When you have to go through the same rigamarole from G1 to G5 every time you visit. I could understand it better if after you gained G5 access you for whatever module/weapon then like the Guardian stuff you qualified straight away after gaining it the first time but every time going from G1- G5 is pretty tedious and you just know that the grade of which you have the least materials is going to take several throws before it goes up one. Okay rant over, discuss.
What's the Point of G5 Engineer Access?.
- Thread starter Saltyseadog
- Start date
It's left over from back when you needed reputation to have access to better upgrades. That amounted to performing multiple g1 upgrades to reach g2 etc.
Yeah - grind for G5 mats to realise you haven't got enough G2 tat only when you arrive at the engineer.
MP
MP
Usually upgrades come with a trade off like more weight, more heat, more power consumption etc. I think the tiers exist for two reasons. 1, I think they think there are situations where you may not want to take the tradeoff for the G5 and stay lower. I don’t think this is how it ends up being in practice however. 2, Grind wall. Put a lot of space between you and the best stuff. Over all I think that’s there to draw out the play time but there is the side effect that I think actually works. People with full on G5 have really done the work to get there. That way not everyone has a fully G5 boat. Makes a distinction between the people who really put the work in and those who do not. Whether it’s too much of a wall or not is debatable tho I suppose.
Rando thought... overcharged weapons mod should debuff 2% shield integrity per grade.
ofc, in isolation that's a terrible idea, but the same logic (offensive buff for defensive weakening, or vice-versa) could be applied.
It was always my understanding the mods weren't meant to be better or worse, but more beneficial and more debilitating as you went up the grades. In that regard, a rack full of G5 overcharged weapons should be wrecking one aspect of your fit..
Then you are doing it wrong.
One fine day we might get a much better system of engineering. You can get some kind of upgrade for junk materials, no bad thing for new players. if there were a secondhand market for G1 - G3 modules, would you pay double the price per level for them?
(Cough) Inara takes care of that for you.
Choose "Engineering", select your engineer, select your desired upgrade. It will show you exactly what you need up to the full extent of that Engineer's ability and what you currently have in stock. Always expect to need a minimum of 10 pieces per item for G4-G5. Works a treat.
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Then trade down.
No idea why upgrading my weapons would impact my shields. It’s already such a web of effects you need a third party site to work out what you should or shouldn’t do.
For many engineering mods you get kind of diminishing returns. A G1 mod will typically give you a relatively large part of the final G5 mod. Like G1=+30%, G2-G5=+15% per level. The G5 mods are also more expensive material wise. Therefore in many cases I typically use G1-G3 for experiments, and G5 with experimental only for my favorite ships, the keepers.
Same reason that:
- We can jump to the primary star within a system, but not secondary stars, even if they're larger than the primary star
- Ships have a maximum sublight velocity in normal space
- We can help pilot someone's ship 20,000LY away thanks to Telepresence (e.g fly their SLFs), but we can't remotely pilot our own ships with the same technology.
- The same telepresence technology can't be used by NPCs to remotely fly SLFs
- Coffee is worth marginally less than silver/gold
... because handwavium, and interesting and diverse game mechanic experiences using soft-logic trump having a hard-logic-bound game which takes away from creating a fun and interesting dynamic[1]. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_and_soft_magic_systems)
Of course, if you want to free-wheel into a never-ending discussion about fictional mechanics in a world where the above exists, I'll play my first move with "Additional power would overload some non-bypassable circuitry in the power system, so it's necessary to shunt power from shields to achieve that"... and I'll double-down with asking "How does overcharging a weapon change the ammunition clip size where clip-sizes are not partially-reloadable, yet non-bespoke magazines of ammunition are still purchased freely from stations?"
Because "game balance" seems an entirely appropriate answer to both though.
If you know nothing about outfitting, sure, I guess you might need such a site, but tool-warrioring doesn't replace actual experience and understanding of outfitting. Of course, tools like that generally exist because they're convenient, not mandatory. Outfitting a ship without using a third party tool isn't hard, it's just harder than doing it without.
[1] Nothing wrong with Hard-logic systems, currently creating a game world using one, critical component being adherence to the hard-ruleset not reducing or otherwise taking away enjoyment of the activity.
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B rated are useful sometimes, too.But that's easy to answer. E rated modules exist so that you can spend your credits on something; A or D rated oned.
I don't always engineer to G5 though. Most notably powerplants - no need to add all the negatives if you don't need all the power.
C?
What is C? It does not exist
C is for when D doesn’t do enough and you absolutely refuse to fly anywhere in a ship with E rated core modules.B rated are useful sometimes, too.
C?
What is C? It does not exist
It's the "paper-bag" module when there's literally nothing else in a 200LY radius XDB rated are useful sometimes, too.
C?
What is C? It does not exist
The other engineering grades would matter if engineering were balanced as it should be: side grades and specialization, rather than gigantic direct upgrades. Factory-spec would be the reliable generalist choice, G5 would be the very specialized choice, and G1-G4 would fall on the spectrum between them. E and C rated modules would largely still be niche at best, usually just something someone temporarily has while they're progressing to better stuff. D is the lightweight choice, B is the heavily armored choice, and A is the high performance choice.
With engineering as it is, though, even A-rated factory-spec stuff is generally trash compared to fully engineered stuff. Buying a new ship is a someone mixed experience, as a result. You're excited to have a new ship, sure, but it is going to be garbage (relatively speaking) until fully engineered, so you've also purchased a huge to-do list. Experimenting with different builds and setups is also a bit of chore since factory-spec stuff won't even give you a good feel for what it -could- be, and grinding a bunch of engineering upgrades for a build you just want to experiment with (and may not keep) is downright tedious.
Edit: if engineering hasn't largely made power management a joke, C-class COULD be the "best-bang-for-your-MW" option. With the game as it is, though, I'm not sure what niche C-class could realistically be given. I don't really have any ideas for E-class, but I don't mind a single class playing the role of "cheapo crap you really should replace ASAP." It would be nice if the performance difference between the classes were a little narrower such that their respective specialisations could be a bit more attractive, but that issue is so miniscule compared to the engineering catastrophe that it's hardly worth putting too much thought into at the moment.
With engineering as it is, though, even A-rated factory-spec stuff is generally trash compared to fully engineered stuff. Buying a new ship is a someone mixed experience, as a result. You're excited to have a new ship, sure, but it is going to be garbage (relatively speaking) until fully engineered, so you've also purchased a huge to-do list. Experimenting with different builds and setups is also a bit of chore since factory-spec stuff won't even give you a good feel for what it -could- be, and grinding a bunch of engineering upgrades for a build you just want to experiment with (and may not keep) is downright tedious.
Edit: if engineering hasn't largely made power management a joke, C-class COULD be the "best-bang-for-your-MW" option. With the game as it is, though, I'm not sure what niche C-class could realistically be given. I don't really have any ideas for E-class, but I don't mind a single class playing the role of "cheapo crap you really should replace ASAP." It would be nice if the performance difference between the classes were a little narrower such that their respective specialisations could be a bit more attractive, but that issue is so miniscule compared to the engineering catastrophe that it's hardly worth putting too much thought into at the moment.
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Sometimes a G5 is not needed. I rarely get a G5 rated powerplant. You can also upgrade it in increments, but it's still being viable.
But I agree with the E, D, C, B, A rating. E is just not needed at all. Make the differences between the D, C, B and A larger and they will all have their uses.
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