TL;DR: Engineering really isn't that bad, and the difference it makes to your ship is ridiculously overpowered. It's even fun driving the rover around as fast as you dare while looking for blips on the scanner (as long as you are finding nodes regularly, and if you want to do that, read the post).
So with dodgy servers over the weekend causing issues with mission hand-ins, I decided to look at something I had so far been avoiding...Engineering.
The way people go on about it round here, I expected that removing my own eyeballs with a rusty spoon would have been more enjoyable, but I really enjoyed it! For one thing, it's nice to be in game and doing something that didn't have a deadline!
Obviously, I already had a load of mats that I'd been collecting for ages, never really knowing what they were for. This was obviously a big help. But I still didn't have many of the rare and very rare stuff, so I started looking up how to get them. I saw things like 'from hauler ships at USS (boom systems return more mats)' and I thought... "oh, god, here we go, stopping in every USS to HOPE there's a trade ship, find there isn't, fight all-comers and then cruise around for 10 mins at 30 kps to collect the mats afterwards...and yes, there is quite a bit of that, BUT, there's no need to enter all USSes.
I went to a boom system and starting scanning USSes. I very quickly realised that the ones with threat level higher than 0 aren't worth it due to time, damage, etc. But every three or four is a 'degraded emissions' or 'aftermath of battle', which is basically a load of mats floating in space waiting to be collected. That went quite well, I got some conductive components and some other useful ones for levelling. Then started looking at the elemental (planet searching) requirements. And again I read some guides, again most saying 'this is just necessary, deal with it!', and I expected a nightmare. Again I found the whole exercise to be both easy, fun and rewarding. I tried a big scar in a planet's surface first, as I had seen in a video that the rockier the landscape appeared, the more 'nodes' would be revealed. Unfortunately, my first experience was mildly frustrating, because of this bad advice! I found various man made tech, cargo, skimmers, a security grid, some automated miners on the first planet, but NO NODES! I knew that I must have landed in the wrong place (and probably on the wrong planet), so I came back to the ever helpful google, and found a couple of people who had been looking for selenium (I was too, at the time), had said to land near craters. So I went to a nice HMC world with lots of craters, picked the densest cluster of one large and 3 smaller crates that I could find and landed my ship right in between all of them, so I was surrounded by craters. I was 'almost' able to go from node to node with each one in detection range of another, or if not, there was a signal on the scanner pointing to the next. I collected 38 selenium on Deciat 6B (iirc?) in about an hour and really enjoyed it. I enjoyed driving the rover too. I can see myself levelling engineers to 5 pretty quick, I enjoy this gameplay. The key here being that if you are looking for element nodes on planets, land near as many craters as possible.
Perhaps again it's a matter of perspective. Because people have decided that they have to do it NAO(!) that's why they find it a grind.
Anyway, net result of all that fun grinding for me, was that now I have two large stage 3 efficient beams on my FAS, which are SO efficient that I don't ever need to stop firing with 4 pips to weapons. I got really lucky on the rolls, I got huge bonuses to power draw and heat draw on both within three attempts (which was lucky cos I had mats for exactly 6 attempts and got lucky on the third time each!). Then I did my distributor, weapons focused and gained 15% to recharge and capacity of weapons (this is actually why I never need to stop firing my beams), not bad for stage 1. Then I did my powerplant, and got 22% increased overall power from a stage one mod for only a little extra heat and draw. I did my thrusters too and was lucky with the roll for another very good stage 1 mod. I haven't tested it yet, but I got like a 20% increase to multiplier, this ship is getting OP rapidly and I don't even have anything over stage 3 yet! Most only stage 1!
Off to get some manganese today to get Farseer to do me a stage 5 FSD, exactly what this tank needs. MOAR JUMP RAANGE!
To be honest, I think these engineering mods are a little bit 'too' effective. I've only unlocked stage 3 beams, and I already have a weapon that does more damage (to shields, but slightly less to hull) than a base model, with about 30% less heat and power draw. I don't even need stage 5, I can already fire as long as I want to with the accompanying weapons focused distributor.
Signed: A happy chappie.
P.S. Tip of the day for engineering...I delayed unlocking Felicity Farseer til almost last, because I wasn't that bothered about going to Maia to get meta-alloys. Bad mistake. Felicity Farseer has the most important stage one mods, some good stage 3s and the obligatory stage 5 FSD, and was the fastest (sic: easiest) to level for me. Interestingly, all her elemental materials can be found on neighbouring planets. There is a planet with 10% selenium, another with 10% manganese right near her station (Deciat 4 and 5 I think, the binary planets). Deciat (while my home system for a long time, before engineering) is actually a REALLY good system for planetary materials.
Sorry for the essay, I just wanted to get some encouraging words out there for those like me that may be putting it off. The difference it makes to your ship is more than you are expecting, and it's not as grindy as people say. Go! Engineer something today!
So with dodgy servers over the weekend causing issues with mission hand-ins, I decided to look at something I had so far been avoiding...Engineering.
The way people go on about it round here, I expected that removing my own eyeballs with a rusty spoon would have been more enjoyable, but I really enjoyed it! For one thing, it's nice to be in game and doing something that didn't have a deadline!
Obviously, I already had a load of mats that I'd been collecting for ages, never really knowing what they were for. This was obviously a big help. But I still didn't have many of the rare and very rare stuff, so I started looking up how to get them. I saw things like 'from hauler ships at USS (boom systems return more mats)' and I thought... "oh, god, here we go, stopping in every USS to HOPE there's a trade ship, find there isn't, fight all-comers and then cruise around for 10 mins at 30 kps to collect the mats afterwards...and yes, there is quite a bit of that, BUT, there's no need to enter all USSes.
I went to a boom system and starting scanning USSes. I very quickly realised that the ones with threat level higher than 0 aren't worth it due to time, damage, etc. But every three or four is a 'degraded emissions' or 'aftermath of battle', which is basically a load of mats floating in space waiting to be collected. That went quite well, I got some conductive components and some other useful ones for levelling. Then started looking at the elemental (planet searching) requirements. And again I read some guides, again most saying 'this is just necessary, deal with it!', and I expected a nightmare. Again I found the whole exercise to be both easy, fun and rewarding. I tried a big scar in a planet's surface first, as I had seen in a video that the rockier the landscape appeared, the more 'nodes' would be revealed. Unfortunately, my first experience was mildly frustrating, because of this bad advice! I found various man made tech, cargo, skimmers, a security grid, some automated miners on the first planet, but NO NODES! I knew that I must have landed in the wrong place (and probably on the wrong planet), so I came back to the ever helpful google, and found a couple of people who had been looking for selenium (I was too, at the time), had said to land near craters. So I went to a nice HMC world with lots of craters, picked the densest cluster of one large and 3 smaller crates that I could find and landed my ship right in between all of them, so I was surrounded by craters. I was 'almost' able to go from node to node with each one in detection range of another, or if not, there was a signal on the scanner pointing to the next. I collected 38 selenium on Deciat 6B (iirc?) in about an hour and really enjoyed it. I enjoyed driving the rover too. I can see myself levelling engineers to 5 pretty quick, I enjoy this gameplay. The key here being that if you are looking for element nodes on planets, land near as many craters as possible.
Perhaps again it's a matter of perspective. Because people have decided that they have to do it NAO(!) that's why they find it a grind.
Anyway, net result of all that fun grinding for me, was that now I have two large stage 3 efficient beams on my FAS, which are SO efficient that I don't ever need to stop firing with 4 pips to weapons. I got really lucky on the rolls, I got huge bonuses to power draw and heat draw on both within three attempts (which was lucky cos I had mats for exactly 6 attempts and got lucky on the third time each!). Then I did my distributor, weapons focused and gained 15% to recharge and capacity of weapons (this is actually why I never need to stop firing my beams), not bad for stage 1. Then I did my powerplant, and got 22% increased overall power from a stage one mod for only a little extra heat and draw. I did my thrusters too and was lucky with the roll for another very good stage 1 mod. I haven't tested it yet, but I got like a 20% increase to multiplier, this ship is getting OP rapidly and I don't even have anything over stage 3 yet! Most only stage 1!
Off to get some manganese today to get Farseer to do me a stage 5 FSD, exactly what this tank needs. MOAR JUMP RAANGE!
To be honest, I think these engineering mods are a little bit 'too' effective. I've only unlocked stage 3 beams, and I already have a weapon that does more damage (to shields, but slightly less to hull) than a base model, with about 30% less heat and power draw. I don't even need stage 5, I can already fire as long as I want to with the accompanying weapons focused distributor.
Signed: A happy chappie.
P.S. Tip of the day for engineering...I delayed unlocking Felicity Farseer til almost last, because I wasn't that bothered about going to Maia to get meta-alloys. Bad mistake. Felicity Farseer has the most important stage one mods, some good stage 3s and the obligatory stage 5 FSD, and was the fastest (sic: easiest) to level for me. Interestingly, all her elemental materials can be found on neighbouring planets. There is a planet with 10% selenium, another with 10% manganese right near her station (Deciat 4 and 5 I think, the binary planets). Deciat (while my home system for a long time, before engineering) is actually a REALLY good system for planetary materials.
Sorry for the essay, I just wanted to get some encouraging words out there for those like me that may be putting it off. The difference it makes to your ship is more than you are expecting, and it's not as grindy as people say. Go! Engineer something today!
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