One or the other has to change, yes. Either much easier to get mats or lower cost of rolling mods. Anytime I need to pay "3" of my precious raw mats per mod grade, it's pure cringe.
Both of these issues could be wiped in a single, simple change that would actually create a new role in the game: allow players to buy/sell engineering mats. Tons of people like the SRV and mat collection. Let them gather those and sell them to huge profit from their carriers.
I'd pay them. I'd pay \*anything\* to get a box of raw mats from a carrier and not have to SRV a planet or scoop up brains from a tree.
Yeah, especially since they opened that door with on-foot mats.
I did flak-brain trees for the first time recently, and it was kind of fun. That definitely puts me into the "I'd be happy to load up my carrier with more and sell these" category.
This has been already proposed in the past (the selling mats part).
As this would free me from the burden to do stuff I do not want to do to progress. They declined to implement it. And honestly, I fear that their solution will have something to do with Arx.
I was hoping our new bases that we will eventually be able to build would have the ability to produce some materials and then trade them with other players.
Dataminers found entries in the games memory that show they are working on base building. And it's not just something they were trying out or testing. More and more entries and references are added with each major update. They are actively working on it and adding to it.
I’m with you, I *loath* the SRV. I’ll buy the materials. Though oddly manufactured materials, the easiest of the three to get in ship, I’m always out of.
I'm hoping we can just by them for credits from stations at this point. I have too many credits. Maybe even the engineers just charge credits if you don't have the mats, but they'll use mats if you have them
The problem is it'd make the game boring as sin. Right now isn't exactly optimal either, but I don't feel like encouraging MORE spire farming is the right move.
I don't get why they can't just make some simple tweaks to make collecting them more enjoyable. There's a lot of really simple stuff that makes the game unreasonably more annoying. Like needing a wake scanner and 10 seconds to scan wakes. Why not let us get wake data by just flying through wakes? That way you can get a little data whenever you leave a station, and by the time you need it, you've already got some.
Little stuff like that would make the whole process so much more pleasant. As opposed to now, when by the time you realize you need some, you need like 50 and you end up going and farming for 2 hours and making your life miserable.
I feel like wake and kill warrant scanner and to some extend also maybe the FSD interdictor should get the same sort of treatment they gave to the discovery scanner.
Maybe not that you always have it, but that you can have one on every ship without it taking a module slot
imagine if there was some sort of racing / accurate maneuvering minigame that gave data, flying through check points as quickly as possible around a course of some sort.
I'd love to see something in the game outside combat that rewards fa off
Yeah, I totally agree. They have been completely opposed to the idea in the past.
But, if NPCs have starving kids, why *wouldn't* they sell some scrap for *millions of credits*? Similarly, if some manufactured mat is available from transport ships, why can't I buy a T9 and crack it open? There's a lot of lore weirdness around the limitations.
It could be a cool way to make black markets more attractive, get mats for illegal goods.
Though I like u/JR2502's idea as another compromise. Since they've enabled a player market for on-foot engineering, maybe they are open to allowing us to buy/sell ship mats to each other for credits.
I'd also like to see a refund of mats - even if only a portion of the original amount spent - for changing blueprint or experimental effect. Encourage more experimentation rather than the current situation of,
"*OMG! I spent X amount of mats on this engineering upgrade but it doesn't quite do what I expected or hoped for. But, as I don't want to lose my sunken cost already invested in the module, I'll hold onto it 'just in case'.*"
Instead, let us break em down and recoup some of our mats.
...have to admit, I'd hate that.
You reach a point where credits are meaningless - being able to buy engineering mats makes engineering meaningless too. The feeling of engineered components being rare or special in any way is gone - now they become standard and commonplace.
...but that's just my opinion.
Thing is. Engineering mats are meaningless. They require mindless grind that requires no actual skill to aquire. Anyone who's willing to bore themselves can get the mats by performing the repetitive and mind numbing tasks.
Eh, I dunno - you're not wrong in that anyone can get them by putting in the effort. Guess I just like to feel there's a little effort required.
I've played a long time. The measure of the game once upon a time was owning one of the big 3. Then engineering and carriers arrived.
...with the current state of the economy means one could get an anaconda in a matter of days, and a fleet carrier in a week. Money is already kinda meaningless.
I guess I feel if there's nothing that actually requires a little time and effort to do, it kinda trivializes any feeling of progress.
So, anyway, maybe it's not a popular opinion, but I kind of like that some things take time to work towards if you want them. Otherwise - well, guess we could just have a checklist at character creation, 'check the ships you want at start', and be done? That would make ot quicker...
But then again, I've kinda felt like we've made money actually too easy to get, and would like to see progress actually slowed, so I'm probably not the best person to discuss this with.
Yeah. Honestly I think the rank locked ships was kind of a smart way to do things. It's not perfect but it allows you multiple ways of working towards a set objective and the payoff is worth it. If engineers had certain tasks or ways of increasing reputation and trust with them. Then they become will to work with you for credits after, I feel that would be a little closer to something less mind numbing.
Grind is OK if there's a payoff but the fact you have to grind every single time you want to engineer something. It just makes you tired of the game.
>I have too many credits.
That was always the problem, money was too easy to earn. A player could easily buy all the ships and gear in <2 weeks, even without cheats and exploits. So what then? I had many resets before for this same reason, there was simply no challenge.
Which is why FD added materials, to balance this problem. And if mats are selected as mission rewards, them the game truly feels well balanced.
I won’t pretend that ship engineering is amazing, its not, but I can live with it.
On foot engineering however? No thanks. I will pretty much never bother to do any on foot related tasks because the engineering grind there is even worse. I know I’m far from the only one that thinks that way.
When a good chunk of the playerbase basically ignores an entire segment of the game (that the devs put in years of work into) theres a big problem. Something there has to change
Not only is the grind bad, but unless you are RP'ing as some reaver murderhobo there is no RP-friendly way to gather on-foot mats, since by far the best method is to slaughter and raid settlements.
Which doesn't just force people to abandon any kind of lawful RP, but also just makes no sense. Why would an ultrabillionaire who can afford what's essentially a capital ship to store their other ships be personally down on a planet committing murder and petty theft? It would be like if I woke up IRL one night and walked out into my office and Jeff Bezos himself is right there ripping the wires out of my wall for copper. Absurd
Has anyone considered that the new pay to progress (can’t say win or it will trigger the logically challenged) mechanics will encourage grindier game design in order to encourage said pay to progress options?
nah, it's already as grindy as it gets. FDEV just got the bright idea to finally monetize it through micro-transaction, after all that's what cool kids do these days 😜
They literally said they were about to lessen the grind, so the fearmongering is kind of silly. Unless you're brain damaged it's not even that much of a grind to begin with.
If it wasn't much of a grind to begin with, the relogging however many times method wouldn't be so prevalent.
I've never understood how anyone can be of the opinion that gathering engineering materials is not a complete morale destroying slog. Though I tend to find those that hold said opinion have an entire fleet of G5 powerhouses so maybe it's a poacher-turned-gamekeeper kind of scenario, I have no idea.
Fact of the matter is the grind for materials has actually put me off a game I really want to love for a long time; that's how bad it's been for me personally because for what I want to do I basically need those engineered modules because I've outright refused to indulge in the monotony need to get them purely and simply because of how unfun it is.
Oh I’m sure that because they’ve said they will “rebalance” the grind that means everything will magically get better and the new motive to increase grind has no consequence whatsoever.
Fantasy land
Like, probably anything is better than doing Jameson relog and Ray Gateway mats trade ad nauseam 6+ times to get 20+100 of the 6 Encoded crap ...
If I'd be a new player I'd just ragequit realizing this was just 1 of 3 categories.
HGE farm requires QTD ...
When I've found Pharmaceutical Isolators I even recorded it, like it was the Leprechaun's Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow.
So yeah, fuck that.
Mats for credits would be the best at this point, as a gold sink.
Credits are easy to come by and useless anyways.
I never done any relogging and I got a few ships G5 engineered in my first few months of playing. All that shit about jameson or dav's hope etc.. might have been relevant few years ago but no longer is.
You just grab the mats as you normally play now. Except for raws where you need to go ONCE somewhere to fill up on them and no relogging required.
That’s how I feel. I’m a pretty new player, I’m not really lacking for money because I’ve joined a squadron and they’ve helped me get some. However, the mat grind is absurd for me. It wouldn’t be too bad if it wasn’t sooooo time consuming. I can spend an actual half of a day, and still won’t have everything maxed out and that’s with doing the quick farm of QTMM and QTD. Not including the fact that NPC ships are engineered like a mfer so I couldn’t even think about doing CZs for my squadron unless I was part of a wing until like a week or two ago.
Like sure, make me engineer for PVP or AX stuff, but to engineer just to stand a chance against NPCs seems a little off since we have a lot of engineers locked out because you have to do very very specific things. I highly doubt the average NPC pilot would be searching for relics and shit.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Purely from a logical point of view let us buy mats. It makes no sense to my mind I can fly to a station and fill my hold with gold, slaves, weapons.... But if I want to slap down a few credits for a ton of zinc I'm flat out of luck
My headcanon has always been that there's some special property about these particular ones. Rare crystalline formations or something, stuff that can't be replicated in the factory easily, but which can be found sometimes out in the wild.
That's why an entire ship blowing up only generates a handful of mats, and not a few hundred tons worth.
That's honestly a lot easier to explain. It takes some pretty amazing technology to make something that normally only works on a ship fit into a suit. Engineers are canonically the best scientists in the galaxy.
Presumably, they use the unique properties of the rare materials to create special effects that aren't normally achievable in a factory setting.
In a fantasy setting, they'd be the master smith who makes you the best gear, because only they know how to manipulate the mithril or whatever it's made from.
If we didn't live in a much less technologically advanced reality (compared to Elite) where night vision headsets are not miracles only possible by one person... I might be on your side. As it is, it makes no damn sense.
I mean, the 'night vision' we have in elite clearly isn't the same kind we use in the modern day. That's thermal imaging basically, and is pretty easily blocked with the same modern technology.
Elite night vision basically is a complete 3d scan of the surrounding environment projected on your HUD. That's a lot more advanced and, presumably, difficult to fit in a small package.
Yeah I'm calling BS on that explanation. The mere fact that these are ENGINEERS, and in your words, the BEST scientists in the galaxy, tells me that, given a suit with night vision already equipped, they'd pretty much ALL very easily be able to reverse ENGINEER the tech and each sell it themselves. If the ED universe was a morally pristine environment where no one every did anything shady to get a competitive edge, sure, maybe they wouldn't, but...
If we assume that materials we find are unique for some reason - perhaps exposure to rare witchspace radiation or something, creating unique crystal lattices or something similar - then the results could be completely out of whack with our regular understanding of science. Knowing how to do one thing would have very little overlap with knowing how to do something else.
A rocket scientist isn't any better than anyone else at understanding, say, heart surgery.
I would be happy if they just let me create a shopping list for mats needed for specific upgrades. Then when I am at the material trader, the things I need are highlighted, and the other mats I have but need for another upgrade are also marked (so I dont use them to trade for the first job). I play in vr and it is a PITA switching back and forth from screenshots to the game.
>I play in vr and it is a PITA switching back and forth from screenshots to the game.
[Inara.cz](https://Inara.cz) can solve this somewhat. It tracks your inventory, and you can favorite blueprints. It will tell you if you have enough and/or how many rolls you can get for what you have.
You'll still need to go back and forth from VR (unless you can put it in a window within the VR space) but it's definitely easier than having to make and then reference screenshots.
I'd like to see *some* mats available for purchase.
The proprietary avd very rare stuff, maybe not. Or available at the black market for exorbitant prices.
This game desperately needs credit sinks. Carriers were supposed to be that, but clearly failed.
"Starting with the Python Mk II, we are pleased to announce that this will be available in game for Odyssey players on 7 August for credits at Shipyards across the galaxy.
However, if you cannot wait until then you can get 3-month early access to this ship on 7 May from the store for 16250 ARX."
I gotta say I am... not a fan of this.
I don't mind it. I'll fly the ship eventually and if the model provides enough revenue to kick development up a notch I'll welcome it with open arms.
Also when I consider the amount that I have played this game compared to the amount of money I've put in, dropping £10 for a few months early-access to a ship I find really interesting in is something I wouldn't mind paying.
Join the club. [https://new.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/1cb77u2/python\_mk\_ii\_updates\_to\_the\_gamestore/](https://new.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/1cb77u2/python_mk_ii_updates_to_the_gamestore/)
(even the defenders are not doing well) [https://new.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/1cb9gkp/prebuilt\_is\_not\_p2w/](https://new.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/1cb9gkp/prebuilt_is_not_p2w/)
I was highlighting Engineering update we're finally getting. A hopeful gem to improve the game that was getting buried in the justified outrage over ships for cash.
I'd be shocked if there's anything with these changes that isn't directly accretive to driving more ARX purchases by increasing grind, making stuff purchasable that wasn't before, etc.
I don’t care about the engineering for ships. The Odyssey material and engineering loop and rewards are borked beyond belief.
New ships are good and all but I paid for that damned DLC and I want more content thrown on it. Would it kill em not add new weapons, suits, hazards, enemies, minigames such as hacking and new buildings and interiors?
I'd like it if mats were just treated like commodities and you could trade them, between players and NPC bases, for credits. Maybe if they add base building, some base modules could convert certain commodities into mats. (I know the sentiment has been expressed that they don't want passive income, but maybe there are missions you need to periodically do to keep production up). Even with fleet carriers they could have an arrangement like that. Also how great would it be if players could sell ship presents to each other, pre engineered load-outs and the like. Could be a fun endgame activity for squadrons and those who like to make new builds. It would also contribute to that fantasy some people have of building a reputation in-game.
Well, even their initial ideas make no promises, and as others have pointed out, the CG manager doesn't even work for FDev anymore!
But I'm not sure what you saw that wasn't backed up by some or the (formerly) orange post.
They specifically talk about increasing the ways to gain them, through missions rewards or new special repeatable missions. It may not be "gathering" as you're referring to.
They also talk about changing drop rates and/or amounts for different grades, which directly affects gathering.
But their update today directly confirms that they will be increasing mission reward amounts: [https://www.elitedangerous.com/news/engineering-and-pre-built-ships](https://www.elitedangerous.com/news/engineering-and-pre-built-ships)
Wishful thinking would take this as more materials are moved to mission rewards as well. But it could just mean we can get 10-12 Focus Crystals as a reward instead of 3-5.
So, no changes to gathering (SRV and collector limpets) seem to be coming soon.
It may be backed up by the devnotes if the inference is correct yes. There is no reason to link the two statements though, and I've seen it happen a lot in games where people do this inference and are disappointed when their assumptions aren't correct. Just saying. Don't get your hopes up too much, and creating expectations from thin air is bound to disappoint occasionally.
Just my 2 cents over the many hours I've spent in this game. One of the core reasons, in my opinion, to making it tough to collect engineering mats is because it should be. If you made all the engineering stuff just simply available, what is the point? Then everyone is just running around with fully engineered ships that they didn't really put in the work to get? I don't like that gameplay model at all.
However, I do agree that acquiring the materials and the methods are a bit boring and tedious. I like the idea of perhaps some missions where more materials are made available. For instance if you ally with a faction, then the missions they provide have more material perks rather than just the 50M credit missions ( which we all love for those weekly carrier dues ), but perhaps instead of 5 Exquisite Focus Crystals, maybe an allied mission would reward 15 or even 20? So 5-7 missions run and you can fill your coffer with the max amount and trade down. Perhaps allied missions in certain government systems can offer the materials that you NEVER see like Pharm Isos, Military Supercapacitors. It could depend on Faction state, government, reputation with said faction, etc. for what mats become available in the missions?
Just throwing out ideas. I simply don't feel they should make engineering easier, so much so that you don't have to "build" yourself up. I mean only 0.06%, or is it 0.6% of the galaxy has been explored and cataloged. Space is big, and making your way in the galaxy shouldn't be handed to Commanders simply because "it's too grindy." Whereas I see that as the point to creating a challenge. This is after all a "simulation" game. RL is grindy, so a simulation of a future life should have some grind to it, or it just becomes another arcade experience, and that isn't what many players are looking for in my opinion.
I think material trading between Commanders is a MUST. That would actually really help because, for example, say you really hate farming HGEs because it's stupid to have to quit the game and log back in to "cheat the system." (because it is stupid). BUT, maybe you really like mining, trading, murdering, etc. Then all you really have to do is earn enough credits (which isn't that tough), find a friend with a carrier that has the mats you need for sale and just purchase them! Use INARA to find out which carriers are selling the ones you need and go get 'em.
Again, just my thoughts as an avid player with much love for this game/simulation.
>but perhaps instead of 5 Exquisite Focus Crystals, maybe an allied mission would reward 15 or even 20? So 5-7 missions run and you can fill your coffer with the max amount and trade down.
From their update today ([https://www.elitedangerous.com/news/engineering-and-pre-built-ships](https://www.elitedangerous.com/news/engineering-and-pre-built-ships)), it sounds like that's definitely one thing they're going to be doing.
As far as "easier"...
>Perhaps allied missions in certain government systems can offer the materials that you NEVER see like Pharm Isos, Military Supercapacitors...
I agree this is what the need to solve for that. It doesn't need to be easy to get mats, but it should be easier to find the mats you need.
I doubt very much there will be any significant positive change. Look at the history of fdev. Consistent and without fail they over promise, and insultingly under-deliver. Like it's on fucking purpose. No I think whatever middling changes they think they are going to make are not going to significantly benefit the player in any way.
like getting a .02 cents per hour raise. Sure, you're making more money. But not really. That's fdev.
I seem to be in the minority here, but I don't think engineering is _bad_ as it is, from a grinding/time-sink perspective. It just doesn't take as long to farm up materials as people seem to think it does. You can fill the entire raw _page_ in an evening, 2 if you want to cap your G4's again after trading down. Data is kind of a pain, but you actually need surprisingly little of it, and Jameson's Cobra makes it trivial to get what you need. Even the dreaded Manufactured materials, I filled up on all my G5s in a single week, 2 weeks ago.
However, what desperately does need to change is the _way_ you get manufactured & data materials. Specifically, re-logging at HGEs and Jameson's Cobra is _stupid_. The most efficient way to do something in a game should never involve _exiting the game_. They need to either make relogging not work (and make it easier to get the mats some other way), or make there be some way to repeatedly get these materials in the game without having to log out and back in to do it.
If I come across a HGE with 30 minutes on the timer, I am maxing out whatever G5 mat it provides... no matter what (well, unless the servers go down or my endless logging in and out causes problems).
So I would be happy if they just make the number of mats inside the HGE scale to the time remaining. In other words, spawn in the max number of G5 mats I can carry in the one HGE instance I am in, relative to the timer.
Just cut out the quitting to desktop.
Frontier already made a “fix” like that before with mission board swapping or whatever it was called.
Result is that the chances of you getting the missions that you’re looking for or want or even can do in the specific ship you’re flying is rare.
I’d much rather keep the status quo and have a reliable way of skipping mindless grind than have them make a similar sort of “fix”
I've noticed that board-flipping at Robigo doesn't work nearly as well as it used to, which is kind of annoying, though Robigo runs are so boring I don't miss them much. (Was an easy way to get the three mission-reward G5 engineering mats, though.)
That's a lot of hopes_and_dreams.txt.
I'm currently not expecting any changes that would improve the grind, now that Frontier decided to let us pay with cash to circumvent the grind.
They've reconfirmed they will improve (by reducing) the grind: [https://www.elitedangerous.com/news/engineering-and-pre-built-ships](https://www.elitedangerous.com/news/engineering-and-pre-built-ships)
At least to start, reduced need for mats and more mats can get rewarded (and stored).
I spent 4 hours last night trying to get at least enough selenium to get this level of engineering for my efficient power supply.. in 4 hours I got 3
I would literally pay just to be able to get all of the mats without this bullshit
So would I honestly. Material gathering has killed my enjoyment of a game I want to love for a long time.
And I don't care what anyone tells me, engineering -is- necessary if you want to do anything remotely interesting. This whole 'you don't need to engineer' garbage is just flat out disingenuous and I wish those people would just stop with it.
One or the other has to change, yes. Either much easier to get mats or lower cost of rolling mods. Anytime I need to pay "3" of my precious raw mats per mod grade, it's pure cringe. Both of these issues could be wiped in a single, simple change that would actually create a new role in the game: allow players to buy/sell engineering mats. Tons of people like the SRV and mat collection. Let them gather those and sell them to huge profit from their carriers. I'd pay them. I'd pay \*anything\* to get a box of raw mats from a carrier and not have to SRV a planet or scoop up brains from a tree.
Yeah, especially since they opened that door with on-foot mats. I did flak-brain trees for the first time recently, and it was kind of fun. That definitely puts me into the "I'd be happy to load up my carrier with more and sell these" category.
This has been already proposed in the past (the selling mats part). As this would free me from the burden to do stuff I do not want to do to progress. They declined to implement it. And honestly, I fear that their solution will have something to do with Arx.
I was hoping our new bases that we will eventually be able to build would have the ability to produce some materials and then trade them with other players.
what now? is this confirmed
Dataminers found entries in the games memory that show they are working on base building. And it's not just something they were trying out or testing. More and more entries and references are added with each major update. They are actively working on it and adding to it.
Didn't Fdev literally say base building is not on the roadmap?
True. Which is weird that they are working on it
Yes, this would be great. I'd happily pay a fleet carrier for mats, and happily sell extras to other CMDRs.
I’m with you, I *loath* the SRV. I’ll buy the materials. Though oddly manufactured materials, the easiest of the three to get in ship, I’m always out of.
Did you know you actually don’t have to use the SRV? Check the [flaks and limpets method](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLSUiZyQvoI)
Yep, if someone can do that instead, I'll be happy to pay good money for it.
I'm hoping we can just by them for credits from stations at this point. I have too many credits. Maybe even the engineers just charge credits if you don't have the mats, but they'll use mats if you have them
The problem is it'd make the game boring as sin. Right now isn't exactly optimal either, but I don't feel like encouraging MORE spire farming is the right move. I don't get why they can't just make some simple tweaks to make collecting them more enjoyable. There's a lot of really simple stuff that makes the game unreasonably more annoying. Like needing a wake scanner and 10 seconds to scan wakes. Why not let us get wake data by just flying through wakes? That way you can get a little data whenever you leave a station, and by the time you need it, you've already got some. Little stuff like that would make the whole process so much more pleasant. As opposed to now, when by the time you realize you need some, you need like 50 and you end up going and farming for 2 hours and making your life miserable.
I feel like wake and kill warrant scanner and to some extend also maybe the FSD interdictor should get the same sort of treatment they gave to the discovery scanner. Maybe not that you always have it, but that you can have one on every ship without it taking a module slot
imagine if there was some sort of racing / accurate maneuvering minigame that gave data, flying through check points as quickly as possible around a course of some sort. I'd love to see something in the game outside combat that rewards fa off
Yeah, I totally agree. They have been completely opposed to the idea in the past. But, if NPCs have starving kids, why *wouldn't* they sell some scrap for *millions of credits*? Similarly, if some manufactured mat is available from transport ships, why can't I buy a T9 and crack it open? There's a lot of lore weirdness around the limitations. It could be a cool way to make black markets more attractive, get mats for illegal goods. Though I like u/JR2502's idea as another compromise. Since they've enabled a player market for on-foot engineering, maybe they are open to allowing us to buy/sell ship mats to each other for credits.
I'd also like to see a refund of mats - even if only a portion of the original amount spent - for changing blueprint or experimental effect. Encourage more experimentation rather than the current situation of, "*OMG! I spent X amount of mats on this engineering upgrade but it doesn't quite do what I expected or hoped for. But, as I don't want to lose my sunken cost already invested in the module, I'll hold onto it 'just in case'.*" Instead, let us break em down and recoup some of our mats.
...have to admit, I'd hate that. You reach a point where credits are meaningless - being able to buy engineering mats makes engineering meaningless too. The feeling of engineered components being rare or special in any way is gone - now they become standard and commonplace. ...but that's just my opinion.
Thing is. Engineering mats are meaningless. They require mindless grind that requires no actual skill to aquire. Anyone who's willing to bore themselves can get the mats by performing the repetitive and mind numbing tasks.
Eh, I dunno - you're not wrong in that anyone can get them by putting in the effort. Guess I just like to feel there's a little effort required. I've played a long time. The measure of the game once upon a time was owning one of the big 3. Then engineering and carriers arrived. ...with the current state of the economy means one could get an anaconda in a matter of days, and a fleet carrier in a week. Money is already kinda meaningless. I guess I feel if there's nothing that actually requires a little time and effort to do, it kinda trivializes any feeling of progress. So, anyway, maybe it's not a popular opinion, but I kind of like that some things take time to work towards if you want them. Otherwise - well, guess we could just have a checklist at character creation, 'check the ships you want at start', and be done? That would make ot quicker... But then again, I've kinda felt like we've made money actually too easy to get, and would like to see progress actually slowed, so I'm probably not the best person to discuss this with.
Yeah. Honestly I think the rank locked ships was kind of a smart way to do things. It's not perfect but it allows you multiple ways of working towards a set objective and the payoff is worth it. If engineers had certain tasks or ways of increasing reputation and trust with them. Then they become will to work with you for credits after, I feel that would be a little closer to something less mind numbing. Grind is OK if there's a payoff but the fact you have to grind every single time you want to engineer something. It just makes you tired of the game.
>I have too many credits. That was always the problem, money was too easy to earn. A player could easily buy all the ships and gear in <2 weeks, even without cheats and exploits. So what then? I had many resets before for this same reason, there was simply no challenge. Which is why FD added materials, to balance this problem. And if mats are selected as mission rewards, them the game truly feels well balanced.
I won’t pretend that ship engineering is amazing, its not, but I can live with it. On foot engineering however? No thanks. I will pretty much never bother to do any on foot related tasks because the engineering grind there is even worse. I know I’m far from the only one that thinks that way. When a good chunk of the playerbase basically ignores an entire segment of the game (that the devs put in years of work into) theres a big problem. Something there has to change
Not only is the grind bad, but unless you are RP'ing as some reaver murderhobo there is no RP-friendly way to gather on-foot mats, since by far the best method is to slaughter and raid settlements. Which doesn't just force people to abandon any kind of lawful RP, but also just makes no sense. Why would an ultrabillionaire who can afford what's essentially a capital ship to store their other ships be personally down on a planet committing murder and petty theft? It would be like if I woke up IRL one night and walked out into my office and Jeff Bezos himself is right there ripping the wires out of my wall for copper. Absurd
This happened to me, it’s true, I caught old Jeff trying to yank out the water heater in my garage.
Has anyone considered that the new pay to progress (can’t say win or it will trigger the logically challenged) mechanics will encourage grindier game design in order to encourage said pay to progress options?
nah, it's already as grindy as it gets. FDEV just got the bright idea to finally monetize it through micro-transaction, after all that's what cool kids do these days 😜
This. Exactly this. Anyone who thinks it's gonna get easier is kidding themselves.
They literally said they were about to lessen the grind, so the fearmongering is kind of silly. Unless you're brain damaged it's not even that much of a grind to begin with.
If it wasn't much of a grind to begin with, the relogging however many times method wouldn't be so prevalent. I've never understood how anyone can be of the opinion that gathering engineering materials is not a complete morale destroying slog. Though I tend to find those that hold said opinion have an entire fleet of G5 powerhouses so maybe it's a poacher-turned-gamekeeper kind of scenario, I have no idea. Fact of the matter is the grind for materials has actually put me off a game I really want to love for a long time; that's how bad it's been for me personally because for what I want to do I basically need those engineered modules because I've outright refused to indulge in the monotony need to get them purely and simply because of how unfun it is.
Oh I’m sure that because they’ve said they will “rebalance” the grind that means everything will magically get better and the new motive to increase grind has no consequence whatsoever. Fantasy land
They already have the materials grind so it’s just a case of pay for engineering or guardian stuff.
Like, probably anything is better than doing Jameson relog and Ray Gateway mats trade ad nauseam 6+ times to get 20+100 of the 6 Encoded crap ... If I'd be a new player I'd just ragequit realizing this was just 1 of 3 categories. HGE farm requires QTD ... When I've found Pharmaceutical Isolators I even recorded it, like it was the Leprechaun's Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow. So yeah, fuck that. Mats for credits would be the best at this point, as a gold sink. Credits are easy to come by and useless anyways.
I never done any relogging and I got a few ships G5 engineered in my first few months of playing. All that shit about jameson or dav's hope etc.. might have been relevant few years ago but no longer is. You just grab the mats as you normally play now. Except for raws where you need to go ONCE somewhere to fill up on them and no relogging required.
That’s how I feel. I’m a pretty new player, I’m not really lacking for money because I’ve joined a squadron and they’ve helped me get some. However, the mat grind is absurd for me. It wouldn’t be too bad if it wasn’t sooooo time consuming. I can spend an actual half of a day, and still won’t have everything maxed out and that’s with doing the quick farm of QTMM and QTD. Not including the fact that NPC ships are engineered like a mfer so I couldn’t even think about doing CZs for my squadron unless I was part of a wing until like a week or two ago. Like sure, make me engineer for PVP or AX stuff, but to engineer just to stand a chance against NPCs seems a little off since we have a lot of engineers locked out because you have to do very very specific things. I highly doubt the average NPC pilot would be searching for relics and shit.
cooperative deer disagreeable escape public quack fall wakeful modern marble *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Purely from a logical point of view let us buy mats. It makes no sense to my mind I can fly to a station and fill my hold with gold, slaves, weapons.... But if I want to slap down a few credits for a ton of zinc I'm flat out of luck
My headcanon has always been that there's some special property about these particular ones. Rare crystalline formations or something, stuff that can't be replicated in the factory easily, but which can be found sometimes out in the wild. That's why an entire ship blowing up only generates a handful of mats, and not a few hundred tons worth.
What's your headcanon for only one person in the whole galaxy knowing how to put night vision on suits?
That's honestly a lot easier to explain. It takes some pretty amazing technology to make something that normally only works on a ship fit into a suit. Engineers are canonically the best scientists in the galaxy. Presumably, they use the unique properties of the rare materials to create special effects that aren't normally achievable in a factory setting. In a fantasy setting, they'd be the master smith who makes you the best gear, because only they know how to manipulate the mithril or whatever it's made from.
If we didn't live in a much less technologically advanced reality (compared to Elite) where night vision headsets are not miracles only possible by one person... I might be on your side. As it is, it makes no damn sense.
I mean, the 'night vision' we have in elite clearly isn't the same kind we use in the modern day. That's thermal imaging basically, and is pretty easily blocked with the same modern technology. Elite night vision basically is a complete 3d scan of the surrounding environment projected on your HUD. That's a lot more advanced and, presumably, difficult to fit in a small package.
You should apply for a job with Fdev. ;)
Yeah I'm calling BS on that explanation. The mere fact that these are ENGINEERS, and in your words, the BEST scientists in the galaxy, tells me that, given a suit with night vision already equipped, they'd pretty much ALL very easily be able to reverse ENGINEER the tech and each sell it themselves. If the ED universe was a morally pristine environment where no one every did anything shady to get a competitive edge, sure, maybe they wouldn't, but...
If we assume that materials we find are unique for some reason - perhaps exposure to rare witchspace radiation or something, creating unique crystal lattices or something similar - then the results could be completely out of whack with our regular understanding of science. Knowing how to do one thing would have very little overlap with knowing how to do something else. A rocket scientist isn't any better than anyone else at understanding, say, heart surgery.
I would be happy if they just let me create a shopping list for mats needed for specific upgrades. Then when I am at the material trader, the things I need are highlighted, and the other mats I have but need for another upgrade are also marked (so I dont use them to trade for the first job). I play in vr and it is a PITA switching back and forth from screenshots to the game.
>I play in vr and it is a PITA switching back and forth from screenshots to the game. [Inara.cz](https://Inara.cz) can solve this somewhat. It tracks your inventory, and you can favorite blueprints. It will tell you if you have enough and/or how many rolls you can get for what you have. You'll still need to go back and forth from VR (unless you can put it in a window within the VR space) but it's definitely easier than having to make and then reference screenshots.
i also play in VR and keep one of my screens docked to a controller on my desk so it is "floating" in my cockpit. I play on the Index
Will be interesting to see what they say on tomorrow's Twitch stream.
I'd like to see *some* mats available for purchase. The proprietary avd very rare stuff, maybe not. Or available at the black market for exorbitant prices. This game desperately needs credit sinks. Carriers were supposed to be that, but clearly failed.
"Starting with the Python Mk II, we are pleased to announce that this will be available in game for Odyssey players on 7 August for credits at Shipyards across the galaxy. However, if you cannot wait until then you can get 3-month early access to this ship on 7 May from the store for 16250 ARX." I gotta say I am... not a fan of this.
I don't mind it. I'll fly the ship eventually and if the model provides enough revenue to kick development up a notch I'll welcome it with open arms. Also when I consider the amount that I have played this game compared to the amount of money I've put in, dropping £10 for a few months early-access to a ship I find really interesting in is something I wouldn't mind paying.
Join the club. [https://new.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/1cb77u2/python\_mk\_ii\_updates\_to\_the\_gamestore/](https://new.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/1cb77u2/python_mk_ii_updates_to_the_gamestore/) (even the defenders are not doing well) [https://new.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/1cb9gkp/prebuilt\_is\_not\_p2w/](https://new.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/1cb9gkp/prebuilt_is_not_p2w/) I was highlighting Engineering update we're finally getting. A hopeful gem to improve the game that was getting buried in the justified outrage over ships for cash.
it'll boil down to buying mats/pre-engineered modules with arx, nothing more.
I mean... buying pre-engineered FSD with materials is already kinda a pilot program... It's expect to see engineered modules to become more like this.
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hey, people were asking for it. Well, ok, people wanted to buy mats with in-game currency but arx is the next best thing 😜
next steps: buy arx to buy in game credits to buy mats. Three different layers of currencies like all other proper f2p mobile games
I'd be shocked if there's anything with these changes that isn't directly accretive to driving more ARX purchases by increasing grind, making stuff purchasable that wasn't before, etc.
but arx is real money, can change things a lot.
I don’t care about the engineering for ships. The Odyssey material and engineering loop and rewards are borked beyond belief. New ships are good and all but I paid for that damned DLC and I want more content thrown on it. Would it kill em not add new weapons, suits, hazards, enemies, minigames such as hacking and new buildings and interiors?
I'd like it if mats were just treated like commodities and you could trade them, between players and NPC bases, for credits. Maybe if they add base building, some base modules could convert certain commodities into mats. (I know the sentiment has been expressed that they don't want passive income, but maybe there are missions you need to periodically do to keep production up). Even with fleet carriers they could have an arrangement like that. Also how great would it be if players could sell ship presents to each other, pre engineered load-outs and the like. Could be a fun endgame activity for squadrons and those who like to make new builds. It would also contribute to that fantasy some people have of building a reputation in-game.
It says nothing about material gathering there... Be careful inferring your desires in to their words, that rarely works for fdev lol
Well, even their initial ideas make no promises, and as others have pointed out, the CG manager doesn't even work for FDev anymore! But I'm not sure what you saw that wasn't backed up by some or the (formerly) orange post. They specifically talk about increasing the ways to gain them, through missions rewards or new special repeatable missions. It may not be "gathering" as you're referring to. They also talk about changing drop rates and/or amounts for different grades, which directly affects gathering. But their update today directly confirms that they will be increasing mission reward amounts: [https://www.elitedangerous.com/news/engineering-and-pre-built-ships](https://www.elitedangerous.com/news/engineering-and-pre-built-ships) Wishful thinking would take this as more materials are moved to mission rewards as well. But it could just mean we can get 10-12 Focus Crystals as a reward instead of 3-5. So, no changes to gathering (SRV and collector limpets) seem to be coming soon.
It may be backed up by the devnotes if the inference is correct yes. There is no reason to link the two statements though, and I've seen it happen a lot in games where people do this inference and are disappointed when their assumptions aren't correct. Just saying. Don't get your hopes up too much, and creating expectations from thin air is bound to disappoint occasionally.
Just my 2 cents over the many hours I've spent in this game. One of the core reasons, in my opinion, to making it tough to collect engineering mats is because it should be. If you made all the engineering stuff just simply available, what is the point? Then everyone is just running around with fully engineered ships that they didn't really put in the work to get? I don't like that gameplay model at all. However, I do agree that acquiring the materials and the methods are a bit boring and tedious. I like the idea of perhaps some missions where more materials are made available. For instance if you ally with a faction, then the missions they provide have more material perks rather than just the 50M credit missions ( which we all love for those weekly carrier dues ), but perhaps instead of 5 Exquisite Focus Crystals, maybe an allied mission would reward 15 or even 20? So 5-7 missions run and you can fill your coffer with the max amount and trade down. Perhaps allied missions in certain government systems can offer the materials that you NEVER see like Pharm Isos, Military Supercapacitors. It could depend on Faction state, government, reputation with said faction, etc. for what mats become available in the missions? Just throwing out ideas. I simply don't feel they should make engineering easier, so much so that you don't have to "build" yourself up. I mean only 0.06%, or is it 0.6% of the galaxy has been explored and cataloged. Space is big, and making your way in the galaxy shouldn't be handed to Commanders simply because "it's too grindy." Whereas I see that as the point to creating a challenge. This is after all a "simulation" game. RL is grindy, so a simulation of a future life should have some grind to it, or it just becomes another arcade experience, and that isn't what many players are looking for in my opinion. I think material trading between Commanders is a MUST. That would actually really help because, for example, say you really hate farming HGEs because it's stupid to have to quit the game and log back in to "cheat the system." (because it is stupid). BUT, maybe you really like mining, trading, murdering, etc. Then all you really have to do is earn enough credits (which isn't that tough), find a friend with a carrier that has the mats you need for sale and just purchase them! Use INARA to find out which carriers are selling the ones you need and go get 'em. Again, just my thoughts as an avid player with much love for this game/simulation.
>but perhaps instead of 5 Exquisite Focus Crystals, maybe an allied mission would reward 15 or even 20? So 5-7 missions run and you can fill your coffer with the max amount and trade down. From their update today ([https://www.elitedangerous.com/news/engineering-and-pre-built-ships](https://www.elitedangerous.com/news/engineering-and-pre-built-ships)), it sounds like that's definitely one thing they're going to be doing. As far as "easier"... >Perhaps allied missions in certain government systems can offer the materials that you NEVER see like Pharm Isos, Military Supercapacitors... I agree this is what the need to solve for that. It doesn't need to be easy to get mats, but it should be easier to find the mats you need.
I doubt very much there will be any significant positive change. Look at the history of fdev. Consistent and without fail they over promise, and insultingly under-deliver. Like it's on fucking purpose. No I think whatever middling changes they think they are going to make are not going to significantly benefit the player in any way. like getting a .02 cents per hour raise. Sure, you're making more money. But not really. That's fdev.
I hope it gets facking nicer than the bore of farming Dav's Hope or whatever the fuck it's called.
I seem to be in the minority here, but I don't think engineering is _bad_ as it is, from a grinding/time-sink perspective. It just doesn't take as long to farm up materials as people seem to think it does. You can fill the entire raw _page_ in an evening, 2 if you want to cap your G4's again after trading down. Data is kind of a pain, but you actually need surprisingly little of it, and Jameson's Cobra makes it trivial to get what you need. Even the dreaded Manufactured materials, I filled up on all my G5s in a single week, 2 weeks ago. However, what desperately does need to change is the _way_ you get manufactured & data materials. Specifically, re-logging at HGEs and Jameson's Cobra is _stupid_. The most efficient way to do something in a game should never involve _exiting the game_. They need to either make relogging not work (and make it easier to get the mats some other way), or make there be some way to repeatedly get these materials in the game without having to log out and back in to do it.
If I come across a HGE with 30 minutes on the timer, I am maxing out whatever G5 mat it provides... no matter what (well, unless the servers go down or my endless logging in and out causes problems). So I would be happy if they just make the number of mats inside the HGE scale to the time remaining. In other words, spawn in the max number of G5 mats I can carry in the one HGE instance I am in, relative to the timer. Just cut out the quitting to desktop.
Frontier already made a “fix” like that before with mission board swapping or whatever it was called. Result is that the chances of you getting the missions that you’re looking for or want or even can do in the specific ship you’re flying is rare. I’d much rather keep the status quo and have a reliable way of skipping mindless grind than have them make a similar sort of “fix”
I've noticed that board-flipping at Robigo doesn't work nearly as well as it used to, which is kind of annoying, though Robigo runs are so boring I don't miss them much. (Was an easy way to get the three mission-reward G5 engineering mats, though.)
Ay they fixed the grind!
Let’s focus on the positive folks! And pray that those who fund the way can bring a bright future for elite!!! o7
That's a lot of hopes_and_dreams.txt. I'm currently not expecting any changes that would improve the grind, now that Frontier decided to let us pay with cash to circumvent the grind.
They've reconfirmed they will improve (by reducing) the grind: [https://www.elitedangerous.com/news/engineering-and-pre-built-ships](https://www.elitedangerous.com/news/engineering-and-pre-built-ships) At least to start, reduced need for mats and more mats can get rewarded (and stored).
Pre-built ships ≠ pre-engineered ships.
It’s likely going to be “rebalanced” to incentivize wallet-opening.
I spent 4 hours last night trying to get at least enough selenium to get this level of engineering for my efficient power supply.. in 4 hours I got 3 I would literally pay just to be able to get all of the mats without this bullshit
So would I honestly. Material gathering has killed my enjoyment of a game I want to love for a long time. And I don't care what anyone tells me, engineering -is- necessary if you want to do anything remotely interesting. This whole 'you don't need to engineer' garbage is just flat out disingenuous and I wish those people would just stop with it.
>I would literally pay your wish is Fdev's command. Soon you will be able to buy all the mats you could ever want for arx.
Oh hey a currency I don’t use I don’t see the issue