I don't mean to police what anyone does or doesn't talk about, but respectfully, I don't think anyone is going to change anyone else's mind about this at this point, people are just re-stating the same opinions over and over.
All I will say is that if there never was a fix intended, then some of the stuff in act 3 is one of the handful of things in the game that's just genuinely bad writing (or maybe some stuff being cut that really should not have been). If you truly don't intend for the engine to have a fix, and that was the plan from the beginning, then having a character pretty much tell you "yeah, I invented that thing, and since then I developed a new version that doesn't have the problem that's killing you" and giving the player no option to try and make use of this seemingly incredibly important information is just baffling. If there was never an explanation why the new and improved engines and the knowledge of how to make them can't help Karlach, that's just dumb- I'm guessing I can't be the only one that used saves to go through that conversation like 5 times because it seemed crazy that there's not even an option to bring up that this really seems like a solution to Karlach's engine problem (or at least a big step towards one). If there was an explanation and it got cut- why in the name of sanity would you cut that? It's critical information for explaining why the story goes where it does!
The result is my character comes across as either pretty dim for not realizing the importance of what they're hearing, or shockingly uncaring about trying to help their close friend.
My bet is the lack of time, the explanation doesn't change her story, only enhances it, so moving it from the upper city is not "priority" when you're already short of time and need to release the game asap. As for people around telling something must be possible, well, that's the thing about stories like that. There is always hope until the very end (cyberpunk for example) until it isn't, otherwise the story wouldn't make sense. For example, would the scene after the fight with Gortash be so impactful if five minutes later someone would come up with the fix? Whether or not it's a bad writing is up to debate, but that's not the place for that. My question about the guy that designed the engine and has better version of it, does it really mean anything? Her engine would have to be replaced, but pulling the old one out of her would kill her, wouldn't it? That's why steel watcher says fixing her engine is not worth it and she should go to have it scrapped immediately
