through hell if it seems just a tiny bit more efficient than doing something actually enjoyable.
...I do like the system myself, but I acknowledge that I'm lucky in that.
For those of us fortunate enough to find many aspects of the game enjoyable, they're great. 'There is no grind, you just don't like the game' I used to say, but in that respect I think I'm finally getting a bit more perspective - I didn't really understand why people forced themselves to do things they don't enjoy for the sake of something that's ultimately optional, but I guess that really is just human nature. You don't have to have a fully engineered ship because you don't have to go fight in CZs or do Wing Assassination Missions solo, but apparently that's much easier to say than to do. And I do understand completioninsm.
So, yeah, I now think there really is something a bit wrong with the system, but it's that, for example, combat mods shouldn't be locked behind mining Painite, and racing thrusters shouldn't be locked behind exploration, and building better guns shouldn't really require driving around desolate planets in the SRV no matter how spectacular the view. Because I'm now finally starting to appreciate that people will put themselves through hell if it seems just a tiny bit more efficient than doing something actually enjoyable.
...I do like the system myself, but I acknowledge that I'm lucky in that.
Engineering becomes more enjoyable once you learn that there’s a solid combat solution for all the manufactured mats...
BH at a RES will drop a vast majority of the goodies.
Whatever doesn’t drop at a RES can be farmed in plenty from a nav beacon in anarchy systems. Heat Vanes, Configurable Components, Polymers. This is a good way of creating the g5 improvised components and biotech conductors. And anarchy navs are always a good time...
That just leaves the two military branches, thermic and capacitors...
Both can be picked up in plenty at a CZ....or you can take the less risky option and hunt down Military Supercapacitors & Military Grade Alloys @ the HGE’s in systems @ war, then trade down...
Any blanks at this point can be filled by hunting ‘Conda. They have a chance of dropping Imperial Shielding, Core Dynamics, Exquisite FC’s, Pharma Iso’s....all that good stuff.
Murdering all these ships will involve scans which will fill your data up, whatever data you’re missing can be found at Lung/Lung 3/something-heart base, a super fast MEF run...
Never struggled with raw mats, metallic meteorites come in clusters of 3, so just one good find usually engineers multiple ships and modules.
BH at a RES will drop a vast majority of the goodies.
Whatever doesn’t drop at a RES can be farmed in plenty from a nav beacon in anarchy systems. Heat Vanes, Configurable Components, Polymers. This is a good way of creating the g5 improvised components and biotech conductors. And anarchy navs are always a good time...
That just leaves the two military branches, thermic and capacitors...
Both can be picked up in plenty at a CZ....or you can take the less risky option and hunt down Military Supercapacitors & Military Grade Alloys @ the HGE’s in systems @ war, then trade down...
Any blanks at this point can be filled by hunting ‘Conda. They have a chance of dropping Imperial Shielding, Core Dynamics, Exquisite FC’s, Pharma Iso’s....all that good stuff.
Murdering all these ships will involve scans which will fill your data up, whatever data you’re missing can be found at Lung/Lung 3/something-heart base, a super fast MEF run...
Never struggled with raw mats, metallic meteorites come in clusters of 3, so just one good find usually engineers multiple ships and modules.
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Brilliant idea. I should get to it then and wear down the bulletsponges with my peashooter guns. I'm sure I'll have lots of fun.
I know what you’re trying to say, but peashooter guns are perfectly sufficient...
RES combat can be done with one shotting in a Sidey as we all know, the cops do the work...
Anarchy nav beacons have plenty of very low ranked Asps/T7’s, easy prey for a Viper or Cobra, many won’t even fight back and there’s other naughty pirates helping out.
And I already provided a solution for CZ’s.
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Actually you don't have to fire a single shot to get all materials you need.
Dav's Hope has mostly all G2-G4 manufactured materials, you'll have plenty after a few laps. G1 materials are cheap downtrades. A few G5 come from missions, the rest from high grade emission USS.
All data materials come from either missions (MEF !), ship scanning or Jameson's crash site. Again, not a single shot fired.
Raw materials finally either come from crashed Conda sites, or from geological specials on planets. Again, not a single shot fired.
I guess it's nice to have options, but that isn't the ED I've played and quite enjoyed. That is kinda too much bending over and doing pawlow tricks. I guess it's fine when you grow up with it - for a pre-2.1 fossile like me it's too much of a paradigm change. It just isn't the game I want to play.
I know what you mean. Pre-Engineers I had my fleet set up and equipped. Then engineers came, and I had the task to engineer my fleet. Stopped playing for a while before tackling that, especially after one patch all but removed MEF from the game. Then the engineer revamp dropped in 3.0, and I stopped playing for quite a while again. But eventually I came back to it, redid the fleet a third time and am now sitting on 24 fully G5 ships. The resulting performance is worth it.
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Engineers can indeed be a very enjoyable part of the game, especially when you make the choice to dive into it the first time. The issue imho is where you are pretty much forced to rinse and repeat to get the outcomes you are looking for in a certain build or module. This can be mind numbingly painful hence the grind and padded content, but the first time and whilst you are learning its not that bad tbh.
Same is true for the Guardian modules, initially its really good content but then it quickly descends into enforced repetition when working towards certain outcomes. You could of course choose not to do certain things just as you can choose not to launch the game which I believe happens to a lot of players who simply can't face the prospect of doing the same tasks again and again it grinds all but the most determined (or OCD) players down.
Same is true for the Guardian modules, initially its really good content but then it quickly descends into enforced repetition when working towards certain outcomes. You could of course choose not to do certain things just as you can choose not to launch the game which I believe happens to a lot of players who simply can't face the prospect of doing the same tasks again and again it grinds all but the most determined (or OCD) players down.