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Newcomer / Intro Materials gathering: is this normal?
- Thread starter AceMcKool
- Start date
All the info you need is on the Cannon Bug Killer page - hereLocation, please?
Honest question: how does this "collect as you go" approach work, exactly? It's not like materials/data are lying around everywhere in space, are they?
Unless I'm missing something, you have to go to specific places and do pretty specific tasks in order to gather stuff.
Am I supposed to pause in the middle of an exploration run, to go chase a HGE I just discovered 50kls away while FSSing a system? For starters, I don't fly around with limpets while doing exploration. Both limpets and controllers cut back on jump range. Is that a mistake?
And what about raw/manufactured materials? How do I collect those as I go?
Honestly, I'm lost here.
Data and materials ARE juts hanging about in space. Maybe not exactly the ones you want, but material traders can fix that.Honest question: how does this "collect as you go" approach work, exactly? It's not like materials/data are lying around everywhere in space, are they?
Unless I'm missing something, you have to go to specific places and do pretty specific tasks in order to gather stuff.
Am I supposed to pause in the middle of an exploration run, to go chase a HGE I just discovered 50kls away while FSSing a system? For starters, I don't fly around with limpets while doing exploration. Both limpets and controllers cut back on jump range. Is that a mistake?
And what about raw/manufactured materials? How do I collect those as I go?
Honestly, I'm lost here.
Leaving a Station? Scan a wake
Travelling in SC ? Passive scan ships, look at USS (only when you want to, or that too becomes a grind)
Killed a pirate ? Scoop up those materials
When you get the FULL message, go trade up somewhere, you get loads of Arx as a bonus.
This does not work well with raw materials any more as you don't need to use a srv for any of the srv missions, but most people would suggest a trip to Crystal Shards instead.
You can target ships whilst you travel in supercruise - produces data.
Targeting ships and high-wakes outside ports and at nev beacons - produces data.
Destroyed ships in combat drop manufactured materials.
Encoded and degraded signal sources - drop in to the instance collect manufactured material and scan data points for data.
Raw materials are collected during mining or when driving in your SRV - yes you need to actively seek raw materials.
Missions can offer data and manufactured materials as pert of their reward - they don't offer raw materials though.
So - yes materials are just lying around in space - even HGE sources of G5 manufactured materials are "just lying around in space".
EDIT - ninja'd again ...
Except for raw mats (see the corresponding "Crystalline Shards" thread over in the Guides section), they do.
Data is everywhere. Whenever you exit or enter a station, or see a ship in SC, you can target them and get data. Usually low grade, but hey, that's why we have material traders. Just stop by whenever you get a "Storage Full" error message after targeting that pesky NPC Sidey in the slot.
When you do those lucrative base scanning missions, the data points often drop, besides the mission data, med to high grade data.
When you do missions (or even just so) and drop into the system's Nav Beacon to scan for your target's location, also all the (current) signal sources, no matter which distance, in that system get revealed. Scroll through them en route to your mission target - there may be a HGE or two around in reachable distance. And once you're out of the star's gravity well, another 20 kls won't add too much time.
If you're desperate for low and mid end mats, every station I approach has two or four USS within less than 1 ls distance. I usually don't bother with those any more, but if you spend the additional couple of minutes, you can at least target them and check if there's anything interesting there.
Missions. Do missions. Become allied with the local factions, and you'll see missions that will offer >1 MCr. rewards - or 5 top grade manufactured or data mats instead.
Dead enemies - as already said, plunder their corpses. The usual Dangerous/Elite Anacondas that interdict you on high level missions drop at least one (set of) high grade manufactured mats, and a bunch of lower grade stuff. Combat zones yield better stuff, but are also more difficult to collect. But only ships that have been killed by players drop mats.
Yep. The only exception is when you're first discovering engineering and think you have to have everything G5'ed, I made that mistake myself so I know of what I speak. The only thing I really "needed" was to buff my FSD for more range (to make it easier to get from point A to point B, that's all), and getting those mats before I learned, truly, just how many places you can collect them and trade to others if they're not the ones you're looking for was, indeed, a grind. But it was all my own fault because I felt that I "had to" G5 everything.
All you "have" to do is to get your access to G5 with your preferred engineer so you can pin the blueprint and use it wherever. After that, every G you add as you gain mats is not a "grind". And, truth be told, there aren't really that many upgrades where you really need G5. G3 is more often than not good enough until you find that you have mats to spare through the "collect as you go, trade when you're full on anything" method.
Yes, they are. Manufactured mats drop from every single ship you shoot, make a habit of collecting them. Even a 1 class collector limpet controller will make that dead easy, especially in a RES where nobody will shoot at you unless you shoot at them first. Also, every single signal source will have some. Don't ever ignore a high grade in a system you're passing through. Even if the mat you get isn't one you're looking for, you can trade it to something else.
Encoded? Scan every single ship you see while you're just being bored in Supercruise anyway. Again: Trade if you run full on anything. Also, installations. Get a recon limpet controller, learn the silent running before attach, disengage after attachment, re-engage after hack completion for a few seconds, you can do this in ANY ship, get free encodeds without aggro/bounties. Trade if you run full.
Raws? If you don't mind the trip, go to a shard site, fill up on all the G4s, go back and trade for Selenium or just make a habit of surface prospecting on every planet you find that has it.
Just make a habit of that, and you'll soon find yourself inundated with messages that your bin is full and then, if later you find you want to upgrade, you can remote engineer because you surely pinned the print, right?
Oh, and make a habit of adding the experimental you want at G1, not when you're at G5. The experimental you can only get with the engineer, and it doesn't matter if it's G1 or G5, , but the G5 you can get at ANY station as long as you pinned the blueprint.
There. Easy.
But if you're "racing" through every system, "collect as you go" won't work.
If you see a 20$ bill on the sidewalk, why not bend down to pick it up? You may not need it now, but it might come in handy later.
As a new player too, I definitely recommend what those guys said on 'collect as you go method'.
I just wake scan everything when I leave a station and trade them when needed.
For manufactured materials, I have no luck on the USS sites except for Core Dynamic Comps, Proto Radiolic Alloys and Imperial Shielding so I just trade for the others. The imperial shielding is really easy too.
The raw minerals are a bit more of a pain since trading Iron/Sulpur up to Pollonium or Tellerium is hard so I just grinded that at that HIP xxx site 1.6k LY out and learned how to FSS on the way.
I just wake scan everything when I leave a station and trade them when needed.
For manufactured materials, I have no luck on the USS sites except for Core Dynamic Comps, Proto Radiolic Alloys and Imperial Shielding so I just trade for the others. The imperial shielding is really easy too.
The raw minerals are a bit more of a pain since trading Iron/Sulpur up to Pollonium or Tellerium is hard so I just grinded that at that HIP xxx site 1.6k LY out and learned how to FSS on the way.