How many attempts do i need to get a good FSD upgrade?

Percy Clasen · Mar 23, 2017

After crafting half a million grade 1 modules for Fel Farseer, i finally got to rank 5 with her, and, as such, am ready to get the longer range upgrade.
How many attempts should i assume it will take to get a good upgrade? Still pretty new to this engineering stuff

Ian Skippy · Mar 23, 2017

Percy Clasen said:
After crafting half a million grade 1 modules for Fel Farseer, i finally got to rank 5 with her, and, as such, am ready to get the longer range upgrade.
How many attempts should i assume it will take to get a good upgrade? Still pretty new to this engineering stuff

Depends. If you dont have OCD just accept anything over 40, which should happen most of the time. Or go down the rabbit hole waiting for the 53%...

Bomba Luigi · Mar 23, 2017

Define what you think is "good". The answer could be 1 or 100+

Monk · Mar 23, 2017

It is RNG, so there is no telling. You could get a particularly bad string of luck and get 20 bad rolls in a row. That would be incredibly unlikely, but it is possible.

I usually hit where I want after 2-4 rolls.

Hooplah · Mar 23, 2017

G5 increased FSD range can hit 46-47% usually within a few rolls. Accept it. Increasing that to 50% or better can take another 15-30 rolls.

sewerratuk · Mar 23, 2017

The thing about rng odds is that even getting heads in a coin flip is 1 - infinity.

NW3 · Mar 23, 2017

It really depends on what you mean by a "good FSD upgrade".

I needed a very good roll for my Asp, so that I could participate in the Distant Stars expedition.

I had lousy luck with my rolls and it took a long time to gather the materials. It took me ~250 rolls and nearly 2 months of gameplay to get what I needed: a 56+ lyr range for my Asp.

Gunnet · Mar 23, 2017

As others have said, it's a combination of luck and what you consider "good". If you're happy with ~45% you're very likely to be able to roll half a dozen times and be done with it. Do you enjoy engineering for the sake of engineering? If not it would probably be best to just do that.

If you want to squeeze those last few percent out, well, last night I did a batch of 105 rolls without exceeding 50%. That was definitely worse than average luck, but it can happen.

Percy Clasen · Mar 23, 2017

I guess i'll accept anything above 45%.
Thanks for the answers everyone

Lightspeed · Mar 23, 2017

I struggled for what seemed like forever to find about 6 units arsenic for my AspX. Then when it came to Farseer, I rolled a 47% on the first roll, so the pain evened out somewhat. I was able to equip two other ships with good rolls using the rest of the arsenic, so it really is pot luck. That's what seems somewhat degrading about using Engineers ... just a tad too gamey.

Ian Skippy · Mar 23, 2017

Lightspeed said:
I struggled for what seemed like forever to find about 6 units arsenic for my AspX. Then when it came to Farseer, I rolled a 47% on the first roll, so the pain evened out somewhat. I was able to equip two other ships with good rolls using the rest of the arsenic, so it really is pot luck. That's what seems somewhat degrading about using Engineers ... just a tad too gamey.

sewerratuk said:
The thing about rng odds is that even getting heads in a coin flip is 1 - infinity.

Its actually not luck, nor RNG. RNG suggests its a random number generator, whereas in fact Engineer results are not random. They are heavily biased in favor of good rolls. So on average you get what people consider 'above average' results.

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead · Mar 23, 2017

For reference, i accepted anything above 47% as good.

For my first python, i got 49% in 3 rolls.
My second Python got 48% in 5 rolls
My Anaconda got 50% in 1 roll (yay!)
My FDL got 47% in about 5-6 rolls (forgot).
I forgot the rest of my smaller ships.

So my average is 3.5~ rolls to get what i considered acceptable.

FrogsFriend · Mar 23, 2017

Install the first upgrade, then use up any remaining materials to see if you get lucky (as long as you don't have other immediate plans for them).

Mikey2305 · Mar 23, 2017

5 ships, maximum of two rolls per ship. Results range from 45% to 48%. Well satisfied with this.

Macy · Mar 23, 2017

Remember the mass, not just the optimal mass. I had a 50% increase but the mass went up a lot. Next i had 48% increase but the mass stayed low. So the 48% gave better range than the 50%.

shreddog · Mar 23, 2017

NW3 said:
I had lousy luck with my rolls and it took a long time to gather the materials. It took me ~250 rolls and nearly 2 months of gameplay to get what I needed: a 56+ lyr range for my Asp.

Now that's dedication!

Cageman · Mar 23, 2017

Lately I have heard of Anacondas being able to jump 70LYs with smart outfitting + Level5 Grade FSD upgrades, no Synthesis or using Stars to get a boost.

One of my CMDRs have about 54LYs with smart outfitting and Level5 Grade FSD upgrades... I have no idea how to reach 70LYs.

Either, what I heard is a lie, or there is something more I have to understand regarding FSD upgrades.

EDIT: I am talking about the Anaconda regarding the CMDR that I have that reaches about 54LYs.

Macy · Mar 23, 2017

I love the engineer upgrades but i hate how the engineers work. Grind grind grind.

Tentacle Love · Mar 23, 2017

Macy said:
Remember the mass, not just the optimal mass. I had a 50% increase but the mass went up a lot. Next i had 48% increase but the mass stayed low. So the 48% gave better range than the 50%.

This is true up to a certain point. Once you reach the minimum mass for the ship's frame, that mass value becomes irrelevant. (you can hit the minimum even with a few mods that have bonus mass side effects)

Cagman said:
Lately I have heard of Anacondas being able to jump 70LYs with smart outfitting + Level5 Grade FSD upgrades, no Synthesis or using Stars to get a boost.

One of my CMDRs have about 54LYs with smart outfitting and Level5 Grade FSD upgrades... I have no idea how to reach 70LYs.

Either, what I heard is a lie, or there is something more I have to understand regarding FSD upgrades.

EDIT: I am talking about the Anaconda regarding the CMDR that I have that reaches about 54LYs.

Upgrades on the beta server allow you to lower the mass of your scanner, which can get your ship a higher jump range. Normally this would not allow you to go below the minimum mass of the ship, but players are reporting otherwise, and some values break the 70 light year jump range.

The previous absolute maximum jump range for the Anaconda was 64.44 light years, hitting the minimum mass value for the ship frame and getting a 57% optimal mass fsd. (57% is absolute maximum)
I do not know what the limit is now.

ChubbyBunneh · Mar 23, 2017

It's unbelievably hard to get both an excellent initial optimal mass roll and then get increased optimal mass again as a secondary effect.

Out of all my ships I've managed to get only 1 with 56% increase in optimal mass (maybe 40-50 total RNG attempts). Some times you'll get a truly horrible roll and then get the secondary effect that makes it acceptable. Anything over 45% I just go with that.

You can also get 45% with an awesome Grade 4 FSD roll and it won't cost you Arsenic and Datamined Exceptions. My very first Grade 5 roll ended up being worse than the Grade 4 mod I already had. I wanted a refund.