Leveling Engineering Access

[ScreminFlea]

There something that just doesn't seem right about accessing the engineering blueprints. I'm hoping someone is going to tell me I'm just not doing something correctly.

I understand that I must purchase each level of blueprints, before I can access the next level of that modification. What I do not understand is why it appears that I must purchase that same level blueprint, several times in some cases, for the same ship, before I'm able to unlock the next level modification, and that I have to do this same thing for each and every ship that I bring to the same engineer. Upon arrival in a new ship, one discovers that every blueprint they already unlocked on their previous ship, is locked once again. One would assume that whatever reputation one gains through interacting with a given engineer doesn't evaporate simply because they showed up in a different ship, no?

This would be like going to ones mechanic, desiring to upgrade their spark plugs, and being told they must purchase, and have installed, three other types of spark plugs, 3 or 4 times each before they could purchase and install the spark plugs they actually came for, and if they wanted to put the same plugs in their wife's car, they'd have to do it all over again.

This makes no sense whatsoever. If it was the desire of the fdevs to simply force us to burn through mats, why not simply make the first purchase of that blueprint consume however many mats are ultimately going to be required to unlock the next level modification? Why force us to purchase the exact same mod, several times, just to get to the next one? The only reason I can come up with is to be intentionally annoying. Am I doing something wrong here? This just strikes me as so ridiculous that it can't be by design. Am I wrong?

[ScreminFlea]

For clarification, I understand that I must purchase each level of a modification, for each new ship I bring to a given engineer, before I can gain access to the next level mod. What I do not understand is why I must purchase each level of a modification, several times, before I can do so.

[Agony_Aunt]

Its just how it works.

[the smoking mค็็็็็n]

yeah it's a clever little jedi mind trick..
be thankful that this not pre beyond, they had them freaking out over "god-rolls" then to make matters far worse
lvls do improve as you upgrade through each rank though still, so the first roll will not be as good as the last roll before you proceed to next upgrade, the same goes for the last lvl (G5) also

[Daveyboy]

Does the rank / rep thing you have with the engineer still make any difference? Think it says somewhere you need say level 3 to buy level 3 upgrades, but since you have to buy levels 1 and 2 first anyway and the engineer rep seems to increase as fast I'm not sure what that affects anymore.

[CaptainKINGPIN]

Originally posted by Daveyboy:

Does the rank / rep thing you have with the engineer still make any difference? Think it says somewhere you need say level 3 to buy level 3 upgrades, but since you have to buy levels 1 and 2 first anyway and the engineer rep seems to increase as fast I'm not sure what that affects anymore.

The higher your rep with the engineer the better the progression per roll is; i.e. the more of the circle is filled with each click of the roll button, with g5 rep it only takes around 10-12 rolls to hit the top of a G5 blueprint starting fresh from G1

[Rick]

Think of it as payment for services rendered rather than a purchase of blueprints. You have to pay in mats every time you do somethign do its more like payment for servives than it is purchasing blueprints. The system is abit whacky but as smoking man said, its a big improvement over what was there before.

[the smoking mค็็็็็n]

there will come a time when you don't want any of the upgrades that an engineer has
so you will have to make the desision to either "waste" some mats or rank thier rep by the other means available to that engineer
all very logical in the sceme of ED

[shawno1971]

I just take the parts of one ship and put them on the other, then mod the new part again.

[Phoenix]

I guess you can't please everybody. First people complain that engineering involoves too much rng (which was the case), now they complain that they have to go through all of the levels.

[Mechanical]

Neocmancy!

But the entire process from getting materials to the modifications needs a rewok (example: No shipyards at any of the engineers).