It looks like the Engineers 2.1 is a waste of my time, I do like how the " FEDS "hunt in wolf packs ( I shoot at a "WANTED" - then they jump in and rip him apart, and I get the money ) !!!
Funnily enough, I've found the opposite. I discovered that the quickest way to get a bunch of the rarer materials is to hop into a CZ and kill just a couple of ships - they're carrying gold dust. The problem is that as soon as you declare for a side, you get ripped to shreds as their entire army unloads their rails on you. The longest I lasted doing it that way was about 10 seconds in my Vulture.
So...I tried it differently - kill a random nearly-dead ship away from his buddies and try to grab the materials before they show up and tear you a new one. That actually worked twice - although the second time I only just got out with 18% hull left. Third and fourth attempts went...not so well.
Then there's the fact that I face-planted a planet trying to grab materials...honestly, I've never died so much in this game as I have trying to get these g materials.