Odyssey Engineer Unlocks - Effective Ways to Find Data in Q1 2022?

[PaleGringo]

Greetings and good day, Commanders. I hope each of you are well.

At the risk of sounding like an echo chamber, I've hit another wall trying to unlock engineers, more precisely the Financial Projections and Settlement Defence Plans. I did a cursory search of related threads, and saw a few dated ones that may be similar, but nothing too recent.

Every once and again - probably less than 1/30 - I find the occasional Financial Projection on a random instance at a Tourist Settlement Data Port. I haven't come across many SDPs at all. I've seen videos where people are allegedly finding things at crashed skimmer sites but I have not been able to find anything other than six cargo containers and active skimmers.

What are some of the best ways for commanders to not spend weeks trying to get these Engineer unlock requirements current to 2022?

Thank you in advance commanders.

 

[SteveWW57]

Two possible answers.
If you do not want headshot damage then you do not need SDPs.
Financial Projections are not that hard to find, and then they can be found by the exchange thread. More often than not, they will be donated.

Go to Colonia to unlock the engineers there and add the hard to get modifications (headshot damage) there. Take the materials with you.

Steve 07.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

As SteveWW57 says, the easiest way is to unlock the Colonia engineers instead for the mods which are tough to get in the bubble - none of them are particularly hard to unlock, especially compared with finding SDPs.

 

[Frop]

Nothing too recent? This one is still on the front page.

Settlement Defense Plans update.

Hi everyone, Checking to see if there are confirmed looting of these from Irregular Markers 1 and 2. Or is it only level 3? Also, any other places these drop? Need 1 more and trying a skimmer at a Irregular Markers 2 and so far nothing after about 20 trys.

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[PaleGringo]

Hmmm.

 

[Frop]

Hmmm.

Never said the answer was going to be a pleasant one. It's just RNG on top of some more RNG with some RNG thrown into the mix.

 

[Aurican]

Done with SDFs in about 1 hour using relog method on a Liberate Bootleg Liquor POI (ship mission from Shinrarta)
- Spawn rate is roughly 25% (trip-wise), about 7.5% (data-wise).

Done with Smear Campaigns in about 1 hour using supercruise method at Mitchell Resort in Iah Bulu.
- Roughly get 1 per full sweep of colony (7 dataports, maybe 1 in 30 pieces of data?)

Still looking for a good place to grind Financial Projections...anyone?

 

[PaleGringo]

I'm still working on Financial Projections myself. Have been finding the odd one on occasion in EXT / STO datapads, but nothing repeatable. Haven't seen a Bootleg Liquor mission though, may be trying in the wrong places. Thank you for the tip off on ShinDez, hadn't tried anything from there yet.

I think I need something like 8 more Financial Projections and 22 SDPs. Trying to balance that against looking for the bits needed to upgrade and unlock engineers and fly RT to Colonia, since nobody really seems interested in unlocking core system Odyssey Engineers.

KEEP UP THE FIGHT, COMMANDER! o7

 

[Aurican]

At Corbin's Wandering in NLTT 21088...roughly 5 sweeps (sounded alarm a few times so had to bail), 2 FP and 5 OP.
And a ton of Cat Media and entertainment.

Looks promising so far.

At least it exists.

 

[Aurican]

Corbin's Wandering in NLTT 21088
Corporate System (BOOM), Dictatorship Settlement (State NONE)

31 dockings, with about 5 runs aborted.
=> 13 Financial Projections, 12 Opinion Polls, 0 Smear Campaigns (doesn't spawn here)
=> Roughly 50% chance of seeing ONE FP or OP per landing
=> Using 2.5 data per port, with 8 ports in all, that's about 2.5% of spawning (data-wise)

At about 10-12 min per docking, that takes about 4-5 hours of non-stop super-cruising and back.

For Smear Campaigns, the rate appears to be identical (based on impression at Iah Bulu) if it is supposed to spawn.

And I am finally done with these....puke

 

[Aurican]

Anyone remember seeing Financial Projections in Anarchy settlements? Wonder if it is mutually exclusive with Smear Campaigns.

 

[Viajero]

Never said the answer was going to be a pleasant one. It's just RNG on top of some more RNG with some RNG thrown into the mix.

Not really RNG. Those materials have clear preferences for the type of settlement and specific buildings they are actually in. Settlement Defense Plans in particular happen to show up more often in Security building dataports in Military or Industrial type settlements of high security level:

Settlement Defence Plans

Since odyssey launched if managed to find a whopping 2 so far. Haha

forums.frontier.co.uk

Also

Guide to farming Settlement Defense Plans

This is how you farm Settlement Defense Plans. 1. They spawn most commonly at High Security settlements, and preferentially from Military and Industrial settlements. 2. They spawn exclusively at SEC Data Pads(also potentially CMD pads, but I haven't found any there yet). 3. They spawn...

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[Frop]

Not really RNG. Those materials have clear preferences for the type of settlement and specific buildings they are actually in. Settlement Defense Plans in particular happen to show up more often in Security building dataports in Military or Industrial type settlements of high security level:

Settlement Defence Plans

Since odyssey launched if managed to find a whopping 2 so far. Haha

forums.frontier.co.uk

Also

Guide to farming Settlement Defense Plans

This is how you farm Settlement Defense Plans. 1. They spawn most commonly at High Security settlements, and preferentially from Military and Industrial settlements. 2. They spawn exclusively at SEC Data Pads(also potentially CMD pads, but I haven't found any there yet). 3. They spawn...

forums.frontier.co.uk

I literally posted before and after the CM's comment in that first thread you quoted. And the loot table is still RNG, regardless of being in the right circumstances, which the average, non-third party site commander will have absolutely no clue about because you get no relevant information in-game whatsoever.

Settlement Defence Plans

Hey folks - definitely aware of low spawn rates on some mats - for Settlement Defence Plans you should really be looking in Dataports in Security rooms. The settlement difficulty and economy do make a difference to spawn rate but the other things (size / government) don't. Yes, it did, as I...

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[Viajero]

I literally posted before and after the CM's comment in that first thread you quoted. And the loot table is still RNG, regardless of being in the right circumstances, which the average, non-third party site commander will have absolutely no clue about because you get no relevant information in-game whatsoever.

Settlement Defence Plans

Hey folks - definitely aware of low spawn rates on some mats - for Settlement Defence Plans you should really be looking in Dataports in Security rooms. The settlement difficulty and economy do make a difference to spawn rate but the other things (size / government) don't. Yes, it did, as I...

forums.frontier.co.uk

I may be misunderstanding you, or have a different definition of RNG. That loot table shows this is precisely not RNG. Also the name "Settlement Defense Plans" intuitively leads to Military or otherwise heavily defended settlements which usually will have a CMD/Security building.

 

[Aurican]

Well the issue is that you may have raid the same (type of) settlement a dozen times before one appears.
By the 3rd or 4th...most (new?) players will probably have doubts on whether it will appear at all.

 

[Morbad]

I may be misunderstanding you, or have a different definition of RNG. That loot table shows this is precisely not RNG.

If it's not static and not formulaic/procedural, it's random or pseudo-random. The existence of a weight, or of different tables for different settlements doesn't mean it's not RNG.

 

[Viajero]

If it's not static and not formulaic/procedural, it's random or pseudo-random. The existence of a weight, or of different tables for different settlements doesn't mean it's not RNG.

Pseudo-random is just a distribution that appears to be random even though is generated by a deterministic system. This is not the case for SDP.

I believe the fact FDEV has confirmed explicitly that SDP are much more likely to appear at specific economies and buildings and higher security levels, and which is corroborated by those tables, is precisely the opposite of RNG. An RNG case would show a pretty much flat distribution of SDP across any economies, buildings and all security levels etc. But what we have is a very significant spike in settlements with military and industrial economies, CMD security data ports and higher security levels, i.e. not RNG. If we are looking for SDP we know where to go.

 

[Morbad]

Pseudo-random is just a distribution that appears to be random even though is generated by a deterministic system. This is not the case for SDP.

I believe the fact FDEV has confirmed explicitly that SDP are much more likely to appear at specific economies and buildings and higher security levels, and which is corroborated by those tables, is precisely the opposite of RNG. An RNG case would show a pretty much flat distribution of SDP across any economies, buildings and all security levels etc. But what we have is a very significant spike in settlements with military and industrial economies, CMD security data ports and higher security levels, i.e. not RNG. If we are looking for SDP we know where to go.

RNG doesn't remotely imply a flat distribution. What we have is randomly (or pseudo randomly) generated numbers thrown at a settlement based lookup table, or given a settlement based weight.

 

[Viajero]

RNG doesn't remotely imply a flat distribution. What we have is randomly (or pseudo randomly) generated numbers thrown at a settlement based lookup table, or given a settlement based weight.

A flat distribution in this context simply refers to any kind of economy, building and security having the same probability to produce a SDP, which is clearly not the case here. SDP have a much higher probability to occur in military, industrial economies, CMD buildings and higher security. In other words, if we are looking for SDP we know where to go. Not random.

As for pseudo-randomness that simply means a distribution that appears to be random even though is generated by a deterministic system. This is not the case for SDP either.

 

[Morbad]

A flat distribution in this context simply refers to any kind of economy, building and security having the same probability to produce a SDP, which is clearly not the case here.

Correct.

SDP have a much higher probability to occur in military, industrial economies, CMD buildings and higher security. In other words, if we are looking for SDP we know where to go.

Yes, we know where they will have higher probability to spawn.

Not random.

No. Still randomly generated, just not flat.

By your definition of RNG, there would be next to no random outcomes in my AD&D game despite the success, failure, and specific results, of countless events being dictated by the true random numbers generated by my physical dice. Clearly this is not the case.

Rolling 3d6 to generate a character's strength score doesn't result in a flat distribution; there are 27 ways to roll a '10', but only one way to roll an '18' on 3d6. Still RNG.

A character with a THAC0 of 19 attacking a monster with an armor class of -3 randomly generates (rolls) a number between 1 and 20 on a d20, with a flat distribution. The outcome is either a hit or a miss, one or the other, but it's not 50/50, it's 95/5, because only the '20' hits. Still RNG.

When I'm rolling for random monsters as the party travels across an arid desert, they have no chance of encountering any sharks or whales, because those aren't on the desert encounter table at all. Still RNG.

The definition you've given is a useless one that mandates every outcome have an equal chance of success. I have never encountered, and cannot find, a definition of RNG that mandates that. No definition in at least the first two pages of a Google search for "gaming RNG" matches yours.

As for pseudo-randomness that simply means a distribution that appears to be random even though is generated by a deterministic system. This is not the case for SDP either.

I don't know the source of the numbers used. It's probably pseudo random, but it's ultimately immaterial.