Do HGE's exist anymore?

Aharon · Jan 28, 2019

So, I thought 3.3 was supposed to make finding HGE's easier. Well, I've just jumped around to a dozen different star systems and found only ONE system that had an HGE, and it didn't even contain what I needed.

Is this supposed to be fun? What would be fun is if I could find the materials I need to engineer my ship.

Help? Thoughts? Advice?

Florenus · Jan 28, 2019

Material Trader.
Missions often offer G5 material rewards - you can trade them later for what you need.
You can also go and hunt NPC ships that drop a lot of materials when destroyed.

MottiKhan · Jan 28, 2019

It's fun because it's random. The HGE will be so far away that it'll expire before you get there or it'll have mats that are totally unrelated to the system state. Roll the dice. Spin the wheel.

Enjoy!

Shaamaan · Jan 28, 2019

To answer the question from the subject - yes, they exist. Yet getting them is as tedious and annoying as ever.

I think the current way is to filter highly populated systems in boom and just check those out for HGEs - don't be picky about the materials either and pick up whatever drops. Unfortunately this means that if you don't get the material you actually need then you need to visit a material trader.

As always, FDevs can't seem to hit the balance just right, with the HGEs being plentiful (and bugged, allowing people to farm them) post launch, to the current aggravating, RNG-based affair.

Odotom · Jan 28, 2019

Hiyo CMDR,

I was of the same thinking up until this weekend. What I do now is go into Empire or Federation space depending what you want but it doesn't really matter. Then set a route across the bubble and change your route options to only fly through Boom systems or whatever state you are looking for. Then start flying across the bubble and every time you jump into a new system, honk and then scan the Nav beacon. Filter your left panel for only signal sources and find your HGE!
It's up to you to decide if there's time to reach it or the will to fly that far.

At this point I turn my brain off and enter autopilot.

An hour or eternity later you have what you want or enough for the trader.
Happy flying CMDR.

Mugur · Jan 28, 2019

They do exist and the situation is not so bad...

Check my thread in Engineers forum: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...ns-in-3-3-03-still-chaos-but-farming-is-good!

sollisb · Jan 28, 2019

Yes they exist, have found plenty since 3.3. Found on the other night with 12 G5 and 3 G4. The only problem was I was in a Beluga which seems to have a cargo scoop the size of needle head.

Deareim · Jan 28, 2019

Odotom said:
Hiyo CMDR,

I was of the same thinking up until this weekend. What I do now is go into Empire or Federation space depending what you want but it doesn't really matter. Then set a route across the bubble and change your route options to only fly through Boom systems or whatever state you are looking for. Then start flying across the bubble and every time you jump into a new system, honk and then scan the Nav beacon. Filter your left panel for only signal sources and find your HGE!
It's up to you to decide if there's time to reach it or the will to fly that far.

At this point I turn my brain off and enter autopilot.

An hour or eternity later you have what you want or enough for the trader.
Happy flying CMDR.

That is some emergent gameplay right here ! Congrats FD !

veryDead · Jan 28, 2019

I'm having no problems finding HGE's

You have to jump to the right system type. Then, scan the nav beacon. If HGE's are present, see if you have enough time to get to it. If so, go collect your mats. If not, jump to the next system and repeat. Some systems had 3 HGE's with 30 minute timers so I got all three of them. Most had only one or two. On average every third one was unreachable due to the short expiration timer.

I did a string of about 50 jumps and found 20 HGEs yesterday. In 3 hours of playing, I collected hundreds of G5 mats and traded for what I needed. Easy as can be and I have a ton more for other engineering projects. It's much more straightforward than flying in circles for hours. Additionally, I was able to get system scans for exploration credits too.

I have adjusted my game playing to always scan the nav beacons when I jump into a new system whether I am currently engineering or not. Any HGE's show up and I just go get them, then get on with whatever I was doing. It adds a few minutes to the time in system, but it's worth doing automatically so I'm never short of G5's when I need them.