Ship upgrade

[Siranui]

Be specific. What thing did I say that was incorrect. Those are the required steps.

Your opening statement was "If you want a greater FSD range (which he mentions) you have to do several specific things.", which is complete hokey. That's what you have to do to get a level 5 FSD upgrade from a specific source.

The complaint is, to get it, you have to play the game differently than you want to. If you wanted to be a (space) miner: there's no way work your way to that FSD modification without being an explorer, and trader, and wake scanner, and SRV pilot. Worse: It's not like there's only the "Go fetch 50 of these" (though those kinds of things do happen); but more "do this over and over until you get lucky".

Lol. Being forced to carry a wave scanner and being forced to spend five minutes pointing at things that leave the station. Oh the humanity! Additionally, most of the mats can - as you well know - be obtained via missions. If I was being bloody minded as a miner, refusing to do absolutely anything else, I could do it only via mining mission rewards. You're both factually incorrect in your initial comment about what 'has' to be done for an FSD upgrade and that FD 'force' our miner to do terrible not-mining things.

There are two engineers with G5 frameshift drives.

Who said anything about G5? Nobody except you.

You have to explore until you are a scout.

Travel 300 ly from starting system.

Or just fly about mining, because your guy in the example will cry if made to do anything but mine. Eventually they'll hit scout and eventually they will mine somewhere a long way away.

You have to find meta-alloys (try doing that without consulting the internet) which will include long-distance travelling, landing, "mining" in your SRV (unless MAs are still bugged and sold at that one station).

Or ask someone on a friend list to sort you out a hunk, in exchange for a bunch of stuff you mined.

Retrieve Sontil relics.

Oh, the pain! flying for an hour! Boo-hoo. Alternatively, the player swaps 100 tons of something he mined for it with another player. No rare trading then required. Mining FTW.

Now you have to level [the engineer]. I'll ignore the requirements on that because they vary: but assume you will have to drive along on planets for mats and do missions as well.

Let's not assume that, because nobody said it was G5. You were giving an example of what you 'have' to do to get 'a' FSD modification. So none of that levelling needs to happen. But if it did, then there is still no need to drive the SRV or do non-mining missions. Heck, we could just trade in a bunch of exploration data, accumulated over all that time we spent mining.

You are ready for your FSD mkV. Well, you need uber-rare arsnic (more planet mining), Datamined wake exception (so you will need to equip a wake scanner, possibly for a long time, and fly around scanning those), Chem manipulators (you'll have to blow up cargo ships or hunt surfaces a long time).

Or mining missions. Our example is going to cry if he has to play any other aspect of the game apart from mining, remember? They absolutely refuse to play any other part of the game, because you wanted your example to be as convoluted as possible. So they are going to do mining missions, where they can get everything.

If you just wanted a career as a miner (in a ship): too bad. You'll need to do all the things above.. a lot.. or you can't get your jump drive engineer mod.

Yes you can. As above.

 

[Deleted member 115407]

Yeah, I felt the same about Oblivion (and Skyrim). I wanted to play a High Wizard, but I had to start out selling rusty swords and hunting animal pelts, leveling up and trying to kill things with a lvl 1 Fireball. It sucked. Why couldn't I just get Frostcrag and a High Wizard level without all that other stuff, like running over half the continent just to get to one tomb with quest enemies 4 levels up from me for a mildly-better unique weapon that might help me stay alive?

game sux. Uninstalled.

Sarcasm? I never played them so I can't tell

 

[CMDR Zhon Daeli]

Sarcasm? I never played them so I can't tell

Sarcasm.

 

[Siranui]

Sarcasm? I never played them so I can't tell

Jet Set Willy was just the same. I wanted to play 'my way' and enjoy the last level, but I had to grind, grind, grind by doing other levels first. And it was just bad game design the way you had to stand RIGHT on the edge pixel to make jumps. It should have been impossible to fall over the side if you didn't press the button in time, because it is unrealistic that someone would walk off the edge of a giant cake like that. Plus, my RP experience was destroyed by the game FORCING me to play an unarmed protagonist. I wanted a gun and the game unfairly would not let me have one and shoot people - I was *forced* to play 'their' way by jumping things!

 

[JerryLove]

Your opening statement was "If you want a greater FSD range (which he mentions) you have to do several specific things.", which is complete hokey. That's what you have to do to get a level 5 FSD upgrade from a specific source.

You are equivocating.

Lol. Being forced to carry a wave scanner and being forced to spend five minutes pointing at things that leave the station.

Took me a hell of a lot longer than 5 minutes.

But you agree with his premise then and are now simply quibbling over "how much"?

Additionally, most of the mats can - as you well know - be obtained via missions.

Already addressed. The player may not wish to do missions because he just wants to go mine.

Have you found Pure Focus Crystals in missions? How about Arsenic?

If I was being bloody minded as a miner, refusing to do absolutely anything else, I could do it only via mining mission rewards. You're both factually incorrect in your initial comment about what 'has' to be done for an FSD upgrade and that FD 'force' our miner to do terrible not-mining things.

You're only answer to my "what did I say was incorrect" was to decide that I must have meant to include low-grade FSD range increases. I'm surprised you didn't argue neutron stars.

Feel free to replace the beginning of my statement with "In order to obtain a G5 FSD range upgrade" and read it again.

Or just fly about mining, because your guy in the example will cry if made to do anything but mine. Eventually they'll hit scout and eventually they will mine somewhere a long way away.

You are missing the forest for the trees if you are trying to apologize 1-2 parts of the issue away.

Or ask someone on a friend list to sort you out a hunk, in exchange for a bunch of stuff you mined.

I have to play multi-player now too?

Let's not assume that, because nobody said it was G5. You were giving an example of what you 'have' to do to get 'a' FSD modification. So none of that levelling needs to happen. But if it did, then there is still no need to drive the SRV or do non-mining missions. Heck, we could just trade in a bunch of exploration data, accumulated over all that time we spent mining.

I did. You've just chosen to misunderstand me so that you can complain.

- - - Updated - - -

Sarcasm? I never played them so I can't tell

He's clearly sarcastic; but also using a terrible analogy.

The OP did not request to start with an end-game ship... he just said he didn't want to be excluded from things like all the engineering upgrades because he didn't want to (for example) fight in CZs.

 

[JetsonRING]

Doesn't WoW have some elements of that? I can choose to never level up a profession. I can choose to never level up at all and just hang out in that weird little inn all day having cyber sex.

There are some gateways for gameplay however. I could have gotten my flying mount by endlessly grinding on mobs. Instead, I just played and enjoyed myself, and eventually the flying mounts came along.

^This.^

It can be a very "process-oriented" game, most in-game goals seem to be very short-term. Long-term goals are the ones you set yourself. Play the game, enjoy yourself, the rewards, permits, credits will flow . . . Early on I looked at Engineers and realized immediately that I did not have the experience, the time or the inclination to do the different things (mining, wake-scanning, etc.) required for the modification of my ships systems. Heck I was still learning how to land and trade. I keep reading in forums about this CMDR or that asking about system permits, engineer materials, etc. and have found that if I work on a goal, but loosely, combining 2 or 3 other things I am doing, the grind becomes much less tedious and the permits, materials, rewards, etc. just flow. Until recently when I started modifying for real I never looked for engineer mats, customers kept dropping them into my cargo racks as secondary missions rewards, I was throwing them over the side! Most things can be purchased and the things that cannot be purchased can be obtained for just a bit of work. None of it is very difficult, just tedious.

 

[shadragon]

Why couldn't I just get Frostcrag and a High Wizard level without all that other stuff, like running over half the continent just to get to one tomb with quest enemies 4 levels up from me for a mildly-better unique weapon that might help me stay alive?

For the same reason you don't leave primary school with an offer of employment at the executive level of a Fortune 500 corporation.

Honestly, if it is too much of a "grind" to you, go play something else.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Been away from the game for awhile due to the fact I just don't have the time to put in it to be able to upgrade my ship(s)

Came back to the game the other day but I don't think I'll be sticking to it. The whole fact that you can't really do what you want to do anymore really puts me off. Rules have been put in place. You have to do this to get that etc.

I have zero interest in grinding to be able to upgrade my drive so I can jump further. In the real world you can pay for anything, and so it should be in the game. It's about choices. Some will choose to grind and save money, other would pay.

It just disheartens me that Frontier are forcing people down a path that some may not wish to go.

Before you say, yes I could work with ships that are not upgraded. But the economy of being able to buy upgrades should be in the game.

You're not forced to use Engineers. You can use them or not use them.

As for any actual grinding... it takes maybe 10 minutes to max out rep with an Engineer, and in a worst-case, a few hours to unlock one (Marco Quent). Not at all anything like an actual grind.
And I'm glad you actually have to put a little effort into them. I hate "just go buy it" games. They're pathetic.

 

[JerryLove]

You're not forced to use Engineers. You can use them or not use them.

As for any actual grinding... it takes maybe 10 minutes to max out rep with an Engineer, and in a worst-case, a few hours to unlock one (Marco Quent). Not at all anything like an actual grind.
And I'm glad you actually have to put a little effort into them. I hate "just go buy it" games. They're pathetic.

I dare you to get just Arsenic in 10 minutes.

Heck: I can't even get from the star to some of the engieers in 10 minutes.

You also can't do any of the "50 rares" in 10 minutes. At most you can do 15 per run and there's several minutes of refreshes for the 15.

Nor can you get the correct firmware in 10 minutes. Yes: once you are at a colony, you could do one run in 10min, and might get lucky, but if not: you have to find a new one.

No. Your "10 minutes" is dishonest.

 

[shadragon]

It just disheartens me that Frontier are forcing people down a path that some may not wish to go.

And yet, some do want to go down that path.

Came back to the game the other day but I don't think I'll be sticking to it.

Bye. See you in six months.

 

[AgingGamer]

Is the game play to achieve something 'fun'? If so, then I think most people would agree that is okay, good even, for a well-designed game.

The problem comes from the fact that every person who plays a game has a different definition of what 'fun' is. And as a game with a lot of 'simulation' elements, Elite Dangerous has a lot of aspects that are hard to call 'fun' for many people. If all you want is a maximum engineered FSD in an A-rated Anaconda, you won't get there without what a lot of people would call 'work' instead of fun.

Example: Engineering. It took me about 30 hours of gameplay to get Grade 5 FSD range boost from Felicity Farseer once I decided to do so. I already owned an Anaconda and already had an exploration rank of 'scout' but had never used any engineers. In addition to the game play itself, I spent about six hours reading various websites regarding engineers first. Most of the time 'cost' was related to something I was already doing: exploring and collecting exploration data. The rares that were needed for the grade 5 upgrade took me less than ten hours of game play to find, and that would have been faster if I'd done it previously.

For me, the 30 hours was 'reasonable' and more or less 'fun'. I had already played several hundred hours during which I'd earned enough to buy the Anaconda, so obviously I have the time. I didn't feel like it was something I had to do- it was a choice. But if I only had 2 hours a week to play Elite, then getting that FSD upgrade would have taken a significant portion of a year of focus. It probably would have seemed a whole lot more like work, especially if I convinced myself that it was something I *had* to do to play the game.

I think there is room for a lot of improvement in Elite Dangerous regarding the 'fun' aspects: not everything needs to be painful, frustrating work. E.g.: just because it is more realistic to wait weeks and pay billions of credits to relocate your ship from one place to another doesn't mean it has to be that way. I think it pays to watch out for those opportunities for improvement But I never expect Elite to become much less of a simulation, which means it will only be 'fun' for a niche of players.