Trying to upgrade thrusters. Argh, this is why I hate engineers

I have some free time today. I have an itch for some space combat in my Krait mk2. I moved up from a Vulture thanks to the mining boom. The only problem is that it's not very maneuverable. So, I want to engineer the thrusters to get that 40% increase.

I've spent the last 40 minutes looking at videos and searching for posts about how to engineer my thrusters to grade 5.

First, thank God for INARA. It es me off that this game is too convoluted to play without external websites. Here is what I figured out:

I have to level up with Elvira Martuuk to unlock Marco Qwent.
Elvira only offers up to Grade 2 Dirty Drives. I think I need to get to level 3 with her to unlock Marco. So, although it's the dirty drives I want, I'll need to upgrade something else with her first. So, I'll have to gather materials to upgrade something I wasn't interested in upgrading to unlock Marco?

Marco Qwent doesn't offer any dirty drives or anything I want. But I need to get to level 3 with him to unlock Professor Palin?

I feel like I must have misunderstood something. It can't really be this bad.

Sorry, for the rant tone. I'm just really annoyed. I try to avoid engineering as much as possible but I really want these dirty drives on my lumbering Krait. Any help would be appreciated.

QUESTION HAS BEEN ANSWERED TO THE OPS SATISFACTION
 
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Elvira also does g5 FSD upgrades, which you'll want increased range for to unlock Palin. Yes, that's 5000 ly you need to travel first. Marco Qwent is nothing special but his upgrades are ok if this is the only path you're going to unlock.

Don't grind this, you'll go mad. Unlock some other engineers first. Felicity Farseer does g3 dirty drives. Add drag drives and you've still got something that'll shift.
 
Marco Qwent has G4 powerplants pretty close to Sol so It's convenient to drop by him for a quick PP upgrade. And travel the long way to Hera Tani for G5 (if needed). If you have pinned the overcharged G5 you can drop by Sirius to apply the special effect anyway.

Also: You need to hav traveled 5000 ly for Palin access - do that before you go to Sirius - that's permit locked but dump a sufficient amount of exploration data at the right port and you will be allied and gain admission to Sirius system (may have to do a mission or was that to gain Qwent access?).

Also - you rank up with Elvira Martuuk by giving her exploration data so you don't need to rank up by doing pointless upgrades unless you don't want to.

Cheers
DZ
 
Unlocking Palin for G5 Dirty drives with Drag drives from scratch, ugh you're in for a long journey.
Don't forget to check Inara if you have enough materials to engineer your Thrusters, it would be a bummer to arive in the Pleiades and find out you're short on materials.
 
n't need to rank up by doing pointless upgrades unless you don't want to.

Well, thanks for the warning about needing a Sirius permit. Also, I didn't know you could rank up with Elvira by giving her exploration data. Do all engineers have something I can give them to improve my reputation? (I'm confused about this)

Also, I don't see the point of using the remote workshop since it doesn't improve your reputation with the engineer. I guess it's useful if you maxed your rep?

Another painful aspect is Googling often gives you out of date information since the system has changed more than once.
 
The point of remote engineers is you don't have to travel across the galaxy five hundred times to get to every engineer while modifying your ship.

You can do most of the modding remotely, then finalise things and add a special effect later.
 
All engineers have some kind of service, be it contacts for bounties, a market for trading (terrible rep gain) or a universal cartographics for exploration data, but only ever one.

Remote engineering is good when you have the max level unlocked. Then you can pin the signature blueprint of the engineer and only need to come over if you want to fit an experimental effect. Especially useful for dirty drives and FSD upgrades as those will make going to the engineers more convenient.

INARA has basically all information you need for engineers and it should be up do date on most everything.
 
Well, thanks for the warning about needing a Sirius permit. Also, I didn't know you could rank up with Elvira by giving her exploration data. Do all engineers have something I can give them to improve my reputation? (I'm confused about this)

Also, I don't see the point of using the remote workshop since it doesn't improve your reputation with the engineer. I guess it's useful if you maxed your rep?

Another painful aspect is Googling often gives you out of date information since the system has changed more than once.
I'm relatively new to the game, and have been doing the engineering grind for about 2 weeks or so. It's a process, take the time to enjoy the variety of things it has you do and don't stress over the fact that it IS going to take some time.

My main reason for replying though was to point you to https://inara.cz/galaxy-engineers/ Don't google, just use Inara for all your engineering needs....it will make your life easier.

Also...just doing one module up to G5 will get you max rank with an engineer in my experience, it just takes about double the number of rolls per grade then you will have to do once they are maxed. So, use Inara to make sure you have the materials for one G5 of a module you have before visiting the engineer....then you can get them maxed, and pin your choice of blue prints, all in one visit.

If you don't have a module for something an engineer you unlock does but you need to rank them up for another engineer unlock, plan ahead to your next ship or two and do a module that you WILL need in the future. That's what storage is for! (You just need to be able to fit it on your active ship to do the engineering though)
 
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I have some free time today. I have an itch for some space combat in my Krait mk2. I moved up from a Vulture thanks to the mining boom. The only problem is that it's not very maneuverable. So, I want to engineer the thrusters to get that 40% increase.

I've spent the last 40 minutes looking at videos and searching for posts about how to engineer my thrusters to grade 5.

First, thank God for INARA. It ****es me off that this game is too convoluted to play without external websites. Here is what I figured out:

I have to level up with Elvira Martuuk to unlock Marco Qwent.
Elvira only offers up to Grade 2 Dirty Drives. I think I need to get to level 3 with her to unlock Marco. So, although it's the dirty drives I want, I'll need to upgrade something else with her first. So, I'll have to gather materials to upgrade something I wasn't interested in upgrading to unlock Marco?

Marco Qwent doesn't offer any dirty drives or anything I want. But I need to get to level 3 with him to unlock Professor Palin?

I feel like I must have misunderstood something. It can't really be this bad.

Sorry, for the rant tone. I'm just really annoyed. I try to avoid engineering as much as possible but I really want these dirty drives on my lumbering Krait. Any help would be appreciated.


As pointed out Qwent does powerplants to G4.
I'd suggest armored/monstered.
 
If you like (or at least tolerate) long-distance travel, but hate unlocking engineers, then I'd recommend Colonia.

Unlock in the bubble Martuuk, Dweller, McQuinn and Ryder, and get them to at least rank 4 by doing some blueprints. They're all pretty easy to unlock, and the improved FSD you get from Martuuk while getting your rep up will be useful for the next bit anyway.
Fly to Colonia, unlock the four engineers there (who all have very straightforward unlocks), and you now have access to every blueprint in the game, mostly at G3 or better level.

By far the easiest way to get a full blueprint set if you don't mind travelling, plus all the engineers in Colonia fit in a 30LY sphere so you only have to travel once and then all the engineers you need are extremely conveniently placed.
 
Quickly unlock Farseer. If you’ve already unlocked Elvira then you can modify the frame shift drive on your Krait for increased range, should make the run to Maia easy...

Alternatively, drop the modified 5A FSD from your Krait into a DBX and do Maia in 5 jumps! 🤣
Then sell some explo data to Farseer and pin the g3 thrusters mod for later use.

G3 thrusters on your Krait will be a game changer, don’t bother tearing your hair out for g5.....yet.

Edit:
Engineering is only a pain the first time you do it and you’re learning about the various materials/rarity etc
It gets much easier and less complex the more you learn.

For future reference it’s often most time efficient on a new CMDR to unlock Farseer first, because the trip to Maia will inadvertently unlock Elvira. Being able to G5 your FSD at Farseers will then make the rest of the Elvira run trivial.

I recommend a DBX for most engineering duties, it’s high range and class 3 hardpoint is perfect for shuttling parts to other ships and its also a nice ship for salvaging and slaughtering cargo ships for mats! 😊
 
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Well, thanks for the warning about needing a Sirius permit. Also, I didn't know you could rank up with Elvira by giving her exploration data. Do all engineers have something I can give them to improve my reputation? (I'm confused about this)

Also, I don't see the point of using the remote workshop since it doesn't improve your reputation with the engineer. I guess it's useful if you maxed your rep?

Another painful aspect is Googling often gives you out of date information since the system has changed more than once.

Just FYI: I unlocked Elvira as my first Engineer, and for the FSD range upgrades. It is quite simple to unlock her and bring her up to grade 5.

What I did: I used my (unengineered) explorer ship (DBX, 33 ly jump range) and traveled in easterly direction out of the bubble, around 800 ly. This was a trip for several hours. The reason for the direction was, that the station selling the 'Soontil Relics' to unlock her was in this direction, it just depends on your position. After spending around 3 hours exploring (using FSS in every system and DSS on valuable objects) I had a cache of exploration data. I turned around, went to buy the 'Soontil Relics' and then went to Elviras base. Landed, unlocked her with the Relics, and found out that she is sitting on tons of the stuff. ;)

After doing this you have grade 1 access - log out at this point, log in again and sell her your exploration data! You need around 30 millions worth of exploration data to bring her to grade 5, this can be done in one step without upgrading anything. But it is better to sell her only several millions and then start to upgrade. FSD is useful, even for a combat ship you could go up to grade 3, this brings a significant range increase. Alternate upgrading with selling data as long as you have some, log out, log in again, and watch your access grow.

From time to time log out, since selling exploration data seems to be updated only with leaving the instance. Combining exploration, selling of data and upgrading several things on your ship (grade 1-3 is not very expensive) should take you several hours. And if you manage to get her to grade 4 access, you will receive the next engineers.

Hope this helps. I am not a fan of the entire engineering system, but if one takes it slow and concentrates on things important to the play style it is doable...

EDIT: Nearly every Engineer has something which will rank her/him up, mostly selling stuff at her/his base. Look it up in Inara!
 
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I unlocked Farseer first so I could do both G5 FSD and G3 Thrusters. I have a need for speed, and I knew Palin would be a ways off because of that pesky unlock requirement (still haven't gotten him done yet...he's one of only 4 non-Colonia engineers that I haven't gotten done yet.)
 
Unlock your engineers and pin blueprints. Engineering suddenly becomes much more convenient. Your fault was in avoiding it and now you have to chase the unlocks. This grind is of your own creation.

it's still a pointless maze whose sole purpose is time wasting. what should he do? check all requirements beforehand in inara and plan accordingly? that's exciting gameplay? because you're not suggesting figuring it out for himself, right? he wouldn't have even begun as of now.

yeah, checking inara and planning ahead is what practical people do in this case to get over this nuisance pretending to be gameplay or narrative or whatever. but, you know, you can blame the players, it's ok.

@op: levelling engineers should be fairly quick with low level mods of discrdable modules, whatever they have will work.
 
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