How to farm Opinion Polls quickly and easily.

[Lord Vicious]

It's getting rather hard to distinguish between nefarious motives, poor design decisions and bugs. I'm not sure if you remember, but they more or less said SCPs were in the game until Update 5/6 or so, when it turned out SCPs were in fact not in the game (despite the most hardcore commanders testing this extensively and pointing it out to them).

Which is why I pointed not at the (extreme) rarity of OP drops, which may or may not be a bug, but at the inability to trade data via bartender, unlike other assets, which was very clearly a conscious design decision.

The SCP debacle was, I think, a mix of honest mistakes and semi-nefarious cover-ups, otherwise it would have been identified and fixed much faster.

 

[NoddySpice]

You are some sort of Angel! If I am fortunate enough to see you online after work and tea... 8pm-11pm uk time sort of thing, then I would be a fortunate soul indeed... but we might be 12 hours and 30,000 light years apart for all I know! I am in LHS 1541 though I have no really compelling reason to stay here apart from to drive myself absolutely insane murdering tourists on the off chance one of them has an Opinion Poll by his bed...

I'm hanging around doing missions in LHS 1541 at the moment... seeing what bits I can get here. Cmdr Noddie, btw.

 

[TinyTone]

Well..... for reasons unknown to me Ghatak's Peace gifted me 2 opinion polls in a single HAB dataport last night. Combined with the generous contributions from NoddySpice and LordVicious, this got me the apparent 8 more I needed to unlock Kit Fowler... so a huge thanks to those 2 and a perplexed "ok?" to whatever dice rolling was going on in the background.
Thanks to my huge number of slaughtering massacres of Ghatak's Peace over the last 4 days (Previouly netting me TWO opinion polls) I have already qualified for whoever is next and still have 49 SCPs remaining... there are LOTS of SCP available in Ghatak's Peace HAB dataports... so many I can never imagine anybody ever struggling for them... 2 rounds of massacre would very likely get you all you need. 3 would surely do it. 4 would be way over! But great thanks to this thread and everyone in it...

 

[Ydiss]

Which is why I pointed not at the (extreme) rarity of OP drops, which may or may not be a bug, but at the inability to trade data via bartender, unlike other assets, which was very clearly a conscious design decision.

The SCP debacle was, I think, a mix of honest mistakes and semi-nefarious cover-ups, otherwise it would have been identified and fixed much faster.

The rarity of OPs is absolutely something they can change if they wanted to. They reduced the requirements down from 40 to 20, which was welcome but still not really enough.

20 is still too grindy. The only worse grind is SDPs and that has also gone completely under the radar despite us reporting it as horrendous since launch.

The ability to trade materials on our carriers may alleviate this issue ("may" being the operative word, you still need to go and find those who are selling them and they still need to actually find the OPs themselves).

 

[Frop]

The rarity of OPs is absolutely something they can change if they wanted to. They reduced the requirements down from 40 to 20, which was welcome but still not really enough.

They're not that rare, it's just that the loot table is massive and polluted with garbage data. Also, they reduced the requirements even further to just 10. ^^

 

[Ydiss]

They're not that rare, it's just that the loot table is massive and polluted with garbage data. Also, they reduced the requirements even further to just 10. ^^

That's what rare is though... The definition of rare is a low value numerator over a high value denominator I said they could make them less rare. And they could, by reducing the denominator. (or simply increasing the odds, if it's not a normal distribution curve).

I didn't know they did that though. 10 is much better. Still dull, grindy and not particularly fun as a goal to achieve. SCPs are an ideal example of something that's a reasonable target to achieve that is somewhat fun (you need to hunt for it and when you get it, you're basically done). Still a bit of a dull thing to do though, much like many fetch goals Engineering offers. But this is a topic we had almost a year ago and have been having since Horizons first came out so...

Here we are, suggesting people repeat the same location about 50-100 times to get this particular goal done.

 

[CardioTherapy]

Opinion Polls were coming slowly to me, so I decided to go out and find the fastest way to get them. Most people were suggesting going to an anarchy tourism base, but there are only three tourism anarchy systems in the bubble, so that seemed too restricted to me.

Instead, I headed over to my nearby tourism(non-anarchy) base and tried it out, and quickly found you don't need anarchy at all. Here's what you do.

First off, find a tourism base with a lot of one-room cabins. Each one of these will have a data pad, each with a chance of having an opinion poll.

Second, if possible, find one with a central Bar. Those are very handy because you can freely scan people from the top window without being seen. Also they often have a data pad inside you can check with no security clearance at all.

Here's an example settlement, and the layout I used, as well as my route.

View attachment 288892

That's it. All you need to do is drop in on an APEX shuttle, scan a level 1 access, and proceed to run from building to building, dodging security as you go. Don't worry about stealth when inside the cabins; just sprint up to the data pad and check it for opinion polls. Most of the time, there won't be any, and you can turn around and sprint back out without them becoming more than alarmed. Repeat for all cabins in the area.

If you DO find an opinion poll, just sit at the door watching their movements. Sooner or later, they'll start walking towards a position where they can't see you. During that time window, quickly stealth up to the pad and download the data. It only takes 5 seconds, so you will have more than enough time if you move quickly, and the data in question is rare enough you won't need to do this very often.

The key here is not stealth, but SPEED. You want to be moving constantly between buildings. You want to call your apex back out BEFORE you finish, so it can be waiting for you when you get done. Once you're done clearing the settlement, get in the apex to somewhere local - doesn't matter where - and wait until you're ~50km in the air, before redirecting back to the ground. It'll turn around and respawn the instance, and you can do it all over again.

As you do this, you can often grab other materials as well. Focus on (encrypted)Computer Chips and Graphene, as they can be traded for other things. By the time I found 3 opinion polls, I had over 100 of these three, which is enough to trade for full suit upgrades.

And pow! That's it!

Honestly, my only real criticism is that not enough missions take me to these bases. I think that if I were raiding them more often, I'd find plenty of opinion polls just playing the game.

This is exactly what I did for my opinion polls. My problem here is that the game design pushes you again to grind and reset site either by leaving it in this case or restarting the game in other cases. This game mechaning should be changed and the grind reduced to minimum.

 

[Frop]

That's what rare is though... The definition of rare is a low value numerator over a high value denominator I said they could make them less rare. And they could, by reducing the denominator. (or simply increasing the odds, if it's not a normal distribution curve).

Or they just could add them as mission rewards. Get lucky and find two missions which reward 5 each, done.

 

[Ydiss]

Or they just could add them as mission rewards. Get lucky and find two missions which reward 5 each, done.

Whilst I agree with the sentiment (completing missions for rewards is better than RNG data port hunting)...

The issue with adding everything to mission rewards is that you then continue to dilute the current pool of rewards from missions, thus rendering all other mission material rewards more rare in the process. You just transfer the grind from settlements to mission terminals, then (and also make it more grindy for the stuff that's currently available via this method).

I actually just think they should have spent the time to add curated missions specifically given to us by each engineer with a backstory attached to them. That would have been interesting and fun content. So instead of 10 OPs, Kit sends us to a specific location to conduct a surveilance mission on a series of targets to gather intel on them and then the story could have a twist that it's just his imagination and insert interesting narrative here for the player to follow.

Making it 100% "dynamic" via a purely RNG approach does nothing to enhance the game. One or two is OK (so finding surveilance equipment is cool, for example, if it was just one step in Kit's unlock process) but Elite engineers (not just EDO) massively overdoes it. Arbitrarily so, too.

 

[Lord Vicious]

So instead of 10 OPs, Kit sends us to a specific location to conduct a surveilance mission on a series of targets to gather intel on them and then the story could have a twist that it's just his imagination and insert interesting narrative here for the player to follow.

Considering what's been happening in the Elite universe, Kit's "paranoia" seems to be entirely justified. If anything, he was not paranoid enough (tursting your "friends" so much you agree to meet professional assassins face to face? Yeah, right... )

 

[Ydiss]

Considering what's been happening in the Elite universe, Kit's "paranoia" seems to be entirely justified. If anything, he was not paranoid enough (tursting your "friends" so much you agree to meet professional assassins face to face? Yeah, right... )

Kit's story is one of the most interesting in the game yet he's known mostly for how boring unlocking him is. With a good writer, you could go nuts with the Elite galaxy and I think that need not be limited to the "you only ever experience it if you're playing at the specific time and then you probably only then read about it" storytelling that Galnet provides.

Bespoke missions can sit nicely alongside proc gen worlds.

 

[Frop]

Kit's story is one of the most interesting in the game yet he's known mostly for how boring unlocking him is. With a good writer, you could go nuts with the Elite galaxy and I think that need not be limited to the "you only ever experience it if you're playing at the specific time and then you probably only then read about it" storytelling that Galnet provides.

Bespoke missions can sit nicely alongside proc gen worlds.

Just more of the tutorial mission stuff, basically. Team-only instances with narrated, main/side quest style missions.

 

[Lord Vicious]

Another reason NOT to farm Opinion polls in Anarchy settlements is exactly the prevalence of Smear Campaign Plans there. Since SCPs take a chunk of data spawns, OPs become correspondingly more rare. Same for any other non-illegal media (like the infamous classic entertainment/cat media/multimedia for Wellington Beck). So, once you've got your 8 SCPs for Yarden, move away from anarchies to get a better chance for OPs and other data.

Also, general reminder: do NOT sell any required mats to bartenders BEFORE you get the introduction to the engineer in question. Mats you sell before actually "getting the mission" to sell the mats will not count towards the engineer unlock.

 

[Elpapo]

Opinion Polls were coming slowly to me, so I decided to go out and find the fastest way to get them. Most people were suggesting going to an anarchy tourism base, but there are only three tourism anarchy systems in the bubble, so that seemed too restricted to me.

Instead, I headed over to my nearby tourism(non-anarchy) base and tried it out, and quickly found you don't need anarchy at all. Here's what you do.

First off, find a tourism base with a lot of one-room cabins. Each one of these will have a data pad, each with a chance of having an opinion poll.

Second, if possible, find one with a central Bar. Those are very handy because you can freely scan people from the top window without being seen. Also they often have a data pad inside you can check with no security clearance at all.

Here's an example settlement, and the layout I used, as well as my route.

View attachment 288892

That's it. All you need to do is drop in on an APEX shuttle, scan a level 1 access, and proceed to run from building to building, dodging security as you go. Don't worry about stealth when inside the cabins; just sprint up to the data pad and check it for opinion polls. Most of the time, there won't be any, and you can turn around and sprint back out without them becoming more than alarmed. Repeat for all cabins in the area.

If you DO find an opinion poll, just sit at the door watching their movements. Sooner or later, they'll start walking towards a position where they can't see you. During that time window, quickly stealth up to the pad and download the data. It only takes 5 seconds, so you will have more than enough time if you move quickly, and the data in question is rare enough you won't need to do this very often.

The key here is not stealth, but SPEED. You want to be moving constantly between buildings. You want to call your apex back out BEFORE you finish, so it can be waiting for you when you get done. Once you're done clearing the settlement, get in the apex to somewhere local - doesn't matter where - and wait until you're ~50km in the air, before redirecting back to the ground. It'll turn around and respawn the instance, and you can do it all over again.

As you do this, you can often grab other materials as well. Focus on (encrypted)Computer Chips and Graphene, as they can be traded for other things. By the time I found 3 opinion polls, I had over 100 of these three, which is enough to trade for full suit upgrades.

And pow! That's it!

Honestly, my only real criticism is that not enough missions take me to these bases. I think that if I were raiding them more often, I'd find plenty of opinion polls just playing the game.

I doing it only at anarchies (tons of these if you know where those are), and my favorite type is one with bridge, with powerplant being in middle. There is another type that have less data ports, but with two bigger bulidings that are connected to bar... and with lot of rooms each side. And it preety much guaranteed to fill backpack with 60 capacity, with nothing but memory chips and lenses. But still I prefer bridge variant, as I can run entire bases almost 2,5 times faster, before I would loot all rooms on biggest variant.

And I use g3 suit with extra sprint duration/extra backpack just for doing quick runs like that. Only weapon used is audio masked/noise suppresor g5 P-15 with headshot dmg and stabilty, is more than enough to use for it (not carrying main with this bulid, only pistol).. and I simply oneshot headshot any npcs across run with it.

At anarchies, you can be even allied with fraction wich you about to murder its members for each run, and they will still love you. And no notoriety or wanted level is granted, by murders, not it seems affecting BGS (as if I would care about it) ... I hope this will be fixed someday, I mean, no rep loss for killing members of allied fraction, even if they are just flesh.

I grab all of these: Optical lenses, grey and red memory chips, and checking every data panel to get data I need (needed to be exact, as I already long time done with unlicking foot engineers, yet if I see any "rare" data, I still would download it) but its still quickest way to obtain materials for upgrading kinetics, as each run gives about 20-30 memory chips and bunch of lenses. Then I trade it for wep components or other rare things. That being said, I not focusing on getting data, but rather materials for G5 upgrades, hence anarchy is prefered.

I never land at landing pad though, but rather with my own ship behind bar(for this specific layout). Each run takes about 4-5 mins, then I go to ship, re-enter instance, repeat 10-15 times, and I have enough materials to make another G5 wep.

 

[ianbillmorris]

If they really want a gambling mechanic, let us buy (for credits in game, not cash) random crates of data and items.

Whilst I agree with the sentiment (completing missions for rewards is better than RNG data port hunting)...

The issue with adding everything to mission rewards is that you then continue to dilute the current pool of rewards from missions, thus rendering all other mission material rewards more rare in the process. You just transfer the grind from settlements to mission terminals, then (and also make it more grindy for the stuff that's currently available via this method).

I actually just think they should have spent the time to add curated missions specifically given to us by each engineer with a backstory attached to them. That would have been interesting and fun content. So instead of 10 OPs, Kit sends us to a specific location to conduct a surveilance mission on a series of targets to gather intel on them and then the story could have a twist that it's just his imagination and insert interesting narrative here for the player to follow.

Making it 100% "dynamic" via a purely RNG approach does nothing to enhance the game. One or two is OK (so finding surveilance equipment is cool, for example, if it was just one step in Kit's unlock process) but Elite engineers (not just EDO) massively overdoes it. Arbitrarily so, too.

Absolutely this, actual hand crafted mission chains would have been far more fun and immersive than what we have currently.

 

[Moe Melek]

I actually just think they should have spent the time to add curated missions specifically given to us by each engineer with a backstory attached to them. That would have been interesting and fun content. So instead of 10 OPs, Kit sends us to a specific location to conduct a surveilance mission on a series of targets to gather intel on them and then the story could have a twist that it's just his imagination and insert interesting narrative here for the player to follow.

This

 

[Lord Vicious]

The issue with adding everything to mission rewards is that you then continue to dilute the current pool of rewards from missions, thus rendering all other mission material rewards more rare in the process. You just transfer the grind from settlements to mission terminals, then (and also make it more grindy for the stuff that's currently available via this method).

The answer to this is extremely easy - just allow us to choose specific rewards (like we can now choose between money/influence/mats, only make it also selectable between different kinds of mats). To keep things interesting specific types of mats may be attached to types of missions (like Combatant Performance for combat missions, or Patrol Routes for covert missions, etc.); rarer mats could be attached to more difficult missions. Or, to keep things simple, reward missions with "tokens" that you can spend on ANY mat you need.

But that would destroy the gambling hook, so they will likely never do it.

I actually just think they should have spent the time to add curated missions specifically given to us by each engineer with a backstory attached to them. That would have been interesting and fun content. So instead of 10 OPs, Kit sends us to a specific location to conduct a surveilance mission on a series of targets to gather intel on them and then the story could have a twist that it's just his imagination and insert interesting narrative here for the player to follow.

Making it 100% "dynamic" via a purely RNG approach does nothing to enhance the game. One or two is OK (so finding surveilance equipment is cool, for example, if it was just one step in Kit's unlock process) but Elite engineers (not just EDO) massively overdoes it. Arbitrarily so, too.

Having a native story that is conducive to gameplay is great. Some of the best MMO's, like SWTOR, are story-based, with overarching narratives, fleshed out characters and a narrative background to every mission or task in game. It could be absolutely thrilling to have this in Elite, with its vibrant unique universe and plenty of intriguing characters and plotlines.

But that would require putting actual effort into storytelling and meaningful gameplay, so they will likely never go for it.

 

[Moe Melek]

Having a native story that is conducive to gameplay is great. Some of the best MMO's, like SWTOR, are story-based, with overarching narratives, fleshed out characters and a narrative background to every mission or task in game. It could be absolutely thrilling to have this in Elite, with its vibrant unique universe and plenty of intriguing characters and plotlines.

But that would require putting actual effort into storytelling and meaningful gameplay, so they will likely never go for it.

Best way to experience a story seems to be to join a squadron and fight for a faction, and read Galnet.

I doubt we will get a grand scale storyline with connected missions in Elite. The game is perhaps to niche for that. Controls are to complicated to appeal to a wide audience, the customer base is to small to make it financially viable.

Hopefully we will get some more elaborate missions in the future. I'd love to see specially designed mission around content that is already in the game, like the guardian sites and thargoid bases, mega ships, and so on.

 

[Ydiss]

Best way to experience a story seems to be to join a squadron and fight for a faction, and read Galnet.

I doubt we will get a grand scale storyline with connected missions in Elite. The game is perhaps to niche for that. Controls are to complicated to appeal to a wide audience, the customer base is to small to make it financially viable.

Hopefully we will get some more elaborate missions in the future. I'd love to see specially designed mission around content that is already in the game, like the guardian sites and thargoid bases, mega ships, and so on.

I'd not have seen Engineers as "grand scale storyline" though. We already have grand scale storyline, it's the stuff we get on Galnet. I do think that this is a very cool asset for Elite and I think it's awesome that it exists but once the story has played out it's done and gone, never to be experienced again.

The game has a couple examples of what I mean already. The "event" at Guardian sites is pretty well curated and unique, albeit repetetive if you want more than one module (it's still a cool set piece though). The EDO tutorial mission is a perfect example of what I mean, though. It needn't be narrated either. But having a number/sequence of those missions, one for each engineer unlock, would go a long way to making the unlock process itself way, way more interesting than what we have now. Even basic stuff like being sent to find the thargoid crash site for sensor fragments is way better than looting opinion polls. So, we need to find settlement defence plans? Well we should have to go on a mission to find them then. And it should be the same mission for everyone and it should be based on the Engineer's story. This alone would elevate the Engineers content to a whole new level than what we have.

But if it were designed so that the mission narrative could be completed in a few different ways? Even better! So outright combat is one solution, stealth another, talking another, bartering another and so on. I'm absolutely expecting too much with that but this is absolutely what Elite Dangerous Engineers could have been all about (and I am just talking about the unlocking process here - a one-time story you get to play out "your way" rather than just completing a sequence of very grindy fetch quests).

As for actually gathering stuff for the upgrades themselves, I think the existing mission/scavenge template is OK for that. There just need to be tweaks to how much stuff we need. It's way too shopping list like right now and those shopping lists are dull. And we should get mats from kills too.

 

[ChipStar65]

Not sure if this has been suggested, but another approach that gives you easy access to the 6-HAB settlements and pays you for the trouble of slurping down their Habitat Data Ports for possible OPs is to find a system In State = Infrastructure Failure and Tourism Economy. Many of the Tourist Settlements will need powering up, which gives you Level 3 Access (everything!) and once the settlement is powered, all doors are open to you. Dumbfire barrages will easily take care of any scavvies from the air (I have four on my AspX but rarely use more than two), and you get to keeps all the Assets, Goods, and Data you can find with zero Security concerns. The tourism sites seem to have the simplest Power Centre setups, with only a single door to burn down, and once that's done you're In Like Flint.

Currently the Choki system meets these criteria, and my first stop was at a Tourist Site with no tourists, or anyone else. It was not on the Support>Restore Missions list (yet) but another was and coughed up one OP among other less useful data files. I don't think you can slice into the Data Ports without the Power UP mission because they don't have a power port like the Monitors do, so it may take a little Mission Board juggling to get a chance at all the riches. If you're flush with Power Regulators, maybe using one of them in a an ad hoc Power Up will work, but I don't have enough to test that.