['BUG'] Cannot ask way to engineer on stations.

[dertien]

If the Skunk's hull is damaged, hiring an engineer to the crew's quarters will not repair the hull. I assume this is (still) normal and intended gameplay mechanic since hull repairs are to be done in dry dock.

However, contacting an engineer on a station to do the repairs there and thus asking where to find him/her is no longer possible - as the dialog option - at least in legacy - is missing.

So I know there are engineers on that station, since I can contact them via comms, but flying around and needing to land on every platform (like a bee seeking nectar) to find out exactly where, is a bit counter intuitive especially since we were able to in Vanilla.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Hmm, any chance this relates to some interior doors being unable to open? Or are commable NPCs with this issue still locatable via walking around on docks?

[dertien]

Very likely,

But strangely enough the doors do still open when you pick a mission to transport someone from A to B; and in order to pick that person up - which is not waiting on the platform as someone in a hurry would be you must go find this NPC and talk to him/her.

It would be more natural for the passenger missions for the person already to wait on the docking platform as one would do when in a hurry.

The doors are closed on other stations though, they seem to open up when such mission is accepted.

I hope this is intentional.

A good thing would be to either have the engineer always spawn on the platforms for the station modules that have them, and that the way can thus always be asked.

Or only put engineers on the platforms with a Wrench Icon, and add this entry to the manual as to where always find engineers.

Other options:

- 'Repair Nanobot' software addon for sale by mechanics (possibly with various Mk options.)

- Welder drone URV (drone that gets launched just like fighting drones, but instead of automatic attack they do automatic repair).

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Cheers for the reply.

The doors are closed on other stations though, they seem to open up when such mission is accepted.

I hope this is intentional.

Although I don't have XR VR, my understanding is that this is an intentional difference compared to regular X Rebirth. With this change being a correction to account for it.

[dertien]

Right...

I understand that the focus being diverted away from station visits and subsequent locked doors (for whatever reason - whether it be VR performance or gameplay); the door's opening up on one occasion (mission related) and not opening up (all other times) leads comprehensibly to confusion...

[Lothari]

Or only put engineers on the platforms with a Wrench Icon, and add this entry to the manual as to where always find engineers.

It may not be in the manual (I'll check with the developer in charge of that), but this should already be the case! As far as I've been able to see, this is working right now, but would you be able to try a few of these Engineering Platforms out to see if there might be a bug. If you find one where an Engineer doesn't spawn, a savegame from before you land at the platform would be most useful to see what's going wrong.

Thanks,
SoT

[lokiss]

You beat me to it, I just registered to say that. The engineer is always in my experience found at the wrench icon.

[dertien]

@SoT

Sure I'll try a couple in different systems; but I am pretty sure this will work correctly.

- Engineers on engineering platforms (since the icon is identical) is logical.

It is of course understandable that the game mechanics we are used to in Vanilla find their way to XRVR - like asking where someone can be found, which was pretty useful.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

If there are Engineering Platforms that have corridors and rooms (OL system Maybe?) they would seem like handy testing places just in case something went wrong with door closure change in XRVR.

[dertien]

Gute Frage...

Your guess is as good as mine. I've tested a couple in HoL and they seem to work as advertised.

There was always an Engineer and a Mechanic on every 'wrench platform', also, they are just platforms (without corridors). I'm unsure about OL.

I'm going to cheat a bit and use the Gamestarts mod I resurrected earlier last week to have a walkabout in OL and Teladi space. - I'm sure that this will not break any game mechanics from the VR version.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

contacting an engineer on a station to do the repairs there and thus asking where to find him/her is no longer possible - as the dialog option - at least in legacy - is missing.

Confirmed in 4.20 HF2 while playing in 2D-mode. I also don't see the option to set a NPC as my destination in order to locate their dock, and then their position after landing.

Edit: I've noted this XRVR mechanic difference on the Wiki.

Or only put engineers on the platforms with a Wrench Icon, and add this entry to the manual as to where always find engineers.

It may not be in the manual (I'll check with the developer in charge of that), but this should already be the case!

Hopefully it's working fine but even then, it's not easy to visually find Engineering Platforms across diverse station modules. If it wouldn't be practicable to reinstate the ability to ask NPCs how they can be found, might it be possible to add a Set Destination button to the Service Personnel menu that would work on the listed docks?

[dertien]

Indeed in OL there are a number of 'internal' ones, but an engineer was present at every single one of them.

Basically keeping an eye out for the red rotating circle is pretty straightforward. For new players who do not know of Vanilla's 'where are you?' option, it should not present problems.

It is also very thankful that the gameplay mechanic is still working on the Recall_Galaxy mod as well, so this should make everybody happy, those who play the Release Version and those who play modded.

I might not make friends by saying this but I'll throw it out anyway as a personal opinion:

This solution as a gameplay mechanic is three steps back compared to X-R vanlla and dead wrong because:

- a) you NEED to LAND the Skunk next to the engineer since he logically CANNOT and WILL NOT repair your hull when he is hired and present in the rear room. - Same goes for the Mechanic who cannot upgrade anything on the Skunk while you're flying about in zero atmosphere.

- b) not being able to ask the whereabouts of someone via COMMS because you need to know where this person is to conduct business with him/her face to face as you can not do this remotely, is just plain counter intuitive and weird.

-c) But most importantly. Since the majority of the code is already present in X-R vanila, why not simply spawn an engineer at the platform AFTER the question of 'where are you?' was answered.

I do understand the devs are now dead set on keeping us in our ship most of the time instead of walking around on stations, which is what a lot of us have asked for because walking around on stations was indeed a chore after the novelty wore off. It's good to strip some parts, but please stop canning the parts that work or make them work as to not break simple human logic.

Do not simply cut it out and assume that, because the wiki says it is so, people will assume this is normal and not have second thoughts about it.

I'm no coder, but I find it hard to believe that writing the code for option -c) would take the professinals who know this game in and out, more than 2 hours of their time... if that.

It's great to have this title in VR and it is a serious contender for some of the big competition out there - like Elite Dangerous.

A lot of the game has been stripped visually but now some very basic logical human thinking is just circumvented by not being able to satisfy a basic mandatory query, Please make sure not to water the game down to a point that it loses it's appeal to many players, the vets and the rookies.

Hope that this was somewhat formulated in a constructive but nevertheless critical and pragmatic way.