How are you getting on with the mat' traders?

[[VR] scipio_77]

I'm a bit lazy so I don't always bother to use them.

But I mean, why not use them? Hoarding endlessly seems daft, how many ships are you going to engineer fully anyway?

I see it as a way of being guaranteed to not depend on RNGesus for mat hoarding. If you spend some time, you'll either roll it or have enough to buy what you need. Which is nice.

 

[WR3ND]

I'm a bit lazy so I don't always bother to use them.

But I mean, why not use them? Hoarding endlessly seems daft, how many ships are you going to engineer fully anyway?

I see it as a way of being guaranteed to not depend on RNGesus for mat hoarding. If you spend some time, you'll either roll it or have enough to buy what you need. Which is nice.

It's mostly just useful for trading in junk, but I do more targeted upgrades and farming materials, so it isn't quite as equitable as I might prefer. I have capped out on a few materials, but they aren't ones that are particularly worth much of anything anyway.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

The rational conclusion is "Don't trade up."

The rational conclusion is The Ratios are heavily rigged and must be corrected.

But if you accept a System that only works 1-way despite being clearly advertised as a 2-way System... Go ahead. Some settle for very little these days.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

I suspect the situation will change as we go along.

I mean, we all only have a limited number of ships and a limited number of upgrades to make.
Sure, that'll be different for different people but we're all going to reach a point where we're (basically) done with upgrades.

Eventually, we're going to start filling up all our stocks of mat's and have not much to spend them on.
Once that happens, people probably won't think twice about trading-up to get all the mat's they need to make a specific upgrade immediately.

Next month, at the latest.

 

[Robin of Spiritwood]

My biggest gripe is FINDING these mat traders. It took me over an hour one night to find the right trader close to the system I was working. It would be so much better if the type of trader was listed in the system map, rather than having to dock at each station to see what (raw, manufactured, data) they trade in. Am I doing something wrong, or is this just how it is?

High Tech = Encoded
Refinery = Raw
Industrial = Manufactured

 

[GG7]

The rational conclusion is The Ratios are heavily rigged and must be corrected.

But if you accept a System that only works 1-way despite being clearly advertised as a 2-way System... Go ahead. Some settle for very little these days.

No... You just need to focus on G5 and G4 mats and not bother wasting your time focused on anything lower. I still see posts from clueless commanders asking where Arsenic is in 3.0. lol!

Hello! ? - Polonium is what you should be asking about... You know... 1 Polonium = 9 Arsenic.

Like I said... Top down, not bottom up.

Works great for me. No complaints. And I don't see any complaints coming from anyone else who understands how the system is designed to work.

Sandy himself said it was a Top Down design in one of the Q&A Live Streams.

 

[WR3ND]

No... You just need to focus on G5 and G4 mats and not bother wasting your time focused on anything lower. I still see posts from clueless commanders asking where Arsenic is in 3.0. lol!

Hello! ? - Polonium is what you should be asking about... You know... 1 Polonium = 9 Arsenic.

Like I said... Top down, not bottom up.

Whereas I just went on a material farming run for Arsenic yesterday and got 84 of them and a ton of Polonium as a nice side bonus too, and maxed out a few others. There's a need for the traders, but I don't think they're paying their dues in the game really yet in some respects.

They're an option, and useful for some things, of course, but not really so much so if you just go out and get the things for yourself. Trading down, sure, I suppose so, if you can't be bothered picking up stuff while you're looking for something else.

To me, it still seems like needlessly punitive trade ratios overall.

 

[GG7]

Whereas I just went on a material farming run for Arsenic yesterday and got 84 of them and a ton of Polonium as a nice side bonus too, and maxed out a few others. There's a need for the traders, but I don't think they're paying their dues in the game really yet in some respects.

They're an option, and useful for some things, of course, but not really so much so if you just go out and get the things for yourself. Trading down, sure, I suppose so, if you can't be bothered picking up stuff while you're looking for something else.

To me, it still seems like needlessly punitive trade ratios overall.

Arsenic seems to be an offshoot of Polonium on planets. I have noticed it cropping up a lot of times when I am looking for Polonium as well as other lower grades showing up that are tied to other G5 Raws on planets. But I no longer hunt for anything but the G5 raws. If the lower stuff shows up, great! I will collect it if I need it, but I no longer bother with anything but the G5s in 3.0.

Works for me. My Polonium and Arsenic are both at capacity even after re-engineering my 10 ship fleet. I really don't need to do anything more with all this for now, but I continue to collect everything I come across for when a new ship comes out.

The new system for me has been a HUGE time saver over the 2.4 system. Those 10 ships in my fleet were all G5 upgraded under the previous system after multiple thousands of rolls. I was more than a little familiar with how long it took in 2.4 to fully G5 upgrade a single ship.

The claim that the new system takes 3x longer is ridiculous.

 

[WR3ND]

...

The claim that the new system takes 3x longer is ridiculous.

No doubt. And the traders are a nice option to have to use at a player's own discretion, of course, so they are useful in that respect. No argument from me there. I would just prefer that trading up were more of a reasonable option, especially considering how limited our stocks of them are. Just my two cents worth, as they say.

Nickle, iron, and a few others are essentially worthless drops to me now and only serve to get in the way of me targeting stuff I can scoop up. I can't hold enough to make them more useful, so many of the drops are needlessly wasted.

 

[GG7]

No doubt. And the traders are a nice option to have to use at a player's own discretion, of course, so they are useful in that respect. No argument from me there. I would just prefer that trading up were more of a reasonable option, especially considering how limited our stocks of them are. Just my two cents worth, as they say.

Totally agree! But I can totally work with what we have if Sandy and Co. are adamant about keeping things as they are.

You know another thing that I rarely see mentioned in all these threads is the way the new Pinned Blueprints work! The ability to pin your single most common upgrade from each and every engineer and upgrade ships from your home port IS HUGE!

I use to have to haul modules from my Corvette and other low range ships out to the engineers using my Anaconda. Now unless it is some special module upgrade requiring an EXP, I can knock off the FSD, the Shields, the Sensors, the Thrusters and all the other major upgrades for those ships, without transferring them to a higher range carrier and all while docked at my home port!

That is a HUGE improvement, and something I am always amazed never seems to get mentioned. You don't always need to have a EXP Effect applied, and many modules don't support them anyway.

 

[Audaxxx]

Sums it up nicely...

[video=youtube;tATD4Ayd-MM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tATD4Ayd-MM[/video]

 

[yolomcbobbinz]

I think its cool, i found one for mats and data, I just eliminated a few hours of grind.

Engineers are really easy now, because if of the material trader combined with the frequent missions that offer g5 mats/data

 

[TheSynopticVision]

The traders are really helpful, but the exchange rates are still too punishing. They should either slightly lower the trade up requirements, or keep the same exchange ratio for both trade ups and trade downs.

 

[A D]

Used the mat traders a half a dozen times so far.

My approach. Pin the engineer's blueprint, see what I already have, then go to the mat trader to see if I've got something to swap for what I need. Pretty easy to find a mat trader within a few jumps of the engineer's base. If I'm low on mats, then go on a mat gathering frenzy and literally scoop up everything. Generally end up with an odd mix, but enough of something or other to trade. So my take, glad to have the mat traders. Beats hunting around for elusive mat's, which I found to be very time consuming and frustrating.

Sums it up nicely...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tATD4Ayd-MM

As regards the "The Material Traitor" video, makes entertaining viewing but IMO the "crystal shards" example was not representative of the norm. My experience so far is that USS's, meteorites, outcrops etc. will frequently produce mats in greater numbers than 3 and often do include some higher grade mats that are useful for trading without having to engage in ridiculous swap rates. Not saying all the swap rates are good, but can live with it.

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

I was really expecting them to offset the extra grind of engineering

Your thoughts?

the material trader rate cross category is appalling, and frontier are on the verge of replacing engineering with "guardian engineering" which is down right ludicrous

my 3.0 thoughts in any case;

[video=youtube_share;PoWX8BupGpo]https://youtu.be/PoWX8BupGpo[/video]

that all said trading a lower grade focus crystal for a higher grade is fantastic, -> its the "cross category" rates im talking about and availability of traders could be better.

 

[Stigbob]

Used the mat traders a half a dozen times so far.

My approach. Pin the engineer's blueprint, see what I already have, then go to the mat trader to see if I've got something to swap for what I need. Pretty easy to find a mat trader within a few jumps of the engineer's base. If I'm low on mats, then go on a mat gathering frenzy and literally scoop up everything. Generally end up with an odd mix, but enough of something or other to trade. So my take, glad to have the mat traders. Beats hunting around for elusive mat's, which I found to be very time consuming and frustrating.

One thing I'd add is apply your experimental effect on your visit to the engineer, save going back later. You can also change the effect later whilst keeping the upgrades.

 

[gooddoc]

It was my intention to re-mod my AspX, 'Conda, 'Vette & Cutter throughout. First I kept the original modding & just bought new 5,6 & 7A FSD modules, 'quiped out each ship in turn & modded them to max using the new system.
In each case I got a better jump range & was relatively happy.

By the time I came to the Cutter, my mats needed had run out & I started to use the trader......I then changed my ideas!

Because I use my 'Conda now for all of my Exploration, I'm now only going to re-mod the modules on that ship & then only those that I can get a weight reduction on.

I'm finding now that it's taking me longer to move through the bubble, simply because the mat trader uses up too many lesser mats to trade for higher mats, I'm jumping into EVERY threat lvl 0 USS, just to collect whatever mats I can. Threat lvl 0's because I don't do pewpew.

Still reasonably content atm, but at some point the novelty will wear off. Intersting how a system's state determines what can be found in USS's...I never knew that!

 

[signal11th]

The exchange rate needs to be altered but apart from that no problems.

 

[A D]

One thing I'd add is apply your experimental effect on your visit to the engineer, save going back later. You can also change the effect later whilst keeping the upgrades.

Good tip +1

 

[Cold Earth]

The exchange rate needs to be altered but apart from that no problems.

Either this or more information on how to reliably get G5 mats even with being able to store more mats and data, it’s still incredibly difficult to collect a decent amount of G5 mats in my experience.