Material Farming in 3.3

[Gavin786]

*** THIS METHOD HAS NOW BEEN NERFED AND NO LONGER WORKS ***

With everyone focusing on Void Opals and credit farming, material farming has been ignored by the community thus far. Hopefully this little mini-guide can help folks get a full hold of G5 and other manufactured materials for engineers.


Firstly, material collection from signal sources in Elite Dangerous 3.3 is seriously unbalanced and terribly nerfed at the same time. Using one to cancel the other out can give a consistent and repeatable material farm rate of 50 G5 per hour or more. Here is how I used the mechanism to get full material storage for all manufactured materials + my advice and experience.


First, there is a really good video by DTEA(here) which I recommend everyone to watch. It explains the new method of G5 material gathering from signal sources, but the crux is that all G5 sources behave in the same way as Dav's hope, you can log and they will be there again while the timer is running.


This enables very fast collection of 100 G5 materials of a given type in the signal source. Very nice. If immersion breaking.


Not all materials have the same ease of acquisition. Some material types are now nerfed in their collection, mostly due to what I guess are BGS changes to make their acquisition close to impossible(compared to how it was before). On the other hand some materials can be farmed consistently at a rate of at least 300/hr.


Ludicrously Easy to Acquire
Imperial Shielding
Core Dynamics Composites + Proprietary Composites
Military Grade Alloys


Obtainable
Proto Heat Radiators
Proto Radiolic Alloys
Military Supercapacitors


Impossible
Pharmaceutial Isolators
Improvised Components


Mission Only
Exquisite Focus Crystals(+Combat)
Biotech Conductors


I spent a lot of time flying around to work this out. Pharmaceutical Isolators spawn so infrequently(3.3) and there is such a high spawn rate of Core Dynamics Composites to dilute the spawns that they are basically not obtainable, especially that BGS changes seem to have seriously limited Outbreak systems. Civil Unrest systems there was only 1 I could find(3.3, early Jan). So Improvised Components are just a no-go right now. Dont even try and find them, you are just wasting your time.


What IS possible, however is that given the ludicrously easy method of finding the materials in the 'Ludicrously Easy to Acquire' list, 600 of them can be farmed easily(in 2 hrs) and then swapped for 100 Improvised Components or Pharmaceutical Isolators.


I recommend the 'Nariansan' system to do this in, as High Grade spawns very frequently and there is a material trader in the system. The only material that spawns is Imperial Shielding, which is much better to farm than Core Dynamics Composites as there is no dilution with G4 materials, and they are slightly easier to find than Military Grade Alloys.


Materials on the 'Obtainable' list CAN be found if one looks in the right place and has some patience, but if they just cant be found, it is best to cut losses and just use the Imperial Shielding farming/material trader route. It will save you a lot of sanity. An hour flying around searching could have netted 50 of what you are looking for.


It is far easier and faster to use Nav Beacons to scan a system rather than the new discovery scanner if jumping into a new system to look for HSS.


Best ship to do all this in is an AspX with collection limpits.


I really wish some design folks at Frontier sitting down and deciding how many G5 materials an experienced, properly equipped CMDR looking in the right place aught to get in an hour. Then adjust the RNG and number of materials found to make sure that is what they get on average. Stop G5 HSS being repeatedly farmable and properly balance things. And make sure materials across all types do spawn and frequently, maybe by increasing the system type they spawn in. Right now it is just a total mess, with some materials being ludicrously easy to acquire and some being impossible.


I hope this guide does help the CMDR to navigate this maze as it is right now.


Resources :
Elite Dangerous Scavenger : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...RsDxfAcQa7cBq0YUIFy3m2NII/edit#gid=1438475835
which shows where to find the materials.
DTEA Video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GxneGB3j2o


Signing off,


CMDR Gavin786

 

[Jacob Jones]

Thanks for the guide.

I agree on Improvised Components was looking to Engineer some shields but could not find the correct System State. Not looked for anything else yet but your guide will help me not waste time. Hoping the BGS will get back into shape at some point.

Thanks for the information will farm the Ludicrously Easy to Acquire items in the mean time.

 

[Underhook]

Yes Improvised Components are tough. I got lucky once. I lived in the system for a few days but the only time there was a HGE was the 1st time I went in. They never came back. At that time it was the only civil unrest state in the galaxy. I tried the following week when there were 5 or so systems in civil unrest state. Not one of them even had a HGE.

 

[piercehead]

Best ship is a bit subjective. I like to do my hoovering in a T10, but a Phantom trumps an Asp at everything.

 

[Camisade]

Making matters worse, it's almost like Frontier's trolling us with some of these HGEs. Today, I finally found an HGE spawned by an Independent faction, in Civil Unrest (system: BD+28 413). That SHOULD produce Improvised Components. But I got there and ...the spawn was Proto Light Alloys and Proto Radiolic Alloys. <snarl>

Looking closer, I see that the faction in the system information has a dual state, with the first state listed being Investment and the second state being Civil Unrest ...so the first state would be expected to produce PLAs and PRAs. ...but the state listed on the HGE itself was Civil Unrest. So that seems like a bug, to me.

 

[Blackcompany]

Making matters worse, it's almost like Frontier's trolling us with some of these HGEs. Today, I finally found an HGE spawned by an Independent faction, in Civil Unrest (system: BD+28 413). That SHOULD produce Improvised Components. But I got there and ...the spawn was Proto Light Alloys and Proto Radiolic Alloys. <snarl>

Looking closer, I see that the faction in the system information has a dual state, with the first state listed being Investment and the second state being Civil Unrest ...so the first state would be expected to produce PLAs and PRAs. ...but the state listed on the HGE itself was Civil Unrest. So that seems like a bug, to me.

Ah yes, trying the Overpowered AI required Engineers to the BGS required state based mat drops...

If you have to coerce and force your players to use your game mechanics, those mechanics probably need another, very hard, look.

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

One thing most people don't realize is that the emissions are not tied to system state. They are tied to faction state. Eddb just uses the controlling faction, but i've gotten HGE tied to a non controlling minor faction at war, when the controlling faction (and thus gal map and eddb) did not list the system as war.

Since now factions can have different states in different systems, this bring us more opportunities for certain HGEs. However, since current eddb search doesn't allow for searching by this criteria (subfaction in system has state X), it's largely academic. I considered parsing the JSON you can download to try to figure it out, but then just gave up and crosstraded my imperial shielding.

I figured the farming method out on day 1, I personally use clipper due to lots of limpet cargo but good SC handling. While I agree it's super hard to find some HGE, due to cross trading this is such a huge step up from the previous method that I'm overjoyed at it.

Also your number is way off. It's more like 100 G5 in 20 minutes.

For anyone who doesn't know the quickest farm: https://youtu.be/lemFjOlEb9c

 

[Aashenfox]

Wait for the folks to come along and tell you everything's ok, that everybody with a complaint must be doing it wrong, and get your thread locked...

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...e-simply-worse-than-before-please-acknowledge

Also allow me to repeat myself (copy paste) from another thread...

They tried to offset the ease of finding HGEs using the new FSS, by having a very low initial spawn rate of HGEs and introducing some RNG. Unfortunately they went too far on both of those.

The overall spawn rate is too low GIVEN THAT the number of dice rolls to get a HGE you want is 4.

Roll 1: Does the system have a HGE?
Roll 2: Which factoin does the HGE belong to? (this is the big one, if you asked me, I would say HGEs specifically can only be owned by the controlling factoin, so that the galaxy map showing STATE, corresponds to the state of the HGEs you can expect to find)
Roll 3: Which of the three states does the HGE have?
Roll 4: Will the materials correspond to state or be totally random (currently we are seeing non outbreak mats in outbreak state HGEs and non War mats in War HGEs).

That's WAY too many layers of RNG to apply to a saple size of just ONE OR TWO HGES!!

They need to either dramatically increase the spawn rate of HGEs, or somehow ensure that their state is predictable (to a reasonable degree, such as my suggestion of only controling factoins owning HGEs in their system, not even a canonical stretch, treasure in the sea belongs to the country who owns that particular seabed).

Now throw in the fact that the states that spawn certain g5 mats are already rare. Good luck finding first of all a factoin in that state, that is in a system THAT IS LIKELY to spawn HGEs, combined with that 1 in 6 roll for hte right faction, the 1 in 3 roll for the right state, and the 50-50 chance that the HGE contains the correct gear.

Compare that to the old method... I find a system in the galaxy that is in this state, I go there, I follow my HGE spawn method, if none spawn (did used to happen sometimes) I try another system with the right criteria. Once I;ve got one HGe, I know it has a 50-50 chance to contain the one out of the two materials that each state can spawn, and I know that once I've got one HGE in that system, I will be able to get more.

The point is consistency. If I wanted to farm pharma isos, I knew I had to find a good system in outbreak and I'd be able, if I put enough time in. Now I have to hope that an outbreak system even spawns an HGe, hope that the HGE belongs to the factoin that is in outbreak, and hope that the HGE itself has the state of outbreak.

The alternative is diabolical...going from system to system picking up any random HGEs I can find, then trading them down ad 6 to 1 for what I really wanted. Completely rubbish and this was supposed to be an inmporvement.

Final point, game systems shoudl reward skil and experience. I could have written a detailed guide to gathering before 3.3, now there is no need for a guide. All you have to tell someone is: "hges are totally random now, just go system to system and pick up everything you see then trade for what you wanted"...hm...great gameplay.

 

[fus roh potato]

They should have stuffed a lot of these things into cargo racks in the new megaships, POI stations, and ground installations. Something you actually have to work or fight for to get. Maybe completing a scenario at a medical facility will make it fart out some pharmas. This whole drop into a rare signal and get them is no more deterministic than what it used to be. Although more realistic and sensible in presentation, the gameplay around signal sources has not improved at all.

Instead of flying around in circles for hours, you now have to jump between systems in circles for hours.

The entire HGE idea is rubbish IMO

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

Final point, game systems shoudl reward skil and experience. I could have written a detailed guide to gathering before 3.3, now there is no need for a guide. All you have to tell someone is: "hges are totally random now, just go system to system and pick up everything you see then trade for what you wanted"...hm...great gameplay.

While I agree with everything you say, I don't think the previous system really rewarded skill and experience as much as it did the ability to google. So the very few folks who actually first figured it out (for all I know you were one of them) were skilled, the rest of us just looked at one of the guides.

Personally I hated the fly-out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-waiting-to-encounter HGE of 3.2, so I like this, since at least it's an easily repeatable chore, rather than a random chore. I do understand (trust me, I searched for quite a while for famine systems) it's still random in the ways you point out. I just bite the bullet and crosstrade, because at 20 minutes for 100 imperial shielding, I can get enough for whatever build I have on my mind at the moment in an acceptabe amount of time.

The whole materials system is nonsense IMO. 3 currencies, 2 of which display on one screen, the 3rd on another screen, each has 5 grades, but one only has 4, and there are multiple subcurrencies none of which really make any sense (e.g. "Military Grade Alloys" are sub-currency "thermic" but "Phase Alloys" are subcurrency "alloys"). All impossible to manage without 3rd party tools, and it was even worse before I started playing.

So I've never been able to see it as anything but a meaningless chore to get over with to do other parts of the game. I do realize others might not view it so, I firmly think people should enjoy the game in their own way.

 

[Aashenfox]

While I agree with everything you say, I don't think the previous system really rewarded skill and experience as much as it did the ability to google. So the very few folks who actually first figured it out (for all I know you were one of them) were skilled, the rest of us just looked at one of the guides.

Personally I hated the fly-out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-waiting-to-encounter HGE of 3.2, so I like this, since at least it's an easily repeatable chore, rather than a random chore. I do understand (trust me, I searched for quite a while for famine systems) it's still random in the ways you point out. I just bite the bullet and crosstrade, because at 20 minutes for 100 imperial shielding, I can get enough for whatever build I have on my mind at the moment in an acceptabe amount of time.

The whole materials system is nonsense IMO. 3 currencies, 2 of which display on one screen, the 3rd on another screen, each has 5 grades, but one only has 4, and there are multiple subcurrencies none of which really make any sense (e.g. "Military Grade Alloys" are sub-currency "thermic" but "Phase Alloys" are subcurrency "alloys"). All impossible to manage without 3rd party tools, and it was even worse before I started playing.

So I've never been able to see it as anything but a meaningless chore to get over with to do other parts of the game. I do realize others might not view it so, I firmly think people should enjoy the game in their own way.

I would agree, as long as I could accurately predict what materials I would be likely to find in a system. It's purely the fact that NO skill can be applied any more, not even googling skills. No guide can be written because it's almost 100% random. Cross trading 100 materials for 16, is literally the worst gameplay I've ever had to do in this game. Don't forget, 16 mats is just one or sometimes two HGEs. You wouldn't have to search long under the old system to match that.

Honestly, for me, the old way was faster and more reliable if you knew what you wer doing. It wasn't fun, but then neither is going from system to system racing to HGEs that are expiring. Don't even get me started on how things will be after they fix the exploit....

 

[cmdrrdmc]

I wonder why they tied HGEs to faction state rather than controlling faction state, because that's the real issue here. When there are six factions in a system, and only one is in Outbreak, the chance of finding an Outbreak HGE is only 1/6. It gets even worse if that faction has multiple states. Compounding the problem is that there may be better systems out there where, say, the controlling faction isn't in Outbreak, but 3 minor factions are, but no way to figure this out with 3rd party tools.

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

Don't even get me started on how things will be after they fix the exploit....

I found that feature (don't you dare give them ideas with the E word) 2 hours after chap 4 popped and they'll pry it from my cold dead hands.

(Yes, I know they've probably done worse and I have no control here, let me just have hopes)

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

I wonder why they tied HGEs to faction state rather than controlling faction state, because that's the real issue here. When there are six factions in a system, and only one is in Outbreak, the chance of finding an Outbreak HGE is only 1/6. It gets even worse if that faction has multiple states. Compounding the problem is that there may be better systems out there where, say, the controlling faction isn't in Outbreak, but 3 minor factions are, but no way to figure this out with 3rd party tools.

I'm not sure that's true. I've certainly been in systems with multiple HGEs, although I can't remember if I checked whether any of these cases were from different factions. It could be that spawn rates of HGE based on state presence are additive e/g. A system with war has 1%, war and famine has 1% for the war HGE and 1% for the famine, rather than 0.5% for each)

 

[Aashenfox]

I found that feature (don't you dare give them ideas with the E word) 2 hours after chap 4 popped and they'll pry it from my cold dead hands.

(Yes, I know they've probably done worse and I have no control here, let me just have hopes)

It's already been scheduled to be fixed.

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

It's already been scheduled to be fixed.

you're kidding me

any idea on timing?

i will literally load every manu mat to the brim before they do that if i can

materials will be horrendous after that

tfw

 

[Aashenfox]

I'm not sure that's true. I've certainly been in systems with multiple HGEs, although I can't remember if I checked whether any of these cases were from different factions. It could be that spawn rates of HGE based on state presence are additive e/g. A system with war has 1%, war and famine has 1% for the war HGE and 1% for the famine, rather than 0.5% for each)

I've got data from ez aquarii of three different HGEs, 1 belonging to the controlling faction which had their MILITARY state (and it seems to follow so far that war is taking some kind of priority), the other 2 were belonging to the same non controlling faction, one was state none and the other was in boom. So I can definitely confirm that a HGE can belong to any faction and be any state of that faction.

 

[Aashenfox]

you're kidding me

any idea on timing?

i will literally load every manu mat to the brim before they do that if i can

materials will be horrendous after that

tfw

I don't think it will be an easy one to fix, so I'm guessing with the big bgs patch, I reckon 2 weeks maybe? Total guess.

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

I don't think it will be an easy one to fix, so I'm guessing with the big bgs patch, I reckon 2 weeks maybe? Total guess.

If they can associate a boolean/cmdr pair with each HGE it will be easy, if not it will be hard.

This game is going to kill me.

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

I've got data from ez aquarii of three different HGEs, 1 belonging to the controlling faction which had their MILITARY state (and it seems to follow so far that war is taking some kind of priority), the other 2 were belonging to the same non controlling faction, one was state none and the other was in boom. So I can definitely confirm that a HGE can belong to any faction and be any state of that faction.

Great observations. To me that hints, but doesn't confirm, HGE spawn rates are additive.

I'm still jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge when they fix that, unless my manu mats are full.