Settlement Defense Plans update.

[Agema]

I think finding Settlement Defence Plans has become the single most annoying thing I have ever experienced in E: D.

I don't particularly like cheesing sites at the best of times, but it's what you end up doing when something is too otherwise too hard. And when you then have to search round a load of systems just to find the right site, and then it might not be the right type of the right site, and the %age chance of the right drop is low... well, this sucks.

 

[Agema]

Try Alici.

Firstly, thank you for that tip - I was having trouble finding them reliably, flying around a series of anarchies that seemed reluctant to spawn any.

So, I did a quick count. I found 6 settlement defence plans out of 183 data pieces, suggesting a spawn rate around 3%. There's an average ~1.5 data per skimmer. Each logout/in takes me about 20-30 seconds, so ~60 minutes. Add to that 90 seconds (90!!!!) to d/l each data piece from the skimmer = ~10 minutes. And the game CTDed every time I logged back in after successfully finding and downloading one, assume another ~10 minutes wasted. So 80 minutes to find 6 settlement defence plans. As I already had two, I guess that's another 80-90 minutes tedium to go.

Doing it "properly", assuming it would take an average 30 mins to find and get to each site, with a drop rate of 3% and needing 15 for the unlock, that would take more time than anyone's life is worth. It is broken.

I also think some of the d/l times are poor design. Go to some of the settlements and you can spend your time just waiting around a data port for 3 minutes. It's a terrible waste of players' lives. I get it should take time, but more than ~15s for any one data piece is frustrating and excessive.

 

[Retropolitan]

Firstly, thank you for that tip - I was having trouble finding them reliably, flying around a series of anarchies that seemed reluctant to spawn any.

So, I did a quick count. I found 6 settlement defence plans out of 183 data pieces, suggesting a spawn rate around 3%. There's an average ~1.5 data per skimmer. Each logout/in takes me about 20-30 seconds, so ~60 minutes. Add to that 90 seconds (90!!!!) to d/l each data piece from the skimmer = ~10 minutes. And the game CTDed every time I logged back in after successfully finding and downloading one, assume another ~10 minutes wasted. So 80 minutes to find 6 settlement defence plans. As I already had two, I guess that's another 80-90 minutes tedium to go.

Doing it "properly", assuming it would take an average 30 mins to find and get to each site, with a drop rate of 3% and needing 15 for the unlock, that would take more time than anyone's life is worth. It is broken.

I also think some of the d/l times are poor design. Go to some of the settlements and you can spend your time just waiting around a data port for 3 minutes. It's a terrible waste of players' lives. I get it should take time, but more than ~15s for any one data piece is frustrating and excessive.

When you're dealing with something that's clearly a long-term goal and you make it your primary focus in the game you are going to drive yourself mad in a short time. There are places where these show up, rarely, and you can accomplish other things by visiting those places. It's good to work toward more than one goal at a time, especially when one of those goals is going to take you forever.

For what it's worth, I found one of these yesterday at a settlement data port. I also picked up one Opinion Poll, another problematic data mat. But I did that by looking for (and finding) other things that I'll fill up on much sooner, so those two finds were like free money. This keeps me sane, and it might work for you, too.

 

[zimms]

When you're dealing with something that's clearly a long-term goal and you make it your primary focus in the game you are going to drive yourself mad in a short time. There are places where these show up, rarely, and you can accomplish other things by visiting those places. It's good to work toward more than one goal at a time, especially when one of those goals is going to take you forever.

For what it's worth, I found one of these yesterday at a settlement data port. I also picked up one Opinion Poll, another problematic data mat. But I did that by looking for (and finding) other things that I'll fill up on much sooner, so those two finds were like free money. This keeps me sane, and it might work for you, too.

It's almost as if the game doesn't give players any short or medium term goals.

 

[Retropolitan]

It's almost as if the game doesn't give players any short or medium term goals.

I think that's a problem, all right. But in this case I just worked up a long list of mats I knew I'd need - including those very rare ones - and worked to that list. As I filled each one up (and eventually applied the mods) I had those short-term successes that keep you going, and I was careful not to obsess over the ones that take a long time.

 

[Agema]

When you're dealing with something that's clearly a long-term goal and you make it your primary focus in the game you are going to drive yourself mad in a short time. There are places where these show up, rarely, and you can accomplish other things by visiting those places. It's good to work toward more than one goal at a time, especially when one of those goals is going to take you forever.

For what it's worth, I found one of these yesterday at a settlement data port. I also picked up one Opinion Poll, another problematic data mat. But I did that by looking for (and finding) other things that I'll fill up on much sooner, so those two finds were like free money. This keeps me sane, and it might work for you, too.

I agree entirely. The problem is that eventually you hit a brick wall where you have to get something specific. My brick wall is that I have all the materials for key mods (and along the way picked up stuff for a lot more lower priority mods/upgrades), I just need the engineer available.

I generally do a lot of mixed grinding with missions - you have list of materials you need, and can select the best combination of mission reward and settlement type that's most likely to spawn the loot you want. Even when I hit the massive block that was settlement defence plans, when I picked up the first two, I was looting the whole irregular marker site (weapon schematics) and other useful data (e.g. manufacturing instructions). But in the time it took me to find those two SDPs I was swimming in weapon schematics and manufacturing instructions and carrying that on was becoming far more inefficient than useful.

 

[Revan2610]

I am hoping that "Many improvements and fixes, including...." actually includes a Data Trader like we have in Horizons. I am drowning in data.......except the ones I need of course.

 

[[wilb]]

Found one, temperature too high, can't disembark

Killed over 250 people for 25 cat videos. guess I take a longer break, good advice to stay sane by avoiding the grind and also true I've now only two things missing, those polls and the defence plans and I've no nerves to grind for that, when I can come back in 1 year and they have change the whole grind to 1/3 like with the older engineers.

I don't get it, things you could buy in reality, implemented as forced grind more or less.

If I want a scope on a gun, a night vision goggle. I could get them.

Ingame they give you missions to kill 20 people for 40mio cr, but for a simple scope you've finally to spend the whole weekend and not even then I've unlocked this engineer.

I'm done

This just sucks the life out of my eyeballs.

 

[Penumbra]

Can anyone confirm that these SD plans actually drop at Threat 3 IMs? Cos I farmed a Threat 2 for an hour and got 2, and then farmed a Threat 3 for ages (made 456k in bounties, that's over 200 hostiles killed) and got nada. I did however get a few Patrol Routes and Ballistic Data which I also needed. I can afford all the mods I want now, just can't unlock the damn engineers to make them...

Morning update: well I just thought I'd try a Threat 1. 2 SD Plans in 4 attempts. I know RNG is a fickle mistress but it seems the lower the threat the better.

EDIT: and a 3rd on my 7th attempt. Threat 1 the way to go.

EDIT: 4/10

 

[Splin-XS]

Can anyone confirm that these SD plans actually drop at Threat 3 IMs? Cos I farmed a Threat 2 for an hour and got 2, and then farmed a Threat 3 for ages (made 456k in bounties, that's over 200 hostiles killed) and got nada. I did however get a few Patrol Routes and Ballistic Data which I also needed. I can afford all the mods I want now, just can't unlock the damn engineers to make them...

Morning update: well I just thought I'd try a Threat 1. 2 SD Plans in 4 attempts. I know RNG is a fickle mistress but it seems the lower the threat the better.

EDIT: and a 3rd on my 7th attempt. Threat 1 the way to go.

EDIT: 4/10

I'm at threat 1 but not so lucky, maybe 1 in every 12 relogs

Perhaps this is system dependant?

 

[Agema]

Can anyone confirm that these SD plans actually drop at Threat 3 IMs? Cos I farmed a Threat 2 for an hour and got 2, and then farmed a Threat 3 for ages (made 456k in bounties, that's over 200 hostiles killed) and got nada. I did however get a few Patrol Routes and Ballistic Data which I also needed. I can afford all the mods I want now, just can't unlock the damn engineers to make them...

Morning update: well I just thought I'd try a Threat 1. 2 SD Plans in 4 attempts. I know RNG is a fickle mistress but it seems the lower the threat the better.

EDIT: and a 3rd on my 7th attempt. Threat 1 the way to go.

EDIT: 4/10

Definitely available at Threat 2 and 3. Don't know about Threat 1.

In the end, although the first 6 came from out of ~180 data packages, the last 7 I needed came in just ~70, making a total of 13 in ~250 data drops, so assume about 170 logins. But one of those was over 100 data packages between SDPs.

I would say that was better than the threat 3 I got my first two from, which might be consistent with better availability of SDPs at lower threat, but the data samples are too small to have confidence.

Incidentally - have they changed the engineer requirements? I needed to hand in 15 SDPs, but the text said 5. The cat media thing seems to now say 25 total (slightly clumsily worded) but much more aiming at 25 TOTAL rather than 20 each of cat media, multimedia and classic entertainment.

 

[Splin-XS]

Definitely available at Threat 2 and 3. Don't know about Threat 1.

In the end, although the first 6 came from out of ~180 data packages, the last 7 I needed came in just ~70, making a total of 13 in ~250 data drops, so assume about 170 logins. But one of those was over 100 data packages between SDPs.

I would say that was better than the threat 3 I got my first two from, which might be consistent with better availability of SDPs at lower threat, but the data samples are too small to have confidence.

Incidentally - have they changed the engineer requirements? I needed to hand in 15 SDPs, but the text said 5. The cat media thing seems to now say 25 total (slightly clumsily worded) but much more aiming at 25 TOTAL rather than 20 each of cat media, multimedia and classic entertainment.

Thanks for the info.... it's always been 15 but the text stating 5 was a bug. The text has now been updated to reflect the consistent requirement of 15 items.

I'm at 7 out of 15 so far at Threat Level 1. I am actually farming lots of combat experience too I guess.

 

[Penumbra]

Thanks everyone, finally got what I needed. This thread cleared up a lot of things for me. Having watched D2EA's video on Irregular Markers, I was under the impression they only appeared on larger planets, and that only Threat 3 were worth doing; I got most of these from Threat 1 & 2 Markers on tiny little planets. Also, thanks @Ydiss for the tip on Alici, great little system, I'd forgotten about the Raxxla Research faction, and being Anarchy here I also got to test out the new shield setup on my Courier against a Krait Phantom with a 1m Cr. bounty; sadly he warped off at 20% hull. When I didn't get SD Plans, I was getting Patrol Routes and Ballistics Data which I needed for mods. I also dabbled in some biological sampling for the first time, Alici 3's planets are chock full of the stuff.

I'm outta here, time to unlock some engineers!

PS did I mention the money I made?

 

[Minimo]

It heavily depends on RNG
My first IM after relogging for an hour I got 2 SDP
Second IM in 90 minutes I got the other 13, plus 21 Ballistic Data for my suit mods
Both were threat 1

 

[Darkman Returns]

I spent so long at a Threat 2 it actually disappeared after several hours and I had to get my last 4 SDPs at a nearby Threat 3.

Easily the least amount of fun I've had so far in Odyssey but as I hadn't found any SDPs at all since launch and had the engineering mats ready I crouched, relogged and prayed to RNGesus in an attempt to break the Engineer impasse.

 

[Bigmaec]

What marvellous gameplay* they added here.

*RNG

But remember, it's all not a problem if you use the dev console.

 

[zimms]

With today's patch, at least we know 15 is the intended amount. I'm afraid there won't be any balance passes before the console launch.

 

[Bigmaec]

With today's patch, at least we know 15 is the intended amount. I'm afraid there won't be any balance passes before the console launch.

Thankfully I'm done with my first suit and gun until then

 

[yianniv]

Try Alici.

Thanks for this. I just found my first IM threat 1 poi after searching 2 systems in vain. I also realised I've been very stupid because in my previous efforts to find push/hush, I came across one with a skimmer, and although I opened the panel and removed the circuits, I never tried to see what's in the back

 

[Drelthar]

But people... you're supposed to just gather these over time as you engage in all the other gameplay, you know, the part that isn't upgrading your suit/weapons - then every so often you'll be able to do an upgrade.

Cool right?

Except there isn't much reason to do any of these missions...except... to upgrade so... I ...er...