Engineers Pharmaceutical Isolator's Bugged and a total waste of time

[Kiwirat]

Rant:
After searching outbreak systems for a week now I have yet to find a single HGE that drops PI's. Today I have searched 10 systems, all types, Independent, Alliance etc, and not one is giving me even one HGE let alone PI's. This is just bugged and is IMHO is a puerile waste of players time and energy and debilitating to gameplay. The only way to get them now seems to be trading.
Devs, you need to sort this e out and at least make something achievable.
End of rant.
Gonna go kill the e out of some ships now..

 

[khalismur]

Err? I found 100, traded down to the max of lower grades, and refilled to 100 Pharmaceutical Isolators not many days ago... Took me maybe 20 minutes of searching?

 

[Kiwirat]

lol obviously in another galaxy dimension to mine.. post the location and watch the goldrush

 

[Para Handy]

Pharma Isolator's what is bugged?

 

[Kiwirat]

In well over a week of checking for HGE's in the recommended "outbreak" systems, especially Independent, Alliance, and Anarchy sytems I have yet to find a single PI, yesterday I checked 10 systems without finding an HGE in any. That to me is bugged. I suppose you are going to tell me you have been falling over them everywhere..

 

[Abysinth]

I too have found it next to impossible to find Pharmaceutical Isolators. I've given up looking. I want to finish upgrading my DDs on a few ships and ... well, they're not getting done

 

[avow555]

I consider this to be a bug.

 

[khalismur]

Look for Outbreak systems using the galaxy map. Third-party tools might be outdated, so best is to use the in-game map to filter what you want. I've been told government does not affect HGE spawn chances and that high population does help, but to be honest I've found no evidence of that. This impression of others might have been confirmation bias based on what people have been saying for a long time, as I'm not sure if someone actually gathered data for a statistical study.

I'm tanked on those but when or if I need more I can post here the system in which I find them.

 

[zimms]

It's RNG with a really low chance to get HGEs in an outbreak system.

But people will tell you that you're not supposed to look for a specific material. "Just play the game" and use material traders.

 

[Shir]

I used to do a lot of engineering material hunting back in the day, i enjoyed the chill factor. With the current system it's meaningless to go after a specific material. Just go in random systems hunting HGEs and gather whatever, then trade.

 

[[VR] Zakk]

My main source for mats is whatever interdicting NPC pirates drop while I'm running missions. I do have plenty of pharmaceutical isolators, as they get dropped by deadly or elite Anacondas rather frequently. I currently have 52 in stock, and am pretty sure that I traded some away before.

Please don't mistake that as an "in your face" or "git gud" statement. I'm just saying that there are ways to get pharmaceutical isolators, even though they may not work for every CMDR. Also, I cannot comment on whether the mats distribution works as intended, or if it's flawed.

I would agree, though, that as long as you scoop up everything you find and use material traders to get what you don't find, you shouldn't face insurmountable obstacles. It's not like you need dozens of pharmaceutical isolators when engineering your ship.

 

[Iron Golem]

In well over a week of checking for HGE's in the recommended "outbreak" systems, especially Independent, Alliance, and Anarchy sytems I have yet to find a single PI, yesterday I checked 10 systems without finding an HGE in any. That to me is bugged. I suppose you are going to tell me you have been falling over them everywhere..

I looked at a few the other day while doing some HGE hunting. I found nothing.

 

[Iron Golem]

My main source for mats is whatever interdicting NPC pirates drop while I'm running missions. I do have plenty of pharmaceutical isolators, as they get dropped by deadly or elite Anacondas rather frequently. I currently have 52 in stock, and am pretty sure that I traded some away before.

Please don't mistake that as an "in your face" or "git gud" statement. I'm just saying that there are ways to get pharmaceutical isolators, even though they may not work for every CMDR. Also, I cannot comment on whether the mats distribution works as intended, or if it's flawed.

I would agree, though, that as long as you scoop up everything you find and use material traders to get what you don't find, you shouldn't face insurmountable obstacles. It's not like you need dozens of pharmaceutical isolators when engineering your ship.

I disagree. I killed 7 dangerous / deadly / elite anacondas in a row when running stacked missions in Cutter a few weeks ago not a single PI. I went BH a couple days ago and took probably 5 Anacondas. None. I always look at contact list thinking Ill see them because people say they drop all the time.

I've also done some pirate lord assassin missions and had a few anacondas as opponents recently... No PIs.

I don't think its as common as people say it is as a pinata pop mat. I think sometimes people get lucky but in general its a dud and not consistent enough to count on.

I just mat trade. I would enjoy a way to semi reliably collect them organicly though.

 

[Kiwirat]

I guess my point of starting this thread was as an indicator to those new to engineering or the game and not conversant with all the 3rd party tools and YouTube tutorials.
Unless Fdev fix some of these bugs they continue to risk driving good players away because of some mindless grind with little result.
I am not a newbie having played since early 2016 but took over a year off because of the grind and have come back a little refreshed.

I am now getting my PI's by farming Imperial Shielding HGE's in Empire "election" state systems where finding HGE's is reasonably consistent and trading 6 for 1 PI.
Thanks for the input.
Fly safe commanders.

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

It's terrible RNG. Sometimes you get lucky and get pharma isos, but most of the time you're better off farming something abundant like imperial shielding and cross trade. It's even worse for improvised components, those things are rarer than unicorns.

 

[[VR] Zakk]

I disagree. I killed 7 dangerous / deadly / elite anacondas in a row when running stacked missions in Cutter a few weeks ago not a single PI. I went BH a couple days ago and took probably 5 Anacondas. None. I always look at contact list thinking Ill see them because people say they drop all the time.

I didn't want to imply they are dropping all the time. Should probably have said "occasionally" rather than "frequently". I guess my number of dispatched Condas is a lot closer to 700 than to 7. If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say that about every 15th drops PIs. It may well be linked to factions ot states as well, which I do not pay attention to.

I currently fly missions out of Codorain, to finally rank up with the empire and get a Cutter. Delivery missions usually send 4 Condas against me. As I usually stack them, and get randomly interdicted as well, I'd say I meet about 10 Condas per sortie. Pirate assassination missions often send me against Corvettes. Shot one down last night, in one of Codorain's neighbour systems, and it dropped 1 lot of PIs.

It still takes very long to collect them, and if you fly out looking for them as you need them for an immediate engineering project, it can certainly be a frustrating experience.

I cannot rule out that the drop algorithm is flawed. But if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say PI drops are linked to a series of conditions, and if they are met, there is a certain chance they will drop. But that's just me guessing. All I can say is that I have plenty of PIs. I'm not implying that those who don't do anything wrong.

But there are other mats that I never find - military alloys for example, or imperial shielding. Even some low grade mats, like mechanical equipment. Simply because these mats are hardly ever dropped by the ships I'm usually fighting, and I cannot be bothered to go after the ships that drop them.

Most of the time, I will scoop up whatever my enemies drop after I'm done with them. And as soon as first mats get near their storage maximum, I will visit the nearest material trader and trade all material stocks over 50% for mats that I hardly ever find.

I also always select mission rewards that involve mats or data. Credits is the one commodity that you can always earn easily, if needed. But mats and data, you can never have enough of.

Finally, on a lighter note:

I am not a newbie having played since early 2016

That qualifies as a newbie to me. CMDR since 1986. Back in those days, we went 20MM barefoot through a snowstorm on an ice planet to collect our mats. Kids these days...

 

[Iron Golem]

I didn't want to imply they are dropping all the time. Should probably have said "occasionally" rather than "frequently". I guess my number of dispatched Condas is a lot closer to 700 than to 7. If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say that about every 15th drops PIs. It may well be linked to factions ot states as well, which I do not pay attention to.

I currently fly missions out of Codorain, to finally rank up with the empire and get a Cutter. Delivery missions usually send 4 Condas against me. As I usually stack them, and get randomly interdicted as well, I'd say I meet about 10 Condas per sortie. Pirate assassination missions often send me against Corvettes. Shot one down last night, in one of Codorain's neighbour systems, and it dropped 1 lot of PIs.

It still takes very long to collect them, and if you fly out looking for them as you need them for an immediate engineering project, it can certainly be a frustrating experience.

I cannot rule out that the drop algorithm is flawed. But if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say PI drops are linked to a series of conditions, and if they are met, there is a certain chance they will drop. But that's just me guessing. All I can say is that I have plenty of PIs. I'm not implying that those who don't do anything wrong.

But there are other mats that I never find - military alloys for example, or imperial shielding. Even some low grade mats, like mechanical equipment. Simply because these mats are hardly ever dropped by the ships I'm usually fighting, and I cannot be bothered to go after the ships that drop them.

Most of the time, I will scoop up whatever my enemies drop after I'm done with them. And as soon as first mats get near their storage maximum, I will visit the nearest material trader and trade all material stocks over 50% for mats that I hardly ever find.

I also always select mission rewards that involve mats or data. Credits is the one commodity that you can always earn easily, if needed. But mats and data, you can never have enough of.

Finally, on a lighter note:


That qualifies as a newbie to me. CMDR since 1986. Back in those days, we went 20MM barefoot through a snowstorm on an ice planet to collect our mats. Kids these days...

I agree with what your saying. Once in a GREAT while I will notice I picked up a couple of PI from a mat collection session at some point, It's just so rare.

 

[AlSki]

But there are other mats that I never find - military alloys for example, or imperial shielding.

Where as I find so many Imperial Shielding's that these form the basis of Material trading for me. I think it really depends on which areas of space and what game loops you play.

 

[Esteban]

Please consider this to be a report of my findings, not instructions for how to do (or how not to do) this or a commentary on anyone's method.

I have just 35 pharmaceutical isolators (and, for that matter, just 17 military supercapacitors) to show for many trips hunting HGE sites, scanning, fighting, etc.
With regard to PIs, I have never found one in a HGE site. The only place I got them was from killing highly-ranked NPC anacondas. This is a difficult achievement and, when looking over the Mats that are left behind after the kill, I was almost ecstatic to see one or two precious PIs once every blue moon. They are indeed rare (apparently). This is a very low-success-rate way to get PIs - no doubt.

A couple of Mats that are a little OT to this thread:

I wish I remember details about how I got the military supercapacitors, but I do not. That's bad because they seem to be more difficult to get (that could certainly be circumstantial).


One other rare Mat is Improvised Components. I currently have 66 of these. Lo and behold these I got from an HGE site! I was searching for a very long time (not that those trips were useless - for those of you who say not to search for one in particular). When I found these, I did the restart thing to get several batches before the HGE expired because I was so relieved to have finally found some ICs. I don't usually do that but it was excruciating to find them. Of course I can "trade up" but there is something to be said about finding them too. Whether you agree or disagree, just remember that I'm simply reporting what I did. If you'd like details about how I found the ICs, just click the button.

Spoiler: Details? OK.

I was playing in OPEN, I happened upon the LHS 214 system. This wasn't by accident; the system is (was at the time) in a Civil Unrest state. The HGE "belonged" to the F99th faction * - which is (was) also in a state of civil unrest (that was strictly by coincidence; I did not know in advance). The expiration time of the HGE was long enough for me to restart several times in order to harvest the site several times.

A couple of notes about the aforementioned info:
1) I have no notion about whether it matters to be playing in OPEN vs any other mode, obviously.
2) It is said that the Faction to which the HGE belongs must match the state in order to spawn the Mats. ("Match" is perhaps a bad choice of words. It must be in the state that is supposedly the one likely to spawn the Material.) I can't corroborate or dispute that. I simply don't have the data to do either. I can only relate to you that in this (singular) case the state of HGE's "ownership" did match the civil unrest state in the system. This is truly a single instance. My inventory of ICs comes entirely from this one HGE site.
3) It is said that these rare materials spawn (more likely or at all - I don't know) in short-lived HGEs. I would disagree with that only in the context where someone says this is the only way they spawn because this one lasted long enough to restart the game several times and get more. I've encountered my share of sites that are so short-lived that it's a laughable notion to even make it one time. Distance aside, when you're trying to accelerate out of the taffy that is the space around a very big mass, it seems to take forever to get to just 1.0c!


* For those of you who don't know what this means: when you target a site like this, (virtually any USS), in the upper right of your cockpit view the information about the site includes who/what it belongs to. Sometimes that's no one (it shows "NONE"), but often it displays "ownership" info. Example of an EE site:

Hope you find this useful, CMDRs. If I can try to answer questions about my experience related here, feel free to ask.
Happy travels!

 

[Kiwirat]

IMHO you mostly get the Military HGE mats from any faction in a state of war or civil war. certainly worked for me.
Fly safe