Odyssey Gear Upgrades in late 2024

[tolm]

I played Odyssey a little bit when it first dropped on a PC-alt. Then I transferred my PS5 CMDR over and got somewhat disillusioned by trying to get back the very minimal engineering I’d done.

Thargoid War happens so off I go to take part in that before I’m kinda done with the game and Starfield releases.

Now I’ve completed the main Starfield story and faction quests a couple of times and have been returning to Elite Dangerous.

Did some ship stuff at first and then I decided to revisit on-foot content … I feel find myself thinking, “surely this can’t still be it”’ … I simply don’t understand how anyone had enough time one the day to upgrade anything with regards to suits and hand weapons?!

Weapon / Suit Schematics and Manufacturing Instructions can be acquired as mission rewards or taking salvage missions to fetch them, abandoning the mission annd eating the fine/rep loss. This works but is far from efficient.

But some of the other stuff … Carbon Fibre Plating? Titanium Plating? It seems so rare as to basically be non-existent.

I have some fairly modest immediate targets:

- A G2 Dominator with Night Vision that I’d like to get to G3. That requires 5 Titanium Plating plus a bunch of other other stuff.

- A G3 Maverick with no mods that I’d kinda like to G4: that’s 15 Carbon Fibre Plating.

Plus the insane number of Schematics and Manufacturing Instructions.

Never mind actually wanting to add some useful mods on any suits or weapons:

• Greater storage and battery life for that G3 Maverick. And Night Vision if I get it to G4 because everywhere is dark!
• Improved shields and ammo capacity on the Dominator
• Increased sprint on everything because the defaults are woeful …
• Greater range on my TK Zenith as it’s my main shield stripping weapon when scavenging
• Stowed Reloading or a larger clip on my G3 Manticore Executioner
• And then there’s my AR-50 (paired with the above on Dominator loadouts) that doesn’t need anything but would be nice to customize

Even just looking at the Titanium / Carbon Fibre Plating needs: I played for 6 hours yesterday doing a combination of Salvage and Reactivation missions and I found 2 Titanium and 0 Carbon Fibre plating.

Assuming that rate were to continue, that’s 18 hours of gameplay to get enough of ONE material representing 1/6 of the requirement to upgrade ONE suit by ONE grade.

And the next grade would be 3x that.

And, of course, the other upgrade will never happen because I still haven’t seen a single instance of Carbon Fibre Plating since Oddysey released.

Is it just me or is this ridiculous?

Am I doing something wrong or does everyone else just play for weeks to upgrade a single item?

It seems to me one or more of a number of things needs to happen:

- Slash the upgrade requirements like they did with the Guardian ship-based stuff: so you need a single Schematic and like 1/5 of all the other stuff for each upgrade

- Massively increase occurrences and or have each material count for multiple. Doesn’t have to be a blanket “1 == 3” rule (like the ship-based mats) could be that the platings are stack of 3-5 whereas others (like bottles or chemicals) are still single items

- Provide a variety of ways to get stuff by both legal and illegal missions and as rewards for CZ completions / missions.

 

[tolm]

Just realised I posted this in totally the wrong place! If the mods could move this to “Dangerous Discussions” that’d be great!

 

[SteveWW57]

I played Odyssey a little bit when it first dropped on a PC-alt. Then I transferred my PS5 CMDR over and got somewhat disillusioned by trying to get back the very minimal engineering I’d done.

Thargoid War happens so off I go to take part in that before I’m kinda done with the game and Starfield releases.

Now I’ve completed the main Starfield story and faction quests a couple of times and have been returning to Elite Dangerous.

Did some ship stuff at first and then I decided to revisit on-foot content … I feel find myself thinking, “surely this can’t still be it”’ … I simply don’t understand how anyone had enough time one the day to upgrade anything with regards to suits and hand weapons?!

Weapon / Suit Schematics and Manufacturing Instructions can be acquired as mission rewards or taking salvage missions to fetch them, abandoning the mission annd eating the fine/rep loss. This works but is far from efficient.

But some of the other stuff … Carbon Fibre Plating? Titanium Plating? It seems so rare as to basically be non-existent.

I have some fairly modest immediate targets:

- A G2 Dominator with Night Vision that I’d like to get to G3. That requires 5 Titanium Plating plus a bunch of other other stuff.

- A G3 Maverick with no mods that I’d kinda like to G4: that’s 15 Carbon Fibre Plating.

Plus the insane number of Schematics and Manufacturing Instructions.

Never mind actually wanting to add some useful mods on any suits or weapons:

• Greater storage and battery life for that G3 Maverick. And Night Vision if I get it to G4 because everywhere is dark!
• Improved shields and ammo capacity on the Dominator
• Increased sprint on everything because the defaults are woeful …
• Greater range on my TK Zenith as it’s my main shield stripping weapon when scavenging
• Stowed Reloading or a larger clip on my G3 Manticore Executioner
• And then there’s my AR-50 (paired with the above on Dominator loadouts) that doesn’t need anything but would be nice to customize

Even just looking at the Titanium / Carbon Fibre Plating needs: I played for 6 hours yesterday doing a combination of Salvage and Reactivation missions and I found 2 Titanium and 0 Carbon Fibre plating.

Assuming that rate were to continue, that’s 18 hours of gameplay to get enough of ONE material representing 1/6 of the requirement to upgrade ONE suit by ONE grade.

And the next grade would be 3x that.

And, of course, the other upgrade will never happen because I still haven’t seen a single instance of Carbon Fibre Plating since Oddysey released.

Is it just me or is this ridiculous?

Am I doing something wrong or does everyone else just play for weeks to upgrade a single item?

It seems to me one or more of a number of things needs to happen:

- Slash the upgrade requirements like they did with the Guardian ship-based stuff: so you need a single Schematic and like 1/5 of all the other stuff for each upgrade

- Massively increase occurrences and or have each material count for multiple. Doesn’t have to be a blanket “1 == 3” rule (like the ship-based mats) could be that the platings are stack of 3-5 whereas others (like bottles or chemicals) are still single items

- Provide a variety of ways to get stuff by both legal and illegal missions and as rewards for CZ completions / missions.

Trading is your best friend. Pick up all the tech you see (like chips and lenses) and visit a bartender. Carriers even can sell some stuff. Look for restore/reactivate missions for places to loot, particularly IND, EXTR and tourist sites.

Steve

 

[Felix DiCestria]

In a couple of hours this afternoon I upgraded an Artemis from G3 to G4 and added increased ammo.
It isn't that hard. You may want to reconsider your methods/location.

 

[metatheurgist]

Lots of armor plating to be found in industrial (and weirdly mining) settlements. Target reactivate missions going to those types of settlements. And not all settlements are equal, don't just do the one place. Some settlements will give you 4-5 armor plating every time. If you're feeling frisky every time you get a mission to one of those types of settlement (delivery or whatever) spend some time walking around and see what's where, and grab something when no one's looking.

This is one of my favorite pics.

Oh, something else to be aware of. Sometimes loot is just sitting out in the open, not in containers or cabinets. On top of barrels, on shelves, on desks, on the floor behind something. Don't miss those, I shudder to think how many weapon components I missed in the early days.

 

[tolm]

Trading is your best friend. Pick up all the tech you see (like chips and lenses) and visit a bartender. Carriers even can sell some stuff. Look for restore/reactivate missions for places to loot, particularlu IND, EXTR and tourist sites.

Steve

Hmm … do materials to trade for only show up once you’ve found at least one of them? ‘Cause I swear Carbon Fibre Plating wasn’t an option and then I found one and now I can trade for it and consequently have 14 … progress!

 

[tolm]

In a couple of hours this afternoon I upgraded an Artemis from G3 to G4 and added increased ammo.
It isn't that hard. You may want to reconsider your methods/location.

Really? You all of the following from scratch in “a couple of hours”:

10 Suit Schematic
10 Health Monitor
10 Power Regulator
10 Manufacturing Instructions
25 Aerogel
25 Graphene

 

[tolm]

Trading is your best friend. Pick up all the tech you see (like chips and lenses) and visit a bartender. Carriers even can sell some stuff. Look for restore/reactivate missions for places to loot, particularlu IND, EXTR and tourist sites.

Steve

Thanks for the Industrial suggestion: found a system with an Industrial economy in infrastructure failure and I now have a G4 Maverick suit with reduced tool usage!

I’m also on my way towards increased backpack capacity - though I’m not sure I need that in the long term so may just stick with returning to my ship / SRV after every couple of buildings.

Also just unlocked Kit Fowler and I already have the mats for Increased Shield Regen … is that worth it on a Maverick or should I only stick that on a Dominator for CZs? In which case I need to get my G2 Dominator with Night Vision upgraded to G3 … or just go with my G3 Dom (no mods) but I really like the idea of using NV when the CZs are dark …

 

[Fixitman]

Really? You all of the following from scratch in “a couple of hours”:

10 Suit Schematic
10 Health Monitor
10 Power Regulator
10 Manufacturing Instructions
25 Aerogel
25 Graphene

It's really simple to do with SC resets at the right anarchy-owned settlement layout. Depending on RNG, I can get all that in 2-6 hours at my favorite spot.

 

[Jack Winter]

Bigger command buildings often give a good amount of schematics. Often when I break in to disable the alarm or my target is there, I'll wipe out all the staff in the building just for that nice big locker. Don't much care if it's anarchy or lawful as the bounties and notoriety is pretty meaningless for how I farm mats on foot. Very nice to base myself out of an anarchy big station, do an assassination in a lawful settlement and then just pay off the bounties immediately after cashing in the mission. If you just a kill a few instead of the entire settlement it's unlikely that you'll acquire much notoriety.

But I think one conclusion I've come to is to just play the game and pick up mats, meaning I just do the missions I like, for BGS or for mats. I'm not fond of chasing a specific material and prefer to build up stocks and engineer later. This goes both for ship as well as on foot engineering. For on foot mats I tend to pick up most assets that I find and then converting them to the highest cost items of each class. If I need something specific I just visit a bartender to get what I need for my engineering. The useful goods I keep picking up and so far I haven't had to sell any, nor found myself badly missing something. Data I get from mission rewards, preferably 5 or even 10 for a mission, but I'll also do a quick assassination for only 3 MIs.

For those that don't know it, I find the following an excellent utility to help organize my mats and to organize my engineering efforts. https://github.com/jixxed/ed-odyssey-materials-helper

 

[Felix DiCestria]

Really? You all of the following from scratch in “a couple of hours”:

10 Suit Schematic
10 Health Monitor
10 Power Regulator
10 Manufacturing Instructions
25 Aerogel
25 Graphene

The assets are doddle, just walk into any warehouse and there's usually loads of them.
The Health monitors aren't far behind, there are some settlements where I can't seem to pick up anything else.
There's an exploit for the regulators if you want to use it.
Suit Schematics and Manufacturing Instructions can be hit or miss, so it's always worth stashing them when you see them, that said I just saw three missions all offering 5 MI on a single board.

 

[Rat Catcher]

Really? You all of the following from scratch in “a couple of hours”:

10 Suit Schematic
10 Health Monitor
10 Power Regulator
10 Manufacturing Instructions
25 Aerogel
25 Graphene

If one weans themselves off the "baby's first steps" of only eradicating Anarchy settlements and embraces their inner criminal, many large settlements, bursting with materials for the stealing, are to be found very locally...
Also, being allied with factions can have the on-foot mission agents be negotiated to offering up to 10 materials - getting 10 MI for a simple assasination is very satisfying - even better if the entire settlement is cleansed and every item appropriated...

Notoriety & bounties are toothless, in truth, I play with Not. 10 often without any true negatives...

 

[dj_wylie]

your not wrong. its a hell of a grind. i upgraded and modded pretty much all the suits and weapons a good while ago, but it was a mammoth grind to get everything that took ages. Some mats are way more tedious and annoying than others. the fact the bartender doesnt trade data is also a bottle neck.

And no, fdev havnt updated anything arond on foot weapons/suits and engineering since launch.

 

[tolm]

If one weans themselves off the "baby's first steps" of only eradicating Anarchy settlements and embraces their inner criminal, many large settlements, bursting with materials for the stealing, are to be found very locally...
Also, being allied with factions can have the on-foot mission agents be negotiated to offering up to 10 materials - getting 10 MI for a simple assasination is very satisfying - even better if the entire settlement is cleansed and every item appropriated...

Notoriety & bounties are toothless, in truth, I play with Not. 10 often without any true negatives...

Yeh, I’m not quite at the full “murder hobo” stage yet but I have started taking the (legal) “settlement raid” and “eliminate/kill X” missions as a change to the run-of-the-mill reactivation missions.

Bonus is you can knab the power regulator when you’re done!!

 

[londonx]

I found finding those plating things fairly easy to pick up, just by looting Industrial, military warehouses (military is good for weapon schematics too) (maybe it was mining settlements and not military as mentioned in the thread). Warehouses are quite easy to get inside and loot without killing.

Manufacturing instructions are usually gifted at 5 a piece as mission rewards (maybe if you are allied to the faction) and you can spin the die and gamble for more if they are offered by a casual mission giver at a station, I recalling getting 10 before for one mission.

 

[tolm]

your not wrong. its a hell of a grind. i upgraded and modded pretty much all the suits and weapons a good while ago, but it was a mammoth grind to get everything that took ages. Some mats are way more tedious and annoying than others. the fact the bartender doesnt trade data is also a bottle neck.

And no, fdev havnt updated anything arond on foot weapons/suits and engineering since launch.

Having (re)discovered trading with the bar tenders, I’m making better progress but - yeh - the data seems to be the slow point now.

 

[londonx]

I found Settlement Defence Plans the worst to get overall, but managed to find another CMDR to gift some to me

 

[londonx]

If not done already try the "ED Odyssey Materials Helper" app, you can build up wishlists for your suits and weapons and it shows how many mats you need and where to find them, the realtime count down is quite a morale booster and incentivising, while the insight into the material distribution in the game has an immersive factor by highlighting the world building.

 

[tolm]

I found Settlement Defence Plans the worst to get overall, but managed to find another CMDR to gift some to me

That rings a bell from when I first started playing Odyssey back at launch. I have actually seen one this time around, though …

 

[Codger]

I'll go ahead and say this, although I seem to be the odd man out.

The upgrade process for on-foot gear is excellent, because you can get everything you want by just doing missions and looting afterwards, and the missions are incredibly fun and challenging.

It takes a while to upgrade stuff, yes. But there's nothing at the end of the process, the process itself IS the game. Once you've got your stuff upgraded, you're done, and the reason to do missions and engage with settlements mostly goes away.

It's a game loop that most folks seem to want to bypass. I don't know why. I had an absolute blast doing the various missions, figuring out how to avoid alarms and do a clean run with no aggro, etc. etc. It's been very satisfying to me.

So go ahead and rant about it, instead of engaging with it and having fun. It's entirely up to you.