My first guardian blueprint

[Krash]

I set aside this past Saturday to tackle the Guardian structure puzzle for FSD Booster. There are lots of youtube walkthrough vids so I won't bore you with those details, just my high level observations (and maybe some boring details):
1. If anyone says 1-2 hours tops to complete this puzzle, they've done these before. For me, being the first time setting foot in ruins like this it was more like 3-4 hours.
2. I arrived at this site when it was pitch black. Not good.
3. First time used a conda. Too big to park next to the ruins, I had to go back and get my DBX.
4. Install PDT on the DBX to deal with sentinel missiles. This is a lifesaver if you're not used to srv combat like me.
5. There are 6 pylons to activate. The time consuming part for me was finding their hiding spots.
6. Getting around the ruins is annoying. I needed time to orient myself to best routes to each of the pylons and once I got familiar with that there is plenty of time on the countdown clock.
7. I installed 3 SRVs for contingency, in case of destruction, whatever, and I'm glad I did. The biggest issue is running out of ammo. Be ready to synth.
8. Make sure you gather enough of the mats you need for the specific blueprint your going for. The FSD Booster needs 21 power cells and 21 tech components from the site itself.

After all that trial and error: Success! The FSD Booster fits in a class 5 slot in my vette which adds 10.5ly jump range. I can now take my vette places.
-Once unlocked I can now install this booster in class 1-5 in all of my ships.
-I grabbed an extra blueprint for good measure, still researching what's the next best module to unlock with it.


Good luck CMDRs

 

[Stealthie]

Uhuh,

When you first start unlocking the Guardian stuff, or when you first return to the sites after a while, the topography of the sites is really your biggest obstacle.
Even if it all looks straightforward from the cockpit of your ship, when you deploy the SRV and all you can see is rubble in front of you, it soon becomes confusing.

I guess it's kind of "cheating" but I found that going into the free-camera and then zooming right out/up to gain an overview of the area was a massive help.

Not wishing to de-rail the thread but that's also one of the flaws in this sort of task.
At first, it's all very mysterious and confusing - and that's presumably the way it's intended to be - but by the time you've done the same thing a dozen times you're probably entertaining yourself by doing speed-runs which take under 3 minutes.
Which means all the effort put into creating the confusing, spooky, sites is wasted.
If they'd made it so a player had to visit one site, solve a puzzle, collect something and then take it to a completely different system and do something else (for a larger reward) it probably would have prevented players becoming quite so familiar with the sites and made the whole thing less of a "grind".

But I digress.

The only other thing to remember is that you don't need to stress over getting Sentinel scrap and Obelisk scans at the sites where you get the BP fragments.
After you've got the BP fragments, head for the Col 173 site to fill up on all the other stuff you need.

*EDIT*

FWIW, the Guardian Shield Boosters are kind of fun. They're stackable and don't use a lot of power.

 

[Krash]

Uhuh,

When you first start unlocking the Guardian stuff, or when you first return to the sites after a while, the topography of the sites is really your biggest obstacle.
Even if it all looks straightforward from the cockpit of your ship, when you deploy the SRV and all you can see is rubble in front of you, it soon becomes confusing.

I guess it's kind of "cheating" but I found that going into the free-camera and then zooming right out/up to gain an overview of the area was a massive help.

Not wishing to de-rail the thread but that's also one of the flaws in this sort of task.
At first, it's all very mysterious and confusing - and that's presumably the way it's intended to be - but by the time you've done the same thing a dozen times you're probably entertaining yourself by doing speed-runs which take under 3 minutes.
Which means all the effort put into creating the confusing, spooky, sites is wasted.
If they'd made it so a player had to visit one site, solve a puzzle, collect something and then take it to a completely different system and do something else (for a larger reward) it probably would have prevented players becoming quite so familiar with the sites and made the whole thing less of a "grind".

But I digress.

The only other thing to remember is that you don't need to stress over getting Sentinel scrap and Obelisk scans at the sites where you get the BP fragments.
After you've got the BP fragments, head for the Col 173 site to fill up on all the other stuff you need.

*EDIT*

FWIW, the Guardian Shield Boosters are kind of fun. They're stackable and don't use a lot of power.

You make some good points. I did use the vanity cam to point myself in the right direction more than once. That was a trick I gleaned from the walkthrough vids. Thanks for the tip on Col 173.

Do the Shield boosters go in optional slots as well?

 

[Stealthie]

Do the Shield boosters go in optional slots as well?

Yep.

http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Guardian_Shield_Reinforcement_Package

 

[Lordxenu]

I recently did these and found you can activate the pillars with beam lasers on a fighter means I can activate them all in like 1 minute although I do then need to land with SRV to drop the relic but still its loads more fun!

 

[Factabulous]

Nice write-up OP!

(but I'm here for the digression )

If they'd made it so a player had to visit one site, solve a puzzle, collect something and then take it to a completely different system and do something else (for a larger reward) it probably would have prevented players becoming quite so familiar with the sites and made the whole thing less of a "grind".

I do wonder if FD intended the Ram Tah mission to be exactly this - I collected all the mats / data I needed by doing the mission. But they messed up as it:

• doesn't cause you to harvest BP
• even if you did collect BP the number required was way too high (until 3.1)
• the cash payout for the mission was too low for the complexity
• I'm sure most were put off the mission due to preconditions being ... challenging

Sorry for the digression!

 

[Vardaugas]

About the shield reinforcements: They are classified as hull reinforcements (and found there in the outfitting) so they can be put into military slots, probably even in the passenger cabin slots, too. Definitely worthwhile when you have power to spare.

And for exploring any specific sites, I always prefer my Viper IV. It can land near anywhere. And with a FSD booster, it now goes 40ly.

 

[Vedmo]

As to what to spend your other module blueprint on, I have FSD, shield booster, PP & PD unlocked, and would rank them in that order to acquire.

The shield booster is amazing for low shield value ships. The PP gives you an easy way drop a size (weight), but in every case can be outshined by engineering. The PD is good for something you don't want to engineer as well.

 

[MottiKhan]

Nice write-up. +1 rep. I haven't unlocked any of the guardian stuff yet, but I guess it's only a matter of time before I'll feel compelled to do so.

Your thread eases some of the dread from the idea.

 

[Krash]

I recently did these and found you can activate the pillars with beam lasers on a fighter means I can activate them all in like 1 minute although I do then need to land with SRV to drop the relic but still its loads more fun!

I would watch that video

 

[Cmdr Esteban]

I arrived at this site when it was pitch black. Not good.

Yes, I too arrived in the dead of night. I was thinking about working out how long I would need to wait for daylight by looking at the rotational period in the system map, but then I thought well I'm here now, I may as well just get on with it. Wasn't impossible, but daylight would have made it a lot easier.

 

[Stealthie]

I recently did these and found you can activate the pillars with beam lasers on a fighter means I can activate them all in like 1 minute although I do then need to land with SRV to drop the relic but still its loads more fun!

If you can find somebody to work with you, shooting the pillars from a ship is a good way to do it.

Somebody in an SRV just trundles around collecting Relics, mat's and scans while somebody in a ship activates the pillars and zaps Sentinels.

The only problem (cos of course there is one) is that the puzzle doesn't always reset properly, leading to you wasting Relics and getting no BP fragment in return.
And then you both have to re-log (and hope you end up in the same instance together again) in order to reset the puzzle.
Which kind of kills the mood.

 

[Lordxenu]

I would watch that video

I may have oversold my timing on that one! my fighter flying is probably about the level of MalicVR - if he had no eyes... and was asleep.... and didnt play elite dangerous......

 

[Stealthie]

Nice write-up. +1 rep. I haven't unlocked any of the guardian stuff yet, but I guess it's only a matter of time before I'll feel compelled to do so.

Your thread eases some of the dread from the idea.

It really isn't a big deal once you break it all down.
When you look at all the required ingredients and read about the required effort it can seem a bit daunting but it's okay, if a little repetitive.

Figure out how many weapon/module BP fragments you need.
Go to the appropriate site and do the puzzle X number of times.
Go to Col 173 and farm mat's and data until you've got enough of those.
Back to the bubble and then do a trolley-dash for various commodities and maybe a couple of missions to get rare commodities.
Profit. (is it still okay to say that?)

 

[OldManKnott]

Nice write up. It also took me about 3 hours first time but was an enjoyable grind IMO. The sentinels weren't really that much of a threat if you switch all pips to system after a missile is launched, didn't lose a single SRV. I think the fact I was running around Devs Hope for a few days last week helped enormously.

 

[Krash]

It really isn't a big deal once you break it all down.
When you look at all the required ingredients and read about the required effort it can seem a bit daunting but it's okay, if a little repetitive.

Figure out how many weapon/module BP fragments you need.
Go to the appropriate site and do the puzzle X number of times.
Go to Col 173 and farm mat's and data until you've got enough of those.
Back to the bubble and then do a trolley-dash for various commodities and maybe a couple of missions to get rare commodities.
Profit. (is it still okay to say that?)

Very useful summary of what you need

 

[Watcher]

...

I guess it's kind of "cheating" but I found that going into the free-camera and then zooming right out/up to gain an overview of the area was a massive help.

Not wishing to de-rail the thread but that's also one of the flaws in this sort of task.
At first, it's all very mysterious and confusing - and that's presumably the way it's intended to be - but by the time you've done the same thing a dozen times you're probably entertaining yourself by doing speed-runs which take under 3 minutes.
Which means all the effort put into creating the confusing, spooky, sites is wasted.
If they'd made it so a player had to visit one site, solve a puzzle, collect something and then take it to a completely different system and do something else (for a larger reward) it probably would have prevented players becoming quite so familiar with the sites and made the whole thing less of a "grind".
...

Adding to some slight derailing...

I tend to agree, I can see there would be some interesting technical difficulties but having some sort of player specific persistence to the sites would be great - force players to visit multiple sites to get the bits and pieces they need rather than simply farming a given site. Even if this was restricted to the blueprints only it would force a diversity of play, I don't think that's a bad thing. I like the feeling of being an explorer doing something novel, it kind of wears a bit thin if you do the same thing several times at the same site and break immersion somewhat - yes, you can RP it but perhaps some actual in game rules would be better here... If FD wanted to raise people's ire they could even add a counter to the site and reduce or eliminate materials over a certain threshold or frequency of use... That might be a bit mean though. Anyway, I digress. I think some level of personal site persistence is a great idea and would only add to the game providing things like unlock requirements are kept at a sensible level. We'd probably need in game tools to help find new sites too...

In relation to camera use.. Some sort of local map view might be a nice addition here, we already have a topographic view for landing and on the SRV scanner, perhaps a wider area one? If we could place markers or list locally discovered POI's so much the better.
Also, as I realised today, why don't guardian ruins show up on the planet map after a scan? I can select them from the nav panel, why can't I do that from planet view??

 

[Stealthie]

Very useful summary of what you need

On that note...

Why, oh why, did FDev decide to make it so blueprints disappear from the tech' brokers when you unlock them - thus meaning that I can no longer refer a tech' broker in the game when discussing this stuff?
Would it not have been smarter to have the locked blueprints coloured red and, perhaps, colour the unlocked ones in green but leave them visible so people can still look at them for reference?

I realise we have stuff like INARA to fall back on but, c'mon.

In relation to camera use.. Some sort of local map view might be a nice addition here, we already have a topographic view for landing and on the SRV scanner, perhaps a wider area one? If we could place markers or list locally discovered POI's so much the better.
Also, as I realised today, why don't guardian ruins show up on the planet map after a scan? I can select them from the nav panel, why can't I do that from planet view??

I always thought it might be cool if the SRV could launch some kind of "drone" which would build up a mini-map as you flew it around and which you could also use to locate things and then create waypoints to them.
Course, given that it's possible to just use the vanity-cam to look around, I guess it might be a wasted effort.

 

[krylite]

Congrats. The FSD booster sure is a great help expanding fsd range across the board /w a fair cost of use of a 1-5 size optional slot.
With the 3.1.1 changes, now the time it takes to unlock one of the modules of the techbroker really doesn't take that much longer than a SRV terrain mining session for rare raw mats.

 

[Lightspeed]

I'm getting bored with exploration (have to patiently wait for Q4 to make it more interesting), so I think I might head back to the Bubble and give this a try. Thanks, OP.