Haven't played in a little over a year, and boy howdy have things changed! I own a python, and a decent pile of credits, I am thinking of buying a small ship to get my bearings again so I don't loose my python! Where can I find some good resources on the whole engineering thing, and any other significant changes? I have not purchsed Horizons, is this a must? What am I missing by not getting it?
Horizons is actually required for the "whole engineering thing". All of the engineers bases are on planets.. The biggest thing you'll notice from a year ago is that the AI is a little bit tougher and there's a bigger selection of missions etc.. You can start to gather some materials without horizons (I think) but to be able to use them you'll need the upgrade.
If you don't want to purchase Horizons, then you won't be using RNGneers. RNG because everybody makes fun of the usage of random number generators with the engineers. IMO FD is working hard to make sure you can't play well without RNGNeered modules, making it very tough. You have to grind for the engineers, they make you work for each one, and then grind them to higher levels of use. They make you do things like buy 50 Kamitra Cigars, that are only available from one spaceport in the entire galaxy, only 15 at a time, and then truck them 150Lyrs to the engineer's system, yes, 4, no 5 (edit) hauls because they won't let you pick up all 50 at once! That's what I am doing as I write this. They had 38 available when I only had 12t hold space, so I bought 12t and transferred my Type 6 there. But when I switch to it, only 3t more of cigars available! (EDIT: Oh and what a pleasant surprise, they have only 8t on my second trip! [down] ) And then when I get to the target system, there isn't even a shipyard so I can't quickly switch back to my sweet Imperial Courier which is the target of the engineering.
That said, there is a lot of fun to be had landing on planets, and going for buggy rides. If you like "easy" gameplay that is. There is like 10% challenge in the stuff (with the "SRV" - surface recovery vehicle), so it gets boring after a while, and what's more recently FD messed up the color on many planet/moons so even the scenery isn't that good any more.
So the point is, playing without Horizons you're not really missing too much, unless you want fighters. Another thing to have, and another expenditure for players with deep pockets, who want to complicate their gameplay more. But you can only have one in the "air" at a time BTW, and they are pretty weak. If you fly the fighter, you will find the NPC flying your capital ship will be constantly bumping into you too. And there are issues as well with how enemy targets are handled with your capital ship when you do that. Not to mention you add overhead cost when you crew fighters, meaning you now need a little more credits per mission just to make it profitable for you. Or, perhaps you want to do passenger missions? Bus driver anyone? Fly thousands of Lyrs, see a "beacon," rinse, repeat, repeat, repeat; lots of jumping -what fun :O
But hey I'm just being a little cynical, it's really OK, but that's the point, just OK. Just one man's word for it, listen to other player's opinions too.
That said, there is a lot of fun to be had landing on planets, and going for buggy rides. If you like "easy" gameplay that is. There is like 10% challenge in the stuff (with the "SRV" - surface recovery vehicle), so it gets boring after a while, and what's more recently FD messed up the color on many planet/moons so even the scenery isn't that good any more.
So the point is, playing without Horizons you're not really missing too much, unless you want fighters. Another thing to have, and another expenditure for players with deep pockets, who want to complicate their gameplay more. But you can only have one in the "air" at a time BTW, and they are pretty weak. If you fly the fighter, you will find the NPC flying your capital ship will be constantly bumping into you too. And there are issues as well with how enemy targets are handled with your capital ship when you do that. Not to mention you add overhead cost when you crew fighters, meaning you now need a little more credits per mission just to make it profitable for you. Or, perhaps you want to do passenger missions? Bus driver anyone? Fly thousands of Lyrs, see a "beacon," rinse, repeat, repeat, repeat; lots of jumping -what fun :O
But hey I'm just being a little cynical, it's really OK, but that's the point, just OK. Just one man's word for it, listen to other player's opinions too.
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