Best post 3.0 HGE signal source search technique?

[Pville_Piper]

I recommend sacrificing a virgin to the gods of RNG.

Unfortunately, virgins are harder to find than most Grade 5 mats...

 

[Tyger]

Agreed - all RNG. Don't wrap yourself up in speculative ideas on where to get a better chance of getting them.

But...............going backwards around a moon at half speed i hear, always produces.

<rolls eyes>

 

[5AnaHalfHatsize]

I still haven't finished editing the accompanying video, so here is the text of the short version of my guide which will be posted in full somewhere on this forum soon...

First check Inara for the material you are looking for. Inara will state certain criteria for the best chance to find the material. This usually includes a system state and possibly an allegiance.

Take CDCs (Core Dynamics Composites) for our first example. Inara says they are found from ship salvage of combat ships, found in HGE USSes, and a higher chance in Federal Boom systems.

One of the reasons I chose CDCs as the first example is because of that 'Boom' thing. Yes, the boom state is supposed to spawn CDCs, however, the boom state more frequently spawns HGEs containing PRAs (Proto Radiolic Alloys), PHRs (Proto Heat Radiators) and PLAs (Proto Light Alloys).

Therefore, you must consider the level of dilution and other circumstances that might cause frustration of finding HGEs, but not the right materials in them.

In the case of CDCs, you can dramatically increase your yield by going to a Federation system in a state of 'None'. This is because a Federal system in a state of none, can ONLY spawn CDCs and Proprietary Composites, so every HGE will contain a variation of those.

Now, once you've identified the best states/allegiances to look for, the next criteria is population, and playing a much smaller role, economy type.

Many believe that high population increases the spawn rate of HGEs. This is not entirely accurate, Mr President. High population increases the USS spawn chance in general, so naturally, more USSes gives the illusion of more HGEs, but I do not believe there is a direct relationship. OF course that still means that high population systems are better for farming HGEs, simply because of a higher rate of USSes.

This is somewhat muddied by the fact that you can often find HGEs aplenty in lower population systems, which brings me to economy. It does seem to be the case that High Tech and Industrial economies particularly, spawn more HGEs per USS, however, again this is a red herring, as I've farmed untold HGEs from Agri and REfinery systems (take Sol for example, it's Refinery/Tourism, and you will never be short of HGEs, I believe this is simply because of the MASSIVE population.

Therefore, the (I admit it's still weak evidentially) conclusion is that if the population is huge (billions), then it doesn't really matter what the economy is, but if the population is only a few million, then economy might play a larger role (particularly High Tech) concerning the quantity of USS and/or HGE spawns.

The actual technique to get an HGE to pop, is very simple, and very reliable. It is an easier technique to use in a system with only one star, but it does work on systems with two or more, provided you follow the rules carefully (and it's not always obvious how these rules translate to complicatedly laid-out systems, such as Sesuang, which has two stars and THREE different orbital planes for the bodies in the system).

Drop into the chosen system. Have orbital lines ON, and take a quick look around, so you can orient yourself with the orbital plane. Now point your ship 90 degrees straight up away from the star, so that the orbital rings and the star are getting smaller and smaller behind you. KEEP THE STAR TARGETED, so you can see how far away you are, and for purposes of orientation (this will be much clearer when I upload the video), until you reach about 2000ls 'above' the orbital plane. Now you want to level off and simply fly large circles around the star which is now way below you, kinda like a fly circling a plate of food, or a vulture circling a carcass, and you STAY between 1700 and 2000ls distant, flying at between 20 and 30c, and you wait for USSes.

If you get 5 USSes in a row that are not HGEs, either drop throttle to zero and drop into normal space, then return to supercruise to reset the instance, or log off and back on again. It's worth doing this in SOLO (or PG), because if you do it in Open, you may be matched in the supercruise instance with another player, which means that when you drop and re-enter supercruise, the instance will NOT reset, because you just joined the same instance as the other player again (which is persistent from the other player's point of view).

I hope this helps, and like I say I have a vid and a more detailed body of text incoming to serve as a guide for all forum users. I have already verified the effectiveness of this technique in 3.0, I have had no trouble getting HGEs with the goods I want. There are other techniques that work just as well, but I have never found one that works better, and I am 100% confident in this advice to both old and new players. I'ts something I've spent a lot of time observing. Good luck!!

This ^^^ is great advice.

 

[Aashenfox]

This ^^^ is great advice.

Thanks man, I'm glad it helped. I'll be honest and say I never got around to finishing the long version of my material farming guide, or making the vid, life took over then I got really annoyed with 3.1 changes and took a long break from the game, blah, blah. I'm back for now though, and I probably will finish it one day

 

[theohall]

After the latest updates and with the addition of Material Traders, no need to search for a specific item. Inara can point you to the nearest traders.

As to HGEs...

Imperial Boom systems seem to have plenty.
High Security War systems also seem to have plenty.

Do an intial FSS or use the Nav Beacon to find 1st FSS, grab it, re-scan with FSS, if no new HGEs, grab an ECE. Check again after. I'm basically getting another HGE after every 2nd ECE collected, without doing that deep space thing, in those two types of systems.

 

[Aashenfox]

After the latest updates and with the addition of Material Traders, no need to search for a specific item. Inara can point you to the nearest traders.

As to HGEs...

Imperial Boom systems seem to have plenty.
High Security War systems also seem to have plenty.

Do an intial FSS or use the Nav Beacon to find 1st FSS, grab it, re-scan with FSS, if no new HGEs, grab an ECE. Check again after. I'm basically getting another HGE after every 2nd ECE collected, without doing that deep space thing, in those two types of systems.

Until they fix it, you can just find an HGE you like and farm it until you are full. DRop into the HGE, scoop the stuff, now don't leave the HGE, just logout. Now log back in again (same mode, doesn't matter), and go to super cruise, and your HGE will be exactly where you left it nice and full of mats again. Abuse this before they fix it.

 

[Luniticisi]

I'm "missioning" around Deciat (I think that's how you spell it) and every time (yes, Every) I enter the system after a few missions there is at least one HGE in the system.

Now, I don't have a clue if that info is of any help to this discussion as I only found out what HGE's were yesterday

 

[D3rv1sh]

Until they fix it, you can just find an HGE you like and farm it until you are full. DRop into the HGE, scoop the stuff, now don't leave the HGE, just logout. Now log back in again (same mode, doesn't matter), and go to super cruise, and your HGE will be exactly where you left it nice and full of mats again. Abuse this before they fix it.

This isn't abusing anything. It's nothing more than a convenient workaround to the pathetic blundering of Frontier AGAIN. Quite frankly I'm getting really tired with their bull. Let's just reset the whole BGS. Oh yes we're continuously monitoring the BGS for any inconsistencies. Sure you are Frontier. In the mean time while you're counting your cash flow of the last year and feasting and gorging yourself with your christmas bonuses and greasy food, the community themselves are more actively monitoring the BGS, reporting issues with it and finding workarounds for your incompetence. While in the mean time your only response is, oh that's not intended, we're going to nerf that in a future patch. How about you give some comments on the pathetic state of the BGS? How about you set your gears in motion and fix this mess.

 

[FNLWA]

This isn't abusing anything. It's nothing more than a convenient workaround to the pathetic blundering of Frontier AGAIN. Quite frankly I'm getting really tired with their bull. Let's just reset the whole BGS. Oh yes we're continuously monitoring the BGS for any inconsistencies. Sure you are Frontier. In the mean time while you're counting your cash flow of the last year and feasting and gorging yourself with your christmas bonuses and greasy food, the community themselves are more actively monitoring the BGS, reporting issues with it and finding workarounds for your incompetence. While in the mean time your only response is, oh that's not intended, we're going to nerf that in a future patch. How about you give some comments on the pathetic state of the BGS? How about you set your gears in motion and fix this mess.

They're not even monitoring the bug reports since 20th December, which is now over two weeks. I'm honestly expecting them to patch the repeated FSS farming without fixing any of the HGE spawn issues that make it extremely difficult to obtain certain mats now.