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[Jedi2016]

I think one or the other would be okay, but not both. Either make us collect a bunch of rare stuff and guarantee us the upgrade that we want, without any kind of RNG, or keep the RNG for upgrade rolls, but replace the rare materials with stuff we can just buy at a commodity market a few systems away.

Or just make the upgrades like a normal ship component.. you just flat-out buy them with credits. None of this RNG or collecting stuff... you're an engineer, here's ten million credits, make my ship go faster. Go ahead and make them expensive, a late-game reward for players that have earned up big ships and tons of money.

 

[Anton Sugar]

Obsidian Ant did a much more eloquent argument on why collecting then dice rolling for an upgrade is not an enjoyable experience than I could make.

I do feel that "double rolling" (rng of material collection to increase the number of rolls to rng of system module upgrades) is a poor decision. Add to the fact that its making players jump hoops that are not in their usual gameplay loop is why its leading it to feel like work or inorganic.

Yup. Needs to be a variation of one of the following:

• High Requirements with Great Reward: if we have to do a ton of material collection, rewards should skew HEAVILY positive so we aren't wasting our time
• Low Requirements with Varied Reward: requirements should be far lower if we have a wide range of reward quality so we can reroll without feeling like we wasted a ton of time

Right now, there are so many different gates to getting equipment. Gotta find/get invited to an Engineer, have to increase Engineer rep, and then the varied/low quality rewards we are currently getting. It's already difficult enough to clear those gates.

Luckily, the framework seems designed well to incorporate either of the solutions. Frontier just needs to be less stingy.

EDIT: beaten

 

[Mengy]

There is a great post on Reddit by a guy named Wintercharm, he details out exactly why the engineers are breaking the game and chasing players away. Well worth a read:

https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDange..._fdev_one_month_ago_i_told_you_the_grind_was/

He also has managed to get the only real statement out of FDev since 2.1 went live about the whole thing, they may not be posting at all in the main forums but Zac posted on reddit:

Heya,
First of all, thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed post. I just want to highlight and confirm that the development team do read and take on board all comments and suggestions from the community.
There have been a number of changes since 2.1 launched and more in the works thanks to community’s feedback. For example, there have been interim changes which addresses the number of materials and data you can hold, reducing the amount of time required to unlock engineers by reducing the rare allocation, changing the rare allocations across the galaxy and adding local news articles at Engineers stations to highlight where players can source materials from. We also have another point update coming shortly which will allow players to select the experimental effect if they receive one they didn't want.
While I certainly understand and respect the feedback being given, I just wanted to take a second to let you know that the dev team do read the feedback from the community and thank you for taking the time to give us your thoughts.

Pretty much said nothing....

 

[DrBo42]

There is a great post on Reddit by a guy named Wintercharm, he details out exactly why the engineers are breaking the game and chasing players away. Well worth a read:

https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDange..._fdev_one_month_ago_i_told_you_the_grind_was/

He also has managed to get the only real statement out of FDev since 2.1 went live about the whole thing, they may not be posting at all in the main forums but Zac posted on reddit:




Pretty much said nothing....

Interesting that it used to be you could exchange rep for a special effect, not just replace a bad one with one you want.

 

[Burny]

Pretty much said nothing....

What should he have said? "Yes, we know all of this and patch 2.2 will fix this and turn ED into the game of your dreams."

?

He acknowledged the complaints which is something at least. Being in charge of community management that's all he can do, as well as point out any upcoming changes related to the complaints or share what he's authorized to share.

Whether "we are listening" translates into satisfactory changes and fixes is a different matter unfortunately. The issues I see the game having are so deep that fixing them will take many more major updates. I even suspect it would take a major shift in design philosophy, because FDev seem to really like their time waster mechanics, having introduced new ones with every major functional addition to the game. Powerplay? Major time waster grind board game. Engineers? Good addition to module variety in principle, but stuck behind grind walls relying on rather un-fun mechanics and poisoned by RNG based results that may give you nothing for dozens of hours invested into the game.

The result, just as with the painfully low jump ranges for combat ships, turning traversing the inhabited bubble in those into a loading-screen grind, is that playing the game at above starter ship levels gets a downright unreasonable proposition for anyone, who may have some other priorities in their life. After the initial fascination has passed of course.

Yup. Needs to be a variation of one of the following:

• High Requirements with Great Reward: if we have to do a ton of material collection, rewards should skew HEAVILY positive so we aren't wasting our time
• Low Requirements with Varied Reward: requirements should be far lower if we have a wide range of reward quality so we can reroll without feeling like we wasted a ton of time

To add to that: A reward must be a reward, no matter how big or small. Not a kick in the nuts. "You spend 4 hours gathering materials? Great, the RNGods decide that your weapon shall receive a lot more integrity, higher rate of fire but considerably less damage output."

That is not how you reward 4 hours of playtime. The result has to be worthwhile. We can waste our lives with other, more rewarding activities otherwise. If there absolutely has to be radromization, at least make each result worthwhile in a way. You receive a weapon with a stat spike that doesn't fit into your build? Make it sellable, preferrably to other players as well. Unfortunately, that is not an easy fix, because introducing a player 2 player market is a huge undertaking. But it should be done at some point. If only to give players more means of interacting than shooting each other and scanning each other.

 

[Serrato]

New Patch Note!

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/267701-Update-2-1-03-Incoming

Here is some pick from it :

Engineers

- Ensure we have up-to-date data when opening the workshop so that we correctly show 'alternative' progress
- Players can now spend favours (reputation levels) to control experimental effects on blueprints
- Filter option is not always reset when navigating to the recipe selection panel fixed
- Back button working on pinned and help popups

Weapons

- Huge burst lasers added
- Balance pass for Incendiary ammo multicannons, they're a bit too good . They now also come with the downsides of a 10% reduction in fire rate, and generate significantly more heat than a normal multicannon (though still less than an equivalent pulse). This change will retroactively affect existing items

Ships

- All shields now regenerate at double rate when in supercruise

Of course, it's much bigger on the website, so check it out.

 

[Onemic]

Are there any VR users here? It's either that Im doing something wrong or it doesnt seem like anything works properly in VR mode. I cleared my save and started from scratch again and Im beginning to notice a bunch of stuff like the opening mission you get not opening up the galaxy map when you press the open galaxy map button at the end of the mission notes. The galaxy map itself is very finicky in VR making even getting to one location a struggle.


...you also have a head in VR mode which makes clipping a common occurrence if you lean your head away from the starting position.

 

[Hylian7]

- All shields now regenerate at double rate when in supercruise

Bi-Weavers (like me) are gonna love this. Still not near at broken as it used to be where you could supercruise to instantly recharge shields.

 

[DrBo42]

Curious if the favors system allows you to apply a special effect rather than just swapping one you don't want. In any case if they didn't also include alternate methods to gain rep with all engineers people will still be pissed.

 

[Reckheim]

I think one or the other would be okay, but not both. Either make us collect a bunch of rare stuff and guarantee us the upgrade that we want, without any kind of RNG, or keep the RNG for upgrade rolls, but replace the rare materials with stuff we can just buy at a commodity market a few systems away.

Or just make the upgrades like a normal ship component.. you just flat-out buy them with credits. None of this RNG or collecting stuff... you're an engineer, here's ten million credits, make my ship go faster. Go ahead and make them expensive, a late-game reward for players that have earned up big ships and tons of money.

I would love this, especially for the significant upgrades like jump range, i'd easily put down a crazy amount of money for an extra 10-15 light years on my asp.

Or, make the materials purchasable in some way.

 

[Caesar III]

Woot! Something strange happend! I just upgraded some modules @ farseer inc. Was happy about the 0.8 LY increase for the FSD lol...

But after checking the right panel of my hud I noticed my insurance cost went down from slightly above 6 million to 5,2 million. I did not sell any modules! I don't get it. Seems like I'm not alone: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/263834-Insurance-costs-went-down

Oh and where do Engineers have a list of where to find the needed materials? I need some Yttrium.

 

[Patchy]

Yep I'm done. FSD have sucked what little life there was left in this game.

Bring on Everspace.

 

[DrBo42]

Yep I'm done. FSD have sucked what little life there was left in this game.

Bring on Everspace.

Damn.

 

[Onemic]

Yep I'm done. FSD have sucked what little life there was left in this game.

Bring on Everspace.

everspace is like a totally different genre though

 

[jond76]

Made my 9 jumps to visit Blaster and check out an engineer for the first time... Thought I'd stop at the Nav point to collect some bounties (I heard he needs them). Got a couple kills (that werent in a wing) and looked at my nav panel to see were this guy was.... "Under attack"

Huh? What?

It was two or three wanteds. Killed one then got melted as I tried to bug out...

Never visited a station there, so back I go 9 jumps.

Sucks... But was fun!

 

[DrBo42]

Made my 9 jumps to visit Blaster and check out an engineer for the first time... Thought I'd stop at the Nav point to collect some bounties (I heard he needs them). Got a couple kills (that werent in a wing) and looked at my nav panel to see were this guy was.... "Under attack"

Huh? What?

It was two or three wanteds. Killed one then got melted as I tried to bug out...

Never visited a station there, so back I go 9 jumps.

Sucks... But was fun!

Remember to high wake (jump to a different system) rather than jump to supercruise if you need to get out fast. High waking isn't affected by mass lock of nearby ships.

 

[Jedi2016]

That's why I only go hunting in certain ships, like my FDL. "Under attack, you say? Somebody's about to have a very bad day..."

That's going to be a bear when I get back to the bubble.. the FDL is about the only ship I have with any cargo space at all, and its jump range is pathetic. Taking it around to visit Engineers is gonna suck.

 

[Caesar III]

Taking it around to visit Engineers is gonna suck.

Use an Anaconda or ASP as a module taxi!

 

[jond76]

Remember to high wake (jump to a different system) rather than jump to supercruise if you need to get out fast. High waking isn't affected by mass lock of nearby ships.

Yeah, I was trying to boost away so I could get away from the pain, full pips, and buy enough time to wake out of there. But they were too strong.

 

[Jedi2016]

Use an Anaconda or ASP as a module taxi!

Well, there's three things there... First, I already have an Asp, that's what I'm in now, about 27,000 light years out and taking the scenic route home from Sag A*. I have considered selling off the AFM modules while I'm in the bubble, that'll give me room for cargo racks, and then repurchasing them the next time I set out. Secondly, they might actually have module storage in place by the time I get back, which honestly probably won't be before September or so. Thirdly, I hope to have enough cash from this expedition to buy an Anaconda. If they have module storage, I might sell the Asp and use the Anaconda as both a combat/mission ship and have another whole set of modules just for exploration the next time I head out. The Anaconda's jump range is comparable to the Asp, maybe even further.

 

[I'm new be nice]

Are there any VR users here? It's either that Im doing something wrong or it doesnt seem like anything works properly in VR mode. I cleared my save and started from scratch again and Im beginning to notice a bunch of stuff like the opening mission you get not opening up the galaxy map when you press the open galaxy map button at the end of the mission notes. The galaxy map itself is very finicky in VR making even getting to one location a struggle.


...you also have a head in VR mode which makes clipping a common occurrence if you lean your head away from the starting position.

I've been using the Rift CV1 but haven't encountered any of these issues (though I have yet to try the newest patch released today). The Galaxy map works well for me (using a Xbox One controller), I can easily select what I need and see and navigate around it, and haven't had issues using the galaxy map button displayed at the bottom of mission notes at the bounty board (if that's what you are referring to there).

 

[Unicorn]

Ignore the potato quality laptop screenshot, but this was a brown dwarf with massive massive pristine heavy metal rich rings. It was also in a tandem orbit with a gas giant around another star. First time seeing a brown dwarf with rings, let alone rings like this. System also had a terrestial planet with pristine heavy metal rings.

 

[Onemic]

I've been using the Rift CV1 but haven't encountered any of these issues (though I have yet to try the newest patch released today). The Galaxy map works well for me (using a Xbox One controller), I can easily select what I need and see and navigate around it, and haven't had issues using the galaxy map button displayed at the bottom of mission notes at the bounty board (if that's what you are referring to there).

Maybe it's because I use HOTAS? I'll try again with this new update when I come back form work.

What does the update change anyway? It was over a gig so it seems like it's not small.

 

[David Incorporated Esq.]

Ignore the potato quality laptop screenshot, but this was a brown dwarf with massive massive pristine heavy metal rich rings. It was also in a tandem orbit with a gas giant around another star. First time seeing a brown dwarf with rings, let alone rings like this. System also had a terrestial planet with pristine heavy metal rings.

Those inner rings would be hauling. That close in to that much mass? Nuts.

 

[owlbeak]

Got my Rift CV1 being delivered tomorrow. I have held off on playing the Engineers update so I can do it in VR! Very excited to dive back in with the Oculus.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

Got my Rift CV1 being delivered tomorrow. I have held off on playing the Engineers update so I can do it in VR! Very excited to dive back in with the Oculus.

ED in VR is second to none.

 

[Unicorn]

Those inner rings would be hauling. That close in to that much mass? Nuts.

Just looked at the mass and it's over 13 trillion MT.

 

[Caesar III]

Are there any VR users here? It's either that Im doing something wrong or it doesnt seem like anything works properly in VR mode. I cleared my save and started from scratch again and Im beginning to notice a bunch of stuff like the opening mission you get not opening up the galaxy map when you press the open galaxy map button at the end of the mission notes.

I'm not sure when this does work but it does not work for me for the most part. BUT if you open the Galaxy Map right after the press of this button the system you wanted is highlighted and centered in the Galaxy Map. I thought this is how it is meant to be though. (I use Elite only in VR)

The galaxy map itself is very finicky in VR making even getting to one location a struggle.

You need to set it up properly. Otherwise it's not controlable!
I use the left hand directional pad for movement left right forward backward, one of the dials for up and down and the stick for tilt and yaw. That way it's good to control imho.

...you also have a head in VR mode which makes clipping a common occurrence if you lean your head away from the starting position.

there's a button to reset the HMD. It's set to F12 as the default. Check if this is the case and use it when you are in your resting position facing forward. Then everything is perfectly synced if you do head movements. For me it's almost perfect. So perfect that I sometimes have the effect of wondering why my left hand is moving but it's not (idle movement ingame)

ED in VR is second to none.

YEP! Invested so much money on VR/Elite already, damn (Headset, HOTAS, graphics card, see below)


Just ordered a new graphics card for my PC! I hope the performance increase over my 970 is enough to use some super sampling to get better readability ingame.

 

[Onemic]

Is that new HOTAS line by thrustmaster I saw posted previously available for sale yet? I'd actually consider buying it as long as it's not too pricey.

I'm not sure when this does work but it does not work for me for the most part. BUT if you open the Galaxy Map right after the press of this button the system you wanted is highlighted and centered in the Galaxy Map. I thought this is how it is meant to be though. (I use Elite only in VR)

You need to set it up properly. Otherwise it's not controlable!
I use the left hand directional pad for movement left right forward backward, one of the dials for up and down and the stick for tilt and yaw. That way it's good to control imho.

there's a button to reset the HMD. It's set to F12 as the default. Check if this is the case and use it when you are in your resting position facing forward. Then everything is perfectly synced if you do head movements. For me it's almost perfect. So perfect that I sometimes have the effect of wondering why my left hand is moving but it's not (idle movement ingame)



YEP! Invested so much money on VR/Elite already, damn (Headset, HOTAS, graphics card, see below)


Just ordered a new graphics card for my PC! I hope the performance increase over my 970 is enough to use some super sampling to get better readability ingame.

Thanks! I'll try your suggestions when I get back from work. Seems like Im gonna have to actually sit down for half an hour or more fiddling with the control options to get everything working properly with my HOTAS since I cant use a keyboard anymore in VR.

I'm playing on an overclocked 1080 and the game runs smooth in the VR high setting with a few other settings turned on(ambient occlusion set to high and one other setting that affects lighting set to high as well instead of off) and super sampling set to 1.5. Everything is readable except the messages log, that needs 2.0 SS if you dont want to have to get close up to read text.

Seems like we're either gonna have to wait for Frontier to utilize multi projection for Pascal chips or wait for the 1080Ti to get ultra settings + super sampling.

 

[Caesar III]

it's only a 1070 on my part But if I'm lucky I can get similar settings to you since I only have a DK2 which is slightly lower res.


Oh man, driving around in the SRV is no good for my stomach! Had to stop. Need to do something different now lol

 

[SomTervo]

So my Vive is arriving tomorrow and I have a GTX 1080 in my machine right now (unfortunately only FEs were in stock, so no OCing for me).

I have a Steam shopping cart full of exciting new VR games, and I was just about to pull the trigger on E when I saw all this noise about the 2.1 patch. I haven't read much about the game in years, since it came out, and reading all this sounds pretty brutal as a new player coming in.

Is it still worth it for the VR experience? I feel like I'm safest just getting House of the Dying Sun to scratch that space itch, although E:H for £26 in the summer sale is pretty hot shit.

 

[Galactic Fork]

So my Vive is arriving tomorrow and I have a GTX 1080 in my machine right now (unfortunately only FEs were in stock, so no OCing for me).

I have a Steam shopping cart full of exciting new VR games, and I was just about to pull the trigger on E when I saw all this noise about the 2.1 patch. I haven't read much about the game in years, since it came out, and reading all this sounds pretty brutal as a new player coming in.

Is it still worth it for the VR experience? I feel like I'm safest just getting House of the Dying Sun to scratch that space itch, although E:H for £26 in the summer sale is pretty hot shit.

Depends on what you plan to do. I do mainly trading and exploring and I haven't bothered much with the engineers yet, so the issues don't affect me much. If you plan to do the combat stuff, you might not have much fun starting out. I've never won a battle, but I always run away...

 

[SomTervo]

Depends on what you plan to do. I do mainly trading and exploring and I haven't bothered much with the engineers yet, so the issues don't affect me much. If you plan to do the combat stuff, you might not have much fun starting out. I've never won a battle, but I always run away...

That stuff still worth it in VR?

How's the planetary landings?

 

[120v]

So my Vive is arriving tomorrow and I have a GTX 1080 in my machine right now (unfortunately only FEs were in stock, so no OCing for me).

I have a Steam shopping cart full of exciting new VR games, and I was just about to pull the trigger on E when I saw all this noise about the 2.1 patch. I haven't read much about the game in years, since it came out, and reading all this sounds pretty brutal as a new player coming in.

Is it still worth it for the VR experience? I feel like I'm safest just getting House of the Dying Sun to scratch that space itch, although E:H for £26 in the summer sale is pretty hot shit.

FWIW i just got my oculus last week, and this game is the most impressive VR experience so far. the gameplay's so obtuse i can't say whether or not i'll stick with it but if you're looking for "great VR experiences" until more games drop you really can't go wrong. worst case scenario you spent £26 for a tech demo

 

[FlyinJ]

Will my ancient 2.6 ghz i5 with a 970 be able to do the planetary landings in VR using my Vive?

The base game seems to run ok (although ugly on the Vive)

 

[Dreams-Visions]

Will my ancient 2.6 ghz i5 with a 970 be able to do the planetary landings in VR using my Vive?

The base game seems to run ok (although ugly on the Vive)

I think so. And hopefully once FDev fixes the game for the Vive, it will also look better too.

 

[SomTervo]

FWIW i just got my oculus last week, and this game is the most impressive VR experience so far. the gameplay's so obtuse i can't say whether or not i'll stick with it but if you're looking for "great VR experiences" until more games drop you really can't go wrong. worst case scenario you spent £26 for a tech demo

Appreciated. Bought.

So much money.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

So my Vive is arriving tomorrow and I have a GTX 1080 in my machine right now (unfortunately only FEs were in stock, so no OCing for me).

I have a Steam shopping cart full of exciting new VR games, and I was just about to pull the trigger on E when I saw all this noise about the 2.1 patch. I haven't read much about the game in years, since it came out, and reading all this sounds pretty brutal as a new player coming in.

Is it still worth it for the VR experience? I feel like I'm safest just getting House of the Dying Sun to scratch that space itch, although E:H for £26 in the summer sale is pretty hot shit.

Yes. ED is worth having for the VR experience alone.

HOWEVER, to play ED in VR, it means you have to have played the game long enough to know where your important keybinds are on your keyboard or HOTAS already. It's a complicated game and one that simply cannot be played if you are still in a state where you need to look at keys to know where your buttons are to do situation-critical things. I'd strongly recommend playing ED for a week on your monitor, buying a couple of ships along the way and getting used to the menus, Galaxy map, landing in stations and in planets (with all the buttons needed to do that), and fighting using chaff, shield rechargers and the variety of weapon setups the game offers.

Once you have established a level of comfort with the keys/buttons and their placements...THEN put on the VR headset. VR takes away your ability to see your IRL environment and that will make it very difficult to do things if you no longer have sight of your physical devices. VR is like taking an exam without your book; spend requisite time preparing and you'll be fine. But again, give yourself a week at least before trying to seriously play ED in VR.

Great experience in the Vive. Just be sure to set the Supersampling to 1.5x or 2x. Really helps with the overall resolution until they update the game better for Vive usage.

 

[SomTervo]

Yes. ED is worth having for the VR experience alone.

HOWEVER, to play ED in VR, it means you have to have played the game long enough to know where your important keybinds are on your keyboard or HOTAS already. It's a complicated game and one that simply cannot be played if you are still in a state where you need to look at keys to know where your buttons are to do situation-critical things. I'd strongly recommend playing ED for a week on your monitor, buying a couple of ships along the way and getting used to the menus, Galaxy map, landing in stations and in planets (with all the buttons needed to do that), and fighting using chaff, shield rechargers and the variety of weapon setups the game offers.

Once you have established a level of comfort with the keys/buttons and their placements...THEN put on the VR headset. VR takes away your ability to see your IRL environment and that will make it very difficult to do things if you no longer have sight of your physical devices. VR is like taking an exam without your book; spend requisite time preparing and you'll be fine. But again, give yourself a week at least before trying to seriously play ED in VR.

Great experience in the Vive. Just be sure to set the Supersampling to 1.5x or 2x. Really helps with the overall resolution until they update the game better for Vive usage.

Thanks a mil!

 

[Trouble]

Yes. ED is worth having for the VR experience alone.

HOWEVER, to play ED in VR, it means you have to have played the game long enough to know where your important keybinds are on your keyboard or HOTAS already. It's a complicated game and one that simply cannot be played if you are still in a state where you need to look at keys to know where your buttons are to do situation-critical things. I'd strongly recommend playing ED for a week on your monitor, buying a couple of ships along the way and getting used to the menus, Galaxy map, landing in stations and in planets (with all the buttons needed to do that), and fighting using chaff, shield rechargers and the variety of weapon setups the game offers.

Once you have established a level of comfort with the keys/buttons and their placements...THEN put on the VR headset. VR takes away your ability to see your IRL environment and that will make it very difficult to do things if you no longer have sight of your physical devices. VR is like taking an exam without your book; spend requisite time preparing and you'll be fine. But again, give yourself a week at least before trying to seriously play ED in VR.

Great experience in the Vive. Just be sure to set the Supersampling to 1.5x or 2x. Really helps with the overall resolution until they update the game better for Vive usage.

I just picked it up and I'm going Vive + Steam Controller.

I'm just gonna try to power through it and learn/tweak the controls as I go. I'm stubborn like that.

I found these which I think will be helpful:
https://troynt.github.io/elite_dangerous_controls_reference/
https://i.imgur.com/YRNM3m8l.jpg

 

[Unicorn]

Is Horizons a worthy upgrade for just landing on planetoids? Which planetoids? Is it only moons? all moons?

Don't really care for engineer stuff until that gets balanced to be less of a grind.

 

[DrBo42]

Is Horizons a worthy upgrade for just landing on planetoids? Which planetoids? Is it only moons? all moons?

Don't really care for engineer stuff until that gets balanced to be less of a grind.

Absolutely not IMO. Not much gameplay down there. Unless you like taking screenshots.

 

[Mengy]

Well I finally got a great roll on my Asp's FSD module:

43%, I win the RNGineer Casino! Gives me 48.10 ly top range:

I'm happy with that. I could get more range out of her by downgrading the shields and thrusters but I'm going to keep them as they are my only defense. I'm good with 48.10 lys.

Now I can forget about these engineers, I'm done with them for awhile....

 

[Galactic Fork]

That stuff still worth it in VR?

How's the planetary landings?

Well, I wouldn't get it for the VR, I like the general gameplay.

I'm not a huge fan of the landings. It's fine if you're just going to land and drive around on the rover. But at the moment you can only hope to find special rocks to mine, or random crashed ships to loot. Some of the views are great and I bet riding the buggy would be great for VR. Especially if you find a planet with rings to land on. Apam Napat, the system that houses the Neogaf Faction has 2 ringed rocky planets orbiting each other. Such a pretty view on the surface.

I don't really add planet stations and cities to my trade routes because it's kinda tedious docking in them compared to space stations.

Is Horizons a worthy upgrade for just landing on planetoids? Which planetoids? Is it only moons? all moons?

Any planet or moon with a solid surface, and no atmosphere or volcanism. (some exceptions are restricted.... like the moon.)

 

[akira28]

Is Horizons a worthy upgrade for just landing on planetoids? Which planetoids? Is it only moons? all moons?

Don't really care for engineer stuff until that gets balanced to be less of a grind.

hell naw. right now its not worth it imo. all you can do is scrape for materials for engineer upgrades, and it gives you some newer mission destinations if you have large ships.

but I am looking forward to crew members and fighter ship bays on the larger ships.

Well I finally got a great roll on my Asp's FSD module:



43%, I win the RNGineer Casino! Gives me 48.10 ly top range:

I want dat meatbawl. I just want a big 40+ FSD for my Anaconda and my Clipper and my Asp so I can go looking for Thargoids out in the Rift.

But I am finding the motivation to look for all these crafting materials just so I can MAYBE level up and if I'm lucky get a nice drive....*sigh* So far all my upgrades have been shit.

 

[Caesar III]

Well I finally got a great roll on my Asp's FSD module:

43%, I win the RNGineer Casino! Gives me 48.10 ly top range

I'm happy with that. I could get more range out of her by downgrading the shields and thrusters but I'm going to keep them as they are my only defense. I'm good with 48.10 lys.

Now I can forget about these engineers, I'm done with them for awhile....

Nice! I'm looking for yttrium to get a class 4 upgrade for my Anaconda

 

[Cuban Legend]

So i got REALLY lucky bonty hunting large ships with the system security force as backup in a High res, banked 3.5 mil in 2 hours... finally got enough to outfit my all-around ASP... this is my build fo all-around smuggling/bounty hunting and my build for exploring. Any recommendation on where to bank high paying long-range smuggling missions? So far I've broken my first 20 million between doing Data deliveries and a few smuggling missions between Sothis and Ceos.

And any recommendation to the loadout? PS I know i swapped the 6D fuel scoop with an affordable and equally fast 5B fuel scoop so i could have a large cargo hold bump for smuggling.

Well I finally got a great roll on my Asp's FSD module:



43%, I win the RNGineer Casino! Gives me 48.10 ly top range:



I'm happy with that. I could get more range out of her by downgrading the shields and thrusters but I'm going to keep them as they are my only defense. I'm good with 48.10 lys.

Now I can forget about these engineers, I'm done with them for awhile....

I'm still fairly new to ED and don't know much about Horizons or these "engineers" but could you explain what it took to get that upgrade? Is it a permanent upgrade to that ship? How long did it take, can you buy that sort of upgrade to get it faster, if so how much will it cost?

 

[DrBo42]

So i got REALLY lucky bonty hunting large ships with the system security force as backup in a High res, banked 3.5 mil in 2 hours... finally got enough to outfit my all-around ASP... this is my build fo all-around smuggling/bounty hunting and my build for exploring. Any recommendation on where to bank high paying long-range smuggling missions? So far I've broken my first 20 million between doing Data deliveries and a few smuggling missions between Sothis and Ceos.

And any recommendation to the loadout? PS I know i swapped the 6D fuel scoop with an affordable and equally fast 5B fuel scoop so i could have a large cargo hold bump for smuggling.
I'm still fairly new to ED and don't know much about Horizons or these "engineers" but could you explain what it took to get that upgrade? Is it a permanent upgrade to that ship? How long did it take, can you buy that sort of upgrade to get it faster, if so how much will it cost?

Okay so first you need to gain access to the Engineer. In the case of Farseer, it's delivering x1 meta alloys that can be harvested from the alien barnacles on merope or bought from a certain station in Maia. Upgrades come in grades or essentially ranks. You need to build up rep with the Engineer by crafting the lower tier upgrades to gain another level, repeat until you've unlocked grade 5 (some special cases apply like the explorer engineers that allow you to turn in exploration data). Crafting any level of upgrades requires materials from ship drops (combat), scanning ships in supercruise, scanning high wakes in normal space outside stations via a wake scanner, commodities, or shooting rocks on planet surfaces until X element/material pops out. And a very healthy amount of RNG. Mengy got a great roll on that grade 5 fsd increase, you might not have the same luck. But you still need to farm the more rare materials for a grade 5 module all over again.

It's a permanent upgrade to the module.

Can't buy an upgrade like that, have to farm it through Engineers. It's just modifying his existing FSD module.

 

[Cuban Legend]

So I read up a bit on long-range smuggling loadouts and found this post on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDange...started_smuggling_at_robigo_need_help/d1jsqet

I've since then updated a secondary loadout on coriolis.io to reflect it, any suggestions on the new "fast smuggling" build in relation to the other 2 builds so far? it raises build cost to 20mil from 14, and increses my rebuy from 700k to 1mil. worth it?
all-around ASP https://coriolis.io/outfit/asp/0pit...Iw1-gDGQ.AwjMIytdKA==?bn=CL's (All-around ASP)
max jump ASP https://coriolis.io/outfit/asp/0pit...f.Iw18WQ==.AwjMIznMuI==?bn=CL's (Max Jump ASP)
(NEW) fast smuggling ASP https://coriolis.io/outfit/asp/0p5t...gDGQ.AwjMIytdKA==?bn=CL's (Fast Smuggling ASP)

-I kept my shield generator as I'm still a docking noob
-should I add at least 1 weapon so i can at least stop scans by firing on a ship as i escape interdictions?

Okay so first you need to gain access to the Engineer. In the case of Farseer, it's delivering x1 meta alloys that can be harvested from the alien barnacles on merope or bought from a certain station in Maia. Upgrades come in grades or essentially ranks. You need to build up rep with the Engineer by crafting the lower tier upgrades to gain another level, repeat until you've unlocked grade 5 (some special cases apply like the explorer engineers that allow you to turn in exploration data). Crafting any level of upgrades requires materials from ship drops (combat), scanning ships in supercruise, scanning high wakes in normal space outside stations via a wake scanner, commodities, or shooting rocks on planet surfaces until X element/material pops out. And a very healthy amount of RNG. Mengy got a great roll on that grade 5 fsd increase, you might not have the same luck. But you still need to farm the more rare materials for a grade 5 module all over again.

It's a permanent upgrade to the module.

Can't buy an upgrade like that, have to farm it through Engineers. It's just modifying his existing FSD module.

Thanks for the explanation. Looks like I might need Horizons for that, thats a no-go for now, mostly because ive yet to see enough progress to warrant a purchase but also because I'm really not a fan of grinding.

 

[DrBo42]

Big post by Frontier this morning, gents and ladies.

Greetings Commanders,

You may well have seen our recent posts after The Engineers (2.1) which highlight some of the feedback that we’ve taken on board and changes we’ve made based on that feedback. You’ll have noticed that we’ve made a number of server and point updates including a host of immediate bug fixes and balances to NPC behaviour as well as allowing you to select the experimental modification type from Engineers, reducing the rare allocations to make the unlocking of Engineers easier and local news article at Engineers bases to give more information on where to find specific materials.

However, that’s not all, as ever we are working hard to ensure that player feedback is at the heart of Elite Dangerous and we just wanted to share with you a few more changes that we are planning for our next major point update. We are aiming for the end of July/Early August (there may be a few minor point updates and stability fixes before then).

In order to continue to address the feedback raised regarding both the grind and RNG nature of The Engineers we’re going to making the following changes;

We will be adjusting the way the surface scanner works to allow you to see what materials are available from any given planet. This should make locating materials far easier.
In addition we are making a number of changes to the lowest level blueprints. This includes improving the positive effects of low level upgrade results as well as reducing the cost and simplifying the materials needed.
We’re also increasing the number of units you get for each instance of a material you find. This means instead of getting one unit of a material, you will get multiple units of that material. This will allow you to increase the number of attempts at each Engineer.
We’ll be increasing the number of materials spawned when surface mining. Again, to make the process easier and the materials easier to gather.
The likelihood of finding rare materials in these instances will also be increased, meaning it will be easier to use higher level blueprints.
And we will be reviewing the balance and locations of non-planet salvage and reviewing the possible USS locations for each material

Not to mention the changes that we’ve made in the recent point update. To be able to select your weapon upgrade and give you control over what module you leave with, reducing the requirements to unlock certain Engineers and increasing the visibility of where materials can be sourced, should help to make the Engineers more accessible and more rewarding for players venturing down to the planet surface in search of a new upgrade.

As always the development team will continue to read and review your feedback to allow us to make the best possible experience for the community.

Thank you for your continued patience and support.

Seems like there absolutely has been a real player number drop/outcry for FD to come out and bulletpoint a plan of action to make Engineers not suck. At least it's getting done but as always, it's really scary that it even got to this point. Internal design philosophy vs player needs/wants was quite different here.