Can I go straight to the relevant engineer(s) if for example I have sufficient mats/cargo/data for some 3 & 4 star upgrades and get them installed right away or do I need to go through the grades in order from 1-5?.
If your engineer level is reached, you dont need to go through all steps.
Example: If you are level 4 with Felicia, you can come up and install a level 4 FSD mod.
Only Macro Qwent is the real grindy one to unlock. This damn Modular Terminals!Ah, thanks for that. How do I approach the engineers and is it much of a grind to unlock them?.
To be clear, you need to unlock each level.
Depending on the engineer, this can usually be done in one of two ways.
1) spending materials to throw the dice on the unlocked upgrades. These are weighted so that buying upgrades on current level ranks you up faster than say buying level 1 upgrades when you are at level 2, 3 and 4.
2) most engineers have a secondary way to rank up...if the have a commodities market, bring lots of high profit commodities, if they have a Contacts area, bring bounties and combat bonds, if they have a Cartographics stor, bring lots of exploration data.
As mentioned above, Marco only has his Engineering shop, so bring lots of the common elemental materials, then just roll the dice over and over on a "throw away" upgrade.
Hope this helps.
Clicker
Ok I am a bit confused: So for e.g. I have the materials (micro and cargo) for level 4 FSD upgrade at Farseer but I only have unlocked and done level 1. Even though All required materials for level 4 are yellow and not red I still can not upgrade my FSD to level 4?? What do I have to do??? (I don't want to go through level 2 and 3 as one of the materials is mission only and I don't know where to get the mission from and if it is going to be easy for me to succeed it. Another reason is that I only have 1 quantity of the 2 of the 4 materials required for level 4 and I don't want to accidentaly waste them in level 2 or 3 upgrade attempts)).
Sorry for dump questions - I am a casual player and new to engineer and don;t have much time / patience to grind - want to upgrade my FSD to level 4 (and eventually 5) in my Anaconda as fast as possible and get finishing this tycoon 32 % quick to elite and then go for exploration with a 50 Lys jump range capable FSD.
Hello. ........
Treat Marco as a stepping stone engineer. He doesn't do anything to a higher level that you can't get done elsewhere. He's a pain to get to as he's miles from the system arrival point so power through to get the info on the next engineers - Prof Palin who is very useful, then never go there again.To be clear, you need to unlock each level.
Depending on the engineer, this can usually be done in one of two ways.
1) spending materials to throw the dice on the unlocked upgrades. These are weighted so that buying upgrades on current level ranks you up faster than say buying level 1 upgrades when you are at level 2, 3 and 4.
2) most engineers have a secondary way to rank up...if the have a commodities market, bring lots of high profit commodities, if they have a Contacts area, bring bounties and combat bonds, if they have a Cartographics stor, bring lots of exploration data.
As mentioned above, Marco only has his Engineering shop, so bring lots of the common elemental materials, then just roll the dice over and over on a "throw away" upgrade.
Hope this helps.
Clicker
My quote included above is 4 years old...as such, engineering took an overhaul between then and now and the progression I described is no longer relevant.Treat Marco as a stepping stone engineer. He doesn't do anything to a higher level that you can't get done elsewhere. He's a pain to get to as he's miles from the system arrival point so power through to get the info on the next engineers - Prof Palin who is very useful, then never go there again.
Your option is again a cheap raw mat roll and dump or take one to G3, will depend on what mats you have. He does engineer useful stuff but just not to a very high level so that's why he's only a stepping stone