Colonia Engineers: Advice required.

Stealthie

Stealthie
I've been meaning to unlock the engineers in Colonia and we've got this 250 million Ly goal-thing so I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone and toddle off to Colonia for a bit.

Plan is to make the trip in my Jumpaconda and then buy a Python out there, max it out and leave it there permanently.
Already bought a full set of internals for it (both Multi-role and mining kit) and have them in storage at Ohm City so if there's any parts I can't buy out there I'll just transfer them across.
Also sorted out all my remote-engineering so I can apply every mod' I need for the Python and then just hit-up the Colonia engineers for the XFX.


Anything else I might need to think about before I set off?

Marsha Hicks wants 10 units of Osmium to unlock her. Presumably I can mine that near Colonia, somewhere?
Petra Olmanova wants 200 units of Progenitor Cells, which EDDB tells me I can buy near Colonia.
Benny Hill Etienne Dorn wants 25 occupied escape pods. Not sure about those but I'm hoping to pick some up during the trip and I guess I'll be able to find the rest somewhere out there?
Also, I fear for the safety of the occupants of those escape pods.
Mel Brandon needs me to get an invite from some outfit in Colonia, which I assume is just a case of running missions to get allied with them?

What's Colonia like for finding mat's, if I need them?

Am I missing anything else?
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
Stealthie said:
Marsha Hicks wants 10 units of Osmium to unlock her. Presumably I can mine that near Colonia, somewhere?
Petra Olmanova wants 200 units of Progenitor Cells, which EDDB tells me I can buy near Colonia.
Benny Hill Etienne Dorn wants 25 occupied escape pods. Not sure about those but I'm hoping to pick some up during the trip and I guess I'll be able to find the rest somewhere out there?
Also, I fear for the safety of the occupants of those escape pods.
Mel Brandon needs me to get an invite from some outfit in Colonia, which I assume is just a case of running missions to get allied with them?

What's Colonia like for finding mat's, if I need them?
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Marsha Hicks: any metal-rich or metallic ring will contain plenty of Osmium, and everywhere is Pristine.

Petra Olmanova: any high-tech system sells the Cells, and we have a lot of high-techs. Ogmar and Pyrrha are the nearest to her base for a large-pad ship, or if you buy the Python first you can get them from Macrath which is extremely close.

Etienne Dorn: the *efficient* way to get these is by using hatchbreakers on the damaged megaship "distress call" POI in Luchtaine (or one of the Unauthorised Installations if you want a bit more excitement) which will give you about 15 per visit.

Mel Brandon: dock your Anaconda at the Dove Enigma megaship and sell a few million of exploration data on arrival to get to Friendly with Colonia Council - there are plenty of other ways to get the rep, of course, but that's the quickest for an arriving explorer. Then hop around the various stations in Colonia until the invite mission shows up. Bring 100k of independent bounties as well.

For getting your rep up quickest, the highest grade mods available at each engineer are:
G4 Collector Limpets
G4 Armour
G3 Life Support (but it'll probably be G4 by the time you arrive)
G5 Engines (or a wide range of G3s if you want to contribute to research)
if that affects what materials you want to get before you set off.

Finding materials: it's pretty much the same as anywhere else. Imperial Shielding and Core Dynamic Composites require power-aligned HGEs, so you won't get them here except as random drops from high-end NPCs. HGEs in general are not ideal for mass farming as the system populations are low. There's no "Dav's Hope" equivalents, either. Get allied with factions and there are plenty of missions offering high-grade materials.

All three material traders are present, though not where you might expect them to be based on economies. They're in Coeus, Kojeara and Ratraii systems.
 

ADAMtheWELSHMANz

ADAMtheWELSHMANz
I flew a fully engineered mining Python out there 2 months ago and shipped weapons on arrival. Perfect ship to unlock all the engineers and pin blueprints (though bear in mind if they "level up" you need to re-pin them)

Decided to leave the Python there and suicide back to the bubble. Currently I'm back in the Colonia area working on my Codex and plan to do another round robin of pinning blueprints

In the future I may move to Colonia permanently as the 4 engineers will eventually offer all engineering mods within a 40ly radius
 

Speedcuffs

Speedcuffs
I flew out there last month in my DBX.
Unlocked all the engineers out there over three days and maxed them all out.
Bought a Krait to do it all in and left it out there.
Totally do-able.

Good luck Stealthie! o7
 

Stealthie

Stealthie
Speedcuffs said:
I flew out there last month in my DBX.
Unlocked all the engineers out there over three days and maxed them all out.
Bought a Krait to do it all in and left it out there.
Totally do-able.

Good luck Stealthie! o7
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Great stuff. [up]

Main thing is, I want to avoid a scenario where I get out there and find one of the engineers wants something from the bubble, or some module isn't available there.

Now I just need to find the PSU for my laptop so I can watch episodes of Stargate or Xena :)o) on the way.
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
Stealthie said:
What's the deal with stuff like hatchbreakers and recon limpets out there?
Are they available or should I buy 'em in the bubble?

That'll be much less hassle than picking up escape pods en-route.
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https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/outfitting/current is the regional equipment list

Basically we've got everything except some of the larger A-rated core and shields modules, and some of the larger B-rated core modules might be out of stock.

Limpet controllers are easy to get.
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
ADAMtheWELSHMANz said:
(though bear in mind if they "level up" you need to re-pin them)
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Are you sure about this? I pinned a bunch of them before 3.3 was released and they upgraded themselves without needing to revisit. I used that feature to figure out what the upgraded levels were for a few blueprints, since launch day was so unstable I couldn't actually reach the engineer base. Obviously it could well have changed since.
 

ADAMtheWELSHMANz

ADAMtheWELSHMANz
Ian Doncaster said:
Are you sure about this? I pinned a bunch of them before 3.3 was released and they upgraded themselves without needing to revisit. I used that feature to figure out what the upgraded levels were for a few blueprints, since launch day was so unstable I couldn't actually reach the engineer base. Obviously it could well have changed since.
Click to expand...

I'm completely and utterly 100% totally and inexcusably WRONG!

Apologies for mis-information, dug out this from the Xolonia Engineers thread awhile back


"EDIT: I should also mention, if you pin a blueprint with one of these engineers, and the engineer later researches a more advanced version, you get that added to your pin without needing to go back - so if e.g. you're after G4 Life Support without having to unlock Jameson, you can just pin the current G2 one (throw in some local rolls to help it on its way!) and then head out again and it'll upgrade itself."

*walks away, head hung in shame
 

Speedcuffs

Speedcuffs
ADAMtheWELSHMANz said:
I'm completely and utterly 100% totally and inexcusably WRONG!

Apologies for mis-information, dug out this from the Xolonia Engineers thread awhile back


"EDIT: I should also mention, if you pin a blueprint with one of these engineers, and the engineer later researches a more advanced version, you get that added to your pin without needing to go back - so if e.g. you're after G4 Life Support without having to unlock Jameson, you can just pin the current G2 one (throw in some local rolls to help it on its way!) and then head out again and it'll upgrade itself."

*walks away, head hung in shame
Click to expand...

Having said that, there have been a few bug reports of pinned blueprints 'dropping off'.

Bit annoying if you're back in the bubble and your Colonia BPs drop off.

Mind you, I forgot to pin them anyway.:D
 
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Ervig

Ervig
Any recommendations for which blueprints to pin if you have all engineers unlocked in the bubble (pretty new to engineering, just started to unlock them)?
 
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Vedmo

Vedmo
Ervig said:
Any recommendations for which blueprints to pin if you have all engineers unlocked in the bubble (pretty new to engineering, just started to unlock them)?
Click to expand...

The main ones are increased range FSD from Felicity and dirty drives when you take the trip to Maia, then whatever PP mod you'd use most (I have armored pinned) and charge enhanced PD. Outside of weapons, most of the bubble engineers have one G5, so it just becomes a choice of whatever you use the most. I also like to have a lightweight life support and long range sensor to put on D sensors pinned.

Stealthie, I only ever found a C (I think, maybe B?) PWA out there, so if you want an A for deep core mining, bring one along or leave one in storage to ship out there. I did all the engineers out there not long ago, and barely even remember the unlock process, it's really nice with everything 40-50 ly apart there. There was something I was screwing up when looking for the megaship escape pods, but eventually found it and don't remember the issue... if it isn't obvious right away, look for a recent guide for clarity (sorry so vague on that, just not remembering the issue I had).
 
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Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
Ervig said:
Any recommendations for which blueprints to pin if you have all engineers unlocked in the bubble (pretty new to engineering, just started to unlock them)?
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If you mean "which blueprints to pin with Colonia engineers" then for someone returning to the bubble I'd pick:

Brandon: Shield Cell Banks (currently G3, but if it gets to G4 it'll be exclusive) - both SCB blueprints are useful in the right circumstances: rapid charge for PvP and specialised for PvE. Or if you like lasers, pin your second-favourite type of laser here and you'll eventually between Brandon and Tarquin have two laser blueprints pinned.

Dorn: Life Support (currently G3, but if it gets to G5 it'll be exclusive) - lightweight is generally the most useful type.

Hicks: Multicannons (currently G3) because then you can pin railguns with Tod McQuinn. Probably overcharged as the specific blueprint. If you're not going for weapons, the rest of her blueprints are secondary utilities - you might as well pin a lightweight limpet controller of some sort.

Olmanova: Tough choice here, as she's got a lot of rare blueprints. You can either go for Armour (G4) or HRP (G3) to fill in whichever one you don't have from Selene Jean, or you can go for Heatsinks/Chaff so together with Ram Tah you can have a blueprint pinned on each (probably high-capacity).


If you're talking about which blueprints to pin with engineers more generally, I'd probably initially go for:
Farseer: G3 Dirty Drives (until you unlock Palin, then switch to fill in gaps)
Dweller: G5 Charge Enhanced Distributor
McQuinn: G5 Overcharged Multicannon or G5 Long-range Railgun
Martuuk: G5 Long Range FSD [1]
Ryder: unless you like missiles, I'd go for G1 heavy duty HRP.

The rest of the bubble engineers mostly only have one type of G5 blueprint (or like Broo Tarquin, a few G5s on very similar ones) and you should usually pin one of those. There are quite a few choices for G5 Sensors, so decide based on what else they have.

[1] Or you can e.g. pin G5 FSD with Farseer and G3 shield generator with Martuuk until you unlock Lei Cheung. There's a few options here depending on what order you expect to unlock the advanced engineers, how many ships you expect to engineer, and what order you expect to engineer them in.
 

Stealthie

Stealthie
Ervig said:
Any recommendations for which blueprints to pin if you have all engineers unlocked in the bubble (pretty new to engineering, just started to unlock them)?
Click to expand...

Here's what I've got pinned:-

Bill Turner: Light Weight Sensors
Broo Tarquin: Efficient lasers
Col Bris Dekker: Long Range Interdictor
Didi Vatermann: HD Shield Boosters
Elvira Martuuk: nothing
Felicity Farseer: Long Range FSD
Hera Tani: Armored PP
Juri Ishmaak: Enhanced DSS
Lei Chung: Thermal Resist Shield
Liz Ryder: nothing
Lori Jameson: Light Weight Life Support
Marco Qwent: Overcharged PP
Prof Palin: Dirty Drives
Ram Tah: Light Weight Point Defence
Selene Jean: Light Weight armor
The Dweller: Charge Enhanced PDist
The Sarge: Light Weight Collector
Tiana Fortune: Long Range Wake Scanner
Tod McQuinn: Long Range MC
Zac Nemo: Double Shot FC

Only things I'm not entirely happy with are Shield Boosters and Hull Armor.

I would have liked to be able to pin both Resistance Augmented and Heavy Duty blueprints.
Since RA boosters are lighter than HD boosters, I stuck 4 RA boosters to my Annie and pinned the HD blueprint.

I would also have liked to pin the Heavy Duty Hull Armor blueprint as well as Light Weight.
The Python I'm going to build in Colonia is going to have Light Weight Mil Armor so I pinned the Light Weight blueprint.

Lastly, I pinned the G5 Armored PP blueprint from Hera Tani and the G4 Overcharged PP blueprint from Marco Qwent cos I figure I'm more likely to need a G5 Armored mod' to get maximum power from a PP whereas if I need to G5 Overcharge a PP it's probably time to just go up to the next size so G4 Overcharged will suffice.

It's taken me weeks, on and off, to get that list of pinned blueprints sorted. :eek:

*EDIT*

Not really sure what to expect from the Colonia engineers.

If I can find a way to pin either HD armor or Light Weight armor that'll be nice cos then I can just pin the other one from Selene Jean.
Similar thing with Shield Boosters. If I can pin either RA or HD I can then pin the other one from Didi Vatermann.

Will also have a look at what Ian said with regard to MC/Rail blueprints though.
If I can pin a G5 Long Range MC blueprint in Colonia, I'll be able to pin the Long Range Rail blueprint from Tod McQuinn.
 
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Ervig

Ervig
Awesome thanks for the suggestions. Yes I meant pinning in Colonia, but I will also keep in mind the suggestions for the bubble engineers. Thanks!
 
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CLG 6

CLG 6
Ian Doncaster said:
If you mean "which blueprints to pin with Colonia engineers" then for someone returning to the bubble I'd pick:

Brandon: Shield Cell Banks (currently G3, but if it gets to G4 it'll be exclusive) - both SCB blueprints are useful in the right circumstances: rapid charge for PvP and specialised for PvE. Or if you like lasers, pin your second-favourite type of laser here and you'll eventually between Brandon and Tarquin have two laser blueprints pinned.

Dorn: Life Support (currently G3, but if it gets to G5 it'll be exclusive) - lightweight is generally the most useful type.

Hicks: Multicannons (currently G3) because then you can pin railguns with Tod McQuinn. Probably overcharged as the specific blueprint. If you're not going for weapons, the rest of her blueprints are secondary utilities - you might as well pin a lightweight limpet controller of some sort.

Olmanova: Tough choice here, as she's got a lot of rare blueprints. You can either go for Armour (G4) or HRP (G3) to fill in whichever one you don't have from Selene Jean, or you can go for Heatsinks/Chaff so together with Ram Tah you can have a blueprint pinned on each (probably high-capacity).


If you're talking about which blueprints to pin with engineers more generally, I'd probably initially go for:
Farseer: G3 Dirty Drives (until you unlock Palin, then switch to fill in gaps)
Dweller: G5 Charge Enhanced Distributor
McQuinn: G5 Overcharged Multicannon or G5 Long-range Railgun
Martuuk: G5 Long Range FSD [1]
Ryder: unless you like missiles, I'd go for G1 heavy duty HRP.

The rest of the bubble engineers mostly only have one type of G5 blueprint (or like Broo Tarquin, a few G5s on very similar ones) and you should usually pin one of those. There are quite a few choices for G5 Sensors, so decide based on what else they have.

[1] Or you can e.g. pin G5 FSD with Farseer and G3 shield generator with Martuuk until you unlock Lei Cheung. There's a few options here depending on what order you expect to unlock the advanced engineers, how many ships you expect to engineer, and what order you expect to engineer them in.
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Thanks for this information. I'm currently in Colonia and this answers some questions.
 

Noonien Soong

Noonien Soong
As far as I know there are seven engineers in colonia.

For ships:

petra olmanova
marsha hicks
mel brandon

For suits and weapons:

elanor bresa
rosa dayette
baltanos
yi shen

I am currently boosting my combat rank for petra olmanova and plan to travel to colonia and unlock some of these engineers and level them up.
 
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