PSA: Operation Montgomery Scott - Improving the Colonia Engineers!

You know what’s super sweet about Colonia? Four Engineers with all the blueprints you could ever want within a 40 light year radius.

Eat that, Bubble Babies!

But wait Phisto, you crazy handsome old fool! Colonia doesn’t have the same quality of blueprints as the Bubble does! Well, how about we go ahead and change that?

Loren’s Reapers is leading a new charge to improve blueprint quality for the Colonia Nebula. Amazing work has already been done by many Commanders living out here but there’s still much to be done.

Here’s how we’re going to do it - and we want your help!
  1. Get every blueprint in Colonia up to G3. Only way to do this is by rolling upgrades at Engineer bases. This is a relatively efficient use of time and materials and promotes their general use among the Colonia population. This will then help raise the blueprint to G4 and G5 levels.
  2. Effective and enjoyable material farming: Use 3rd party programs like EDDB.io to find raw material rich planets (and that super helpful volcanism!). Run missions for manufactured materials and data (protip: find systems on the edge of the Nebula that run passenger missions to Jaques’ tourist beacons - it’s Robigo: Colonia Edition). Trade the high value materials for stuff you need (Foster Terminal, Coeus: Manufactured; Tolagarf’s Junkyard, Kojeara: Raw Material; Colonia Dream, Ratraii: Encoded Data).
  3. Work as a team! Got a squad out here? Work together on your favorite blueprints and make it happen. Doesn’t matter if you’re a combat pilot, explorer, trader, or miner - help what you love.
  4. Put your mind to the grind and take it slow. With no new major content coming until 2020 we’ve got an amazing opportunity to prepare the Nebula for whatever comes our way. It’s a marathon, not a sprint! Take your time, help out when you can, and most importantly have fun no matter what you do in Elite: Dangerous.
Thanks for your time. Any questions? Post ‘em in this thread!

Take care out there.
 
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Nice tip on the passengers. I found Deriso and Pytheas to be very lucrarive for MM's atm, 11 unique factions (2 dbl up) all offer them......just don't take the one's for infected vessels

A couple of trips to fill up my mission log and then off to Hephaestus for pewpew. Do all the nearby signal sources and finish up in the haz rez, ignore SS's around second star

Pays pretty damn well as each kill contributes to upto 11* missions, and if you take mat rewards and scoop up post combat you'll be maxed out on manufactured mats in no time

*edit - 13
 
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Can I vote for a shuttle bus yet? That's the kind of gameplay I could get behind.

Also, I did not realise you can improve an Engineer, how does that work?

You roll upgrades at the Engineer. Colonia only, I believe. Bit of a grind, I know, that's why we're looking at this long term.

Was talking to Ian Doncaster about it this morning and apparently a team of ten Commanders can each spend ten minutes rolling upgrades and make significant progress. Not bad, if you ask me. Then there's all the joy of folks enjoying better equipment without going back to the Bubble. Right now there's lots of room for improvement as far as scanners, weapons, and your favorite: limpets ( <3 ).
 
Can I vote for a shuttle bus yet? That's the kind of gameplay I could get behind.

Also, I did not realise you can improve an Engineer, how does that work?
The LAST we need now is ANOTHER pirate king claiming Carcosa for himself. * sigh * I'll never become king of carcosa...

By the way, did Phisto forget to mention that we sell Alliance and Federation ships in Carcosa now?


Serious now: shuttle service is going to beta test next week, and the Colonia engineers can be raised by rolling upgrades.

edit: and another ninja :cautious:
 
Also, I did not realise you can improve an Engineer, how does that work?
Colonia Engineers gain experience as people roll blueprints for them - 1 point for a G1 roll, to 4 points for a G4 roll. As they gain experience, they then unlock higher grades - between them they started at G1 in everything, and now have 7 G5s and several G3s and G4s.

Summary of progress so far at https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/engineers

It's possible to upgrade a blueprint at much faster than its "natural" pace by just sitting at an engineer base feeding them materials ... a group of ten people really going all-out to fast track in this way could push a blueprint from G1 to G5 in a single week, whereas it would take months to upgrade just by people making them for personal use.
 
It's only 22,000Ly from the bubble... I got a speeding ticket last time I used the Neutron Highway, but yes, I'll come and join in with your fun - just let me dust off the Phantom...

Unless something goes badly wrong, you'll be shooting at me in around 10 days :)

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas.

Feel free to add me. Name same as here. I promise any pews will be friendly and fun (unless I feel like taking a shot across your bow just to keep you awake and alert...).
 
Being honest, I liked my visit to Colonia around Christmas - it is very pretty - and have plenty of credits and mats (just finishing of a series of data runs at observatories) so your initiative makes sense, and it would be refreshing to get ganked by the outcasts...
We're all nice people working for a common goal. I guess it's one of the safest Anarchies in the game right now :LOL:
 
Why is this not an Interstellar initiative?
Serious answer: because it's not time-limited. Interstellar Initiatives last (we're told) about a month, their predecessor Community Goals generally lasted about a week.

Upgrading the Colonia Engineers has been going on for just over eight months, and at current rates should last at least another couple of years before everything is up to G5 (though this operation might well shorten that significantly)

It also I think fits better with the player-led nature of the Colonia story for the upgrades to be those which Colonia pilots - whether organised player groups, independent residents, or just passing through - find important, rather than a top-down approach from Frontier. This sort of incremental and natural approach is something I'm hoping to see more from Frontier in future (though the occasional CG or II would of course be appreciated too!)
 
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