An Easier Way to Gather Odyssey Materials

[Feanor]

With practically no murder!

What you'll need:
A Maverick suit
A functioning Power Regulator
A full supply of E-Breeches
A small or medium ship with decent shields and armor, and dumbfire missiles

What to do:

Search on Inara (https://inara.cz/elite/nearest/) for the type of settlement with the stuff you need (tourist for data, agriculture for Oden Geiger stuff, etc.), with the following parameters:
Station Type: Surface Settlement (Odyssey)
Government: Anarchy Make sure this is the government under the station owner, not the system
Minor Faction State: Infrastructure Failure

The best places for this are small settlements with the alarm and authority scan controls in the power center.

Fly to the settlement. Check the ground to make sure that the place is deserted, and look for looters before you land; if they're there (you'll know because they're shooting at you), Hellfire them.

*Tip: Don't just land on the pad, or when you turn the power on it will lead to Bad Things. Even though there's no power and nobody there, you can still request docking and even auto-land.

Exit the ship, and take the power regulator and 2 e-breeches. Cut your way into the power center; e-breech the reactor console; place the regulator in the reactor, then start the reactor.

While the reactor is booting, run back to your ship and get another e-breech. Return to the power center, hack the alarms and authority scans, and disable them. If it's a large settlement, use your SRV.

Run through the place and gather what you need.

Return to the power center and shut down the reactor. Always check the locked locker, because there are often schematics in there.

Grab your power core, get back in your ship, launch, supercruise, exit supercruise, and return to the settlement.

Do it all again.


**Keep an eye out for pirates. Most often they'll either drop in after you shut down the reactor, or will be there already when you arrive, but I have seen them drop in while I was looting. Other than them, (and they don't really count as murder), you needn't kill anyone nor waste time sneaking, and can run through the place once every ten minutes or so. I only murder vacationing mobsters and people running drug production facilities, but still, it's time-consuming.

 

[metatheurgist]

Pro tip: You can take these things called reactivation missions and they give you the power reg and authority level 3 for free. And pay you for erm, securing their assets.

 

[Feanor]

True, but that's a one-shot.

 

[Fratboiz]

Wow, awesome!
Definitely going to do this.
I was one of the first day Odyssey buyers, but haven't really started playing the fps parts until this last week with my son.

I'm not so good at fps games, so it was a really good way for my son and I to have lots of fun playing the game together.

It's always fun to kick those pirate's asses and now I can get engineering materials too!

 

[metatheurgist]

True, but that's a one-shot.

The missions repeat until the state ends, might not always recur for the same settlement but there's usually more than one settlement that wants reactivating in a system.

 

[Jack Winter]

And the missions can give you needed data as a mission reward.

 

[Feanor]

Well, then do it that way if you wish. I find it tedious and time-consuming, returning to the station to look for new missions every time.

 

[Jack Winter]

FWIW, I often attack a settlement just to raid it and take the power regulator, but mission rewards is a great way to gather needed data..

 

[metatheurgist]

Takes 3 mins to wait for a power shutdown. Just sayin....

 

[St0rmFury]

I remember a group of cmdrs managed to turn almost all the settlements in a certain system into anarchy so you can loot all you want, after you commit lots of murder of course but at least you won't get bounties & notoriety for it.

 

[Rat Catcher]

Another "kill in Anarchy for no consequence" tip thread...

Embrace the dark side and eliminate Lawful settlements instead, there are far more (preferred Imperial, but that is my own prejudice) and no need to search for them.

 

[SteveWW57]

Search on Inara (https://inara.cz/elite/nearest/) for the type of settlement with the stuff you need (tourist for data, agriculture for Oden Geiger stuff, etc.), with the following parameters:
Station Type: Surface Settlement (Odyssey)
Government: Anarchy Make sure this is the government under the station owner, not the system
Minor Faction State: Infrastructure Failure

Looting inactive settlements is not new.

Any inactive settlement will work for this kind of material gathering purposes, not just anarchies. I think that the OP has limited the search parameters unnecessarily.

In addition, it you take a reactivation mission, you can leave the place with the power on and then SC away and return for another bite of the cherry.

As Rat Catcher stated this appears to be a another "kill in Anarchy for no consequence" tip thread... but not quite so, as you are not targeting active anarchy settlements.

I believe that a CMDR should find an out of the way system with enough suitable settlements, an anarchy faction and no player factions present, and play the BGS so that the anarchy gains suitable settlements but not system control and then gets their inf reduced to less than 7%. Hey presto! You have your very own farming spot.

Steve

 

[Feanor]

Geez. If you don't find it helpful, then just move on. Why is there always that guy?

Person: "Here's something I found that others might find helpful."

That Guy: "No. That's the wrong way. And besides, that was already mentioned in a thread four years ago. Didn't you read every single post ever made in this forum before posting?"

That Other Guy: "Yeah, we don't need no stinking badges!"

 

[Feanor]

The point here is speed: getting it done fast, to end the grind. For example, I netted about 15 each opinion polls and financial projections in a couple of hours, running through a small tourist site this way. But if you don't like it, don't use it.

 

[Jack Winter]

Well of course it's a completely valid method of collecting mats. My point was that by doing missions one can also collect data as material rewards that are also needed for upgrades. One can also just assault a settlement and gather the mats and then nick the power regulator, but that of course necessitates combat. I think once you're through the unlock stress you might find that it's probably more productive to just take missions (any), get the data reward, and loot whatever you can.

 

[Feanor]

Yeah, that's true; this is about the unlock grind. After that, missions are much more enjoyable. And the point about it not needing to be anarchy is useful information; I wondered, but didn't try it, not wanting to waste time with the bounties.

 

[Jack Winter]

It's enough that the settlement is anarchy then you won't get any bounties or notoriety for killing the inhabitants. IIRC you won't even lose any reputation with the faction you are attacking. On the other hand if one just moves around, then the bounties don't really matter much. But if the system is anarchy and the settlement lawful, then you'll get bounties and notoriety. Note that one can normally kill 3-4 inhabitants without getting notoriety, but the bounties and rep loss may make things difficult in the local area.

 

[Rat Catcher]

And the point about it not needing to be anarchy is useful information; I wondered, but didn't try it, not wanting to waste time with the bounties.

The bounties are 1000 credits per victim - so, in all practicality, toothless...

Notoriety doesn't affect play in any real negative manner, it is still practical to take a mission to a 'new' settlement with notoriety 10 and get nothing but a snarky remark from the guards. (ample reason to wipe out the entire settlement really...)

 

[MartinG]

Raided settlements (found where a minor faction is in the Pirate Attack state) also work reasonably well for this no-murder type of farming. Compared to Infrastructure Failure, they have their advantages and disadvantages.
Advantage: There will be bodies of the staff lying around, so you can clone some poor chap’s profile instead of spending an E-Breach or two.
Disadvantages: You have to watch out for fires. More lockers will be already open & empty (at least that’s been my experience).

---

In either case, when you shut down the settlement to get your power regulator back there is a good chance of a ship appearing and dropping scavengers. If you’re not interested in a fight (quite likely when you’re still gathering materials for high-grade gear), take the following precautions:

• While the shutdown is in progress, overload all doors on the way you intend to exit the building, so you will be able to leave quickly when power goes down.
• Use a Scorpion SRV. Park it close to an exit from the building, but in a such position that you will be able to hop in and zoom away toward your ship quickly (so make sure there is nothing in front of the SRV it might get stuck in).

It's enough that the settlement is anarchy then you won't get any bounties or notoriety for killing the inhabitants. IIRC you won't even lose any reputation with the faction you are attacking.

I’m pretty sure you do lose reputation for killing the inhabitants.

 

[Feanor]

I play in a character/RP mode as much as possible, and my character's ethics match mine in real life. So murders and theft matter to me for reasons other than fines, bounties, and reputation.

One has to sometimes suspend RP to get around poor game-design decisions, like the grind, or locking the ONLY route to certain mods behind an engineer who requires theft missions. Why do game designers assume that everyone is ok with being a criminal? But still, I try to go as little outside the bounds as possible. For the theft missions, I RP that my character took a corporate contracter job, did a few missions, and was disgusted with the fact that he was fighting against just other corporations, rather than criminals, so quit. But is now haunted by some of the gray-area things he did during that time.