One of the biggest problems with the reworked engineers in 3.0 is the RNG in mat collection and the increased mat requirements.
Although this is countered a bit with the mats trader, it could need further improvement IMO, just because the RNG in mat drops often leads to frustration and is overly complicated.
So here are two suggestions that came to my mind to improve mat gathering, to make it a bit less hit or miss.
1. Scanable POIs (ore-veins) on planet surfaces
These would basically be like asteroids buried in the planet surface, could be detected from orbit with the surface scanner, and scanned either from the ship or the SRV and give you their compositions similar to asteroids. If they contain the materials the player is looking for, he could then land and mine the ore vein with his SRV. They should give increased amount of materials compared to rocks or outcrops.
This would reduce the requirement to drive around on planet aimlessly shooting rocks and hope that the correct material drops by chance.
2. Debris fields, Junk yards
These would be (semi-)persistent huge debris fields either similar to asteroid fields (junk yard, persistent) or resource extraction sites (debris field, semi-persistent) where a war might have taken place once. They are big debris fields that contain ship wrecks and basically all manufactured materials in varying amounts (varying by rarity). Players could drop into them and fly around looking for components they need. These sites could be scattered with explosive traps, mines and pirates for added game play.
Although this is countered a bit with the mats trader, it could need further improvement IMO, just because the RNG in mat drops often leads to frustration and is overly complicated.
So here are two suggestions that came to my mind to improve mat gathering, to make it a bit less hit or miss.
1. Scanable POIs (ore-veins) on planet surfaces
These would basically be like asteroids buried in the planet surface, could be detected from orbit with the surface scanner, and scanned either from the ship or the SRV and give you their compositions similar to asteroids. If they contain the materials the player is looking for, he could then land and mine the ore vein with his SRV. They should give increased amount of materials compared to rocks or outcrops.
This would reduce the requirement to drive around on planet aimlessly shooting rocks and hope that the correct material drops by chance.
2. Debris fields, Junk yards
These would be (semi-)persistent huge debris fields either similar to asteroid fields (junk yard, persistent) or resource extraction sites (debris field, semi-persistent) where a war might have taken place once. They are big debris fields that contain ship wrecks and basically all manufactured materials in varying amounts (varying by rarity). Players could drop into them and fly around looking for components they need. These sites could be scattered with explosive traps, mines and pirates for added game play.
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