Hello Fellow Commanders!
I would like to put forward a suggestion that may benefit us in terms of the Engineers aspect of the game. Currently, the only way to obtain the precious materials and data is from salvage, prospecting or scanning wakes and vessels. These processes can take hours to collect some decent resources. (Which there is nothing wrong with that, I actually enjoy blasting rocks with my SRV and exploring). but there is nothing worse than spending all that time in gathering resources and unlocking engineers to find out that you are missing very rare components to upgrades.
This is why I would like to suggest the idea of Material Stores in various star-ports and Engineers facilities. Materials and Data are available for sale in themed star ports. for example, manufactured materials such as chemical composites and various pieces may be available at industrial star ports whereas iron and organic rock materials are available at refineries and so forth... This would still incorporate a bit of effort to obtain the materials whilst making it much faster to do so. Engineer bases sell all required materials but for 100% extra cost to earn some means of an income (always wondered why the do all this for free?)
the costs of materials should be reasonable to match the rarity of the specific item and would probably be best to increase by powers of ten to keep it neat. for example;
very common=50cr (100cr when doubled with engineer)
common=500cr (1,000cr with engineer)
moderate=5,000cr (10,000 with engineer)
rare=50,000cr (100,000 with engineer)
very rare=500,000cr (1,000,000 with engineer)
this also creates a tiering between players in that beginners cant generally afford such sums of money. As far as cost goes I personally would prefer to spend 1M and get it done with than to spend countless hours getting the materials I need. I am sure others probably feel the same too!!
With game balancing it isn't too much of an impact. because currently nothing stops a determined player (like me) from upgrading every aspect of my ship with engineer upgrades. And in The entirety of me playing Elite I have never had a battle with another player. And if I did there is also a likelihood of them having engineer upgrades as well. So we would be on equal footing anyway.
Let me know what you think or if you have anything to add to i'd love to hear.
Whishing you all the best Fellow Commanders!
I would like to put forward a suggestion that may benefit us in terms of the Engineers aspect of the game. Currently, the only way to obtain the precious materials and data is from salvage, prospecting or scanning wakes and vessels. These processes can take hours to collect some decent resources. (Which there is nothing wrong with that, I actually enjoy blasting rocks with my SRV and exploring). but there is nothing worse than spending all that time in gathering resources and unlocking engineers to find out that you are missing very rare components to upgrades.
This is why I would like to suggest the idea of Material Stores in various star-ports and Engineers facilities. Materials and Data are available for sale in themed star ports. for example, manufactured materials such as chemical composites and various pieces may be available at industrial star ports whereas iron and organic rock materials are available at refineries and so forth... This would still incorporate a bit of effort to obtain the materials whilst making it much faster to do so. Engineer bases sell all required materials but for 100% extra cost to earn some means of an income (always wondered why the do all this for free?)
the costs of materials should be reasonable to match the rarity of the specific item and would probably be best to increase by powers of ten to keep it neat. for example;
very common=50cr (100cr when doubled with engineer)
common=500cr (1,000cr with engineer)
moderate=5,000cr (10,000 with engineer)
rare=50,000cr (100,000 with engineer)
very rare=500,000cr (1,000,000 with engineer)
this also creates a tiering between players in that beginners cant generally afford such sums of money. As far as cost goes I personally would prefer to spend 1M and get it done with than to spend countless hours getting the materials I need. I am sure others probably feel the same too!!
With game balancing it isn't too much of an impact. because currently nothing stops a determined player (like me) from upgrading every aspect of my ship with engineer upgrades. And in The entirety of me playing Elite I have never had a battle with another player. And if I did there is also a likelihood of them having engineer upgrades as well. So we would be on equal footing anyway.
Let me know what you think or if you have anything to add to i'd love to hear.
Whishing you all the best Fellow Commanders!
