Engineering upgrades?

[commander craigorious]

So this engineering is confusing for e.g below screen shot the engineer says this and that for upgrades but gives no indication what where to go? some ask for more reputation but doesn't say how where or what to do to attain the next upgrade? Are some engineers just not worth the trouble? Some give missions that's fine and clear but some requirement's are very ambiguous.

mmmmm cmdr CC

 

[shockbait]

So this engineering is confusing for e.g below screen shot the engineer says this and that for upgrades but gives no indication what where to go? some ask for more reputation but doesn't say how where or what to do to attain the next upgrade? Are some engineers just not worth the trouble? Some give missions that's fine and clear but some requirement's are very ambiguous.

mmmmm cmdr CC

What this screen is telling you is that you have unlocked grade 1 access from Lei Cheung, in order to rank up to grade 2 access, you need to upgrade(engineer) your modules at Lei Cheungs base. That empty bar beside the hexagon with a "1" will begin to fill with each engineering modification you apply, until you reach grade 2(the hexagon will change to display "2"), and continue in this manner until you reach grade 5(maximum).

 

[Hooplah]

As modules are upgraded with a specific engineer their rating increases. Some also like cardiographic data delivered to them. A player can also upgrade the engineering rating using widely available grade 1 materials say phosphorus and maganese for a lightweight sensor, delete the upgrade in outfitting then repeat multiple times with the same module. Note this does not work with remote engineering so be at the engineer's station.

 

[commander craigorious]

so how many engineers does one need as they seem to double up on what they offer .. I think I've unlocked them all are their advantages or disadvantages. Also I have a Krait Phantom weapons are missiles x2 and 2x 3c beam lasers without increasing mass Id like to have more powerful weapons what do people suggest? what are the plasma lasers like? Mayb an option. CC

 

[Untilting]

They all do different mods to different levels:

Engineers | Elite:Dangerous | INARA

A complete list of all engineers in Elite with all their blueprints, locations, and unlock requirements.

inara.cz

At the start Felicity Farseer's good to get FSDs and Thrusters upgraded, Marco Quent for Power Plant and Distributor. Then on to shields and weapons...

One reason to unlock the full set of engineers is for the blueprints, you can pin one of those per engineer and use remotely without visiting them. So you might want to pin Power Plant - Overcharged from one engineer and Power Plant - Armoured from another. I found an old thread on this (below) to give you some ideas but there's no definitive setup - your own optimal list would come down to playstyle, weapons preferences etc.

Optimal way to pin engineering blueprints after unlocking and ranking up all engineers

After a lot of grinding I've finally unlocked and ranked up all the engineers. After unlocking the engineers in Colonia, I started thinking about the optimal way to pin blueprints. I'm mostly a PvE and exploration player, so if you're PvP this might not be the best arrangement, but for my fleet...

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[Fish172]

For the beam weapons go for efficient if you want to keep mass down, they will be lighter, more powerful and use less power. There are more powerful options but that is a good balance.

 

[Ydiss]

I recommend downloading and installing this:

GitHub - jixxed/ed-odyssey-materials-helper: Elite Dangerous Odyssey Materials Helper

Elite Dangerous Odyssey Materials Helper. Contribute to jixxed/ed-odyssey-materials-helper development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

It'll tell you what each engineer needs. Running this alongside Elite will track what you have and you can use it to plan what you will need. It gives you ideas how to get every single material as well (and a whole bunch more).

When it comes to actually building your ships, I recommend you use https://edsy.org/ to build your ships and select all the engineering you might want on it. You can then use the export function to send your entire wish list to EDMH, above, and it'll allow you to track your progress towards it.

And yeh, this all seems very extreme, doesn't it? That's Elite engineering. It's not too difficult if you use all the available tools but it's really not very fun if you try to just use the game to manage it all, as there's no centralised way to manage all the moving parts (even if you pin blueprints, you're still expected to do a whole bunch of mental gymnastics to keep a lid on the entire end-to-end process) and so you'll end up going from A to B to F to X and back to A when you forgot you needed something from there and had no way of tracking that need. You quickly realise you need to write stuff down and that's what we all did back before third party tools were written to handle it for us. I fully recommend using EDMH just to do the leg-work of managing your to-do lists because it connects to your game logs and tracks what you have against what you need and updates live as you get things. It's a must-have tool for those who wish to engineer their ships, in my opinion.

 

[commander craigorious]

So how many blue do I need to mine ... pffft this grind does get tiresome

cc

 

[commander craigorious]

"blue prints"

 

[Ydiss]

So how many blue do I need to mine ... pffft this grind does get tiresome

cc

I'd honestly just check inara for the logistics, mate. It's way too convoluted to break down here. That or try to make a start and use this thread to ask specific questions.

"how many blue prints... " is a tough question to answer. There are tons. Some less useful than others. If you're looking for build ideas, I suggest reading posts on the engineers forum here.

But you're probably too early to start that right now. Just check inara out to see what engineers exist and what you need to do to unlock them (it's bugged right now so you don't even need to do some of the unlocks). Pick something each one you want to level up can make, gather the stuff for those blue prints and get started making stuff for a ship. They'll soon level up to 3+ so you can unlock the next.

It is overwhelming, I know. It's not new player friendly whatsoever. I've been saying this for years but no one really cares. So you just need to take it one step at a time.

I'm hitting the same roadblock with my girlfriend. She's taken one look at me prospecting for my alt commander's first raw materials and she's just gone (literally tonight), "nah, just don't fancy that at all" and we left it to go do EDO stuff again.

I'm convinced most players get seriously turned off by it. But if you do want to upgrade your ships then you'll need to eat the big frog and get on with it. Several big frogs. Repeatedly.

Aim to get your FSD upgraded first (so Elvira or Farseer). I recommend Elvira because she leads to Palin (best engine upgrades). You'll want to make the fsd jump range blue print with mass manager. Inara will tell you what you'll need (or visit the engineer and check it out there).

 

[commander craigorious]

thanks stealth boy helpful Im quite away in on building up ships engineering .. what I'm finding instead of building a nice credit bal I end up spending more time looking for stuff for engineering purposes .. its daunting at times got to level 4 fsd etc so jump range is getting up some engineers in 3 to 2s engineering nuts but it seems getting engineering reputation takes a lot more, but the game never really tells you how nor does the engineer you just get you need to build up lower levels to unlock he higher levels never really telling you how or your rep isn't enough. I just keep grinding away.

cheers

 

[Fnord Velkor]

thanks stealth boy helpful Im quite away in on building up ships engineering .. what I'm finding instead of building a nice credit bal I end up spending more time looking for stuff for engineering purposes .. its daunting at times got to level 4 fsd etc so jump range is getting up some engineers in 3 to 2s engineering nuts but it seems getting engineering reputation takes a lot more, but the game never really tells you how nor does the engineer you just get you need to build up lower levels to unlock he higher levels never really telling you how or your rep isn't enough. I just keep grinding away.

cheers

Building your "rep" with an Engineer (increasing your access level) - is achieved by performing modifications at that Engineer's workshop (but not in a "remote workshop").

Whilst it is true that certain things can also give some increase (such as exploration data to Farseer) such gains are incredibly small and really can be ignored*. You can quickly progress to level 5 access by performing increasing levels of a modification to just one module.


* e.g. Why waste millions of exploration data at Farseer to gain access level that can be obtained by a few modification actions - that data could be better used to gain reputation with those minor factions which are needed for other Engineer acess - Sirius Corporation for Quent, Party of Yoru for Nemo, Eurybia Blue Mafia for Ryder, etc.

 

[Tyres O'Flaherty]

I'd honestly just check inara for the logistics, mate. It's way too convoluted to break down here. That or try to make a start and use this thread to ask specific questions.

"how many blue prints... " is a tough question to answer. There are tons. Some less useful than others. If you're looking for build ideas, I suggest reading posts on the engineers forum here.

But you're probably too early to start that right now. Just check inara out to see what engineers exist and what you need to do to unlock them (it's bugged right now so you don't even need to do some of the unlocks). Pick something each one you want to level up can make, gather the stuff for those blue prints and get started making stuff for a ship. They'll soon level up to 3+ so you can unlock the next.

It is overwhelming, I know. It's not new player friendly whatsoever. I've been saying this for years but no one really cares. So you just need to take it one step at a time.

I'm hitting the same roadblock with my girlfriend. She's taken one look at me prospecting for my alt commander's first raw materials and she's just gone (literally tonight), "nah, just don't fancy that at all" and we left it to go do EDO stuff again.

I'm convinced most players get seriously turned off by it. But if you do want to upgrade your ships then you'll need to eat the big frog and get on with it. Several big frogs. Repeatedly.

Aim to get your FSD upgraded first (so Elvira or Farseer). I recommend Elvira because she leads to Palin (best engine upgrades). You'll want to make the fsd jump range blue print with mass manager. Inara will tell you what you'll need (or visit the engineer and check it out there).

To add...

Some engineers have an "overlap" in that they'll provide similar upgrades.

As has been said, Inara is an invaluable resource for this (and many other things). Also, ED Discovery has "engineering" and "engineers" tabs that you may also find useful.

I've set up a blueprint for every engineer - although it's a shame you can't apply experimentals remotely and Ody engi's don't have blueprints you can use.

 

[Elpapo]

I've set up a blueprint for every engineer - although it's a shame you can't apply experimentals remotely and Ody engi's don't have blueprints you can use.

Indeed. Once done this - enginnering an new ship is just simply matter of visiting bunch of engineer bases and apply experimentals with it.. given if neccecary materials are in pocket.

Correctly pinned bluprints list wich cover entire internals and core modules, with some utility and some weapons and this can reduce engineering process from days into mere hours.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Engineers give you extremely OP gear. Most consider it worth it. You don't get told anything how to find stuff. That's why players use 3rd party software. Some use exploits and in general most agree that looking for the right ingredient isn't worth the hassle and just trade the mats. Because even if you know where it might spawn you still roll dice for a special PoI to appear and then you roll dice in that PoI for the right drop. You're better off playing roulette in a casino.