the new engineer system for dummies

[Blackcompany]

Your conclusion is hideously flawed for 2 reasons.

First.

Collecting arsenic by driving arojnd on a planet you will fins an excess of the other 2 more common materials

Collecting chemicql manipulators. Probably shooting t9s in a famine anarchy system? They also drop distilleries and processors in greater numbers.

Scanning for datamined wakea? Oh wait you get loads of other wakes.

If anything this decreasea time to get the g5s too as you can trade some up.

Alternatively if you get 2 more of each of arsenic, manipulators, datamined you could trade those down for an excess of the lower materials needed.

Making 7 vs 10 so fewer materials under new system.

Also thirdly. The new g5 max will be better than current.

Additional to the additonal i can see now people are claiming it ia now 3-5 if not more to do each level when the stated design is 2.9 on average. But carry on making stuff up to support a good moan.

But what about Blaze your Own Trail? Play your way?

What if someone doesnt like combat? Or being a pirate? What if someone (rightly) doesnt believe that shooting rocks on empty brown dustballs is compelling game play (because...it isnt).

What then? Is this part of the game just off limits to them? If so, why? How is that reasonable, in a game where "Play Your Way/Blaze Your Own Trail" was a major selling point until the 2.0 Grindaholic Update?

 

[Balkore]

If they just got rid of the g1-g5 requirement on every module it would be fine. If you started at g5 after unlocking g5 for the first time, then you could do your one or two rolls and get a mid-tier g5 module, just like now.

 

[tomalus]

More storage space and materials trader will decrease the time needed to engineer ships.
The ability to convert excess mats to useful reagents is huge.

People underestimate how much junk drops from each destroyed ship,we are talking of 15+ per ship kill.
Mining >>> alot of low level mats
Surface prospecting >>> alot of mats from each node
Salvage USS etc >>> alot of mats

Thats alot of mats.

 

[Stealthie]

More storage space and materials trader will decrease the time needed to engineer ships.
The ability to convert excess mats to useful reagents is huge.

People underestimate how much junk drops from each destroyed ship,we are talking of 15+ per ship kill.
Mining >>> alot of low level mats
Surface prospecting >>> alot of mats from each node
Salvage USS etc >>> alot of mats

Thats alot of mats.

And think of the new and interesting gameplay that will create, eh?

You'll be able to spend your time collecting up debris in the middle of a RES/CZ so you can take it to a mat' broker and trade for other mat's to buy mod's that you can then discard on the way to obtaining the mod's you actually want.

Revolutionary stuff! [where is it]

 

[Muetdhiver]

And think of the new and interesting gameplay that will create, eh?

You'll be able to spend your time collecting up debris in the middle of a RES/CZ so you can take it to a mat' broker and trade for other mat's to buy mod's that you can then discard on the way to obtaining the mod's you actually want.

Revolutionary stuff! [where is it]

I know, it's pure Genius. Braze your own trail in our trash recycler brand new gameplay. Are junkyards inculded ?

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I know, it's pure Genius. Braze your own trail in our trash recycler brand new gameplay. Are junkyards inculded ?

Or the old system was going from place to place getting the mats you need and doing a roll to get something worse then what you had. All that wasted time and effort thrown away. At least with the new system you are guaranteed an improvement.

Think of it like this. You need those previous mods for the new one to work, so they are not thrown away, but contribute to the final end result.

 

[andrak]

Brazed Trail... sounds delicious...

 

[Muetdhiver]

Or the old system was going from place to place getting the mats you need and doing a roll to get something worse then what you had. All that wasted time and effort thrown away. At least with the new system you are guaranteed an improvement.

Think of it like this. You need those previous mods for the new one to work, so they are not thrown away, but contribute to the final end result.

Never had a problem with the "old" system. Most of my G5 were rolled 1 to 5 times, max (except my G5 exploration FSD and racing courrier G5 DD which have ~30 rolls)
I was able to engineer an anaconda from zero to G5 in 5-6h with collection of the materials included. I very much doubt it'll be possible in the new scheme. The 6 to 1 from
the broker will not compensate stuff like needing to flush CIF's down the drain for some upgrades.

The old system was bad only for god rollers. For people just upgrading ships to base G5, it was rather good once you knew what to do and where to do it (no all of it fun, like Wake scanning and HGE SC farming).
Now ? Good luck engineering 6 heavy duty HRP's and 6 heavy duty shield boosters to go thargoid hunting.

At some level I'm rather Lucky since I got quite a number of G5's that will convert nicely to top G4's.
But for a new player, past the first ship, that will be epic scale busiwork tied to so-so interesting gameplay.

What's nearly certain is that people will learn real quick which "very rare" materials are easy to find to 3 to 1 them into "not very rare" but hard to find materials.

 

[Stealthie]

Or the old system was going from place to place getting the mats you need and doing a roll to get something worse then what you had. All that wasted time and effort thrown away. At least with the new system you are guaranteed an improvement.

You're conflating two different things there.

Incrementally better mod's is fine.
It's the mat-hunting that's silly.

Sandro seems to think people are going to unlock level 1 upgrades, get a level 1 mod' done and then go and fly around in their ships for a while, then go back and unlock level 2 etc.

In reality, all anybody's going to do is collect up a couple of extra G5 mat's and immediately trade them for whatever mat's are required to complete the "level up" cycle for any given mod.
Basically, the entire thing just becomes a "material tax" on G5 upgrades.

It's just a pointless, contrived, needless, ill-considered waste of time.

 

[Marklar_]

By and large, the people with the most engineering experience and those supplying numbers seem to agree this is going to be worse, while those who have never bothered with engineering much seem to be the most vocal supporters of the proposed changes.

Out of curiosity, how do you know how much experience people have with engineering? Are you assuming that only the people you agree with actually engineer their ships?

I think these changes will be good. I have about a dozen ships fully engineered with decent G5 rolls. How much engineering have you done?

 

[Stealthie]

What's nearly certain is that people will learn real quick which "very rare" materials are easy to find to 3 to 1 them into "not very rare" but hard to find materials.

This is the real issue.

It's just another facet of the game that is going to fall victim to "meta".

Is it better to do laps of Dav's Hope to collect G4/G5 junk, is it better to hunt for HGEs or is it better to hoover up Phase Alloys and refined Focus Crystals in RES's?
I don't know yet but you can bet that somebody will figure it out and then 95% of the current methods of obtaining mat's will become completely redundant - and thus a waste of effort creating them.

 

[Muetdhiver]

This is the real issue.

It's just another facet of the game that is going to fall victim to "meta".

Is it better to do laps of Dav's Hope to collect G4/G5 junk, is it better to hunt for HGEs or is it better to hoover up Phase Alloys and refined Focus Crystals in RES's?
I don't know yet but you can bet that somebody will figure it out and then 95% of the current methods of obtaining mat's will become completely redundant - and thus a waste of effort creating them.

Yep, exactly.

Though, would rare materials actually be rare and common actually be common things would not be that way.

Also, if each material/data could be acquired from 2-3 different gameplay loops (i.e. professions) then people would just stick to
what they like instead of looking for loopholes and workaround gameplay they find unfun/boring.

I mean, who packs a Wake scanner for actually following an NPC and not for the Wake data ?

Maybe we could also get Wake data when jumping from / to strange places, like neutron stars or BH. Or when becoming hyperdicted.

The worse part of engineers (old & new), but new will make it worse if forcing players into gameplay loops they have no interest for.

 

[The Tick]

I've read through this thread, and I have not found any argument that really convinced me that the new system increases the 'grind' required in practise.

May I come back to everone's favorite example of the G5 increased jump range on FSDs?


For G5, you need

1) the very (painfully) rare Datamined Wake Exceptions
For G1 to G4, you need Atypical Disrupted Wake Echoes, Strange Wake Solutions, and Eccentric Hyperspace Trajectories - which are a byproduct of collecting DWEs.

2) the very rare Chemical Manipulators
Any activity that lets you find Chemical Manipulators also delivers Chemical Processors and Distilleries as a byproduct.

3) the quite rare Arsenic
Just collect this on a planet that has Phosphorus and Manganese. Both are more frequent than Arsenic


With the increased storage capabilities, just don't discard these byproducts, and you are set.
So in practise (and here's a CMDR that has done 4000+ engineering rolls), I personally don't expect to need more time for engineering.

 

[Vardaugas]

There will only be a big grind in the beginning when you have to stock up on all the materials you threw away/ignored in the past because you had absolutely no need for them. Then again you could just down trade the rare stuff you have kept. At least to fill your needs while filling up your storage.

 

[Mercy Killing]

I'd like to just be able to ignore the whole engineer thing and keep flying solo.


Unfortunately I cannot. Seems even in solo, non-engineer, no planetary landing version of the game still on the launcher I STILL face engineered NPC's. Thanks for shoving an unwanted system down my throat, FDevs. Guess you can keep your game, and I'll keep the hard drive space needed for it for something else.

 

[Marklar_]

I'd like to just be able to ignore the whole engineer thing and keep flying solo.


Unfortunately I cannot. Seems even in solo, non-engineer, no planetary landing version of the game still on the launcher I STILL face engineered NPC's. Thanks for shoving an unwanted system down my throat, FDevs. Guess you can keep your game, and I'll keep the hard drive space needed for it for something else.

That's an old problem, and the fix would be to let people adjust the difficulty level of interdictions instead of basing it on combat rank. That way people could ignore engineering and not worry about getting stomped by elite Annies.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

You're conflating two different things there.

Incrementally better mod's is fine.
It's the mat-hunting that's silly.

Sandro seems to think people are going to unlock level 1 upgrades, get a level 1 mod' done and then go and fly around in their ships for a while, then go back and unlock level 2 etc.

In reality, all anybody's going to do is collect up a couple of extra G5 mat's and immediately trade them for whatever mat's are required to complete the "level up" cycle for any given mod.
Basically, the entire thing just becomes a "material tax" on G5 upgrades.

It's just a pointless, contrived, needless, ill-considered waste of time.

The mat hunting as has been stated for us experienced people should be the same as it is now. All you need to is get 6 Grade 5 mats go to the broker and brake 2 down to the lower level mats leaving you with 4 G5, 4 G4, 4 G3, 4 G2 and 6 G1 rolls. It is very likely you will get an excellent G5 roll in one sitting with that and probably doing roughly the same amount of material gathering or even slightly less.

For people who are just starting they have a linear upgrade path which isn't confusing at all.

 

[Vardaugas]

For people who are just starting they have a linear upgrade path which isn't confusing at all.

And that's who the system is designed for. Hence all the "future of the game" talk.

 

[Stealthie]

For people who are just starting they have a linear upgrade path which isn't confusing at all.

You've said this at least twice now and I still don't understand what you mean, TBH.

Current.
1) Unlock engineer.
2) Make rolls to increase rank with engineer.
3) Choose mod' and apply to module.
4) Choose another mod' to apply to another module.

New
1) Unlock engineer.
2) Make G1 rolls to increase rank with engineer and unlock G2 mods.
3) Make G2 rolls to increase rank with engineer and unlock G3 mods.
4) Make G3 rolls to increase rank with engineer and unlock G4 mods.
5) Make G4 rolls to increase rank with engineer and unlock G5 mods.
6) Choose mod' and apply to module.
7) Choose another mod' and... wait, what? Start again? Well, what's that rank thing I've been working on?
8) Make G1 rolls to increase rank with engineer and unlock G2 mods..........

One of these things is unarguably simpler than the other.

Again, though, that's beside the point.
The point is that we currently have something that doesn't need fixing.
We collect mat's and then we give 'em to an engineer in return for the shiny.

The thing that needed fixing was the randomness of the quality of the mod's.
That's fixed, so why bother with all the extra stuff at all?

Just 'cos Sandro wants people to fly around in half-finished ships - something that's just not going to happen anyway?

Why bother?

 

[Marklar_]

Just 'cos Sandro wants people to fly around in half-finished ships

That's what almost everyone is doing right now. It's just that people ignore the maxxed "finished" version and go with almost-as-good rolls that take far less time to get.

And that's the problem. A good max-level (G5) mod is easy to get, while getting one a bit better is ridiculously hard. That's a serious design flaw I think. The new system will make G5 mods harder to get, but we'll actually be able to max them out in a reasonable amount of time.

I think that many people are too used to the ease at which you can get decent G5 rolls now, and too used to ignoring anything beyond that. If not for the increased "grind," getting maxed modules in the new system would be trivial.