Let me get this straight... (Odyssey Engineering)

[Streen]

So, I have to acquire a bunch of materials to unlock, for example, level 2 of my laser weapon with the weapons/suits dude on a station. THEN, I have to do a whole mess of crap to unlock the engineer, so that I have acquire MORE materials to apply to unlocking an ability that is level 2. Two levels of grinding for each unlock? Two levels of material finding? So basically, if I have this right, it's TWICE as more complicated than engineering a ship??

What have I got wrong here? Because I was ecstatic to unlock level 2 on my gun, and then I was only mildly disappointed to find I had to unlock an engineer, and extremely frustrated to find out I STILL had more grinding to do.........

To be more specific, I now need 10 each of Operational Manuals, Combatant Performance, and Combat Training Material. None of which even appear ON GOOGLE. How and where do I find these materials???

Please help me understand.

 

[CMDR Sophie Joanne]

Best place for finding the things you need is mission rewards (that's what I have found).
I've been playing every day (almost) and have just got enough materials to do my first engineering mod (and almost my 2nd, 3rd and 4th). I feel like a single mod is supposed to be something you work towards over a week or 2, instead of grinding out in a day.....

 

[Winterdyne]

Upgrading (grade of weapon) and engineering (mods on weapon) are different. Higher grade weapons get more mod slots and are better.

The materials you list can be found on data ports in military and command buildings I think, but I've had loads of those as mission rewards.

 

[Episparh]

I now need 10 each of Operational Manuals, Combatant Performance, and Combat Training Material.

Data ports in CMD and PWR buildings. In addition you can receive those as mission rewards.

 

[Mormo]

Welcome to elite grindfest!

 

[ferus]

I think the game should tell you where to at least look for these things... like it does in Horizons.
But yes, engineering is a huge grindfest and there are some aspects of it in Odyssey that are worse than they are in Horizons.

 

[ferus]

And be careful with the engineered mods - once you apply them to a suit or a weapon you can't get rid of them. So think twice before you visit an engineer or be prepared to upgrade/mod more suits.

 

[CMDR Sophie Joanne]

So, I have to acquire a bunch of materials to unlock, for example, level 2 of my laser weapon with the weapons/suits dude on a station. THEN, I have to do a whole mess of crap to unlock the engineer, so that I have acquire MORE materials to apply to unlocking an ability that is level 2. Two levels of grinding for each unlock? Two levels of material finding? So basically, if I have this right, it's TWICE as more complicated than engineering a ship??

What have I got wrong here? Because I was ecstatic to unlock level 2 on my gun, and then I was only mildly disappointed to find I had to unlock an engineer, and extremely frustrated to find out I STILL had more grinding to do.........

To be more specific, I now need 10 each of Operational Manuals, Combatant Performance, and Combat Training Material. None of which even appear ON GOOGLE. How and where do I find these materials???

Please help me understand.

This might help you - CMDR's Toolbox
2nd menu-item at the top, "+Odyssey alpha".
All credit goes to D2EA (Down to Earth Astronomy)

 

[Streen]

Best place for finding the things you need is mission rewards (that's what I have found).
I've been playing every day (almost) and have just got enough materials to do my first engineering mod (and almost my 2nd, 3rd and 4th). I feel like a single mod is supposed to be something you work towards over a week or 2, instead of grinding out in a day.....

And be careful with the engineered mods - once you apply them to a suit or a weapon you can't get rid of them. So think twice before you visit an engineer or be prepared to upgrade/mod more suits.

Thanks all. I'm a little less frustrated now. I do agree that an upgrade should take about a week or more of playing on and off, but it seems like it has taken a LOT longer than that. And yes, it would be nice if the game gave you a hint of where to find what you need.

 

[AncientGael]

OP and anyone else reading, don't bother engineering from grade 1, you can get grade 3 drops, some with mods, at the supplies store, that's a lot of grinding by passed, i'd advise saving mats for grade 4 up

 

[AncientGael]

Focus on unlocking the engineers, and check the store at every station you dock, i have most items at grade 3 this way

 

[Mormo]

you can get grade 3 drops

To upgrade 1 suit from g1 to g5 you need 284 items. To upgrade 1 suit from g3 to g5 you need 220 items. So purchasing pre upgraded suit will save you 64 items. Weapons need less mats to upgrade, so you will save 58 items with purchasing g3 from a vendor (253 instead of 195). Not that big of a difference IMO.
Engineering mods however can be a nice surprise but they are rare and RNG. Again.

 

[danteuk]

You need to gather mats to get better suits and weapons to make gathering mats easier to get better suits and weapons to make gathering mats .... wait I see a problem and a solution.
Probably: Gathering mats is a grind and largely not fun.
Solution: Don't do it.

So lets see where that leaves us. OnFoot missions are fun enough for the first few times, then they get boring. If it's an active base and you just do the mission it might take 10-15mins and the sneaking around can be fun, until you get caught, then you die and lose the mission and if you got a fine you'll respawn in a prison ship somewhere random, this is seriously not fun because you'll now have to either get a taxi back to where your ship is, or to a station with a ship yard and transfer your ship - but of these involve waiting ( taxi ride is boring as hell and a complete waste of a players time - waiting for your ship to transfer and having no ship, means you either logout and play something else or see if there is local mission and use a taxi to get there, more hand's off waiting time ).

None of the ground missions pay enough to make credits a reason to do them.
So unless you're trying to influence the BGS then the only reason to take an On Foot mission is because it's one you enjoy and haven't got bored of yet or you really like grinding mats.

If the combat is not for you then grinding mats is pointless.
If the frame rates in settlements is really bad, then combat is not for you either.

Don't be fooled into thinking an empty base power up mission with threat 0 sounds like a simple task - The threat level is still meaningless - I've had level 0 where there were 8-10 scavengers with level 3 shields and soon as I killed one of them, they called in reinforcements.

 

[The Roofus]

You don't /have/ to engineer anything at all - I barely do and the game's fine shrug

 

[babelfisch]

Generally I like the idea that mods and upgrades are separated. I would reduce required mats though.
And most importantly, I want to swap mods between gear.

 

[avow555]

As usual Fdev came up with another pathetic grind.

 

[galahad2069]

As usual Fdev came up with another pathetic grind.

I'm pretty sure they have an entire Grind Department led by the Senior Grind Manager (probably the best paid employee of the whole company). The department is surely somewhere in the basement lit by wall mounted torches, there are shackles and various torture devices everywhere, a few forgotten skeletons are lying around in shady corners and everybody is wearing creepy hooded robes.

 

[Erei]

As usual Fdev came up with another pathetic grind.

Grindalf approves.

 

[O'Roarke]

Those Operational Manuals, Combatant Performance, and Combat Training Material -- they all show up as material reward for missions.
You can find those on the terminals, and by checking mission givers in person. They can double or sometimes even triple the material rewards if your rep and merc rank is up to snuff.

The game is really handing you all you need to know; on a silver platter.

 

[KRONFROMGALVATRON]

Thanks all. I'm a little less frustrated now. I do agree that an upgrade should take about a week or more of playing on and off, but it seems like it has taken a LOT longer than that. And yes, it would be nice if the game gave you a hint of where to find what you need.

Fwiw frontier's community manager said Odyssey materials grind being balanced is absolutely a thing being looked at.

Frontier makes these changes I suspect based on data they have from player activity. If they see that on average players are spending too many hours doing a certain thing before being able to upgrade, the combine that with community feedback to tweak spawn rates or just change the requirements down from say 10 to 5 or something.

This is one thing people don't always seem to realize - Frontier makes balance changes and other things by looking at massive dashboards of galaxy wide player stats. When some of the real hardcore folks around here complain that X should happen, sometimes it's pretty clear to me that the reason it's not been changed to their liking is frontier can tell that 90% of players actually wouldn't benefit. It's a tight rope walk though. You can't please everyone all the time. But long story short, I'll be shocked if there's not a balance pass over a odyssey materials at some point.