One way to improve the engineering grind... make Material Traders more consistent.

[Darth Wonko]

I'm used to long grinds... I played World of Warcraft for years.

But, here's where my frustration really kicks in: Material Traders of a particular type are not found consistently in the same economies. For example, I might go to a Material Trader (MT) in a Refinery Economy and get someone who deals with Raw Materials. But, the next Refinery economy I go to could have an MT who deals with Manufactured Materials.

How about something like this:

Extraction, Refinery = Raw Material
High Tech = Encoded
Industrial = Manufactured

I get having to go out and get the base materials to perform the modifications. And, now that I have some ships with engineered components, I agree that it should not be easily achieved; the improvements are just too good to be taken lightly.

However, to make it a crap shoot every time we have to find an MT is just needlessly frustrating.

 

[Stabby_Dave]

Inara will tell you where the nearest of each type are.

 

[NeilF]

I'm used to long grinds... I played World of Warcraft for years.

But, here's where my frustration really kicks in: Material Traders of a particular type are not found consistently in the same economies. For example, I might go to a Material Trader (MT) in a Refinery Economy and get someone who deals with Raw Materials. But, the next Refinery economy I go to could have an MT who deals with Manufactured Materials.

How about something like this:

Extraction, Refinery = Raw Material
High Tech = Encoded
Industrial = Manufactured

I get having to go out and get the base materials to perform the modifications. And, now that I have some ships with engineered components, I agree that it should not be easily achieved; the improvements are just too good to be taken lightly.

However, to make it a crap shoot every time we have to find an MT is just needlessly frustrating.

Why not single/combined material traders, found at Engineer locations themselves...

...or is being made to fly from A->B->A just to convert material X to Y a good use of game time/play? You're already paying for the material conversion by a loss/fee, so why the further busy work of the A->B->A flight time? Is that enjoyable game time?

 

[Tiili]

Time is the only commodity worth anything here, that's why the game revolves around wasting a lot of it. Being able to buy materials with credits should be a thing, and the traders should definitely live in engineer bases as well.

Reminds me of things like having to keep running to town in WOW(in the middle of a raid!) to buy ammunition as a hunter or you can't use any of your DPS abilities at all. Just an inconvenience without any benefit to gameplay.

 

[Darth Wonko]

Inara will tell you where the nearest of each type are.

Thanks for that info, Commander! I've been using EDDB for most things and have only just started using INARA. I didn't realize it had that detailed information.
o7

Time is the only commodity worth anything here, that's why the game revolves around wasting a lot of it. Being able to buy materials with credits should be a thing, and the traders should definitely live in engineer bases as well.

Reminds me of things like having to keep running to town in WOW(in the middle of a raid!) to buy ammunition as a hunter or you can't use any of your DPS abilities at all. Just an inconvenience without any benefit to gameplay.

Thank God they did away with that after Vanilla. The thing is, I can totally understand why WoW wastes one's time: it guarantees players keep renewing their monthly subscriptions. With WoW, players purchase time, so forcing a player to waste most of it keeps them buying more and more.

This doesn't apply to ED, though. It just seems pointless. We're going to sink a tremendous amount of time into the game anyway, and there's PLENTY to do between chapters. It just seems like our suggestions would be great QoL improvements.

 

[Tiili]

It was still in BC tho, it was the reason why everyone wanted that legendary bow, Thori'dal

Equip: Thori'dal generates magical arrows when the bow string is drawn.

Added A LOT of inventory space when you could ditch the quivers/ammo pouches.

I also don't see the point of ED time wasting mechanics, like having a timer for charging FSD, then a timer for jump, then a timer for FSD cooldown, limpets not being able to bring cargo into your hold if you're moving over 11m/s even if they can move at 200m/s etc etc...
But the devs really seem to love things like this, "realism" I guess

 

[Ian Doncaster]

The material traders should generally match that economy scheme already, according to the documentation - though there may be some muddying of the pattern because a lot of stations are High-Tech/Refinery or Industrial/Refinery rather than pure High-Tech or Industrial. That may be where the unexpected Raw traders are coming from.

(Because of how EDDB handles split-economy stations, it's not a good way to search for specific types of material traders)

I also don't see the point of ED time wasting mechanics, like having a timer for charging FSD, then a timer for jump, then a timer for FSD cooldown

The jump itself is just cover for loading the new system data (or the short 4 second countdown, for unloading and disconnecting from the current instance) so that takes as long as it takes. The problem is that certain playstyles requiring a lot of rapid jumps in sequence you spend more time in the loading screens than actually playing the game. (On the bright side, they have managed to optimise the loading a bit, so they take about half the time they used to...)

Charging and cooldown timers are needed to allow for combat and interdiction to work without ships (player or NPC) instantly jumping away. The problem there is that the vast majority of charges/cooldowns aren't made under threat, so the need for the timer isn't generally appreciated. But if you're trying to kill an NPC, being able to interdict and attack knowing that between cooldown and charge it will be at least a minute before it can jump is better than it being able to escape immediately.

Like a lot of bits of the game, they make sense individually, but don't fit together well.

 

[CMDR Redcrest]

To be honest they could just list what type in the station description: instead of just material trader it could add in ONE WORD: Raw, Manufactured, Data.
Not difficult or time consuming.
Also ditch the 'must have visited the system before and only highlight traders with 60lyrs' rubbish. That's not gameplay that's a nuisance. I shouldn't have to go out of game for the galactic yellow pages.
Also fix the exchange rates to not be robbery.

 

[Darth Wonko]

It was still in BC tho, it was the reason why everyone wanted that legendary bow, Thori'dal

Not only that, but it looked really cool! LOL

I started in Cata, so I missed out on some of that stuff. Of course, back then we still had to have mats for spells like a feather for 'Slow Fall', etc. or for Rogues to craft poisons.

Like a lot of bits of the game, they make sense individually, but don't fit together well.

That's a really good perspective on things; I think you're spot on.