Engineers The puzzle of pinning blueprints

[Orbitalai]

Its quite a puzzle to pin blueprints when you have many engineers unlocked.

Is there any 3rd party tool or website that can help me get an overview of pinning so I don't have duplicates pinned, or pin low grade blueprint where I should have pinned it at another engineer to get higher grade pinned. And so I don't miss out on pinning blueprints that are important to me.

INARA only have favorite blueprints and so does EDEngineer. Doesn't help me with the puzzle.

 

[GraphiteGB]

There is no site as you can not avoid conflicts with grade 5 engineering on hardpoints weapons...
People are just remembering that if the blueprint is NOT grade 5. you are likely at the Wrong engineer so don't pin it and yes there will be a better engineer as all items can be done to grade 5 at a engineer in the bubble... No items are grade 3 or grade 4 max only, they all can be done to grade 5... many are only done at grade 5 at one single engineer...

Inara engineering page is complicated... but when listing a modification that you want it does state which engineer will be grade 5 and which is not and in many cases there is only one single engineer for grade 5...

Start with blue prints

INARA

The community site for Elite: Dangerous, Starfield with the game databases, information, gaming news and other handy content...

inara.cz

and then select the item you want in the section you want and the modification on that item, scroll down to grade 5 and it lists the engineer that you will need to pin..

You will have no choice when it come to conflicting items like beam lasers Vs burst for grade 5 of each by design you can only have 1 of them as the same engineer does both to grade 5...
so you can only have 1 blueprint pinned...

You just go through core items in your ship and look for grade 5 in the bubble listed on site..
Frameshift drive grade 5 - Elvira Martuuk no choice - as the others require high explorer rank
Power Distributor - Charge enhanced (Grade 5) The Dweller - no choice only grade 5 option..
Thrusters - Dirty (Grade 5) - Professor Palin - no choice only grade 5 option (pain in the back side to unlock)
Power Plant - Overcharged (Grade 5) - Hera Tani - no choice only grade 5 option...

junk like sensors can be done at multi engineers... do last..

Optional internals
Shield Generator - Thermal resistant (Grade 5) - Lei Cheung - no choice only grade 5 option...
Hull Reinforcement Package - Heavy duty (Grade 5) - Selene Jean - no choice only grade 5 option, this will conflict with Armour and is unavoidable you can only pin 1 grade 5 pick one, once complete, do the other.

With hardpoint/weapons,
By design fdev made a single grade 5 engineer the only single engineer to do grade 5 lasers at all for all the laser types in Broo Tarquin - again hes the only choice for grade 5 lasers... no body else... pick one type
Go though all the other weapon types you want to..
PAs - Bill turner.. no choice
Multi cannon or rail guns grade 5, both require the same engineer for grade 5 you can not pick both only 1 - Tod "The Blaster" McQuinn only grade 5 option for both weapons..
frag cannons - Zacariah Nemo no choice that only grade 5...

All this is listed on Inara for bubble engineering...

 

[Speedcuffs]

Pencil. Paper. Inara.
Works fine.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Mostly it's not too difficult - a lot of the core blueprints are only available at G5 at one engineer. So for example The Dweller, very few people would pin anything other than Charge Enhanced Power Distributor.

Trickier decisions:

• G5 Long Range FSD can be pinned at either Martuuk or Farseer, and neither has anything else massively crucial to pin. So which one you pin it with - and what you use the other for - is very open.
• Selene Jean is the only bubble engineer to do HRPs and Armour at any decent grade at all. Unless you go to Petra Olmanova near Colonia, then you're stuck with either having Armour or HRPs pinned.
• Ram Tah is the only bubble engineer to do heat sinks or chaff at all. So if you want high capacity on both, you're a bit stuck. Petra Olmanova can give you the other one, if you aren't already using her to cover armour/HRPs...
• There are quite a few engineers with G5 sensors and G5 surface scanners. So you have to pick the one with the fewest other useful blueprints.
• Marco Qwent doesn't have any G5 blueprints. Probably best used for a G4 pin on your second-favourite power plant type
• If you're not planning to go out to Colonia to get pins from Brandon and Dorn, do you use Lori Jameson for G3 SCBs, or G4 Life Support?
• Vatermann is the only bubble engineer with G5 shield boosters, but both high-capacity and high-resistance are useful on the bigger ships, and it's a bit of a waste of Mel Brandon to pin shield boosters with him as well. I'd go for high-resistance as it's useful for a wider range of ships and generally the better booster if you can only take one or two.

This is also assuming you have a full set of unlocks - when starting out, G5 FSD at Martuuk and G3 Drives at Farseer is a great combination ... but once you unlock Palin there's little use to keeping drives pinned at Farseer too.

It will also depend on where you are in the bubble and what types of things you like to do - e.g. if your home system is Alioth, it certainly doesn't matter much what you pin with Bill Turner, and Selene Jean and Tod McQuinn are pretty close by as well. Whereas if your home is down in Empire space, you'll want to consider your Alliance engineer pins a lot more carefully.

all items can be done to grade 5 at a engineer in the bubble... No items are grade 3 or grade 4 max only, they all can be done to grade 5... many are only done at grade 5 at one single engineer...

Not quite.

AFMU, Interdictor, Fuel Scoop, Refinery and Life Support max out at Grade 4 in the bubble (Life Support is at Grade 5 in Colonia, Fuel Scoop is getting there)
Shield Cell Bank maxes out at Grade 3 in the bubble (Grade 5 in Colonia, but the blueprints only go up to Grade 4)

 

[Orbitalai]

Alright, thanks.

 

[Para Handy]

I wouldn't disagree with much in the above except to point out that the Scout rank for Flic is not exactly a high rank, it is the third one and not hard to get.

Saying that though - I agree with FSD increased range pin at Elvira and pin thrusters at Flic as that gives G3 until you feel the need to do the slog for Palin and the G5 mod. (Qwent is a real pain, you need him for Palin but only worth for example armoured Power Plant.)