Engineers What is the smartest way to aquire materials with the material trader exchange possibility?

[Doc-Orange]

Because of the material trader no you can concentrade on some matarials to get all. I know in theory its always more efficient to collect the material directly. But I have the feeling that some materials are more difficult to get than others.

Are you concentrating on special materials to make the collection easier through exchanging them?

 

[Trelakir]

I'm tending to concentrate on G4 and G5 mats in each tier so I'm not having to cross transfer G5 to G5 at a bad ratio and then trading down if required.

Same applies for Raw and Manufactured. Raw I take most materials though do go to a high % G5 planet for the materials I want. Manufactured is a pain depending on what you're after. Davs Hope is good for quite a lot G1 to G3 (sometimes G4). For the other higher grade mats, see below for my morning (and now afternoons work):

Rep goes to ShadowWar for the Pharmaceutical Isolator info in HR 5632

My High Grade Emission drops (03/03/2018) although YMMV:

HR 5632 (Fed Outbreak) for me mostly Deep Space < 200 ls directly away from star A at 0.2c
Core Dynamic Composites
Proprietary Composites
Pharmaceutical Isolators

Ra (Imperial War) - for me Deep Space between 1000 ls and 2500 ls directly away from Ra at 2c
Imperial Shielding
Military Grade Alloys
Military Supercapacitors

From memory, if Sol is still in Boom you tend to get a lot of the Proto materials. I'm off there now for a look.

 

[Pyrotiger]

Bashing T9s away at convoy beacons in Anarchy systems...good materials. Plenty of Chem Manips.

But

No Pharmaceutical Isolators. None at all.

 

[CMDR Stealthy]

Honestly, I just loaded up a collections ship (SRV, Wake Scanner, Collection Controllers, etc) and headed out for a few days gathering any assortment of materials I needed, I'm not disappointed with mats I don't need due to just going for a huge swap at the traders to get a good coverage of mats (plentiful grade 1/2's of each type, little less for grade 3/4's and at least 10ish for any grade 5's I could get.)

So yes, trading up or down has helped soo much, espcially with just grabbing any grade 5 mat reward from missions.

 

[Nero Tacitus]

For Raw and Manufactured mats, I'll set out the G5-4 mats I need, identify the activities that award them, and then grab anything that comes up while doing them. You tend to get the lower tier stuff from doing whatever it is that awards the higher. The new patch is great in this regard, limpets are actually useful and I don't have to keep emptying my storage every 5 minutes to fit new stuff, then find a month later I need the stuff I ditched.
Once I have the G5-4 I need, yes, I'll exchange for some of hte mid range stuff as the numbers seem to be off for a lot of them (they don't drop nearly as commonly as they should).

For Data, you pretty much have to go out of your way for most of the G5 mats. MEF/DWE etc don't just randomly drop, you have to seek them out, and they're so rare I really don't want to be trading several for one.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

Because of the material trader no you can concentrade on some matarials to get all. I know in theory its always more efficient to collect the material directly. But I have the feeling that some materials are more difficult to get than others.

Are you concentrating on special materials to make the collection easier through exchanging them?

I disagree.
For the most part I'm only seeking G4-5 mats.

Eg, if I find just 10 pharmaceutical isolators, it's actually 30.
I can keep 25, and trade for 10 CMs, 10 CDs, 10CP,s and 15 CSUs.

All from two good USS spawns.

1 polonium hit ends up as 27 arsenic.