Engineers Stick or Twist with Upgrades

[Sim Maker]

I never said meta was the only factor but it does lead to people having the same ship mods. If you watch F1 you know that a great driver wants the best car. A bad driver would also like the best car, if they can get it, they aren't going to handicap themselves by not having the best engine they can get.

Same thing goes for games. Most people aren't going to be happy with having sub-par weapons as well as being less skilled than other commanders, most people are going to try and get the best mods for their ship as they can. Once it becomes obvious, through forum posts, reddit or youtube, people will know just what tuning makes the best mods. Not everyone may wish to use these mods but the majority will, why tune a weapon, thruster or shields at a level that isn't as good as the majority?

Even by making it random, there will be plenty of players that grind and re-roll over and over to get whatever the meta dictates, or at least as close as they can get. If you are a top-notch pilot why would you want to play against players that may not be as skilled but have an advantage in ship mods? I suppose you could enjoy the challenge of playing with one arm tied behind your back.

I'm not defending the RNG either but I think I understand why FD used it, it was meant to provide variety. In F1 each team generally engineers different solutions to building their cars. Sadly, money has a lot to do with getting the best tech. There is a variety though. In GP2 all of the vehicles are built under the same basic spec. That shows off the driver skill but there is less variety unless you include the driver's inexperience.

You are comparing F1 and GP2....to THIS??.......That's like comparing the Wizard of Oz to NASA........I know what you are trying to say, but ......GP2 is a Spec series, they can't add a million different versions of components off the shelf..........where as with Elite there are 1000s of ways you can set up your ship 30 ships with varying equipment levels......mining, trading, fighting etc.....................and when do you see F1 engineers pulling a leaver and watching the fruits go around......or flipping a coin?.........that is NOT how engineering works.....certainly not hi performance engineering as you would expect with space craft and weapons systems..........
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And if someone likes fighting......why should they be made to DRIVE for 1000s of hours in order to get the best Fighting kit the game has to offer.........That makes as much sense as forcing Open PvPers to play as Solo Exploreres...so that they can PvP again..................as many have said, the game looks great, sounds awesome, and the first drop was just like an updated Elite from the BBC Mirco days...........but since then, the game "design" has gone south. It seems to force people in to doing things they don't want to do.....which is QUITE different to "Play your own way" as was promised......