Guide: Engineers

 ED Wiki

Horizons DLC Engineers (ships)

With 2.1 update were added into game so called "Engineers", which are human (very likely) entities which can upgrade your ship equipment for a price. Price consist not only from needed input-components, but there is also mix of positive and negative changes to the properties of the upgraded equipment. Therefore is good to slow down, and thought twice or three times what upgrade type is the best for chosen component and a ship role, and whether is really needed the highest upgrade. Sometimes is for example much better take only upgrade lvl3, which have sufficiently high positive values and smaller negative, as go for upgrade lvl5 where you will have no use for so high positive value, but negatives will be higher for you all the time. I must say, that I like these new engineers bases, they have different/special atmosphere and look great ... exactly like it should be. Before I will continue, I want also note that all these places are "places of public interest" and therefore coming there in "Open" brings risk and possible encounters with unfriendly commander(s) ... but you can also find there friendly/lone souls and use those unexpected encounters for friendly chat and sometimes it can lead to future benefits/cooperation.

On the start you can get invitation from basic line of engineers (by public knowledge) if you have fulfilled basic "meeting" requirements (i.e. you have passed some minimal distance from start, have visited few times black marker and so on). When you have been invited, you can dock at the engineer base and start process of getting engineer "unlocked". To getting access into engineer workshop, and start with upgrading, is needed first fulfill engineer's "unlock" requirements, which can can be commodities delivery, acquiring certain amount of bounties etc. After will be engineer unlocked you will have access to lvl1 upgrades. For access to higher lvls (5lvl is max) you will need improve your reputation with the given engineer, and this can be done with using his services (by doing upgrades, but without applying them) or in some cases exists also other ways (drop exploration data, trade to the engineer base, hand bounty vounchers). Now I will try explain how upgrading process works in general:

• For upgrading equipment you need given input-components, which are micro-materials, data and special commodities. First two not need cargo space and are linked with commander (i.e. they are available for you all the time no matter what ship you are using), third needs cargo space and can be lost with ship destruction.
• Micro-materials (76 different ones) can be obtained using different ways like combat, mining, surface searching, USS wrecks checking, doing missions etc. (except missions you will get 3! samples from each find micro-material or data described below) and you can have up to 1000 samples in inventory. Is good to say here that atm players found and is known how to get (or where) practically every micro-material. If you get some practice in this, you will learn that it is in reality much easier and need only small amount of time how it is and looks on start when you have no idea how all this works. Starting now with engineers is MUCH easier as it was in time when were they introduced. Yes, you may need (and it will make engineering much easier) use 3rd party sites (tools), but this is by design. Myself I do not have issues with this, imo it opens doors for creating gaming communities and things can be done different way and please therefore more ppl, some can see this as poor (very) game design and can have own well substantiated reasons ...
• Data (30) can be obtained mostly by scanning things and it include ship wakes scanning, ships scanning, doing "raids" on surface installations data terminals, do missions etc.
• Special commodities (26) can be mostly purchased (limited selling places) and/or acquired via missions (from bulletin boards). You can get those also from other players (opposite to previous two which cannot be shared between commanders).
• Inara is one of external sites which have all important details you may need. Below is image with tree of all "Horizons" Engineers
• Is good to know, that ship Engineers in Colonia region do have an access requirement based on some of Bubble Engineers, see tree below. Is quite bad to travel 22k ly only to learn that you do not have access to engineer there because you did not all necessary unlocks in the Bubble!
• Imo the most recommended start is opening access to Felicity Farseer, see Karina's journal referencing in RP style about some of upgrades which this particular engineer offer. At this moment I want to add small warning that in system of this engineer is a very good chance to meet hostile player. Next I suggest to fully explore how Felicity can improve your ship(s) gear and with this experience you will be enough informed how engineering of ships equipment works.
  
  Last bit of info is just a small advice: take time, do not rush and make from engineering occassional but repeating activity. Doing so it the best way how to avoid burnout and have much longer enjoyement from playing ED.

Odyssey DLC Engineers (on-foot)

Introduced to the game with Odyssey DLC. They can improve personal spacesuits and hand weapons for commanders. List of all Odyssey Enginerrs and offered upgrades is avilable here (Inara), below you can see access tree for them. Is also good to know that there is one very important difference between Horizons and Odyssey engineering which is, that Odyssey engineering cannot be changed or reversed. Once you have installed any mod on you spacesuit or hand-weapon, it will remain on it permanently!

Recommended mods for spacesuits

_{*top upgrades for given Suit}

Recommended mods for chosen hand weapons

Engineering alternatives

In game also exist alternatives to "doing" engineering like is special equipment (better as basic unmodded but cannot be further upgraded) purchaseable from Technology brokers (Human or Guardian tech) in Stations/Ports (Horizons stuff) or preupgraded spacesuits (up to lvl3) and hand-weapons (up to lvl3) (Odyssey stuff) in a Pioneer store at Station's concourse.

Notes, older info, lost knowledge

[Archive] Changes to engineering in Elite Dangerous - Season 3

 ED Wiki

Quote from SWAT_OP-R8R

how do the fsd range upgrades perform in relation with fuel costs?

Does it make sense to increase the jump range if you have to make more stops for refueling?

I can't say this 100% sure (never checked it in detail), but as I use this upgrade type on more ships it seems that you will need the same amount of fuel for quite longer distance passed. If there is some increase, then it is not much noticeable. I can check this, but earlier next week when will return to home (out of town atm).

Hmm, maybe I wrote it bad. You need refuel the same amount of fuel, but you can reach much longer distances (from whole fuel tank) with this, it can be more as 50% increase in total due longer jumps. I think it's very nice upgrade. It also for sure saves quite big amount of time spent "in transit" if you want reach some distant places.

Quote

The moded FSD do not use more fuel, they just get more range out of it.

There is a secondary effect that can increase max fuel per jump by 2-3%.

In the end, with grade 5 FSD you're looking at ~ +25% range incre

Quote

the FSD increased range comes via FSD optimal mass.

differently to thrusters, shields etc., which have a basevalue for each ship, jumprange depends only on actual ship mass (including cargo and fuel at that moment) and FSD class optimal mass.

e.g.: make a python as heavy as an orga, and put a class 5A FSD in both, and they will have the same jumprange.

the level 5 FSD increase gives +25% at best, and because how jumprange works, you'll get up to 25% more jumprange.

there are secondary effects on jumprange, like mass increase of the modul, secondary effects which might increase the jumprange for another 1-2%, etc.

but baically you can multiply your jumprange with 1.25 if you want to know what is possible with your build.

also, there are many ways to decrease your ships mass for more jumprange. you can fit engineered lightweight weapons, use lightweight armour, get a smaller powerdistributor but mod it to be weapons or engine focussed etc.

Display More

Statistics could be wrong or maybe not explained what exactly they means. As ppl asked on fd forums about this, it looks it can be quite common question.

[ARCHIVE] Note: below listed are changes to the engineering which were introduced into Elite Dangerous with Season 3.

3.0 Changes:

• EVERY roll will give you better result as you had up to maximum (limited amount of rolls to reach maximum).
• EVERY equipment must be now upgraded from lvl 1. Reputation with engineer now affect the speed of engineering, i.e. amount of rolls needed to pass lvl. For example newbie may need 3 rolls for pass lvl 1, but veteran, which used this engineer services often, will need only 1 roll.
• For EACH engineer you can have pinned ONE blueprint which will pin its whole range which this engineer offer, i.e. if engineer can do chosen upgrade up to 5lvl, you will pin this blueprint with whole range from lvl1 to lvl5. Pinned blueprints can be used in "Remote engineering" which is special service available on each base which have outfitting.
• Micro-Materials (Data) now have each its own amount limit, which is based on theirs Tier (rarity). Tier 1 (very common): 300, Tier 2: 250, Tier 3: 200, Tier 4: 150, Tier 5 (very rare): 100 samples.
• Micro-Materials (Data) can be now exchanged (higher tier materials give more samples of lower tier materials and vice versa) on Material traders:
  
  

  
  

  • Raw Materials Trader: found at extraction and refinery economies, only trades in raw material found on planet surfaces and planetary rings.
  • Manufactured Materials Trader: Found at industrial economies, only trades in manufactured materials.
  • Encoded Materials Trader: Found at High Tech and Military economies, only trades in encoded materials.
  • Systems also need to be mid to high security systems and have populations between 1,000,000 and 22,000,000.

  
  

• Experimental effect (ONLY by Engineer!) is now "paid" functionality. It means that you pay for it with given amount of Micro-Materials and you can apply or re-apply another one anytime without losing reputation with engineer or already modded effect. Is also good to know that now can have experimental effect almost every equipment (before only weapons).
• Legacy modules (engineered before 3.0) can be converted to the new model only by appropriate Engineer. Doing so, you with lose experimental effect (weapons only) and also one lvl of upgrade, i.e. lvl5 long-range pulse laser with emmisive experimental effect, will be converted into maxed lvl4 long-range without experimental effect.

Useful details/tips:

• Armored powerplant now have also base bonus to produced energy which can be even improved with "monstered" experimental effect. This upgrade is good for all ships which have weak(er) shields and is expectable that will need dealt with hull damage. Chieftain or FAS are perfect examples for ships which will have the best use for armored powerplant. Power-plant is usually the first targeted module in PvP.
• Thermal vent special effect is ideal for beam weapons, ... if you will hit your target, you can completely cool your ship.
• (atm) do not use "High Yield Shell" experimental effect (for canons) which was before 3.0 widely used to demolish modules of target. There is now wrongly applied 50% penalty to raw damage (instead only to the damage dealt to modules) and it will make weapon practically useless.
• For every laser weapon is worth think about long-range modification, which will except extended fire-range also remove fall of damage based on distance to the target. Normal laser weapon do full damage only up to 600 m and then damage decreases (at maximum fire range it does only small fragment of raw damage). With long-range modification you will inflict FULL damage also at weapon maximum fire-range. Just lvl 1 modification can have huge benefits for you.
• For shields is the best (if you want remove weaknesses) use "thermal resistant" modification.
• "Clean" modification to thrusters will be most useful for explorers (or those who travel longer distances and use often fuel scoop), because during fuel-scooping it significantly decrease built heat and also helps on high gravity planets where charging FSD rise ship temperature quickly. In all other cases are better choice "Dirty drives".

1st post updated, informations reorganised and cleaned nonfunctional links