The only sure way to ascertain whether or not the Unknown Ships are partly or wholly of human manufacture would be to actually capture one but in the meantime we have several things that we can do, which have already been shown to be possible:
- Basic scan the Unknown Ships when encountered. This provides data materials.
- View the loadouts of the Unknown Ships (basic scan required). These show some familiar modules, including a pulse laser, reportedly, although some are unknown.
- Scan the High-Wake of the Unknown Ship when it leaves. This also provides data materials.
Perhaps a Community Goal could be used to collect the Unknown Ship Scans and their wake data, allowing a suitable engineer to determine if they include human technology or workmanship or crew, even if they are reverse-engineered from a non-human design (perhaps Elvira Martuuk, whose background description states that she has an interest in showing up whether alien artefacts are fakes or not, which is why she wants Soontill Relics, I think).
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A key issue here is: are there going to be other uses for these materials? Right now, they are not doing anything, just like the obelisk scan data I have from visiting the first ancient ruins site in 2.2.02. They must have been put in for a reason, though. Since we aren't getting any new engineers in 2.3 and none of the new blueprints use these materials, perhaps it would be better to use them to try and uncover the truth rather than hold on to them in the hope of getting a super-upgraded FSD or whatever in 2.4?
), I'll head back to the beacons to see if the DLS does anything with 'em.
