Engineers Give me your best tips to improve HGE farming

[VoluptaBox]

Hey guys (not sure if this is the correct section, but here we go),

I'm curious about the methods you guys use to farm different manufactured materials via HGEs. I have no issues getting Imperial Shieldings and the Composites (basically the materials found in Imperial/Federal space) and those in the boom state. However, I'm struggling to collect some of the ones found in the more rare states.

So, how do you guys go about farming your manufactured mats? Do you farm the common ones and then use the traders or do you try to target them directly? I'm talking strictly HGEs here, the other methods are another topic.

Also, please let's not turn this into a debate about the state of material farming and so on. Not really interested in that, I just want some tips

 

[Deleted member 38366]

I just grab HGEs as they come by.

As soon as I get "Materials Storage full" on a G4 Mat, it's time to visit the Mat Trader and trade common ones for less common ones.
Due to favorable Trade radios far downward, I've moved to entirely fill up G1 and G2 at the Trader and don't have to bother with any of these anymore at that point.

The only G3 ones I leave at mid-level are those common in typical HGEs, such as Proto Light Alloys. They're still useful to trade upwards when full, since they occur fairly often.

I can't recall being in a Materials crunch since a long time. Should I want to entirely engineer or re-engineer a Ship, I can just do it without having to care about "do I have enough Mats for it".

(Data I treat differently, those I trade upwards if one bucket tops 50... over time, gets me enough to have sufficient of everything even in the high-grade bucket)

 

[Northpin]

I pretty much prefer to do it in Imperial Space.
Most of the time if a HGE is listed as outbreak, it will have PI. In Fed Space, the same HGE will have Core Dynamics.
Even if you are unlucky at getting the rare ones, you will still top up on Imperial Shielding, Proto Heat Radiators and Proto Light/Radiolic stuff.

also check this, cba to retype it

 

[VoluptaBox]

I pretty much prefer to do it in Imperial Space.
Most of the time if a HGE is listed as outbreak, it will have PI. In Fed Space, the same HGE will have Core Dynamics.
Even if you are unlucky at getting the rare ones, you will still top up on Imperial Shielding, Proto Heat Radiators and Proto Light/Radiolic stuff.

also check this, cba to retype it

Nice! I remember seeing your comment in that thread and I even searched for it, but couldn't find it anymore. Appreciate it!
Firstly, I didn't know that the Fed state overrides other statuses. So unless I want those composites specifically, I should avoid the Feds.
Secondly, you mentioned 'drop even in HGE that are not specifically Outbreak'. Is there any way to figure out what a HGE is related to before dropping in? Or did you just mean farm them even if they're not PIs?

Cheers mate.

 

[Northpin]

Nice! I remember seeing your comment in that thread and I even searched for it, but couldn't find it anymore. Appreciate it!
Firstly, I didn't know that the Fed state overrides other statuses. So unless I want those composites specifically, I should avoid the Feds.
Secondly, you mentioned 'drop even in HGE that are not specifically Outbreak'. Is there any way to figure out what a HGE is related to before dropping in? Or did you just mean farm them even if they're not PIs?

Cheers mate.

Usually they're related to the faction state:

Core Dynamics should appear in a HGE generated by a FED aligned faction with NO State
Similarly, Imperial Shielding appear in a HGE generated by an Imp aligned faction with NO State
Proto Radiolic Alloys and Proto Heat Radiators appear in Boom/Investment HGE
Military SuperCapacitors and Military Grade Alloys appear from War / Civil War State
Improvised Components in Civil Unrest
Pharmaceutical Isolators in Outbreak

Military Supercapacitors, Improvised Components and Pharmaceutical Isolators are the rare ones
I've noticed that if i drop in a system, scan the nav beacon then go in supercruise (no time wasted), more often than not if a HGE is on low timer (usually below 10-15 minutes) it will have the rare component.

for example: a War / Civil war HGE with a 33 minute timer will most certainly contain Military Grade Alloys. If the timer is 7-10 minutes it will have the Supercapacitors
But we're talking about New HGE's here. If you stay in the nav beacon 15 minutes to kill some poor sods, this wont help you since the HGE already aged

 

[VoluptaBox]

for example: a War / Civil war HGE with a 33 minute timer will most certainly contain Military Grade Alloys. If the timer is 7-10 minutes it will have the Supercapacitors
But we're talking about New HGE's here. If you stay in the nav beacon 15 minutes to kill some poor sods, this wont help you since the HGE already aged

I was aware of the states and I keep track a lot of things in an excel (sort of my own scavenger list). To maximize chances I used to always aim for combos, for instance Empire/Fed+Outbreak or something else. I didn't know about the Fed thing, as mentioned, but even in Imperial/Outbreak state 99.9999% of the time I would get the shieldings.

Now, the timer is an interesting theory. I remember reading about it somewhere as well. Supposedly, the rarer materials will never spawn in HGE with high timers. Worth looking into I guess.

Ps, this is my list for Manufactured stuff; it's a work in progress, I tend to add stuff as I bump into it.

 

[Ceekay]

Here's an earlier post of mine

Been doing some random HGE collection as I engineer a ship and the number of HGE's spawning appears to have increased noticeably, previously 2-3 in a suitable system but this morning on my way to Deciat I located 5 (dropped into 3 and maxed out proto heat rads, as the others were 50 kls+ and probably the same drop I moved on)

Update; Fairly sure the system with 5 HGE's was Anukam but I also got several in Miritu, Zhang Fei and Deciat

The rules on Inara still apply but on individual faction basis not the overall system state, I generally head to high population systems and scan with the ADS and check for HGE's

https://inara.cz/galaxy-components/

Certainly some mats are hard to find but the ability to locate HGE's quickly and efficiently more than makes up for this.
From my observations Empire aligned systems (high population) with no specific faction state will default to Imperial shielding, with Federation the default drop is Core Dynamics composites and proprietary composites.
Once other states are added an additional mat is added to the list and that appears to have a higher probability than the default, I suspect there's also a spot of RNG but the following list has certainly worked for me.

Allegiance	Faction state	HGE drop
Alliance	Civil war	Military grade alloy
	Boom	Proto radiolic alloy + proto light alloys
	None	???
Federation	Investment	Proto heat radiators
		Proto radiolic alloy + proto light alloys
	Election	Core Dynamics composites and proprietary composites
	None	Core Dynamics composites and proprietary composites
Empire	Investment	Imperial shielding
	Civil war	Military grade alloys
	War	Military super capacitors
Independent	Investment	Proto heat radiators
	Expansion	Proto heat radiators

Obviously this isn’t a complete or definitive list but it works as a decent guide to finding a lot of mats quickly.
I agree that collecting the mat that’s available/plentiful and trading it for what you need isn’t particularly efficient but it gets the job done, e.g. I’ve been in Empire space quite a bit recently and I’ve maxed out the Imperial shielding storage several times and had to go to a mats trader and level out the stock.

 

[VoluptaBox]

Once other states are added an additional mat is added to the list and that appears to have a higher probability than the default, I suspect there's also a spot of RNG but the following list has certainly worked for me.

Thanks for the input, my main concern is with the part you mentioned in this quote. Whenever I combine two states, one type of material seems to always pop up more often. Empire/Outbreak is a combo I tried often and I get almost exclusively Shieldings. I was wondering if there was a way to maximize the chances of getting PIs. Maybe I'll try Outbreak in independent systems and see what happens.

 

[Ceekay]

Remember the system state in the galactic map doesn't always apply to all the factions, so an HGE in an outbreak system could "belong" to a faction that isn't in outbreak state itself so you get the default or another drop not the PI's you're after.

Have a look at this outbreak system for example https://eddb.io/system/factions/7722 only one of the seven factions is in outbreak, you could try using EDDB to help focus on system with more than one faction in outbreak but TBH I'd just jump from one outbreak system to the next checking for famine state HGEs

 

[Ethaidan]

There's some great information here, and in other threads, about allegiance/state HGE-material spawning. As with some others, I don't farm manufactured mats, I prefer a more organic approach which is mostly tied to BGS mission running. My manufactured mats seem to come from two sources.

1. Stacking Deadly/Elite BB and PS missions means you usually need to scan the nav beacon, which reveals all the HGEs. If there are HGEs en route I drop in regardless of allegiance/state. After collecting BB or scanning, there are always plenty of interdictions on the way to the next system. Usually these are Deadly/Elite Anacondas, which drop G3/4 mats.
2. Mission rewards. It may just be good fortune, but I seem to regularly see missons offering 5+mcr with 5 biotech conductors or 5 exquisite focus.

This alone, done while supporting our faction and earning credits, does well enough to keep me stocked. I always seem to have more proprietary composites (G4), compound shielding (G4), chemical manipulators (G4), conductive polymers (G4), thermic alloys (G4), proto heat radiators (G5), and exquisite focus crystals (G5) than I could ever use, so when those get near full I drop by the local mat trader and swap them for stuff that I rarely happen across.

Caveat: I am pretty happy a with my current mini fleet (I'm am not that fussed about full G5 engineering), so most of my engineering is weapon experiments, alternate hulls/shield for existing ships, etc. However, I did recently buy a Mamba and engineered it as far as I care to without really putting much of a dent in my existing manufactured material stocks. With all the PS missions I do, it's the raw materials that present the only real choke point for missing materials.

 

[Northpin]

Well, this is not necessarily about farming. More likely about "is it worth to make that 20000 ls trip for that Civil Unrest HGE? it comes from a fed faction and it has a 30 minutes timer"

Answer: yes if all you need is 5x propietary composites

 

[Vedmo]

I just, from time to time as I feel like it, stop by a nav beacon when in a decent population system and see what's out there while doing traveling across the bubble for whatever reason or doing some BGS work, then hit traders when full or close to it.

When in Imperial space for a while I'll trade Imp Shielding down to 0, as they are so absurdly easy to fill up.

Once several materials are reaching full, it's time to go on an engineering binge.

 

[Christian-A-Hill]

For all my HGE mat needs I goto Fed spaces with Election state then rinse and repeat (log out to main menu then log back in) till they don't respawn or I am full. Then just trade down what I need. Works really well with my gameplay style without running around to gather mats frequently.

 

[VoluptaBox]

For all my HGE mat needs I goto Fed spaces with Election state then rinse and repeat (log out to main menu then log back in) till they don't respawn or I am full. Then just trade down what I need. Works really well with my gameplay style without running around to gather mats frequently.

What effect does the Election state have?

 

[Ceekay]

No guarantees but passing through Shoujeman to Wyrd I collected a lot (40+) Proto heat radiators (both systems), Military grade alloys (Wyrd) and some Proto radiolic alloy + proto light alloys

 

[Christian-A-Hill]

What effect does the Election state have?

I am not sure really. I cannot recall exactly which one but I came across an article few weeks ago. It mentioned about Election State in Fed and Boom for Imperial. I decided to give Fed a try and continuously gathered Core Dynamics Composites.