General Master Engineer Hub reward

[Kailoren]

I've had an idea, (and before you come for my throat in the replies this comes from a place of genuine thought and not just "making the game easier"), but once you hit Grade 5 with every engineer, you should have access to a station or perhaps a planetary outpost (maybe in Shinrarta Dezhra) that has access to ALL of the engineers including experimental effects in one place. The same for Colonia as well for those living out there.

Now I know what you're going to say - "Oh well that defeats the point of having to go to each engineer, you'd just unlock them all and never go back" and I get that, but also it takes time to grind ALL of the engineers because some are locked behind rank requirements etc. It's a reward only for those willing to put in the effort, much like access to every ship/module is a reward from Jameson Memorial after hitting Elite rank. You'd still have to farm the materials, there would still be a grind, BUT there would also be light at the end of the tunnel. You could also do the same thing for the Odyssey engineers if anyone actually bothers with those anymore.
Holo-me exists in the game, we know this and it is in the lore so it is not out of the question for the engineers to have a holo-me presence (or even a representative) at another location once you have unlocked and achieved G5 access.

I honestly feel that this would make more people open to the engineering grind because they know at the end they can just take a new ship to this new place that they earned and engineer what they like. The pinned blueprints system only really works if you do one type of content. If you do Exploration, Combat, AX combat then you physically can't pin enough things to allow you to remotely engineer for all modules (and still need to travel 100s of LY to get the experimental effects), and I think its high time this system was refreshed.

 

[SteveWW57]

Hitting G5 with every ship engineer is imo a considerable mountain to climb, and includes at least one trip to Colonia. For the likes of myself who is not interest to ship combat, the grind for the combat orientated engineers would be considerable and probably not worth the effort. It may be that the reward would only attract very few CMDRs and a lot oc complaints.

Steve

 

[Dragsham]

I got most engineers unlocked to G5 inc some at colonia. It took ages.
Horrible grind. Needs a rework
But your suggestion would allow anyone after G5 unlocking of one engineer to have access to all of em thus avoiding the reason why their locked behind a grindwall.
Which is to make it hard. If you want a raft of different ships with different capabilities then you gotta put in the hours. Simples.
Or everyone would have em.

 

[SteveWW57]

I got most engineers unlocked to G5 inc some at colonia. It took ages.
Horrible grind. Needs a rework
But your suggestion would allow anyone after G5 unlocking of one engineer to have access to all of em thus avoiding the reason why their locked behind a grindwall.
Which is to make it hard. If you want a raft of different ships with different capabilities then you gotta put in the hours. Simples.
Or everyone would have em.

The suggestion was "every" and not a single.

Steve

 

[Greasetrap42]

The OP knew this was an easy mode suggestion and went ahead anyway.

Any cmdr that has unlocked the ship engineers has 25 engineering blueprints. Ability to G5 all the modules commonly used in a ship. Presumably such a cmdr also has the ability to travel... the ability to visit maybe 3 engineers to apply the special effects and some other engineering they don't have the blueprint for. For the amount of time a cmdr is going to actually use the ship for gameplay purposes... this is all trivial.

Building a 20Ly combat ship with crumby jump distance? Figure it out... you got other ships, its not tough.

 

[Kailoren]

Hitting G5 with every ship engineer is imo a considerable mountain to climb, and includes at least one trip to Colonia. For the likes of myself who is not interest to ship combat, the grind for the combat orientated engineers would be considerable and probably not worth the effort. It may be that the reward would only attract very few CMDRs and a lot oc complaints.

Steve

The engineers within their respective bubble, so to unlock the colonia hub you would only need the colonia engineers. Main bubble would not give you access to Colonia.

I got most engineers unlocked to G5 inc some at colonia. It took ages.
Horrible grind. Needs a rework
But your suggestion would allow anyone after G5 unlocking of one engineer to have access to all of em thus avoiding the reason why their locked behind a grindwall.
Which is to make it hard. If you want a raft of different ships with different capabilities then you gotta put in the hours. Simples.
Or everyone would have em.

See above ^

The OP knew this was an easy mode suggestion and went ahead anyway.

Any cmdr that has unlocked the ship engineers has 25 engineering blueprints. Ability to G5 all the modules commonly used in a ship. Presumably such a cmdr also has the ability to travel... the ability to visit maybe 3 engineers to apply the special effects and some other engineering they don't have the blueprint for. For the amount of time a cmdr is going to actually use the ship for gameplay purposes... this is all trivial.

Building a 20Ly combat ship with crumby jump distance? Figure it out... you got other ships, its not tough.

"commonly used" depends on how you build your ships. AX ships require different core internals to exploration ships, and again for PVP. Different weapon blueprints for specific scenarios (PvP, different AX combat types, PvE). Having to put a fuel scoop and jump to five or six engineers with a miniscule jump range is tedious when you're making multiple different ships for different purposes, and if you've already got the engineers unlocked its much less effort to go to one place instead. Not to mention wanting to save time by taking an exploration ship but you can't even fit the module to that you need to engineer, so you go there, wait for it to be transfered, engineer it, transfer it back, or just take the boring low jump range ship and trek 300LY with a 15ly jump range.

I continue to be amazed that any suggestion to alleviate the burden on players AFTER the grind has been done gets immediately shot down on the forums. It's a reward suggestion. Put in the work and get rewarded. Any QoL suggestions that don't trivialize the game for everyone, only those who have put in the time to earn it immediately get met with "the game is hard for a reason, if you don't like it play something else" etc etc.

If this was added to the game you'd still be able to jump to each engineer as before, but I bet all the credits on my account that everyone who could use it, would.

 

[Dragsham]

Ahh..see this is where a fc comes in handy. Makes the logistics of engineering much easier.
Engineering an FDL for example. Which has crap jump range regardless.
If you want a ship specialising in a particular aspect you work hard to get it.
Same with the 3 suits.

 

[Kailoren]

Ahh..see this is where a fc comes in handy. Makes the logistics of engineering much easier.

Not with 45min-1hr jump times during peak times. And again, getting a fc is itself a monumental grind and you're then rewarded by having your own personal station you can take with you without having to store ships in one location.

If you want a ship specialising in a particular aspect you work hard to get it.

You've already done the hard work in unlocking all of the engineers, why continue to work hard once its already done? It's no wonder a lot of new players don't want to engage in the engineering system because its just a continual grind

 

[Greasetrap42]

You've already done the hard work in unlocking all of the engineers, why continue to work hard once its already done? It's no wonder a lot of new players don't want to engage in the engineering system because its just a continual grind

What does new players have to do with your suggestion?

Hard work unlocking the engineers? Seriously? Anyway, once they are unlocked... who cares. As I said above... for an established player to visit a couple engineers (maybe 2-3 at most) when building a new ship is trivial. An established player will know enough to stash a bunch of engineered boosters and HRM. So for a combat ship its just weapons. whoopee do.

If this was added to the game you'd still be able to jump to each engineer as before, but I bet all the credits on my account that everyone who could use it, would.

See this post to easy mode suggestions.

 

[Kailoren]

As I said above... for an established player to visit a couple engineers (maybe 2-3 at most) when building a new ship is trivial.

Go make a fully G5 engineered AX combat ship that only requires 2-3 engineers

 

[Dragsham]

How's it continual?
Once you've unlocked them the only thing left to do Is mats.
Grinding mats is a pain yes. Agree there.
Like l said if you want a particular kind of ship. Go for it.
And yes I have worked hard to get 20 fully engineered ships with varying specs.
And a carrier to house em all. Its not simple but trust me it's defo possible.
1000s of cmdrs have done the same.
If your new. Just focus on one ship at a time.
Time itself will take you to where we're at.

 

[Kailoren]

How's it continual?
Once you've unlocked them the only thing left to do Is mats.
Grinding mats is a pain yes. Agree there.
Like l said if you want a particular kind of ship. Go for it.
And yes I have worked hard to get 20 fully engineered ships with varying specs.
And a carrier to house em all. Its not simple but trust me it's defo possible.
1000s of cmdrs have done the same.
If your new. Just focus on one ship at a time.
Time itself will take you to where we're at.

I think you missed the point of my initial post tbh

 

[Greasetrap42]

Go make a fully G5 engineered AX combat ship that only requires 2-3 engineers

As said above... whoopee do. If the cmdr is established with 25 blueprints and a bunch of travel-capable ships... this just isn't an issue.

I think you missed the point of my initial post tbh

I know I did.

 

[Kailoren]

I know I did.

Don't comment if you don't understand then

 

[Greasetrap42]

Don't comment if you don't understand then

Are you now telling people on a forum who is allowed to post?

 

[Dragsham]

No I get what your saying. Makes sense sort of. Once you've unlocked em all having all of em in one place. But the point of having to go here n there to do weps modules etc is just a component of the grindwall.
It's designed in my opinion to curtail everyone from doing what I, & 1000s of other cmdrs have done. Namely having a fleet they can be proud of because they went to the trouble to actually do it all.

 

[Kailoren]

Are you now telling people on a forum who is allowed to post?

You're just here to nay-say and I can't be bothered since you have nothing of value to contribute, but thanks for the increased post activity at least.

No I get what your saying. Makes sense sort of. Once you've unlocked em all having all of em in one place. But the point of having to go here n there to do weps modules etc is just a component of the grindwall.
It's designed in my opinion to curtail everyone from doing what I, & 1000s of other cmdrs have done. Namely having a fleet they can be proud of because they went to the trouble to actually do it all.

Again this is my point. Once you hit Elite in any rank you get access to Jameson Memorial, which has every ship and module in one place. It's a reward for the time and effort invested in achieving something. My suggestion isn't something that everyone would have access to, it's something that makes the initial grind worthwhile to get every engineer unlocked (which requires rank and rep grinds of its own). I have almost 2000hrs in the game and even I get bored with the tedium of having to take a ship to up to 11 different engineers across the bubble sometimes in order to G5 all the required modules. When they added engineers to Colonia I didn't see anyone complaining that one engineer can do 10 different blueprints at G5, how is my suggestion different?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

The same for Colonia as well for those living out there.

For Colonia there's only four (ship) engineers and they're all within one or two jumps of each other anyway, so the marginal gain would be pretty low. It's probably not necessary to add a specific hub out here. Equally, the example of Colonia does demonstrate that nothing breaks if "pressing J several times to move between engineers" isn't there, or if the blueprints and experimentals spread over 20 bubble engineers are concentrated in four nearby places.

See this post to easy mode suggestions.

"Moving between systems" - with the exception of Thargoid-controlled territory - is designed in Elite Dangerous to be entirely unchallenging. It's not a surprise that suggestions to remove/reduce the requirement to do so are so common because it very rarely serves any gameplay purpose in itself. It's not even really describable as "easy mode" because taking out the bit of the game which is already so easy one can spend 90% of it alt-tabbed out without trouble would increase the average difficulty-per-hour of the game.

That's not how it worked in previous games in the series and it's the one change from those I've been unhappy with right from the start. I'd probably be playing the game a lot more than I have been lately if it had Elite/FE2/FFE's level of travel-based challenges.

Nevertheless, Frontier has made that decision, Frontier has committed to reinforcing that decision with other changes over the last decade [1], the correct thing to do at this point is probably to finish the job: take out trade in its current 1980s-replica form and the few other remnants where the opposition is expected to come over the course of the journey rather than at the destination; make both intra- and inter-system travel a lot quicker. If "tabbed-out journey time" is no longer a balancing factor for anything, then that also allows things like Apex and Frontline to no longer be 10-minute unskippable cutscenes.


[1] The Fleet Carrier sticking a final nail in the coffin of the pretence that getting from A to B should involve actual interaction (or even being logged into the game) ... but there were plenty of earlier changes over the course of 1.0 and Horizons to take out what hazards A-B travel might have that made it only the final nail.

 

[Greasetrap42]

"Moving between systems" - with the exception of Thargoid-controlled territory - is designed in Elite Dangerous to be entirely unchallenging.

So is destroying 1000s NPC for combat rank. Or mining rock for hours and hours. Or many other activities in the game.

The nature of these activities creates a form of gameplay that ecourages the cmdr to find better ways to do things.

• How to destroy 1000s NPC faster and easier.
• How to travel big distances by making a ship with better jump range.
• How to make a mining ship that collects stuff faster.
• How to engineer a 15Ly combat ship without having to visit 10 engineers scattered across the bubble.

Sure these are all seemingly unnecessary super easy repetitive grindy activities. But they encourage a cmdr to figure out better ways to do things.

 

[Kailoren]

So is destroying 1000s NPC for combat rank. Or mining rock for hours and hours. Or many other activities in the game.

The nature of these activities creates a form of gameplay that ecourages the cmdr to find better ways to do things.

• How to destroy 1000s NPC faster and easier.
• How to travel big distances by making a ship with better jump range.
• How to make a mining ship that collects stuff faster.
• How to engineer a 15Ly combat ship without having to visit 10 engineers scattered across the bubble.

Sure these are all seemingly unnecessary super easy repetitive grindy activities. But they encourage a cmdr to figure out better ways to do things.

All of which requires engineering, which would be made easier by having one place to go. Thanks for proving my point with the original post