Engineers High Grade Emissions in 3.3.03 - still chaos, but farming is good!

[Mugur]

Since I had 4 free days in a row, I spend more time than usual in the game, converting my legacy mods of my Courier and collecting HGEs.

The chaos persists (regarding the previous relation between system state and the materials to be found), although there are correlations to be made. Some of them are easy (imperial system = Imperial Shielding), some eludes me still.

There are 2 good news, though: first, it's almost certain that in well known high population systems you will find HGEs (usually 2 or 3, on the 40 minutes and 20 minutes timers) and second, the exploit still works (exit to desktop after collecting, enter game, enter supercruise, the HGE will be just behind you), so I suggest to try and fill your Grade 5 manufactured until the next patch.

The distance from star of the spawning HGEs seems fairly constant for a certain system, so you may be able to avoid the systems in which HGEs appear at 150,000 or 400,000 ls, if you want.

Basically, there are 3 types of materials, regarding HGEs: the now common ones (Proto Heat Radiators, Core Dynamics Composites or Imperial Shielding for example), the unobtainable ones (at least for now - Pharmaceutical Isolators or Improvised Components) and the ones that were never (to my knowledge) in HGEs (Biotech Conductors and Exquisite Focus Crystals), being mission only.

So, the strategy still remains to farm every HGE and use material traders. I try to have no more than 50-60 of the common ones, in order to have free space and when I reach 100 to trade for the unobtainable ones.

Most of the times I use the Nav beacon to scan, although sometimes when I'm far in the system, I use the FSS scanner instead of returning to the Nav beacon for another scan.

 

[Ceekay]

I don't farm myself just a system scan as I travel around the bubble but here's a few more data points (from an earlier post)

Alliance - civil war - mil grade alloys

Empire - civil war - mil grade alloys or mil super caps

Empire - investment - imperial shielding

Empire - none - imperial shielding

Federation - investment - proto heat rads or proto radiolic alloys+proto light alloys or core dynamics composite+proprietary comps (I believe Fed+boom generally defaults to CDC)

Federation - election - core dynamics composite+proprietary comps

Independent - investment - proto heat rads


Looks like the HGE state is determined by the faction state listed in the HGE data panel not the overall system state listed in the galmap, also PI's are available there was a cluster of outbreak systems around Aganippe a few days back

 

[Mugur]

Yes, more or less I encountered the same thing, but there are some occasions that don't follow the general rule and "defaults" to the "common" materials (like PHR or CDC+PC, etc). IMHO, tieing HGEs to factions from the system and implicit to those factions states was a bad idea and it's also not working 100% currently. Not to mention that we can select systems in "states" that are representative to the controlling faction state only, while other factions in the same system (which can spawn HGEs in theory) are having different states and as far as I know you cannot determine those states before entering the system map, through a filter or using external tools like eddb.io or inara.cz, etc.

 

[Dedlite]

gah! When I go to scan the nav beacon, why can't I select the beacon itself (even if I press #T')?

 

[Dedlite]

doh - daft sod!

 

[D.D.Hariman]

I don't farm myself just a system scan as I travel around the bubble but here's a few more data points (from an earlier post)

Alliance - civil war - mil grade alloys

Empire - civil war - mil grade alloys or mil super caps

Empire - investment - imperial shielding

Empire - none - imperial shielding

Federation - investment - proto heat rads or proto radiolic alloys+proto light alloys or core dynamics composite+proprietary comps (I believe Fed+boom generally defaults to CDC)

Federation - election - core dynamics composite+proprietary comps

Independent - investment - proto heat rads


Looks like the HGE state is determined by the faction state listed in the HGE data panel not the overall system state listed in the galmap, also PI's are available there was a cluster of outbreak systems around Aganippe a few days back

I suspect that whatever you took these from may be pre-last update.
Just spent some time collecting Mil Alloys in a Civil War Federation High Tech System. Also found Proto Light Alloys.


But I cannot find a scrap of scrap material anywhere. Going to slog it down to Daves Hope and hope there is still some there.

 

[Ceekay]

I suspect that whatever you took these from may be pre-last update.
Just spent some time collecting Mil Alloys in a Civil War Federation High Tech System. Also found Proto Light Alloys.


But I cannot find a scrap of scrap material anywhere. Going to slog it down to Daves Hope and hope there is still some there.

Although it's probably impossible to be sure I don't think the basic HGE "drop rules" have changed for ages it just the various modifier system states add additional possible mats to the RNG, something like this from an earlier post of mine.

"Theoretically a Fed system with no states defaults to CDC+PC, add in boom state and you could have proto radiolic alloys/proto heat rads added to RNG spin as well, I'd hazard a guess that in Empire systems CDC+PC are replaced by Imperial shielding with RNG options from the six remaining grade 5 mats"

Essentially Fed system allegiance with no minor faction state should yield CDC+PC

Add a war state to the minor faction and mil grade alloys and mil super caps gets added to the RNG drop

Investment appears to add proto radiolic alloys/proto heat rads

I reckon the minor faction state adds additional options to the default HGE drop, results from my fairly small system test sample does seem to support this theory (so far! )

 

[Phil JMac]

Might be a fluke but I just picked up 2 Improvised Components


First I've seen in ages

Wolf 397 if your interested

 

[bootsam]

I had a strange one hunting mats last night. I found an HGE, it had Military Grade Alloys in it. Apparently these were new Mats for me as I had that blue banner tell me so. I farmed it three times till the timer elapsed, yet when I next logged on my MGA's were 100/100! I know I had zero before. At best, I got 42 from 3 farms.

Yet, Imp Comps still allude me. Still, on the plus side, it gets me out and about.

 

[Knispels]

I had a strange one hunting mats last night. I found an HGE, it had Military Grade Alloys in it. Apparently these were new Mats for me as I had that blue banner tell me so. I farmed it three times till the timer elapsed, yet when I next logged on my MGA's were 100/100! I know I had zero before. At best, I got 42 from 3 farms.

Yet, Imp Comps still allude me. Still, on the plus side, it gets me out and about.

How did you farm it three times on the timer? That ability was supposedly fixed in one of the patches.

 

[Factabulous]

How did you farm it three times on the timer? That ability was supposedly fixed in one of the patches.

the exploit still works (exit to desktop after collecting, enter game, enter supercruise, the HGE will be just behind you), so I suggest to try and fill your Grade 5 manufactured until the next patch.

^^^

 

[bootsam]

^^^Indeed.

 

[Chong-su]

Federation - investment - proto heat rads or proto radiolic alloys+proto light alloys or core dynamics composite+proprietary comps (I believe Fed+boom generally defaults to CDC)

Federation + Boom = Proto Light Alloy - Proto Radiolic Alloy. No CDC. At least in the last 15 Federal boom systems visited ( today / now ) - EDIT : Found at the sixth attempt in the same system (exit and go back from the fed + Boom system) 2x CDC and 2x Propr Comp
Federation + Election = Proto Heat Radiators ( 5 systems tryed )

 

[Knispels]

^^^

What does ^^^ mean Factabulous?

The reason I brought it up, because I had read Mugur's post, after discussing this on discord someone went out and tested it on a HGE and it did not work. So I was trying to determine if it was still working. Being at work I did not have a chance to test it myself.

 

[bootsam]

^^^ generally means 'as above'. Or 'what he said' or similar.

To farm HGE's once you scoop up the mats, use task manager to 'end process' or quit to desktop. Then restart and log on., enter SC, drop to 70% immediately and check board. You will see new USS with blue arrow. Select it and turn back, it will be the same HGE you were in previously. Only the timer will have changed. Each 'farm' takes about 3-4mins. So if your lucky and started with 30mins, thats a good 15 'farms'.

 

[Knispels]

Thank you for explaining the ^ thing. I am not up on all the text chat symbols.

And thanks for the description. After the person tested it and it did not work I thought that it was changed. I will try it out and tonight and see because I need to farm some grade 5's myself.

 

[Mugur]

Thank you for explaining the ^ thing. I am not up on all the text chat symbols.

And thanks for the description. After the person tested it and it did not work I thought that it was changed. I will try it out and tonight and see because I need to farm some grade 5's myself.

^ is just an arrow pointed "up"...

What I do after collecting what's in the HGE is to set throttle to zero and immediately exit to desktop. After I'm back, I press the supercruise button and boost. This will get you in supercruise with the minimum speed (30 m/s). I then select the closest USS, turn back and enter it. It should be at around 100 km behind you.

I have a fast NVME SSD so this is taking way under a minute (because of the logo display at the startup). You can even shave a bit more time if you temporarily disable shader preparation at the start of the game. I don't want to kill the game process from Task Manager.

 

[bootsam]

All i found in civil unrest were proprietry composites and core dynamics last eve. Still no improvised composites, so i traded instead. All i want to do is upgrade 1 prismatic.

 

[Knispels]

^ is just an arrow pointed "up"...

What I do after collecting what's in the HGE is to set throttle to zero and immediately exit to desktop. After I'm back, I press the supercruise button and boost. This will get you in supercruise with the minimum speed (30 m/s). I then select the closest USS, turn back and enter it. It should be at around 100 km behind you.

I have a fast NVME SSD so this is taking way under a minute (because of the logo display at the startup). You can even shave a bit more time if you temporarily disable shader preparation at the start of the game. I don't want to kill the game process from Task Manager.

Please forgive an old man for being confused. But you said that you exit after collecting to the desktop, and I thought the logo screen and shader prep only happens when you first sign on to the game. And that entering from the desktop produces just your current ship spinning around until the game loads. So I could be missing something here, but are you logging completely out of the game after collecting or just exiting to desktop?

 

[bootsam]

Exit to desktop directly after scooping. Do not enter sc. or exit to menu. Use task manager toend task. Its quicker. Then restart. You will in normal space. Then enter supercruise. Hit 70% throttle and use panel to selectuss with blue arrow. Rinse repeat.