I fave Felicity unlocked for almost a year. In the 1Q of this year, after I got my DBX I went for a serious exploration trip, with a strong dedication to see Sag*A. I made mere 5k LYs towards my destination when I decided to call it and went back. This trip alone gave me Farseer unlocked + few M Cr + allied with my "home" system + large exploration rank increase.
Few days ago when I decided to tap into Engineers I planned beforehand and gathered nearly 30M in exploration data, just to jump into G5 rolls. So right after donating I unloaded those data and bam - G5 rolls available.
(6) First, Scan the Barnacle from the SRV. This will add the Barnacle Site to your Navigation Panel so you can find it again later if needed.
Didn't know that, thought I need to manually find exact coord when re-visiting. Thanks for the tip. In general I'm quite familiar with meta-alloys. Searching for Arsenic I was shooting even those tall spikes, knowing that they contain meta-alloys only. But hey, 88k per one and I have full cargo of that stuff. My first meta-alloy search failed so I bought one in Maia. Current harvest will cover my expenses and throw some extra.
And, as a Explorer by choice, I always honk at arrival.
#thatReaperFeeling
--update--
So, I finished material farming, got 36 of each required for G5 FSD roll. Within 10 rolls or so I got +46 optimized mass and +5% max fuel per jump. I also gathered materials for 15 G3 Surface Scanner roll. Blown almost everything but got like 40% speed boost.
Then I outfitted my Asp for exploration duty. Right panel says 51/52,9 LY range (went up from 29/31 stock). Went for long awaited Sag*A, yesterday evening made 4.800 LYs already. Average jump was 46-48 LYs. Bit under those panel 50 LY. Anyway, I'm happy with the current results - lightyears add pretty fast, occasional planet scanning goes much faster, even with just G3 mod, 6A fuel scoop (878!) makes refuelling easy. Looks like I will see Sag*A after all...
About Engineering and materials gathering - final notes
- Arsenic: despite picking not the most optimal method it was rather interesting. I have visited alien site, encountered alien ship (twice) which was awesome experience, gathered lots of other materials that are useful.
- Chemical Manipulators: went after one guide and planetary pick up. Results were... unimpressive, to say the least. After about an hour I left and went for a Tanker. Interestingly, the Tanker was absent where it should be. Good that YT guide had an update. Quick relocation and another hour later I had what I wanted.
- Datamined Wake Exceptions: the easiest and least immersion-breaking experience. As guide said - distribution center in famine system. Came with cheap wake scanner and had to fly here and there. Withdrawn and came back with the best scanner. 2km range increase but so much convenience. Just sit and scan, pretty literally.
Overall it wasn't as bad as I expected but still I have 2 major griped about it.
1. atrocious drop rate and forced need to change modes. Although it's not considered exploit but it felt plain wrong having to change modes just to see required item present (or not). True for arsenic and chemical manipulators.
2. 3rd party reliance. I know it's a sandbox but hey - If I'm required to refer to outside the game database/guide/forum just to get knowledge where to find basic stuff then there's something wrong with the game. You can't fight the RNG but searching for info where that RNG is present feels bad.
A bit insulting is RNG tied with roll itself, on top of difficulties from material gathering. But that was discussed already. I spent 4 days just gathering enough materials for 36 rolls (one may say it's long, other may say it took just 4 days for good roll). I was lucky enough to get good result within 10 rolls so I have few tries for bigger ship's FSD already. I may gather some more, just in case when I get back from my exploration.
In my eyes Engineers are valuable due to massive upgrade they provide. But gathering materials and playing the roll lottery makes it feel a bit biased towards too much effort compared to reward.
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