Sneak Peak: Beta Engineering

If you haven't seen Engineering in the Beyond Beta, you're in luck.

They seem to have fixed the CTD error and I was able to get back in, and grab this:

[video=youtube_share;9_YKbz47dVA]https://youtu.be/9_YKbz47dVA[/video]

You can draw your own conclusions.
 
I finally had the time to go and trade some mats so I could finish my Chieftain's G5 FSD Range Upgrade I was almost finished with on Thursday. It took me less than a couple of minutes to complete the process. (It gives you a message when you have reached the Max limit)

I was rewarded with a +56% Optimized Mass overspec! [up] (33.10Ly with a full weapons compliment, all military slots full including a 4A SCB, two shield boosters and two heat sinks)

Anyone who has strived for a +56% or higher OM overspec in the previous Engineering system knows full well that it doesn't take less than 10 minutes to get it. ;)
 
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Yup, I can now do fairly rapidly what I never came close to in years. Still stuff that needs polishing but the general progress is surprisingly fast.

Clicking 20x on the same button gets old fast though...
 
Being able to buy experimental effects without overwriting the modification or losing rep is a pretty big boon. Having to buy them when you got a good roll with the old system was a pain, as you then had to regrind g3 and 4 mods. And now, you won't lose your high roll if you decide to change the effect.
 
Thanks for the videos, it looks quite clean and easy UI to generate mods and apply experimental effects. I like it.

That said, I wonder if we'll see any videos of the material / data collection effort required? Likely not the most exciting viewing lol. Despite playing normally for hundreds of hours game-time, I'm still very material-poor. I'm constantly ejecting excess materials that are, apparently, rare but I have lots of them. I've even spent time deliberately trying to obtain certain materials using guides on Inara for example, yet I've still had poor luck. So, where some people seem to be able to gain all they need "through normal play" (I see that phrase a lot) which I assume doesn't mean deliberately going looking for materials (I didn't even think it was possible to obtain some stuff without making a focused effort) I appear to have been far less lucky. Other members of my Private Group have found themselves in the same boat.

I'd be very interested to hear how people are finding the Material Traders when it comes to filling in the gaps in their Engineering inventory. Are the restrictions of being only able to barter within each category proving limiting, or is it working well? Sadly I've not go the time at the moment to try the Beta myself...if it runs for a few weeks, perhaps I will.

FYI: My typical in-game activities tend to be the following:

- Passenger Runs - usually the Bulk kind & I generally just go where they take me, though I have taken a few of the "long distance" type ones too.
- Cargo Runs - same thing, I just follow where they take me.
- "Vanilla" A to B trading for profit...quite like that.
- Mining - not done this for a while as I was seeing very poor drops even in pristine locations, but I got a few of my basic materials this way.
- Community Goals - mainly the cargo hauling ones.
- Bounty Hunting - Often members of the group will wing up to play in a Haz or HighRes or a compromised Nav Beacon. Only happens where we're all online and close by each other at the same time.
- Conflict Zones - don't do this very often.

With any Cargo / Passenger / Data type missions with material / data rewards, I make a note of what I'm short of and will take one offering these vs. one just paying the most money. With the combat-oriented activities, I do check the debris left behind from destroyed ships for anything I need, but it's very rare to get anything I've not already got plenty of now. I also periodically pop into USS's if I'm not in a hurry to get somewhere, but at best find some moderately useful Materials, none of the ones I'm really short of.

With the new Engineering, it seems that, to avoid frustration, one needs to try and get fairly material rich to be able to blast through the rolls quickly enough to get what you want. So, I wonder if, other than the material broker, people are finding RNG a little more on their side when it comes to finding stuff through "normal" play?

Anyway, thanks again for the summary video, I'd love to hear your insight on the actual gathering of Materials though :)

Scoob.
 
I found the old (current) system vastly faster, with only 3 upgrades per tier and no starting over from Grade 1 on the next module.
Also the material costs are much higher - compare the materials used here to materials used currently.
 
Yup, I can now do fairly rapidly what I never came close to in years. Still stuff that needs polishing but the general progress is surprisingly fast.

Clicking 20x on the same button gets old fast though...

I wonder if they'll ever "shortcut" the UI in this regard? I.e. you know you're going to just spam Upgrades until you get to that maxed-out G5, so why not allow the UI just just do it all in one go....assuming you have ample materials of course :)

That said, clicking isn't too taxing, but repetitive tasks can be...erm, repetitive however easy they might be lol.

Scoob.
 
I found the old (current) system vastly faster, with only 3 upgrades per tier and no starting over from Grade 1 on the next module.
Also the material costs are much higher - compare the materials used here to materials used currently.

Yes, while I've no first-hand experience in the Beta, this is what I took away from the initial information and subsequent Live Streams. As a casual user of Engineers - quite happy with "good enough" after one roll - I don't chase the best numbers, I just do a little grind to level the Engineer a bit - often just to level 3 - and then apply the G3+ upgrades they offer to several items.

Scoob.
 
Yes, while I've no first-hand experience in the Beta, this is what I took away from the initial information and subsequent Live Streams. As a casual user of Engineers - quite happy with "good enough" after one roll - I don't chase the best numbers, I just do a little grind to level the Engineer a bit - often just to level 3 - and then apply the G3+ upgrades they offer to several items.

Scoob.

If you want the MAX upgrade possible, the new system is vastly superior. If you have the mats and data, which is always a prerequisite, you can max out a module to God Roll level in 10-15 minutes or less.

That is literally impossible to pull off with the existing system. The same upgrade could take you days or even weeks to stumble on after 100s and sometimes 1000s of rolls.

And according to what I read from them on the Beta forums, Frontier plans to tweak the upper limits to equal submitted God Rolls from the old system, which will make the max results even better!

I guess it all comes down to what you want. For me, the new system is going to be a huge time saver and I will have God Roll specs on every single module I care to upgrade.
 
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If you want the MAX upgrade possible, the new system is vastly superior. If you have the mats and data, which is always a prerequisite, you can max out a module to God Roll level in 10-15 minutes or less.

That is literally impossible to pull off with the existing system. The same upgrade could take you days or even weeks to stumble on after 100s and sometimes 1000s of rolls.

And according to what I read from them on the Beta forums, Frontier plans to tweak the upper limits to equal submitted God Rolls from the old system, which will make the max results even better!

I guess it all comes down to what you want. For me, the new system is going to be a huge time saver and I will have God Roll specs on every single module I care to upgrade.

That's basically my point, the new system does benefit those who want perfection and have ample materials. This is fine, but equally it has increased the potential grind for those of us who just lightly Engineer, and are happy with a decent G3 Roll for example. Playing as I do, I will be using far more materials and spending far more time in the Engineering screen than ever before. It's fine, I don't have to Engineer, but it is fun. Now Engineering "casually" involved a lot more grind unfortunately. Who knows, maybe I'll become a perfectionist convert, after all, if I have to do the material grind I might as well go all out :) After all, I need to stand out and make my ship exactly the same as everyone elses lol :)

Scoob.
 
Normal gameplay for me is similar to yours, but I only bother with high grade emission, combat aftermath or encoded emission USS, plus I drive around on planets a lot after doing an outpost scan, so that fills quite a lot of mats. There are still the odd ones that are elusive, so Dav's Hope is good for that. Hope this helps.

Another poster, few months back, said they checked what state their system was at the time to help look out the rarer ones too.

Peace
 
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You can really see the progress through the different levels, it's like a journey, experiencing each of those levels separately before moving on the the next. Gripping stuff. Somehow I am reminded of selling exploration data.

Old tired ineffectual complaints delivered in a cheap way aside, the UI looks nice.
 
Thanks for the videos, it looks quite clean and easy UI to generate mods and apply experimental effects. I like it.

That said, I wonder if we'll see any videos of the material / data collection effort required? Likely not the most exciting viewing lol. Despite playing normally for hundreds of hours game-time, I'm still very material-poor. I'm constantly ejecting excess materials that are, apparently, rare but I have lots of them. I've even spent time deliberately trying to obtain certain materials using guides on Inara for example, yet I've still had poor luck. So, where some people seem to be able to gain all they need "through normal play" (I see that phrase a lot) which I assume doesn't mean deliberately going looking for materials (I didn't even think it was possible to obtain some stuff without making a focused effort) I appear to have been far less lucky. Other members of my Private Group have found themselves in the same boat.

I'd be very interested to hear how people are finding the Material Traders when it comes to filling in the gaps in their Engineering inventory. Are the restrictions of being only able to barter within each category proving limiting, or is it working well? Sadly I've not go the time at the moment to try the Beta myself...if it runs for a few weeks, perhaps I will.

FYI: My typical in-game activities tend to be the following:

- Passenger Runs - usually the Bulk kind & I generally just go where they take me, though I have taken a few of the "long distance" type ones too.
- Cargo Runs - same thing, I just follow where they take me.
- "Vanilla" A to B trading for profit...quite like that.
- Mining - not done this for a while as I was seeing very poor drops even in pristine locations, but I got a few of my basic materials this way.
- Community Goals - mainly the cargo hauling ones.
- Bounty Hunting - Often members of the group will wing up to play in a Haz or HighRes or a compromised Nav Beacon. Only happens where we're all online and close by each other at the same time.
- Conflict Zones - don't do this very often.

With any Cargo / Passenger / Data type missions with material / data rewards, I make a note of what I'm short of and will take one offering these vs. one just paying the most money. With the combat-oriented activities, I do check the debris left behind from destroyed ships for anything I need, but it's very rare to get anything I've not already got plenty of now. I also periodically pop into USS's if I'm not in a hurry to get somewhere, but at best find some moderately useful Materials, none of the ones I'm really short of.

With the new Engineering, it seems that, to avoid frustration, one needs to try and get fairly material rich to be able to blast through the rolls quickly enough to get what you want. So, I wonder if, other than the material broker, people are finding RNG a little more on their side when it comes to finding stuff through "normal" play?

Anyway, thanks again for the summary video, I'd love to hear your insight on the actual gathering of Materials though :)

Scoob.

1) You can now chose to be rewarded more in mats/data rather than credits if rep if you want.
2) You can trade data/mats. I can consistently get +5 of a (very) rare mat/data, which translates to 15 G4 of the same type all the way to 405 G1 of the same 'type'. You can also trade for different types at a penalty. Basically, doing just missions gets you everything if you want.
3) Plus anything you find on the way (bring a limpet collector when doing BH/CZ), when scanning ships in SC etc gets you stuff you can sell.

Storage is increased to 100 per thingy, so you can now hold a stupid amount of stuff. Almost full? Trade it for something you have less of, you'll never need to throw anything away again.
 
Can we please please PLEEEEEASE have the material traders located AT the engineer bases??? They say they care about quality of life, about not wasting our time....PLEAAASSE put the at the bases where we would need them. There is no reason not to - it is just plain cruel.
 
1) You can now chose to be rewarded more in mats/data rather than credits if rep if you want.
2) You can trade data/mats. I can consistently get +5 of a (very) rare mat/data, which translates to 15 G4 of the same type all the way to 405 G1 of the same 'type'. You can also trade for different types at a penalty. Basically, doing just missions gets you everything if you want.
3) Plus anything you find on the way (bring a limpet collector when doing BH/CZ), when scanning ships in SC etc gets you stuff you can sell.

Storage is increased to 100 per thingy, so you can now hold a stupid amount of stuff. Almost full? Trade it for something you have less of, you'll never need to throw anything away again.

Thanks. This is the sort of stuff I was wanting to hear more about, perhaps I was vague in my "normal play" comment. With missions giving the choice of useful materials, it'll certainly fill the gap.

If the hugely increased materials/data requirements - for my style of play - can be offset by doing largely "normal" activities - again, for my style of play - then the system does look like it'll be workable for the non-perfectionist :)

Scoob.
 
If you can get your head around the preconception that you are not supposed to run around with full g5 modules, it's brilliant
 
Thanks. This is the sort of stuff I was wanting to hear more about, perhaps I was vague in my "normal play" comment. With missions giving the choice of useful materials, it'll certainly fill the gap.

If the hugely increased materials/data requirements - for my style of play - can be offset by doing largely "normal" activities - again, for my style of play - then the system does look like it'll be workable for the non-perfectionist :)

Scoob.

As far as I can see, you want to be come Allied in systems in a state that drives your desired gameplay, and have a high rank. You then get offered tons of missions for high quality mats/data, and when you select 'mat/data preference' you'll get five of them per mission. The 'huge increase in required mats' is mostly low-lvl stuff. That has become almost wholly trivial due to the trader and how much stuff you get. For example, one mission offering G5 rewards means you instantly completely fill the G1 and G2 mats of that time from 0 to 100. Two more missions and you've got the G3 almost filled too. That takes about, what, 20 minutes? :p Go check your inventory in the live build and search for pointless but high-grade stuff. You can trade all of that. Maybe most importantly: the concept of 'useful materials' is now gone, as everything can be used for trading. As long as it is (very) rare, its all useful now. Especially when you find some transport missions going the same place, you can get 20+ G5 mats in ten minutes. Thats 1620 G1 mats, or almost ten thousand mats per hour. :p

Gathering the stuff isnt the issue IMHO. Its the endless rolling for no-reason other than to get to G4/G5, and not knowing what you need exactly because you cant see the requirements until you arrive at the engineer. Thats a lot of pointless busywork that should be streamlined IMHO.
 
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If you can get your head around the preconception that you are not supposed to run around with full g5 modules, it's brilliant

Yeah, that's basically where I'm coming from. I think the only G5 roll I have is on an FSD, and it's far from a god roll. Most of my FSD's are G4 at best, Power plants are G1 or 2, Distributors at G3, lasers at G2 or G3 - basically, I've never gone crazy. However, mirroring this for any new modules I buy, will take more materials. Thankfully, it does look they are somewhat easier to obtain through missions and the trader.

As far as I can see, you want to be come Allied in systems in a state that drives your desired gameplay, and have a high rank. You then get offered tons of missions for high quality mats/data, and when you select 'mat/data preference' you'll get five of them per mission. The 'huge increase in required mats' is mostly low-lvl stuff. That has become almost wholly trivial due to the trader and how much stuff you get. For example, one mission offering G5 rewards means you instantly completely fill the G1 and G2 mats of that time from 0 to 100. Two more missions and you've got the G3 almost filled too. That takes about, what, 20 minutes? :p Go check your inventory in the live build and search for pointless but high-grade stuff. You can trade all of that. Maybe most importantly: the concept of 'useful materials' is now gone, as everything can be used for trading. As long as it is (very) rare, its all useful now. Especially when you find some transport missions going the same place, you can get 20+ G5 mats in ten minutes. Thats 1620 G1 mats, or almost ten thousand mats per hour. :p

Gathering the stuff isnt the issue IMHO. Its the endless rolling for no-reason other than to get to G4/G5, and not knowing what you need exactly because you cant see the requirements until you arrive at the engineer. Thats a lot of pointless busywork that should be streamlined IMHO.

See, this is great. I was afraid that material and data rewards would generally be lower-level stuff and we'd end up being expected to "trade up" hence the need for lots of low level stuff. If in fact it's the high tier stuff we're gaining from mission rewards, then it totally changes things. I.e. gaining high-tier Materials early-game (from an Engineering perspective for a fresh ship/modules) doesn't mean it's a case of just sitting on that material until it's needed much later on. No, it can be traded for the stuff that's relevant now.

Thanks for the great information, I'm genuinely warming to the changes to Engineering now :)

Scoob.
 
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