It feels like whoever designed the materials system for odyssey never played elite and haven't seen the changes made to engineers or guardian tech requirements after their initial launch.
Everyone has been complaining about the grind for materials and RNG almost seems broken. Although I have problems with the whole system I'm just going to address an Idea with the suit schematic.
Grind in itself isn't necessary a bad thing but you need to feel some reward as you work towards your primary goal. I probably spent around 50 hours mining all up for my fleet carrier and all the while could see the funds ticking up to my goal driving me forward.
Now I have not put in as much time as many others but I have raided, scavenged, completed missions and conflict zones and yet to find "1" Suit schematic. that in mind to upgrade 1 suit to level 5 you need 31. 31! why on earth do you need so many.
You really should only need 1 per upgrade, maybe 2 for the later levels but more than 3 for the 5th upgrade is absurd. When they released guardian tech there was a problem with this for weapon blueprints and they listened to community response and adjusted it. Then they go and make the same mistake here.
It shouldn't be the number you need it should be more of a control on the process of getting them to which having RNG is fine but also having a clear path to some is also needed. At the guardian site you knew you would get one on the completion of a site.
Further more they keep on talking about "pave your own way", "choose your own narrative" however as far as I can tell, really to get to the number required you have to perform illegal actions to get them. What if in my narrative I'm a law abiding citizen. Well I guess I'm out of luck.
So right now the method and availability are broken.
So my suggestion.
Firstly adjust how many you need for upgrading. its stupidly high.
For the next point I would suggest breaking suit schematics down for specific suits. though this could be achieved in other ways. such as 1 suit schematic for upgrade and 1 dominator tech for dominator suit ect.
There needs to be more means to find them and there should be a reliable way that is geared towards what that suit is for.
Example.
you can still raid settlements and have a chance of finding them. You can still scavenge crash sites and find them so you have those options available.
But lets look at frontier solutions and conflict zones. Here you are using your weapons and suits to their ability and all you currently get is credits. Why cant I upgrade my gear as a reward for using them for the task they are designed for. So when you cash in bounties you can choose to take less credits to get 1 schematic for a successful "win". To control flow they could only have hand them out if you are Allied with the faction, meaning you have to perform several conflicts or do other missions to raise rep, still your progress towards your goal is clear and progressing. perhaps to upgrade to level 5 you required a advanced tech and they only get rewarded for high conflict zones or something.
Artemis suits could require you to turn in a specific number or samples and they reward you with the coin and a suit upgrade tech/schematic.
The above isn't perfect but its a start, still need to think of a more creative way for the maverick than just luck. But the main point here is that you have clear paths that lead to upgrade rather than just constantly raiding or looking for signal sources on planets and hoping for the best and you get a descent reward out of partaking in the different activities, while at the same time you still have the original options of raiding and looting available to you should you want to.
Everyone has been complaining about the grind for materials and RNG almost seems broken. Although I have problems with the whole system I'm just going to address an Idea with the suit schematic.
Grind in itself isn't necessary a bad thing but you need to feel some reward as you work towards your primary goal. I probably spent around 50 hours mining all up for my fleet carrier and all the while could see the funds ticking up to my goal driving me forward.
Now I have not put in as much time as many others but I have raided, scavenged, completed missions and conflict zones and yet to find "1" Suit schematic. that in mind to upgrade 1 suit to level 5 you need 31. 31! why on earth do you need so many.
You really should only need 1 per upgrade, maybe 2 for the later levels but more than 3 for the 5th upgrade is absurd. When they released guardian tech there was a problem with this for weapon blueprints and they listened to community response and adjusted it. Then they go and make the same mistake here.
It shouldn't be the number you need it should be more of a control on the process of getting them to which having RNG is fine but also having a clear path to some is also needed. At the guardian site you knew you would get one on the completion of a site.
Further more they keep on talking about "pave your own way", "choose your own narrative" however as far as I can tell, really to get to the number required you have to perform illegal actions to get them. What if in my narrative I'm a law abiding citizen. Well I guess I'm out of luck.
So right now the method and availability are broken.
So my suggestion.
Firstly adjust how many you need for upgrading. its stupidly high.
For the next point I would suggest breaking suit schematics down for specific suits. though this could be achieved in other ways. such as 1 suit schematic for upgrade and 1 dominator tech for dominator suit ect.
There needs to be more means to find them and there should be a reliable way that is geared towards what that suit is for.
Example.
you can still raid settlements and have a chance of finding them. You can still scavenge crash sites and find them so you have those options available.
But lets look at frontier solutions and conflict zones. Here you are using your weapons and suits to their ability and all you currently get is credits. Why cant I upgrade my gear as a reward for using them for the task they are designed for. So when you cash in bounties you can choose to take less credits to get 1 schematic for a successful "win". To control flow they could only have hand them out if you are Allied with the faction, meaning you have to perform several conflicts or do other missions to raise rep, still your progress towards your goal is clear and progressing. perhaps to upgrade to level 5 you required a advanced tech and they only get rewarded for high conflict zones or something.
Artemis suits could require you to turn in a specific number or samples and they reward you with the coin and a suit upgrade tech/schematic.
The above isn't perfect but its a start, still need to think of a more creative way for the maverick than just luck. But the main point here is that you have clear paths that lead to upgrade rather than just constantly raiding or looking for signal sources on planets and hoping for the best and you get a descent reward out of partaking in the different activities, while at the same time you still have the original options of raiding and looting available to you should you want to.