Newcomer / Intro How to farm manufactured mats legit?

[CMDR VURUCU5858]

Hey all,

I'm kinda new and I want some veteran players to weigh in. I currently just bought my first federal corvette (yay) for PVE combat. I have it engineered modestly so it's pretty handy at the moment. Unfortunately, I have run out of certain types of manufactured mats and don't want to trade my precious mats between rows because it is vastly inefficient, leaving the grind as my only alternative. I have noticed in the past that Anacondas and Pythons seem to drop better mats in terms of quantity and quality. Are there certain places that are great for farming NPC Anacondas for manufactured mats? I was thinking of going to an independent system and hunting down system security vessels (there are a ton of anaconda NPCs) but I don't think my corvette can go up against a veritable tide of system security vessels alone. I'm also not super stoked to go into combat zones because won't my precious limpets will be destroyed by passing enemies while I'm collecting mats? Does anyone have suggestions on where I should go to farm NPC Anacondas and Pythons, or any other ship that drops good manufactured mats?

Thanks!
CMDR VURUCU5858

 

[Deleted member 166264]

Haz Rez sites are good for farming materials. If you find one in an anarchy system that's even better because you can also target the miners and not get notoriety.

 

[Codger]

I mostly grab Grade 5 stuff from High Grade Emissions sources, and trade down. The exchange rate is very favorable that way.

 

[Hawk of Battle]

I mostly grab Grade 5 stuff from High Grade Emissions sources, and trade down. The exchange rate is very favorable that way.

^This. Collecting any mats lower than grade 4 is a massive waste of time, and there's enough HGE sources that you can easily fill up on 100 grade 5 mats inside of 30 minutes and trade down. A single unit pickup of a grade 5 mat gives you 3 of the mat. Trade those 3 units down and that's nearly all your grade 1 bin fully filled. Some HGEs can spawn up to 5 of a given mat, that's 15 units, more than enough to max out both grade 1 and 2 with some left over. And that's just a single instance of one HGE.

And don't be afraid of cross-trading either. Imperial Shields are a plentiful and easily found grade 5 and 100 of them can be traded over for, I think, 16 of another grade 5 material, again, more than enough to fill out the lower level bins in any category. So you can either spend a few hours tracking down HGEs and rapidly filling grade 5 bins, or many, many, many more hours trying to find mats using any other method. Your call.

 

[Tyres O'Flaherty]

Do the Dav's Hope circuit a few times - well, loads really - and pick up tons of stuff. Then trade up.

 

[Boff]

Find a Tourist hotspot near a station in an Anarchy system and 'mine' the tourists... I know of at least one system this works at, just have to not hit the station or it takes offence... (Which i'll admit has happened a few times to me!)

 

[d8veh]

Go to LTT 15574 and work from Haxel Port. Just outside the station are loads of every type of RES and there's a manufactured materials trader in the station. Fit 4E and 3E cargo racks and 3A plus 5A collector limpet controllers, then go and kick some butt. After every Anaconda and FDL you kill, deploy the limpets to collect the materials. These two ships occasionally drop grade 5 materials and always a few grade 4s. After each trip, you will be full of some of them, depending on how long you stay, so trade them all with the trader for the ones you're not collecting until you have maximum quantity of every type.

At the same time you will be filling up with data from scanning all the ships when you target them. You only get mainly about 10 types, so when the first is full, make a detour to a data trader and trade all those types back to zero because they will fill up again. If you only skim them, they'll max out too soon and you'll have to waste more time travelling and trading. Data doesn't fill as quickly as the manufactured materials.

After all that, spend a week mining to fill up with all the raw materials while you mine, and as before, visit the material trader.

 

[d8veh]

Hey all,

I'm kinda new and I want some veteran players to weigh in. I currently just bought my first federal corvette (yay) for PVE combat. I have it engineered modestly so it's pretty handy at the moment. Unfortunately, I have run out of certain types of manufactured mats and don't want to trade my precious mats between rows because it is vastly inefficient, leaving the grind as my only alternative. I have noticed in the past that Anacondas and Pythons seem to drop better mats in terms of quantity and quality. Are there certain places that are great for farming NPC Anacondas for manufactured mats? I was thinking of going to an independent system and hunting down system security vessels (there are a ton of anaconda NPCs) but I don't think my corvette can go up against a veritable tide of system security vessels alone. I'm also not super stoked to go into combat zones because won't my precious limpets will be destroyed by passing enemies while I'm collecting mats? Does anyone have suggestions on where I should go to farm NPC Anacondas and Pythons, or any other ship that drops good manufactured mats?

Thanks!
CMDR VURUCU5858

Haz RES, high RES and compromised nav beacons. On my Corvette I have a 5A and 3A collector limpt controller and one of each 6E, 4E and 3E cargo racks for the limpets, which is about right for a two hour session. It's a shield tank with SCBs that never loses more than two rings. Always deploy the limpets after killing an Anaconda or FDL, which are the ones most likely to drop grade 5. Work from a station that has a raw material trader, like Haxel Port in LTT15574 so that you can make space for the materials from the next session.

Now the warning!!!

Your limpets will pick up the discarded cargo too, which is very attractive to the pirates, so when you have it and the pirates scan you, like they always do, they'll attack you, so the battle can become very hectic. In a high RES, the police will scan you too. If they find you with it, you get fined. I'm not sure if they attack too. I don't think so. To get round this, keep checking your inventary and discard any commodities, then add them to the ignore list. This can be tricky because your limpets will pick them up again and bring them straight back. You could temporarily close your cargo hatch to make sure you get the chance to add them to the ignore list. You can also check your contacts panel after the kill and add any commodities to the ignore list before your limpets get a chance to pick them up. It all seems easy when writing about it, but in the battlefield things can get very hectic.

In each RES, there are several types of commodities dropped, which are different in each system, so if you stay in the same system you only need to ignore about 6 or so types, then you can forget about them until you go somewhere else.

 

[Dragsham]

An all beams vette with fast charging biweaves in a haz res with 6 limpets out (x2 5a) and 10 ton of gold or silver platinum etc as a lure. Don't forget a missile defence thingy to deal with hatchbreakers.
And just sit there till you've had your fill. No need to resupply except limpets I have 128 of em on board which don't last long tbh. Might go more.
Warning!! Things can go south pretty quick so have a mind of your shields hull etc and dust out if need be.
Carrier parked nearby helps.
You can amass more mats rep (if its a fed-alliance or empire system), and credits pretty quickly. Works for massacres too. Why bother with those pesky time consuming travel to threat 6 then a 4 then a 3 etc when u just camp as above.

o7
Oh! Yes was asked. X3 6a scbs engineered g4 and a dozen sinks to offset but!! If your using vent on some of your beams you won't need so many sinks

 

[varonica]

After all that, spend a week mining to fill up with all the raw materials while you mine, and as before, visit the material trader.

Go to crystal spike sites, they always drop the highest mat for the body they are on, you can fill your entire quota of high grade mats from one site, then mat trade!

 

[aRJay]

Haz RES, high RES and compromised nav beacons. On my Corvette I have a 5A and 3A collector limpt controller and one of each 6E, 4E and 3E cargo racks for the limpets, which is about right for a two hour session. It's a shield tank with SCBs that never loses more than two rings. Always deploy the limpets after killing an Anaconda or FDL, which are the ones most likely to drop grade 5. Work from a station that has a raw material trader, like Haxel Port in LTT15574 so that you can make space for the materials from the next session.

Now the warning!!!

Your limpets will pick up the discarded cargo too, which is very attractive to the pirates, so when you have it and the pirates scan you, like they always do, they'll attack you, so the battle can become very hectic. In a high RES, the police will scan you too. If they find you with it, you get fined. I'm not sure if they attack too. I don't think so. To get round this, keep checking your inventary and discard any commodities, then add them to the ignore list. This can be tricky because your limpets will pick them up again and bring them straight back. You could temporarily close your cargo hatch to make sure you get the chance to add them to the ignore list. You can also check your contacts panel after the kill and add any commodities to the ignore list before your limpets get a chance to pick them up. It all seems easy when writing about it, but in the battlefield things can get very hectic.

In each RES, there are several types of commodities dropped, which are different in each system, so if you stay in the same system you only need to ignore about 6 or so types, then you can forget about them until you go somewhere else.

To avoid the issues with inadvertently picking up cargo rather than materials I have got into the habit of checking the contacts tab before losing the limpets and setting anything in canisters to ignore. I can then harvest away with fewer worries.
As my play style doesn’t involve piracy or salvage missions I have not hit a downside to this yet.

 

[Speedcuffs]

To avoid the issues with inadvertently picking up cargo rather than materials I have got into the habit of checking the contacts tab before losing the limpets and setting anything in canisters to ignore. I can then harvest away with fewer worries.
As my play style doesn’t involve piracy or salvage missions I have not hit a downside to this yet.

Yep, pretty much everything on ignore apart from materials and the junk in the burning stations.

 

[d8veh]

Go to crystal spike sites, they always drop the highest mat for the body they are on, you can fill your entire quota of high grade mats from one site, then mat trade!

That works, but it means taking the time to make a special trip. If you go mining for credits, you get the materials for nothing. Rescue missions are pretty good as well. Those missions are not bad if you want a bit of fun. You take the salvage missions from the rescue ship, go into the burning station, deploy your limpets, hoover up all the salvage stuff and loads of materials, then land and take all the passenger resue missions, then return to the resue ship. It sounds a bit boring, but you have to dodge explosions, which knock you into loitering positions while you have to deal with the heat and avoid banging into sharp broken structures. As well as material, money and excitement, it's probably the fastest way to get Federation rank for a Corvette in the Witch Head sector and possiblyEmpire rank inCoalsack sector (I've not checked that).

I used to go to materials hotspots when engineering first started, but later discovered it's better to get your materials for nothing. I think it saves loads of time and gives you more fun. The trick is to do activities that give multiple benefits, especially if you're in the early part of the game., where you need to get money, ranks, reputation and materials. Certain activities in certain places give you all of those, and some of them, like rescue missions are quite entertaining too - until you figure out what to do at least.

 

[Para Handy]

Go to crystal spike sites, they always drop the highest mat for the body they are on, you can fill your entire quota of high grade mats from one site, then mat trade!

I think you misread the thread title, OP was asking about Manufactured Materials not Raw. I only mention this in case someone reading the thread might get the impression that they can trade raw for manufactured - the can't (as I know you know).

 

[d8veh]

To avoid the issues with inadvertently picking up cargo rather than materials I have got into the habit of checking the contacts tab before losing the limpets and setting anything in canisters to ignore. I can then harvest away with fewer worries.
As my play style doesn’t involve piracy or salvage missions I have not hit a downside to this yet.

Yes, I have never done it, but if you don't have an I-win battleship, you could keep the cargo hatch closed until you've added all the commodities on the contacts list to the ignore list. You only have to do it for one or two sessions, then every commodity likely to be dropped is covered, so you can forget about them until you go to a new location, which is what normally catches me out. personally, I like the stress of ten ships shooting all at once and more joining in as you kill them. Finally, after about 20 minutes of hectic battle and all SCBs exhausted, you get a rest when you can catch your breath while you let the limpets hoover up all the materials. That wouldn't end well for the newb in his unengineered Python.

 

[d8veh]

10 ton of gold or silver platinum etc as a lure.

I found that the pirates always went absolutely nuts if you have a single micro-weave cooling hose or HN shock mount on board. That was when you needed them for engineers. It might not be the same now. Anyway, I don't think it makes a difference what you have. Pirates are stupid. They can't do maths noe simple internet research to figure out what the value of your cargo is. To them, hyydogen fuel is just as attractive as moissanite.

 

[varonica]

I think you misread the thread title, OP was asking about Manufactured Materials not Raw. I only mention this in case someone reading the thread might get the impression that they can trade raw for manufactured - the can't (as I know you know).

No I didn't, I was replying to d8veh who started discussing mining raw mats. Granted suddenly bringing raw mats into the discussion could be confusing to new players, but I wasn't the first to mention raw mats.

 

[Gully Foyle]

I found that the pirates always went absolutely nuts if you have a single micro-weave cooling hose or HN shock mount on board. That was when you needed them for engineers. It might not be the same now. Anyway, I don't think it makes a difference what you have. Pirates are stupid. They can't do maths noe simple internet research to figure out what the value of your cargo is. To them, hyydogen fuel is just as attractive as moissanite.

They ask me what I'm carrying and I bop biowaste off their canopy.
I ignore all the canisters before I let loose the limpets for mats.
Some great tips in this thread

 

[Para Handy]

No I didn't, I was replying to d8veh who started discussing mining raw mats. Granted suddenly bringing raw mats into the discussion could be confusing to new players, but I wasn't the first to mention raw mats.

Oh gosh - yes. I am sorry, totally misunderstood what you were doing there.

 

[CmdrLordValcar]

I mostly grab Grade 5 stuff from High Grade Emissions sources, and trade down. The exchange rate is very favorable that way.

What are these and how do I find them?