I finished farming the maelstrom and thought I'd share the tips I learned while they're still relevant without a caustic sink. I tried 4 engineered ships and it turns out the correct answer is the imperial clipper, specifically its size 7 slot. Who would have guessed throwing money at a problem would fix it? The 7D repair limpet makes a world of difference, it can outheal light caustic damage. The ship has 3k armor and 1 limpet repairs 15% of the hull. There's plenty of advice out there on caustic generators so I'll stick to the other materials.
Massive Energy Surges
Dive in when you get there and when you start getting close to the center, queue up the 15s wait to exit to menu. Watch the top and bottom of the screen and logout after the surge hits you. When you log back in, you'll have taken about 10% damage and have a light caustic effect. Pop a repair limpet and then head back in right away. You're outhealing the damage so you'll be back up to 100% by the time you get to the center. Rinse and repeat. You're trading 1 repair limpet for 1 massive energy surge. Note that if you logout before rebooting, heatsinks and lasers are offline when you come back if you need to burn off the caustic damage.
Caustic Crystals
These are the priority. If you see one, go for it. A-rate your sensors with a long range mod to help you spot them. Once you're full on other mats, set those to ignore so you only see crystals on the radar. If you're farming the energy surges, you have time before the repair limpet expires to look around for crystals. Be careful about triggering the maelstrom on accident. Don't worry if you start taking damage, heck, do another run if you're above 50% and not dowsed in caustic clouds. When you log back in, burn off the caustic damage, pop a heat sink and a repair limpet, then alt-tab away until you need another repair limpet.
Here's the ship if you're interested. The fuel scoop gets you from the station to maelstrom, but you'll need to nurse at a star or two. The heatsink launchers are actually the new pre-engineered ones. The xeno-scanner can be dropped. I used to scan interceptors while I was in there, but they weren't worth it once I streamlined the harvesting process.
coriolis.io
Massive Energy Surges
Dive in when you get there and when you start getting close to the center, queue up the 15s wait to exit to menu. Watch the top and bottom of the screen and logout after the surge hits you. When you log back in, you'll have taken about 10% damage and have a light caustic effect. Pop a repair limpet and then head back in right away. You're outhealing the damage so you'll be back up to 100% by the time you get to the center. Rinse and repeat. You're trading 1 repair limpet for 1 massive energy surge. Note that if you logout before rebooting, heatsinks and lasers are offline when you come back if you need to burn off the caustic damage.
Caustic Crystals
These are the priority. If you see one, go for it. A-rate your sensors with a long range mod to help you spot them. Once you're full on other mats, set those to ignore so you only see crystals on the radar. If you're farming the energy surges, you have time before the repair limpet expires to look around for crystals. Be careful about triggering the maelstrom on accident. Don't worry if you start taking damage, heck, do another run if you're above 50% and not dowsed in caustic clouds. When you log back in, burn off the caustic damage, pop a heat sink and a repair limpet, then alt-tab away until you need another repair limpet.
Here's the ship if you're interested. The fuel scoop gets you from the station to maelstrom, but you'll need to nurse at a star or two. The heatsink launchers are actually the new pre-engineered ones. The xeno-scanner can be dropped. I used to scan interceptors while I was in there, but they weren't worth it once I streamlined the harvesting process.
Coriolis EDCD Edition
A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous
coriolis.io
