Newcomer / Intro What can I do with these?

[Caty_Feila]

I was bounty hunting and found these floating in space after I destroyed a ship.
I scooped some of them thinking maybe I could sell them at the spaceport but I couldn't find a way to sell them.
So what can I do with them?
Another question is what can I do with the data that I collect when scanning ships?

 

[Ashnak]

If you have Horizons - let the Engineers modify your ship.
Otherwise, synthesize ammo, fuel for extended jumps (not those exactly, but some from the other dozens of ypes of materials)

Inara ha a whole section on Engineering, as should your Codex.

 

[badibeat]

These are materials required for engineering, dropped when a player destroys a ship. There are other types of materials you can find in Unidentified (originally) Signal Sources USS, when laser mining etc.
Materials don't take up cargo space and you have them always with your commander. For each type you have a capacity limit, from 300 for grade 1 to 100 for grade 5 Materials. If you pick one up you add three to your inventory.
Learn a lot about materials and engineering in the codex, the forum has a topic on it and Inara.cz and similar sites. If you register on Inara you get an overview on your gathered materials and can add engineering recipes.

PS: You can check on coriolis.io what the differences are between ships, modules and different types of engineering on the modules. Most start with getting an A-rated Frame Shift Drive and engineering it for increased jump range (unlocking Felicine Farseer), on the starter Sidewinder this is like going from a tricycle to a bicycle when hopping between star systems. And put that long range level 1 upgrade on all lasers (for 1 sulphur) to eliminate falloff for a small increase in power draw and mass until you have more materials and can apply upgrades that suit you better.
Collecting the materials for your builds can be very time consuming, but optimising builds for your ships is an interesting part of the game.

 

[Caty_Feila]

Thank you, commanders!

 

[Dommarraa]

Collect them now, or you will complain about grind later.

 

[aRJay]

They come in three types.
Manufactured, like the ones you found.
Encoded, like the scan data you mentioned.
Raw, picked up when mining rings or from meteors, outcrops etc on a planets surface using your SRV.

You can visit a materials trader in some stations contacts to trade for materials you don’t have but only within a group.

 

[Caty_Feila]

Thank you!

 

[Thwarptide]

(you'll learn and figure this out as you progress) but all those scavenged parts from wrecks, scanning FSD wakes (when ships jump to supercruise and stars) ores, minerals, metals found on planets..... grab em all. They don't take up space in the cargo hold. Eventually you'll need most of em one way or another, especially when you want to synthesize something from the ships storage bins. The bins do get full but only when you get around 250-300 pieces of each type of material.
On a long enough time line you'll know exactly what you want to specialize as in the game (explore, pillage, plunder, trader etc). When you figure it out you'll want to engineer ships for the specific role(s). You'll need plenty of the items you've been grabbing. Some you just won't.

For some items that are rare and just a pain to scavenge, you can go to a material trader and get what you want in exchange for the garb you'll never need.

Example: I was going crazy trying to find and scavange Heat Exchangers, which from my understanding is pretty rare. After weeks of looking you'd think I would have found one. But I had plenty of Light Proto Alloys saved up that if I ever needed em (I never would) I could have used em on at least 6 ships. So I found a Trader (manufactured) and traded him the alloys for more heat exchangers than I'd need for a long time.

 

[Caty_Feila]

How do I find material traders?

 

[Thwarptide]

Well, you can got to the map panel first.
The get to the 4th tab from your left (on my ps4 it has stars icon)
Then from there you'll see "Map configuration"
There's a spot where it drops down a sub menu.
Select services.
From there you'll see a list of services.
On my ps4 the top 3 are the types of Material traders to choose from.

Select the one you're looking for and start searching the stars. They're far, few and in between. A real serious pain in the...... Well you get the idea.

Or you can go do what everyone else does (ain't I a bit annoying ) and look for the closest one to you at the below link.
Just put the name of the system you're in in the search window. That's all you need to do.
The list will show up. You'll see a few columns. The left is the trader type. The rest you can easily figure out.
I know I posted a link to The EDDB site for you in another post. But this one does some things that one won't, so it's another good reference tool to keep hold of.

INARA

The community site for Elite: Dangerous, Starfield, Kingdom Come: Deliverance with the game databases, information, gaming news and other handy content...

inara.cz

 

[Caty_Feila]

Or you can go do what everyone else does (ain't I a bit annoying ) and look for the closest one to you at the below link.
Just put the name of the system you're in in the search window. That's all you need to do.
The list will show up. You'll see a few columns. The left is the trader type. The rest you can easily figure out.
I know I posted a link to The EDDB site for you in another post. But this one does some things that one won't, so it's another good reference tool to keep hold of.

INARA

The community site for Elite: Dangerous, Starfield, Kingdom Come: Deliverance with the game databases, information, gaming news and other handy content...

inara.cz

Thank you!

 

[Thwarptide]

For more information on what you can do with specific items you can go to the right screen panel, "inventory tab" just like you did.
Scroll down as you did to any category tab.
Find an item you're curious about, highlight and click. You'll find a brief description and the uses.

Another more detailed description can be found by going here and doing a search on the item in question. ALOT more detail about it than what the ship says.

Elite Dangerous Wiki

The Elite Dangerous Wiki is a community site that anyone can contribute to. Discover, share and add your knowledge!

elite-dangerous.fandom.com

Best of wishes for you Cmdr Feila 07

 

[d8veh]

I was bounty hunting and found these floating in space after I destroyed a ship.
I scooped some of them thinking maybe I could sell them at the spaceport but I couldn't find a way to sell them.
So what can I do with them?
Another question is what can I do with the data that I collect when scanning ships?
View attachment 178294

It's not worth the time to pick up any of those or any other materials that drop from the small ships, but it's always worth checking what drops from Anacondas and FDLs. See the symbols on the right of your picture headed "grade", look for ones with 4 or 5 arms in the hexagon. You see that when you target them. Each 5 legged one is worth 216 of what you've picked up if you were to trade up, or to trade down a grade 5 for a grade 2, you get 8 of them, so a minimum of 8 times the value for the same effort.

When you have a big ship, like an Anaconda, you can use a lot of collector limpets to hoover up all that stuff between or even during some fights. You have to set all the different cargos to be ignored, otherwise your limpets will pick up discarded cargo, which is illegal so the police will scan you then dish out justice for your criminality.