Engineers Can't store commodities, can't carry them. What to do?

JetsonRING · Oct 30, 2016

So I have to collect this stuff so the Engineers will modify my ship. Seems like every NPC in the game is somehow omniscient and always know I have this stuff. If I carry this stuff around in my ship I am interdicted multiple times every time I leave the station. I just flew from one station to another, in-system (PEW-1901 to SMJL Central), a 5-minute flight and was interdicted 3 times (4 if you count the one that interdicted me twice). Oh, yeah: I can't store this stuff anywhere either. :S

So my choices appear to be: Don't attempt to modify my ship because I will have to fight my way across the galaxy for the 4 tons of modular terminals in my hold or,

Fight, Fight, Fight, Fight, Fight, Fight, Fight, Fight, Fight, Fight, Fight, Fight, to get across a single system. Is this Elite Dangerous or the Itchy & Scratchy Show?

Chris Simon · Oct 30, 2016

Why don't you go to the engineer and use it, then?

Modify the module you want to modify. Then store the module (if it's meant for another ship)

NeilF · Oct 30, 2016

Chris Simon said:
Why don't you go to the engineer and use it, then?

Modify the module you want to modify. Then store the module (if it's meant for another ship)

What if you've not leveled up yet? eg: It's for grade 5 and you're at grade 1-4? Bin it?

What if you're working on another blueprint? Bin all the ones you don't need for that one?

What if you see a mission reward for a very rare cargo you know you'll need in the future? Ignore it?

It's a poor bit of design that's causing a lot of people a lot of hassle... We need storage for engineer related cargo... Or cargo removed from blue prints. Asap!

rrobes · Oct 30, 2016

If you're flying your Corvette, then these interdictions shouldn't be a bother, just blast them after you submit. I just flew all over the place with 33t+ of stuff for engineers and just used it as bait. Usually after killing a few of them you're left alone for a time.

If you haven't modded your Corvette, then you may not be able to do what I do. FD wants you to do one engineer at a time and builds in the interdictions to inhibit carrying extra items.

Chris Simon · Oct 30, 2016

I'm not saying that commodity storage is a bad thing. Quite the opposite.
And FD acknowledged that and they said they will give it to us when it's ready.

I only wanted to point out that there is a way around it.
And honestly, leveling an engineer to rank 5 is a matter of an hour of rock shooting and then a couple dozens of grade 1 sulfur mods.

bitstorm · Oct 30, 2016

NeilF said:
What if you've not leveled up yet? eg: It's for grade 5 and you're at grade 1-4? Bin it?

What if you're working on another blueprint? Bin all the ones you don't need for that one?

What if you see a mission reward for a very rare cargo you know you'll need in the future? Ignore it?

I think there's only two cargo types you need for grade 5 that you can't just buy from a commodity market.

I don't think any of them are THAT rare really. Just worry about it when unlock grade 5.

Mikey2305 · Oct 30, 2016

If its modular terminals then presumably its just to level up in which case you can drop them off as you acquire them. As someone has said its only a couple of things you need for the mods and you can get them as you go. One is those pesky cooling hoses which are never there when i want them and always are when i dont!...

Eera · Oct 30, 2016

grind !

Chris Simon · Oct 30, 2016

Freedom!

JetsonRING · Oct 30, 2016

Having difficulty obtaining arsenic.

JetsonRING · Oct 30, 2016

Mikey2305 said:
If its modular terminals then presumably its just to level up in which case you can drop them off as you acquire them. As someone has said its only a couple of things you need for the mods and you can get them as you go. One is those pesky cooling hoses which are never there when i want them and always are when i dont!...

Currently (this afternoon) carrying around 4 tons modular terminals and this morning picked up 4 tons energy grid assemblies. So now I need specialized legacy firmware, micro-weave cooling hoses, arsenic and have to go buy some magnetic emitter coils. By the time I collect this stuff I'll be dragging half the galaxy's NPC pirates around behind me. The modular terminals come and go except when needed as do the energy grid assemblies and cooling hoses. Arsenic seems to show up randomly as a mission reward. Mag-coils I will buy when I need them. If we were just allowed to store stuff in other ships we own this would not be a problem!

JetsonRING · Oct 30, 2016

rrobes said:
If you're flying your Corvette, then these interdictions shouldn't be a bother, just blast them after you submit. I just flew all over the place with 33t+ of stuff for engineers and just used it as bait. Usually after killing a few of them you're left alone for a time.

If you haven't modded your Corvette, then you may not be able to do what I do. FD wants you to do one engineer at a time and builds in the interdictions to inhibit carrying extra items.

Betty is fine so far, I am working her through the Engineers one-at-a-time, just finished with fish-lady except going to try for better FSD rolls. But I am not flying Betty right now, am farming Imperial rank around Aditi and so figured I would spring for and Imperial Courier. Lots cheaper and not so conspicuous in Imperial space, all the data delivery missions are dropping the more common materials & commodities rewards into the holds, have to keep selling them in the CM but I keep 4 tons of each on hand in case that rarer commodity or material drops that I actually need. If we could store "stuff" that we are not using in other ships we own this would never have been a problem for anyone.

bitstorm · Oct 30, 2016

JetsonRING said:
Currently (this afternoon) carrying around 4 tons modular terminals and this morning picked up 4 tons energy grid assemblies. So now I need specialized legacy firmware, micro-weave cooling hoses, arsenic and have to go buy some magnetic emitter coils. By the time I collect this stuff I'll be dragging half the galaxy's NPC pirates around behind me. The modular terminals come and go except when needed as do the energy grid assemblies and cooling hoses. Arsenic seems to show up randomly as a mission reward. Mag-coils I will buy when I need them. If we were just allowed to store stuff in other ships we own this would not be a problem!

You can just buy magnetic emitter coils and energy grid assemblies from markets when you need them.

No need to hoard them, can just buy when you are ready.

racer1 · Oct 30, 2016

I created a thread the other day advising how to minimise the pain of no storage.

Basically almost all level 5 and most level 4 mods have commodities that can bought. Rank up to level 4 using level 1 very common mats (takes about 60) then only do mods that have commodities that can be bought.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/302237-Avoiding-Commodity-Storage-An-Efficient-Strategy

JetsonRING · Oct 30, 2016

Seems like in-system travel has a lot to do with it as well. If I fly in-systems from one station to another, NPCs are all over me like white on rice but, when I started "X"-ing between the two stations in Aditi (PEW & SMJL) and the two in (whatever that systems is with the long, unpronounceable name) Diamond and Dolgov, interdictions dropped way off, apparently because I was not supercruising station-to-station in-system.

Joe Giha · Oct 30, 2016

JetsonRING said:
Oh, yeah: I can't store this stuff anywhere either. :S

No storage for engineers required commodities is a big nerve in gameplay, you can trash hours of grind and gameplay and discard the rare commodities, it is also not possible to move in smaller ships with a larger cargo hold.

Maybe someone tell FD about this big issue and wait for next update, maybe they fix it.

Frenotx · Oct 31, 2016

My suggestion: stop hauling the commodities around. Only gather commodities for the mods you're about to make, and only get those after you have all the other stuff. Any time you may save by holding on to commodities "that might be handy later" is lost to the constant interdiction. I've fully modified a handful of ships more using that approach, and it's fairly pain free.

GG7 · Oct 31, 2016

JetsonRING said:
So I have to collect this stuff so the Engineers will modify my ship. Seems like every NPC in the game is somehow omniscient and always know I have this stuff. If I carry this stuff around in my ship I am interdicted multiple times every time I leave the station. I just flew from one station to another, in-system (PEW-1901 to SMJL Central), a 5-minute flight and was interdicted 3 times (4 if you count the one that interdicted me twice). Oh, yeah: I can't store this stuff anywhere either. :S

So my choices appear to be: Don't attempt to modify my ship because I will have to fight my way across the galaxy for the 4 tons of modular terminals in my hold or,

Fight, Fight, Fight, Fight, Fight, Fight, Fight, Fight, Fight, Fight, Fight, Fight, to get across a single system. Is this Elite Dangerous or the Itchy & Scratchy Show?

THIS is the BANE of our existence no doubt! Frontier has hinted that commodity storage IS coming in a future update, but it sounded like the storage will be limited to Engineer Bases only vs how module storage works. But I think that would be fine for the bulk of how commodities are used within this context.

What I do when working up a new round of upgrades post module storage is try to use a ship that can accommodate the range of module classes you could share between ships. In the case of weapons of course which are not generally ship specific, its best to pick an "Upgrade Mule" that holds a lot of stuff. For me, that Mule is my Anaconda.

Determine your specific upgrade requirements and set out to obtain all those including any market available commodities. * I go as far as sourcing the commodities to specific systems, so I can add them to my various routes and don't waste time jumping all the way back to X to pick up some Ion Distributors that I could have grabbed in a previous trip to a nearby system.

But the last thing you want to do is go about this in such a way that you find yourself selling off or dumping hard to find commodities because you need to change ships in order to run additional upgrades.

So bottom line as others have aptly pointed out... Don't go about Engineer upgrades willy nilly. PLAN the process, determine your A to Z requirements, pick a good ship that can hold a lot of modules and weapons for the purpose of ultimately being used in other ships and not specifically your MULE, and ....

* Don't BUY the bulk of your market sourced commodities until you are just about to head to the Engineer (s) bases.

HazardousMatt · Oct 31, 2016

Wouldn't the easiest fix for FD is to delete all required commodities from the blueprints? If theyre worried about commodity storage because players could exploit it then instead of round robbing this for months just delete them from the blueprints. Problem solved.

Chris Simon · Oct 31, 2016

HazardousMatt said:
Wouldn't the easiest fix for FD is to delete all required commodities from the blueprints? If theyre worried about commodity storage because players could exploit it then instead of round robbing this for months just delete them from the blueprints. Problem solved.

The mods are ridiculously easy to obtain as it is. From slowly tuning your ship for months, as it was at the begining, we have, thanks to countless whining PvPers, a system where you can have the whole ship engineered to the hell and back in a day or two. And you want to speed it up by another quarter?