You roll the engineering dice, you takes your chances...

[Highwayman]

Grumpy old man posting here, but engineering upgrades shouldn't be optional, you're not giving us any risk to engineering here, none... We get the candy, or we keep going until we do

I know a lot of people will be against this, but the Elite Dangerous universe is too forgiving, and engineering upgrades should have some form of risk...

What do I mean by this? Make engineer upgrades actually count by making them irreversible. You want to roll the dice on an experimental upgrade to get more DPS and it goes wrong? unlucky... you roll the dice, you take your chances...

If I took my car to some guys in a back alley workshop and got him to put a Nitrous Oxide injector system onto my engine and he screws it up, or it doesn't come out exactly as I want it, I shouldn't be able to say, "ah, that's OK, just pretend it never happened, I'll come back later for another go later"

My suggestion is that you can engineer a module a certain number of times, but you cannot ever strip those upgrade off.

For example, you can have 3 attempts at increasing the performance of a module, but you cannot discard the upgrade. You roll the dice, the upgrade happens, good or bad outcome. If that's your 3rd upgrade, I hope it works for you because it can't be done again... Go buy another Laser and come back again.

Further to this, when I pull in a favor from an engineer, it tells me that I can pull in 4 favors, but I can tell you that I've pulled in a hell of a lot more than that. I just keep rolling and get more and more... Is that 4 supposed to expire, or is it just 4 at my current level (G5)? This should be another sliding scale. I'll do you a favor and add a perk, but the next one is going to cost you. Maybe it should cost a certain number of missions, maybe it's another batch of cigars, but put some limits on it here other than just fetching more materials...

/Grumpy old man off

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Many people (not me) already hate the Engineers, I believe this change would just upset even more people.

Even though it makes sense.

But making sense isn't this games strong point, or this community's strong point either.

(Or mine for that matter)

I do believe the Engineers needs to be more fleshed out, with missions to unlock certain things, improve reputation, and access high grades of modifcations, etc.

 

[FrogsFriend]

Well, I'd vote for this. The game could do with a lot more consequences.

However, as Mr Spacehead says, there would be an incredibly noisy outcry from a sizable chunk of the forum population, who much prefer rewards over risks.

 

[Highwayman]

However, as Mr Spacehead says, there would be an incredibly noisy outcry from a sizable chunk of the forum population, who much prefer rewards over risks.

Totally agree with you, I know it wouldn’t be popular, but the cost of not doing this is that a large proportion of CMDRs are flying around with pimped out FDL’s because there are no consequences, and it forces everybody else to grind to keep up.

Hell, if it were up to me I’d even throw in the risk of a roll breaking something else on your ship if it went that badly!

 

[Luke3107]

I already have bad enough luck with anything RNGesus related, please don't add more for me to worry about...

Also, I do think that all this would do is decrease the number of CMDRs with said pimped out FDLs. All that really serves to do is make those select few lucky sods, all the more powerful in comparison to the rest. People would still be forced to grind engineering to keep up, it would just increase the grind.

I'm looking forward to the future update with Engineers that negates the need to cross your fingers in the hopes of getting a better roll. But I do agree that despite this, Engineering needs more to it than that. Like the aforementioned mission runs to gain access to things (not just a 'plz go fetch me 50T of that Tea I like please' that serves no real gameplay value beyond adding a time consuming barrier to access).

 

[Highwayman]

You raise some good points Luke, but they’re kind of my point. Engineering should be a time sink, it should be a grind, it should be something that only those that are committed to it do, it shouldn’t be seen as necessary just to play the game.

My ideas for this really stem from making engineering almost an optional side game extra that if you’re prepared to devote time to it, you can reap the rewards...

That said, your point about guaranteed upgrades is valid. Maybe splitting engineering into 2 or 3 categories could be the answer...?

All upgrades are non removable, and a module can have 3 culmantive upgrades, and you can get them from any of the below engineers that you like.

1. You get what you pay for.
An engineer can upgrade 1 feature of your module to a set standard. Guaranteed. You will 100% of the time get a 10% increase to your FSD range at the cost of 10% increase in fuel consumption per LY jumped.

2. You roll the dice... you take your chances...
Another engineer will perform unorthodox work on your FSD. Kind of like rolls are now, there’s a chance it will be good, there’s a chance it may not. Let’s say they could get you an increase of between 7.5 and 15% but you’d also get an equally increased cost.

3. Black Market upgrades...
These guys have the perks, no other engineer can give you a Regenerative Beam for example, but these will come with unknown side effects, and they’re permanent, no second chances and they’re only for the risk takers. There would also be a chance that the module could break meaning you need to go fetch other components in order to fix it.

I know this might sound unfair, but so is life...

 

[Deleted member 110222]

You raise some good points Luke, but they’re kind of my point. Engineering should be a time sink, it should be a grind, it should be something that only those that are committed to it do, it shouldn’t be seen as necessary just to play the game.

My ideas for this really stem from making engineering almost an optional side game extra that if you’re prepared to devote time to it, you can reap the rewards...

That said, your point about guaranteed upgrades is valid. Maybe splitting engineering into 2 or 3 categories could be the answer...?

All upgrades are non removable, and a module can have 3 culmantive upgrades, and you can get them from any of the below engineers that you like.

1. You get what you pay for.
An engineer can upgrade 1 feature of your module to a set standard. Guaranteed. You will 100% of the time get a 10% increase to your FSD range at the cost of 10% increase in fuel consumption per LY jumped.

2. You roll the dice... you take your chances...
Another engineer will perform unorthodox work on your FSD. Kind of like rolls are now, there’s a chance it will be good, there’s a chance it may not. Let’s say they could get you an increase of between 7.5 and 15% but you’d also get an equally increased cost.

3. Black Market upgrades...
These guys have the perks, no other engineer can give you a Regenerative Beam for example, but these will come with unknown side effects, and they’re permanent, no second chances and they’re only for the risk takers. There would also be a chance that the module could break meaning you need to go fetch other components in order to fix it.

I know this might sound unfair, but so is life...

Elite isn't life.

 

[Allchemyst]

At this point, I am fully in favor of having electrical wires rigged directly to elite player's family jewels, and having a shock sent to them everytime they hit a rock, lose shields, fail a mission, die, sell commodities at loss or trash an engineer roll.

Engineers are an insulting skinner box (sorry devs, this game is great, but THAT part of it does not deserve praise) and shouldn't be made worse in any kind of way. They're tedious enough.

More importantly, there's a difference between something being "difficult", and something being "punishing".

What the "consequence" crowd should be asking for is not more "consequences", but rather more challenge in game - harder gameplay etc. Engineering could be all about player skill in whatever minigame, instead of grinding mats and grinding rolls. Make a bad engineer roll a consequence of player failure, and make it hard as hell. Give us something to do. Give us control!

Yes to more challenge, a huge, violent NOPE to making existing mechanics even more tedious!

 

[Highwayman]

What the "consequence" crowd should be asking for is not more "consequences", but rather more challenge in game - harder gameplay etc. Engineering could be all about player skill in whatever minigame, instead of grinding mats and grinding rolls. Make a bad engineer roll a consequence of player failure, and make it hard as hell. Give us something to do. Give us control!

Nice alternative, I'm in favor of that too

 

[znôrt]

i see where you come from (and agree), but this basically makes modding more expensive. it adds nothing to challenge, difficulty or consequence. little more than a nuisance.

it could add some spice if 'incremental rolls' are finally implemented, but that's too vague for now. and, if you think of it, the proposed (and vague) change goes in the opposite direction: make it easier (which is a good thing imo given the bizarre clusterthingy engineers is).

 

[Allchemyst]

i see where you come from (and agree), but this basically makes modding more expensive. it adds nothing to challenge, difficulty or consequence. little more than a nuisance.

it could add some spice if 'incremental rolls' are finally implemented, but that's too vague for now. and, if you think of it, the proposed (and vague) change goes in the opposite direction: make it easier (which is a good thing imo given the bizarre clusterthingy engineers is).

Also, incremental rolls or no... module value remains constant to avoid exploitation and allow easy ship outfitting. This change would simply force pilots to run back to a shipyard to sell modules with failed mods and buy clean ones every three roll.

 

[Chrystoph]

Totally agree with you, I know it wouldn’t be popular, but the cost of not doing this is that a large proportion of CMDRs are flying around with pimped out FDL’s because there are no consequences, and it forces everybody else to grind to keep up.

Hell, if it were up to me I’d even throw in the risk of a roll breaking something else on your ship if it went that badly!

Or, we could look at it as a form of criticism that the base game meta is broken, and the only way to correct it is to Engineer until it is viable.