The real problem with RNG (and a solution!)

[kofeyh]

But back on topic... The bad thing about RNGineers is the data / material allowance, a thousand material, 500 data, but there'll be no way of easily keeping tabs on what you actually need. Found a planet rich in arsenic, better write that planets position down somewhere because you can't stock up on it, not without maybe not getting that material for this upgrade which might need to be rolled 5 or 20 or 50 times to get something good - the most egregious being alien data - doesn't seem useful, can't sell it, might as well delete it - oh right few months later fdev introduce a way to hand it in for credits, with 500 data slots we can't leave data dumps in storage for months at a time, especially when we never know what might be useful down the line.

And this is where the "don't grind, m8 just play the game and you'll naturally pick up what you need" argument falls flat. We, essentially, can't. Because there is not enough space for a little of everything to go play the space baccarat table as and when the mood moves.

Further, Frontier ensured we can't, by limited storage. Though to be fair, it's people complaining about endless pocket sizes. Where does it all fit? Who cares; ask Frontier why they broke the fourth-wall in the first place, not how we're supposed to store it all! There is insufficient commonality across any number of blueprints; so having a dozen different materials may only lead to a few blueprints worth of effort before you have to either bin it to make room, or spin the wheel endlessly just to spend the mats (because who enjoys dumping endless mats? hands up kids).

I've been playing TESO again. And their crafting has eleventy million different constituent materials and with limited space you end up just dropping endless stuff, that you'll want later. So it too, essentially forces you to 'gather to order'. Elite is the same; you basically have to 'gather to order'. I am not against the RNG aspects of engineering per-se; it is, after all, Frontier's hot-take on crafting. But the secondaries probably need a rethink (because this, really, is where the insane stat outcomes are derived) and materials collection as a whole isn't very sensible at present.

But would it kill people to have reasonable commonality across all blueprints so we've got most of what we need as we just do, with minimal need to go 'hunt for magic berries and pixie dust' in highly specific scenarios? That'd be nice. Thanks.