High grade emissions

[Stealthie]

Not the first or last time certain mats are rare, Cracked Industrial Firmware was annoyingly in short supply for the longest time, now it's not even a G5.

Ironically, that was probably one of the issues that guided the development of mat' traders.
IIRC, it was cos you got CIF for certain things, while you were at a certain rank, but then, as you got promoted, the same activities would yield MEF instead.
The introduction of mat' traders, alone, would have solved that issue quite nicely but, being FDev, they had to monkey around with the BGS as part of the same update, which resulted in a bunch of other G5 mat's all but vanishing entirely.

 

[Stealthie]

I've made it a rule that I'll always take the EFCs, Mefs or bio conductors as mission rewards if they're offered, until they're all maxed out (then I can leave it or trade across and do it again). That's usually plenty to trade about for most small engineer builds, so I don't need to spend too much time with gathering.

Depends on what you're doing really.

I doubt anybody has a hard time scraping together the mat's required to mod' the core modules of a ship.
The problems start when you're modding stuff like, say, shield boosters or multiple weapons on a ship with lots of hardpoints.

Supplying the mat's to G5 mod' 7 or more weapons isn't a fun time.

 

[Eraden]

Depends on what you're doing really.

I doubt anybody has a hard time scraping together the mat's required to mod' the core modules of a ship.
The problems start when you're modding stuff like, say, shield boosters or multiple weapons on a ship with lots of hardpoints.

Supplying the mat's to G5 mod' 7 or more weapons isn't a fun time.

Oh god, tell me about it. The amount of mats I had to go through to G5 not one but THREE sets of weapons for my Type 10......if I had known then what I know now, I might have just pulled the plug on the game. I'm a bit of a stubborn cuss though and once I got started, I made sure to stick it out to the end. Still, getting the mats to do 27 G5'd weapons was a NIGHTMARE.

 

[GJ51]

I just use Dav's hope until I've exhausted it, then go to Imperial space high pop systems and hunt Imperial shielding, then trade down at nearest mats trader.

 

[Bigmaec]

Oh god, tell me about it. The amount of mats I had to go through to G5 not one but THREE sets of weapons for my Type 10......if I had known then what I know now, I might have just pulled the plug on the game. I'm a bit of a stubborn cuss though and once I got started, I made sure to stick it out to the end. Still, getting the mats to do 27 G5'd weapons was a NIGHTMARE.

Double the nightmare when you find out you need a better boat

 

[Eraden]

Double the nightmare when you find out you need a better boat

Oh, I love my Type 10. I love it more than my Anaconda. Much better view, better weapons arrangement (at least for me), and, again for me, a better distribution of internals. I've gotten used to its sluggishness (you need to briefly stop off at the next star system in order to be able to turn around to reach you destination in the first star system) and it can take a really serious beating with all that hull armor and shields. I've also gotten fond of its appearance. It's like a British bulldog. Ugly as heck but it grows on ya. This is why I've worked so hard to have on hand all of the modules needed for it to be able to do hauling, mining, combat and even a bit of exploration. The one thing I will NEVER be able to do with it is outrace just about anyone else. In that tub, you either stay and fight or you casually high wake out to wherever you wanted to go in the first place. After all, aside from maybe a Cutter or another Type 10, nothing is going to be able to mass lock my Type 10. I go where I want to (unless I get my FSD or PP shot out from under me, heh heh).

 

[Jumpin' Jack Flash]

Hi @ rebeluk

Strange...I was collecting HGE's in boom systems around my local area last night, and found plenty of Proto materials, all three main ones of that type plus some other grade fives.
I just scan the nav points in these systems jump to cruise and usually there's at least one or maybe two to three. Once I've got the maximum of all three proto stuff I go to a material trader and trade some in for lower grade materials. Some time out before I can collect them, but if this happens I just jump to another system and repeat.

Jack

 

[Susanna]

I use mat-collector Corvette.
Go to Haz with Elite copilot (I use system with mat trader), opet hatch, drop collector limpets and kill pirates. After 5 hours you'd have so many lvl 2-3-4 mats you could easily trade up and have enough even G5s.

While all of that is perfectly possible... The OP does have a good point. HGEs have been broken and then ignored because we have the mat traders... But at some point HGEs need to be fixed... Not continue to be ignored as an issue!

I'd suggest that the OP puts in a bug report as that is the only way this issue is ever going to get sorted out! If enough people complain about the current status quo.

 

[Ydiss]

Depends on what you're doing really.

I doubt anybody has a hard time scraping together the mat's required to mod' the core modules of a ship.
The problems start when you're modding stuff like, say, shield boosters or multiple weapons on a ship with lots of hardpoints.

Supplying the mat's to G5 mod' 7 or more weapons isn't a fun time.

Agreed.

I fully engineered my corvette a couple weeks ago so experienced this recently.

I had to do some HGE farming but because I'd saved up 100 exquisites and biotechs, I had to do a ton less farming at that point. In the end I only needed to roll through a few HGEs.

It's just a tip I'd recommend to players if they do lots of missions. Actually farming missions for this reason only is just as grindy as any other mat farming process.

 

[Ydiss]

While all of that is perfectly possible... The OP does have a good point. HGEs have been broken and then ignored because we have the mat traders... But at some point HGEs need to be fixed... Not continue to be ignored as an issue!

I'd suggest that the OP puts in a bug report as that is the only way this issue is ever going to get sorted out! If enough people complain about the current status quo.

Yeh, this is absolutely right.

 

[Ydiss]

Hi @ rebeluk

Strange...I was collecting HGE's in boom systems around my local area last night, and found plenty of Proto materials, all three main ones of that type plus some other grade fives.
I just scan the nav points in these systems jump to cruise and usually there's at least one or maybe two to three. Once I've got the maximum of all three proto stuff I go to a material trader and trade some in for lower grade materials. Some time out before I can collect them, but if this happens I just jump to another system and repeat.

Jack

Systems in most states work fine. Boom is one of those and that'll result frequently with proto heat radiators and radiolic alloys; these HGEs are abundant.

If you read the OP again, you can see he wasn't looking for these. These are what he often found whilst looking for other g5s (likely due to the way USS states can reflect minor faction states and not just the system state). I'd argue that these HGEs are the least desirable of all to find because they often have only the g4 mats. So it can take a lot longer to max the g5 to 100 with these alone.

You're right, the path of least resistance here is to use the trader and that's been suggested. But there's definitely something up, at least with HGE rates in outbreaks (from my experience).

 

[Go'Gen]

The OP does have a good point. HGEs have been broken and then ignored because we have the mat traders...

Oh, didn't know something is wrong with this.
I kept seeing HGEs while in FSS mode (scanning signals as well just in case), but ignoring them all due to Robigo-Sothis G5 rewards and Haz method of collecting.

 

[Ydiss]

Oh, didn't know something is wrong with this.
I kept seeing HGEs while in FSS mode (scanning signals as well just in case), but ignoring them all due to Robigo-Sothis G5 rewards and Haz method of collecting.

It seems to be HGEs in outbreak systems. Might also be HGEs in civil unrest. Though I didn't look for those.

Every outbreak system I checked (following a nav beacon scan) had just 2 or 3 USS (irrespective of its population) and never a HGE. Just seemed a bit circumspect. I posted about it some weeks ago and most who responded said they'd seen the same thing.

It might just be confirmation bias though. And bad luck. I might catalogue some findings at some point.

 

[Viscera]

I went looking for pi the other week.

Very unscientifically i just opened my map, looked for a system in outbreak nearby, and went there.

I found some 27 pi, in the 4 appropiate uss that spawned, (one was some other rare item) so was quite happy.

No idea what system it was, or what other states were kicking about in it. I suspect there are more things that drive (or prohibit) their generation than we know though.

 

[Northpin]

You should never EVER try to look for specific G5 mats.

That's what i do tho.
When my G5 stocks get rather low (below 50-60) i go to a Manufactured trader, trade down G5 to fill up G4-G1 then i go hunting for G5 HGEs
I reserve for that 2-3 sessions and i usually fill up rather faster.

I will have to do this rather soon cause my latest Colonia Endeavour has seen me engineering a hauling python and a Chief with 2 full sets of weapons...

IF i dont forget, i will pop back here to report

 

[Ydiss]

I went looking for pi the other week.

Very unscientifically i just opened my map, looked for a system in outbreak nearby, and went there.

I found some 27 pi, in the 4 appropiate uss that spawned, (one was some other rare item) so was quite happy.

No idea what system it was, or what other states were kicking about in it. I suspect there are more things that drive (or prohibit) their generation than we know though.

Thanks for letting us know. I remember someone else said they found them in the thread I made so I'm thinking you're right and something else is limiting the HGE rates in these systems.

I only had the old USS system to compare with by the way. I had 3 years away from the game. Before that, USS spawned randomly nearby as you flew about in supercruise and HGEs in outbreaks occurred easily enough.

Now, USS are initially generated all in one go. So maybe there's just a lower probability here.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Supplying the mat's to G5 mod' 7 or more weapons isn't a fun time.

Indeed. And for people without a giant pile of materials to hand already, it's probably worth considering if they actually need to G5 those weapons.

A tanky NPC Anaconda might have about 4000 effective HP between its hull and shields, assuming you can destroy the hull (or plant) before the shields recover.
A gunship with 7 overcharged G4 autoloader [1] gimballed multicannons has 108 sustained DPS, so kills the Anaconda in 37 seconds.
Upgrading the multicannons to maximum G5 overcharged - at the cost of probably about 60-100 G5 materials - increases the sustained DPS to just 114 - sufficient to kill the Anaconda in 35 seconds.

Is two seconds less firing and just 5% extra damage really worth gathering all those materials for? How many Anacondas would you need to kill for those 2 seconds to add up to the time needed to gather the materials? [2]

[1] For simplicity of calculation I'm ignoring resistances, hull hardness, etc. You can redo the same calculation with a plasma/rail build for very similar results.
[2] Assuming here that you don't gather the materials by killing the Anacondas and upgrade a little bit at a time as you get them.

 

[ZAKALWEINC8876]

I tend to try to find an outbreak system, a civil unrest system and one other (normally war). Then just loop round scanning the nav beacons and collecting any HGS. Seems to work for me, no HGS, next system .
Actually forced myself to trade PIs last week to get what i needed for engineering. Confident i could find more when i need them again.

o7

 

[Bigmaec]

Indeed. And for people without a giant pile of materials to hand already, it's probably worth considering if they actually need to G5 those weapons.

A tanky NPC Anaconda might have about 4000 effective HP between its hull and shields, assuming you can destroy the hull (or plant) before the shields recover.
A gunship with 7 overcharged G4 autoloader [1] gimballed multicannons has 108 sustained DPS, so kills the Anaconda in 37 seconds.
Upgrading the multicannons to maximum G5 overcharged - at the cost of probably about 60-100 G5 materials - increases the sustained DPS to just 114 - sufficient to kill the Anaconda in 35 seconds.

Is two seconds less firing and just 5% extra damage really worth gathering all those materials for? How many Anacondas would you need to kill for those 2 seconds to add up to the time needed to gather the materials? [2]

[1] For simplicity of calculation I'm ignoring resistances, hull hardness, etc. You can redo the same calculation with a plasma/rail build for very similar results.
[2] Assuming here that you don't gather the materials by killing the Anacondas and upgrade a little bit at a time as you get them.

Even in PvP, nowadays I generally only put 2 or 3 rolls into a G5 module.
More then that is really just for OCD.

 

[Ydiss]

Even in PvP, nowadays I generally only put 2 or 3 rolls into a G5 module.
More then that is really just for OCD.

I feel like those last few pixels that actually do nothing to stats at all are just some cruel troll by fdev against the OCD amongst us.