Yea, what each Engineer designs is more like a prototype/concept part. It will offer some performance boost in the desired area, but maybe some tradeoffs elsewhere. Each build is hit and miss, but still an overall gain. Sort of like taking your car to a private mechanic to have aftermarket supercharger or turbos bolted on. Outside of any dealership parts or support. No guarantees of the performance or reliability you'll get.
What are your experiences of interdictions in the beta? A few threads on the official forums say that they are much more frequent and more vicious. My preferred gameplay is quite relaxed and non combat so I am worried that interdictions will become more difficult to avoid and survive.
This has been on my mind. I'm doing double time to get my Asp Explorer back to the bubble ahead of 2.1 going live. My Asp outfitting is ultra light weight on everything, for peak jump range. The 3A shield I figure won't be worth much vs. more aggressive AI.
I've been doing some thinking about where I'll make my "landfall". I know a few systems that are largely safe in my past experience. One has a nice, short, 90LS SC flight to the main station there.