The great Power Regulator grind - your options

[Hempstead]

Not the fastest way for getting power regulators, but a sure fire way while having some shooting fun.

Just find a Sec 3 Industrial settlement that is anarchy and is not at war. Proceed to kill them all and loot the place including the power regulator. You are going to need those other mats/data you will get from the looting for upgrade anyway. I have no qualm in killing non-sentient NPCs. They will not have hurt feelings and perma ban me, pretending I violated some common decency.

The reason for Industrial Sec 3 is b/c they often drop platings, carbon, titanium, you name it, and tungsten carbide too! A research/high tech sec 3 anarchy (plenty of those around), in comparison, doesn’t drop platings. But, you can trade other mats you get from the looting for platings, just slower. Better than nothing!

If you need just power regulators, find any anarchy sec 1 settlement with a standalone PWR building, head directly to the PWR building, cut in, overload, shutdown (hack), and jump to the rooftop to wait for the shutdown sequence (or kill whoever respond to the alarm; I kill them just on principle.). Keep relogging to main menu, and repeat. 100% no need to pray to RNGesus. And if you are quick, no need to kill anybody.



The only problem? Sec 3 Industrial anarchy settlements are few and far between. I searched anarchy systems within 50 Lys, and found only 3 (one in a permitted system, two at war. And Inara doesn’t let you search for nearest settlements yet. I am still waiting for my main site‘s faction to come out of war.) And, they are often at war, which makes them completely empty of mat. But when they are not at war, they are great loot! Oh, just so you know, sec 3 often get 2 squads of drop ship reenforcement. So, good killing too.

 

[Catarclysm]

It appears all the distress beacon missions are bugged. I've tried multiple systems and planets, but each time the location won't appear. Other missions on the same planet work fine. Probably, Frontier has killed this method of farming. Does anyone have a location where distress beacons still work? Everything is a crash site now.
I did find a few sites where the ship had 2 power reg slots, but never got a working one after many attempts. Seems like it has to be an intact ship and not a crash site.
If the only way to get the stupid things is to steal them from missions and take the penalty, why not just sell them for 100K? And why not make a way to fix the depleted power regs? Those drop everywhere.

 

[Stelar 7]

Mining and industrial settlements regularly have srv in buildings and the grounds, these can offer as many as 3 or 4 regulators for 1 visit.

Power regulators in 1 and 2's are also mission rewards for lots of places.

Anytime you have to exterminate the denizens of a settlement there is at least 1 power regulator waiting.

No need for relogskis just play the game.

 

[Catarclysm]

Great info, thanks for the tips! I do remember pulling a working regulator off an SRV during a mission now. I was really surprised and happy. I will need to scope out a few sites to see if there are any with multiple SRVs. Any suggested planets or sites?

 

[Dimensions]

A few days ago there was a mission giver who offer 5 power regulators for a mission. I had good rep with the faction so negotiated +3 more for a total 8. For the mission I cleared the settlement and took their power reg. So in all I got a nice haul of 9 from one mission. Only saw one like that so far.

 

[Lord Rak]

Power Regulators are the black sheep of the new Odyssey engineer grind - outside of populated settlements, AFAIK there is only one other place to find them, unlike most other mats which can be found in containers, lockers and from data ports. Your options are:

1. Get them from "Restore" missions - abandon the mission and keep the regulator, but get a 100k Cr. fine and lose rep with the mission-giving faction.
2. Threat 3 Impact Sites - hard to find, boring loggoffski gameplay, and rarely drop, but no cost
3. The "emergent gameplay" option - find a populated settlement and steal one.

You will need to find a small (tier 1) settlement that ideally has the alarm switch in the same building as the power plant. So far I've found mining and tourism sites that fit this bill, would love to hear of any others. Not all settlements are populated either, the BGS affects this and states such as civil unrest, terror attack, infrastructure failure and lockdown probably mean they are deserted. Ideally you also want a small planet with a thin atmosphere to reduce turnaround time; if you want loot to respawn, you have to supercruise away from the settlement to reset it, as logging off and back in will not respawn loot.

You'll then need to find someone accessible with the correct clearance to clone their security clearance, and a clear run to the power station with no intervening guard patrols. There's always going to be at least one engineer inside the plant who you will have to take out as well. It's vital to turn off the alarm system before you turn off the power plant or else the guards will come. You then have to wait out the 3 minute timer (during this time you can loot, recharge your suit, browse the forums etc.). Once the regulator is discharged from its casing, nab it and GTFO. Supercruise out, swing back, rinse and repeat.

Also, remember that after the first run you will have a bounty from the settlement's faction, so any guard scan will bust you. If the guy whose security you're cloning sees you, he will also set off an alarm which will make the engineer in the power plant hostile, so it's best just to reset if this happens.

I've managed to find a spot where I can get 5-6 pregulators per hour (about 10mins each run). The only cost is the bounties I've incurred (1000 Cr. per kill).

Not bad for a morning's work: View attachment 231866

I just take PR after completing every and all missions I accept, once you see Leave Settlement go grab PR, except Restore/Reactivate because you have to leave that PR in settlement or face penalties.

 

[Mogen Teras]

What I found the strangest was the lockers in the Power Plants that are supposed to have spares; I have NEVER found one in those. Not even a degraded one. Most of the time they're just empty.

 

[Ingram]

This is a grind game so whatever method you choose to grind is purely personal choice.
Just feel comfortable with your choice and enjoy the equipment you upgraded.

For me I take every chance to get power regulator, support task in mission board, SRV, grab every raid or fetch mission that comes with a powered ground base.
In less than 20 days I finished my suit grind with 8 fully upgraded and moded gears (from grade 3 to 5) and high value plasma weapons stealth.
Now I'm able to play and enjoy every mission in fully stealth and / or non-violate style.
I accelerated the grind process to enjoy the other part of the game that requires tactic and careful planing, that is a worthy deal for me.

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

Power regulators in 1 and 2's are also mission rewards for lots of places.

Yes, I see those frequently. You'll also occasionally have them offered as rewards from contacts, with the ability to gain more if you can convince them to pay you more. Usually it jumps from a base 1 or 2 to 4 or 5 if you succeed. Once the guy was offering FIVE to start and I succeeded at "getting more money" and he offered me TEN!

Sadly, I died on that mission... most painful mission failure in years. On the upside, when I got back to station, I got a new mission to wipe out that entire settlement (anarchy) and proceeded to do so. Very satisfying.

 

[Yorm Of The Giant]

Power Regulators are the black sheep of the new Odyssey engineer grind - outside of populated settlements, AFAIK there is only one other place to find them, unlike most other mats which can be found in containers, lockers and from data ports. Your options are:

1. Get them from "Restore" missions - abandon the mission and keep the regulator, but get a 100k Cr. fine and lose rep with the mission-giving faction.
2. Threat 3 Impact Sites - hard to find, boring loggoffski gameplay, and rarely drop, but no cost
3. The "emergent gameplay" option - find a populated settlement and steal one.

4.Find Crash site just like that ship which has 2 regulator slot.

You dont need to cut magnetic panels. Drive closer to the ship. SRV contact panel show you what is behind maglock.
This method works on every settlement structures,crash sites, impact sites or irregular markers.
Log in and out untill find power regulator.(Make sure SRV contact panel shows regulators with longest distance before login-out progress, after log in quickly close your lights because : Npc will engage you when lights is on and your SRV near crashed ship. Make possible distance from ship with regulator signals still appears )

Source: https://youtu.be/ULQ50tb-k_s

 

[ubermick]

Gonna have to start doing this soon. Quick question though about the restore missions - once you power the settlement back up, and get the "objective complete" and "leave the area" messages, can you just toddle back to the PWR building and swipe the regulator back or does that cause you to fail the mission?

 

[Dimensions]

Gonna have to start doing this soon. Quick question though about the restore missions - once you power the settlement back up, and get the "objective complete" and "leave the area" messages, can you just toddle back to the PWR building and swipe the regulator back or does that cause you to fail the mission?

The one time I tried this, it unticked the objective complete box, so I had to put it back.

 

[DøømHåmstër]

4.Find Crash site just like that ship which has 2 regulator slot.

You dont need to cut magnetic panels. Drive closer to the ship. SRV contact panel show you what is behind maglock.
This method works on every settlement structures,crash sites, impact sites or irregular markers.
Log in and out untill find power regulator.(Make sure SRV contact panel shows regulators with longest distance before login-out progress, after log in quickly close your lights because : Npc will engage you when lights is on and your SRV near crashed ship. Make possible distance from ship with regulator signals still appears )

Source: https://youtu.be/ULQ50tb-k_s

So I know this is an old thread but it is generally useful knowledge so here goes. I just recently needed to grind some of these out again and I decided to give this method a try. It is now far and away my favorite method of harvesting power regulators. It isn't fun per se but it is super fast. I harvested on average 10 power regulators (not depleted) every 15 minutes but YMMV depending upon conditions at the site. Completely legal. Here are the steps for anyone wondering:

1. Accept a mission in the salvage missions section of the mission board that requires you to retrieve an item from a "crash site". It is very important that it says crash site since you want a crashed ship to spawn. Using a mission spawned site is desirable since the mission will force spawn of the type of site we need and it seems to be much faster than just scanning every planet until we run across the right type of site.

2. Go to the POI created by the mission. Mine was a "Distress Signal (Threat 1)" which had a sidewinder landed at a bizarre angle that made it hard to reach either of the panels as one was so high I had to get on top of my SRV to access it and the other was so low I had to scoot underneath and find just the right angle to cut it open. However, the low threat level meant that enemies rarely spawned and, when they did, they came in on a drop ship about a minute into the instance so I could get in and get out without combat. There are other types of site that could spawn here. As long as it is a crashed ship, you should have access to two panels containing regulator trays (usually one on each wing or side of the ship). I only have experience with the crashed eagle which has them on top of each wing and the sidewinder which has them on the bottom rear of each side.

3. Deploy your SRV and move to a convenient location close enough that the items at the site appear as white pips on your radar and appear in the contacts panel. At this point you should see any power regulators (depleted or not) available on the site in your contacts panel.

4. If there are full ones, hop out of your SRV, cut open the panels and retrieve the PRs.

DO NOT RETRIEVE THE ITEM YOU WERE TASKED TO RETRIEVE! This will cause the instance to disappear as soon as you leave and you're done.

At this point a loop begins that repeats until you have all the PRs you need or until you run out of time (mission timer, dinner time, spouse walks in and wants to talk, etc.):

5. Return to SRV.
6. Relog.
7. Turn off SRV lights (this helps reduce aggro in case enemies do spawn).
8. Open contacts panel and wait until the PRs pop in.
9. If there are full PRs, hop out and retrieve them and goto #5, else goto #6.

As far as dealing with enemies, well, that depends upon the site. It may be faster to just relog if they spawn...but then again maybe not. In my case they weren't an issue at all so I think I got lucky in that regard.

 

[St0rmFury]

So I know this is an old thread but it is generally useful knowledge so here goes. I just recently needed to grind some of these out again and I decided to give this method a try. It is now far and away my favorite method of harvesting power regulators. It isn't fun per se but it is super fast. I harvested on average 10 power regulators (not depleted) every 15 minutes but YMMV depending upon conditions at the site. Completely legal. Here are the steps for anyone wondering:

1. Accept a mission in the salvage missions section of the mission board that requires you to retrieve an item from a "crash site". It is very important that it says crash site since you want a crashed ship to spawn. Using a mission spawned site is desirable since the mission will force spawn of the type of site we need and it seems to be much faster than just scanning every planet until we run across the right type of site.

2. Go to the POI created by the mission. Mine was a "Distress Signal (Threat 1)" which had a sidewinder landed at a bizarre angle that made it hard to reach either of the panels as one was so high I had to get on top of my SRV to access it and the other was so low I had to scoot underneath and find just the right angle to cut it open. However, the low threat level meant that enemies rarely spawned and, when they did, they came in on a drop ship about a minute into the instance so I could get in and get out without combat. There are other types of site that could spawn here. As long as it is a crashed ship, you should have access to two panels containing regulator trays (usually one on each wing or side of the ship). I only have experience with the crashed eagle which has them on top of each wing and the sidewinder which has them on the bottom rear of each side.

3. Deploy your SRV and move to a convenient location close enough that the items at the site appear as white pips on your radar and appear in the contacts panel. At this point you should see any power regulators (depleted or not) available on the site in your contacts panel.

4. If there are full ones, hop out of your SRV, cut open the panels and retrieve the PRs.

DO NOT RETRIEVE THE ITEM YOU WERE TASKED TO RETRIEVE! This will cause the instance to disappear as soon as you leave and you're done.

At this point a loop begins that repeats until you have all the PRs you need or until you run out of time (mission timer, dinner time, spouse walks in and wants to talk, etc.):

5. Return to SRV.
6. Relog.
7. Turn off SRV lights (this helps reduce aggro in case enemies do spawn).
8. Open contacts panel and wait until the PRs pop in.
9. If there are full PRs, hop out and retrieve them and goto #5, else goto #6.

As far as dealing with enemies, well, that depends upon the site. It may be faster to just relog if they spawn...but then again maybe not. In my case they weren't an issue at all so I think I got lucky in that regard.

It's my time to grind for PR, so I just want to ask if this method is still valid (especially about the relogging part).

 

[Codger]

I've never tried that method. I just got mine from missions, or by stealing them from settlements.

For stealing, I scoped out one settlement that was small, low security, and an anarchy, and I figured out how to easily get in, shut off the alarms, and steal the regulator (took me a few tries). Once I had it down, I could do that same settlement over and over by flying back into Orbital Cruise, then back to the settlement.

Between that and missions I've been able to get all I need of Power Regulators.

 

[DøømHåmstër]

It's my time to grind for PR, so I just want to ask if this method is still valid (especially about the relogging part).

Yes. I don't do long relog sessions with this anymore since I am pretty much done upgrading suits, but I do grab up 5-10 from time to time if I happen to be in the mood and it always works.

If you look for salvage missions that ask you to salvage goods (not assets) you are practically guaranteed to get a "Distress Signal" site with either an eagle or a sidey. I have also found that, even if there are scavs there when you initially land, if you clear them out and then park your SRV right under the left or right wing of the ship, they will not respawn immediately after relog and, instead, come in on a drop ship a minute or so after you spawn which is plenty of time to grab the PRs, if any, and log out.

Good luck!

 

[SteveWW57]

Bear in mind that if you raid an active anarchy settlement for the power regulator (which shuts down the place), it has a negative impact on the owning faction. Which can lead to the anarchy faction disappearing.

Steve 07.

 

[FrozenTomato]

This worked in alpha, maybe still works:

Do “restore power” mission. Complete the objective, then turn around and remove the power regulator on your way out.

“Hey, you said restore power, you didn’t say I had to keep it running”.

a restore power missions ?

after landing at well over 100 areas under civil war or civil unrest or disaster i have NEVER seen one of those missions.

they do not exist.

 

[Kira Goto]

civil war

Does not turn settlements offline but into conflict zones. So if you happen to have primarily looked there and those other places with civil unrest (or some other statw that causes settlements to be abandoned) coincidentally didn’t have any Odyssey settlements, you won’t be getting any of those missions. Or if the controlling faction has no Odyssey settlements for… any reason. Double check both of those on inara, which should at least have up to date info on whether there are any Ody settlements in system.

This thread is also just over three years old, in case you didn’t notice it. One way to get yourself a bunch of power regulators now is in Thargoid recovery systems - just come with one or two in your pocket beforehand because quite a few of those seem to ask for you to provide one(even if you they offer a power regulator reward), because their mat rewards are amplified significantly.

 

[FrozenTomato]

i have no idea how to find mats. not played in a long time. checked a few videos like

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJpam7ppYTg

but it's been TWO DAYS going around trying to find a mission for a power regulator, to no avail.
i have NO F idea what to do. i have ty suits and weapons.... I have no idea where to find those power regulators. not played in a very long time so all those foot missions are unknown to me.