Chemical manipulators as a mission reward...

[Rock Hunter]

I’ve never once been offered any Chemical Manipulators as a mission reward.

I know they’re easily picked up destroying Transports or driving around Dav’s for hours on end but are they actually offered as a mission reward still? Is there a specific mission type, particular Power or Station economy that offers them more often?

Am I unlucky in the extreme?

I need forty two of them, there’s no rush as they’re for a few builds I’m just experimenting with, but I’d love to get them picking up missions rather than cheesing Dav’s - although I’d happily enough spend a few hours blowing up unlucky transports in an Anarchy system.

Anyone had any luck with them?

 

[SlickPBW]

I have never seen them as a mission reward.

They don’t only pop out of transports. High level big combat ships drop them also. Try haz res, pirate activity USSs and similar places where you can find higher level baddies.

 

[Bottom Hat]

As above. Never seen as a mission reward, I think it's one of those lies...

But as Slick said, tough pirates drop them quite easily - either hunt in a res, or you find the deadly conda mission guys drop them too, along with most of them dropping a grade 5 rare one too.

 

[Ydiss]

There's a finite list of mats you can get as mission rewards. I don't know all the g4s or lower but it's a really short list. G5s is just EFC, MEF and BCs.

INARA

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

inara.cz

Don't think it's listed as mission reward there. Where did you see that it was?

 

[Rock Hunter]

There's a finite list of mats you can get as mission rewards. I don't know all the g4s or lower but it's a really short list. G5s is just EFC, MEF and BCs.

INARA

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

inara.cz

Don't think it's listed as mission reward there. Where did you see that it was?

ED Engineer lists them as a mission reward as does the Elite Wiki

https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Chemical_Manipulators

There‘s so much ED info online I suppose there has to be some errant information among it all.

As everyone mentioned above, there’s always the combat route which is fun enough. I just thought if they are available as mission rewards I’d like to know how to be offered them.

Oh well, I’ll just break out one of my Corvettes and hoover up some Elite Anaconda debris.☠

 

[Screemonster]

When engineers were first released, missions offered a much more diverse pool of rewards and you got them whether you wanted them or not (reward choice wasn't a thing back then) and some of the information on third party sites is based on information that dates back to 2.4 or earlier.

 

[Borko]

Hit an anarchy nav beacon and start popping asp scouts. CMs fly out of those things like confetti.

 

[Screemonster]

Hit an anarchy nav beacon and start popping asp scouts. CMs fly out of those things like confetti.

Another good source for CMs is to find a system that generates good stacks of pirate lord assassinations, since those 'vettes and condas often drop pharmaceutical isolators, which in addition to being difficult to find in USSs and essential for dirty drives, can be traded for CMs.

An ideal system for generating such missions is one with only one other system with an anarchist faction within 10ly (so all the assassinations and massacres send you to that system) and isn't a wide binary system so the mission signal sources don't get spread out too far. Ys is a good one that I can vouch for myself as I was based out of there for a while, but I've also heard good things about Ethen.

 

[Maymo]

Encoded emissions in pretty much any system will drop them...

Best bet is to go to an independent outbreak system and hunt both encoded and HGE's, that way you might get a nice PI drop thrown in as well.

 

[Esteban]

I have many of these. I would have collected them a while ago when I would stop at pretty much all EEs, DEs, HGEs to pick up Mats. This was before I knew or cared to learn about the different things dropped in different systems states for each of these sites.
I have to agree that Encoded emissions sites are probably the place to look; this was before the days when I could take on an NPC Anaconda, let alone Corvette.

Happy hunting!

 

[Northpin]

I get them by trading down PI

 

[Ydiss]

I get them by trading down PI

I use them as an excuse to play fake pirate for an hour, murdering trade ships in anarchy.

What? What did I do wrong? They should play in open if they don't want me to gank them.

 

[Mercury7]

Mats trader, if you get desperate.

I saw CM as mission rewards at outposts in Imperial space just last week. Go where the faction is at war. You might need some rep first to get the missions, but they are there.