4Game

While the entire engineering process is often annoying, I think a big part of what really makes it annoying is getting into it right at the start.

Now, I think Odyssey engineers are actually a really good counter-example; they're occasionally irritating, but the one thing that's very well done is the way you unlock the first ones.

Doing Conflict Zones? You unlock Hero Ferrari, and get Combat improvements. Traveling around a lot? You unlock Domino Green, and get Scavenger improvements. These things just happen, and really help to kick off the next steps. Even better, you get immediate access to them, rather than needing to do something else to get in.

With that in mind, it would be really neat of the Horizons engineers were reworked a little bit to be more like the Odyssey ones.

Elvira Martuuk is a great example. In theory, she's meant to work in a similar way to Hero Ferrari. You want to do some exploration? You travel 300ly, and get access to an engineer that improves your FSD!

Unfortunately, in practice, this turns out to be a mess. Most players don't organically travel 300ly from their starting location, since most gameplay is available nearby. Many players have no interest in exploration at all, but still need to unlock her for general gameplay purposes. Even the players who DO want to go exploring will want to unlock her BEFORE they go exploring; the last thing you'll want is to gear up for a big voyage, travel 300ly, only to realize you should turn around so you can cut your travel time in half.

This means that rather than unlocking Martuuk organically, players instead tend to need to google what engineers are, how to unlock them, intentionally fly 300ly out, then turn around and go back to unlock her. And a lot of players don't even remember where they started, so getting 300ly away requires another google search. And then, rather than getting to just fly to her and check her out, you need to go buy some soontil relics, a seemingly arbitrary and disconnected aspect that ends up being completely unrelated to the engineering process.

That's a lot of looking things up, for a process that really should be almost automatic. This IS the FIRST Engineer, after all.

How about a refined and organic version, instead?

Elvira Martuuk​

First off, change the unlock requirement from '300ly from the starter system', to a much more simple, 'Travel 300ly'. This changes it into something all players will get, organically, in a very similar manner to Domino Green.

Second, change her request from Soontil Relics, to something directly related to her engineering. In this case, probably the best option would be Atypical Disrupted Wake Echoes. These are the engineering materials needed to get your first level of Long Range FSD. Much like the current version, have her give a message on how to acquire these:

"Greetings, Commander. I deal with the exotic and the unusual. In the pursuit of this, I am always in search of data which will help me track down new and interesting things, and the starting point for this is Atypical Disrupted Wake Echoes. If you're interested in my services, equip an FSD Wake Scanner and scan some FSD wakes. If you can acquire and bring me 10 Atypical Disrupted Wake Echoes, we can talk."

Even more than this, on arrival, have her look at them, but not actually use them! That way, when players arrive, they are immediately ready to apply at least the most basic engineering to their ship, and even better, already know the process to acquire engineering materials!

The Dweller​

The Dweller is a similar example. Most players never touch Black Markets in the beginning of the game, often out of fear of the downsides of crime. Experienced players know it's no big deal, but newer players don't know this. More than this, crime really should be a big deal, so this really should be changed. It shouldn't be something players are jumping into early in the game.

With this in mind, change the Dweller to unlock when the player has used an Interstellar Factor to remove bounties. That's something that's almost inevitably going to happen at some point, so it's organic, it still fits the theme of criminality, and avoids the problem of players needing to look up what to do and then grinding it.

Furthermore, while his unlock requirement of 500k isn't exactly difficult, it's also not a good way of getting players moving down the engineering process. Again, the goal should be to organically move players towards these things, so that by the time they're into it, they're already halfway there.

In this case, probably the best thing you could have players get is Specialized Legacy Firmware.

This is a great option from multiple angles. On the one hand, it's something that must typically be stolen, fitting the theme of the Dweller as a criminal. On the other hand, it's what's required for the first level of Charge Enhanced Power Distributors, which is easily the default choice for 90% of distributor engineering.

Again, the Dweller should look at them without actually taking them. This means the player can get their initial engineering done on their first visit, really making the whole process feel a lot more smooth.

Changes along this line would really help the whole engineering process, and help it feel like less of a 'grind', as some players describe it, and, I believe, would make the game better as a whole.

So why not? We have the technology!