Fox's Step-by-Step Guide to Unlocking Engineers Quickly

Author: Fox (originally uploaded with permissions from Fox)

Introduction

Hi there, gentlemen and gentlewomen of the cosmos! Welcome to my guide for unlocking most useful engineers as quickly and painlessly as possible, from scratch! This guide will not have every engineer, as some are less necessary or have requirements above-and-beyond the flow of this guide to unlock, and therefore don't particularly fit into the flow of this step-by-step guide. Please note that some engineers are just a pain in the ass to unlock, regardless of what you do, but through their grind, you can make your life easier down the road in regards to other grinds. This guide uses those overlaps to give you a clear pathway to having every engineer unlocked with minimal effort. For a chart of all engineers, click here!

Important disclaimer regarding Rare Commodities : the Rare commodities Soontil Relics, Lavian Brandy, Fujin Tea, Kamitra Cigars, Xihe Companions and Kongga Ale are only sold in limited numbers, and having any in your cargo will prevent the station from offering more - the commodity will not appear again until you sell the current allocated cargo. Also note that some faction states (like "Boom") can improve or reduce this allocation limit.

Another general note : both the discovery and meeting requirement for Professor Palin and Ram Tah can be bypassed entirely by acquiring Unclassified Relics (meaning you will still need respectively 25 Sensor Fragments and 50 Classified Databanks, but the other requirements are waived - unlocking those engineers even without doing the previous engineers in the unlock chain). While the process is rather convoluted, it may be useful if you're only after the critical module engineering and need access to Professor Palin - refer to his entry (Step 4) below for a reference to the method.

Prerequisites

To make significant progress through this guide, you will need the following:

• A high-LY range ship (like a Diamondback Explorer or a Mandalay).

• A solid cargo ship with at least 50T of capacity

• 10-ish million credits to burn

• Free time.

• Significant amounts of engineering materials. These can be readily farmed either at Dav’s Hope (Hyades Sector DR-V C2-23, Planet A 5, Coordinates 44.818, -31.389) and the Crashed Anaconda (Orrere, Planet 2 B, Coordinates 43.8122, -173.9722), or by referring to the Material Farming Guide.

A basic non-engineered Mandalay build suited for this guide can be found here, if you require it : Edsy Build

Step 1: Felicity Farseer

Time: Short

Best Module: Frame Shift Drives

Requirements:

• Scout Rank (requires 270,000 CR profit from Exploration)

• Donate 1 Meta Alloy

With a Universal Discovery Scanner and at least 1 Cargo Rack, jump down to Maia and honk every system you jump through. In Maia, you can buy 1 Meta Alloy at Darnielle's Progress for 113,355 Cr. If you don't want to spend the money, you can mine Meta Alloys at in the Merope system at Merope 2 A, but you will need a Detailed Surface Scanner and SRV to find and acquire them.

Note from the future : Felicity Farseer is not located in Maia anymore due to the Thargoid war, and can instead be found in Deciat. For alternate methods to acquire the Meta-Alloy, there will usually be a few carriers selling it directly in Deciat, or you can head to any Titan wreck (red icons on your galactic map, the one in Sol is the safest if you have access to it) and grab a Meta-Alloy here, floating in the debris field.

Once you have the Meta Alloy, go to Eurybia, and turn in your Universal Cartographic data to the Eurybia Blue Mafia. This should give you the appropriate funds to reach Scout, while also helping you with Liz Ryder down the road.

Proceed to Deciat, and donate your Meta Alloy to Felicity Farseer at Farseer Inc. Craft mods with Farseer until you receive information on Juri Ishmaak, then head to the Ngurii system.

Note: It is recommended that you improve your Frame Shift Drive with the Long-Range mod as far as possible. This will make the entire guide considerably easier.

Step 2: Elvira Martuuk

Time: Shortest

Best Module: Frame Shift Drives

Requirements:

• Travel 300 LY from your starting Location DONE

• Provide 3 Soontill Relics

Now that you are in Ngurii, go to Cheranovsky City. There, you can buy 3 Soontill Relics for 19,885 Cr per ton (You will need the cargo space). Travel to Long Sight Base in the Khun system, donate the Soontill Relics, and upgrade your modules until you receive information on Zacariah Nemo and Marco Qwent.

Step 3: Marco Qwent

Time: Long

Best Module: Power Plants (Grade 4)

Requirements:

• Gain Access to Sirius System (Invitation from Sirius Corporation)

• Provide 25 Units of Modular Terminals

Grab your best exploration ship, and plan a route 5,000 LY away from your starting system (note that if that 5kLy trip is too much, there is a way to skip it - jump to the next engineer in the list, Professor Palin, to see how. You will still need some exploration data, but that skip means you can select a more reasonnable distance). At the very least, honk every system, but some scans with a Detailed Surface Scanner will also help down the line. Once you are at the end of your route, select your starting system to ensure it is more than 5,000 LY away, then head to the Procyon system. Turn in your data at a station owned by Sirius Corporation until you are invited to the Sirius system and acquire the Sirius permit, then go to Andere and turn in the remaining data to a station owned by the Alioth Independents. From here, fit at least 30T of Cargo Capacity, buy a cheap commodity, and take a Data Delivery mission, preferably with Modular Terminals as a reward, but it's not necessary.

Once you land at the end of the Data Delivery mission, sell the commodity and buy a new one. Take a new Data Delivery mission for Modular Terminals (or not), rinse, and repeat, until you have 25 Modular Terminals. This will help you down the road with Lei Cheung, as well as unlocking Qwent.

Go back to Sirius with your Modular Terminals, complete a mission to unlock Marco Qwent (provided at any station in Sirius. May require board flipping), donate your Modular Terminals to Marco Qwent, and rank him up until you receive information on Professor Palin and Lori Jameson.

Step 4: Professor Palin

Time: Short

Best Module: Thrusters

Requirements:

• Have either a maximum distance of 5,000 LY from your starting location or an Unclassified Relic (see below)

• Provide 25 Sensor Fragments (Previously known as Unknown Fragments)

You can now either :

• Head back down to the Pleiades Sector, and go to the system HIP 17403. At HIP 17403, land at planet HIP 17403 A 4 A at the coordinates -34.98, -141.30. There will be a crashed Thargoid ship with Unknown Artefacts and Sensor Fragments scattered about.

• Head to the Cornsar system, locate and pilfer the Thargoid Wreckage Site planetary signals for their sensor fragments (you may have to map the planets with your DSS to find such signals - if you find intact Sensors here, you can destroy them for fragments).

Once you have collected enough Sensor Fragments (they count as materials, so they don't require any cargo capacity). Hop to Arque and turn in your Sensor Fragments, and you've ended the Elvira Martuuk line!

[Discovery Skip] You may skip the discovery and meeting requirement of having unlocked Qwent and 5,000 lightyears from your starting location by getting an Unclassified Relic - note that you will still require 25 sensor fragments payment as the unlock requirement (yes, this will bypass any previous engineer in the unlock chain). As the method is rather convoluted, you can find a video guide about it here : Unclassified Relic video guide.
Note that you may need to bring the Relic to the engineer system (Arque) and/or relog for the invitation message to actually appear in your inbox.

Step 5: The Dweller

Time: Moderate

Best Module: Power Distributors

Requirements:

• Sell to 5 Black Markets.

• Pay him 500,000 Cr.

Head on back from Arque and land somewhere outside of Li Yong-Rui Space. Buy a cheap commodity (for Lei Cheung, again), then take a Cargo Delivery mission with 5 cargo, minimum. Immediately abandon the mission, then search for 5 nearby Black Markets. At each Black Market, sell one stolen commodity, sell your non-stolen commodity, buy a new cheap commodity, then head to the next Black Market until you've sold to all 5. Sell the remaining cargo to the last black market, then head to the Wyrd System. Land at Black Hide, donate 500,000 Cr to The Dweller, and rank him up until you get information on Lei Cheung.

Step 6: Lei Cheung

Time: Long

Best Module: Shield Generators

Requirements:

• Have traded in over 50 Markets

• Donate 200 tons of Gold

You should be well on your way to having traded at 50 markets by now, if you've been buying and selling commodities as you go. Finish up your trading at various stations around the Laksak system, then land at a station in the Laksak system. From there, buy as much gold as you can fit (All stations in Laksak sell Gold, with Pinto City and Hedin Hub being the least expensive), and donate it to Lei Cheung at Trader's Rest. Rinse and repeat until you have donated 200 Tons, then rank Lei Cheung up until you get the invite from Ram Tah.

Step 7: Tod "The Blaster" McQuinn

Time: Short

Best Module: Multi-Cannons and Rail Guns

Requirements:

• Earn more than 15 Bounty Vouchers

• Provide 100,000 Cr worth of Bounty Vouchers to Trophy Camp in Wolf 397

This one's pretty straight forward. Kill some wanted NPC's at the Nav Beacon in Wolf 397 until you have 100,000 Cr worth, then turn them in to Trophy Camp. Rank up Tod McQuinn until you get information on Selene Jean.

Step 8: Selene Jean

Time: Longest

Best Module: Armour and Hull Reinforcement Packages

Requirements:

• Mine and refine at least 500 Tons of ore

• Provide Selene with 10 Units of Painite

This one's a doozy. Go back to Andere, and get allied with the Alioth Independents, and friendly with the Alliance as a whole. From there, grab your best trading ship, outfit it for mining, then find a pristine metallic ring. Mine there until you've acquired 10 Painite, then move to a pristine icy ring, and mine out the rest of the 500 tons while saving all of the Bromellite possible. Do not leave until you have 50 Tons of Bromellite and 10 Tons of Painite!

Go to Kuk, donate your Painite, and rank up Selene Jean until you get information on Didi Vatermann and Bill Turner.

Step 9: Bill Turner

Time: Shortest

Best Module: Plasma Accelerators and Sensors

Requirements:

• Gain Friendly Status with the Alliance to get a permit to access Alioth.

• Donate 50 Tons of Bromellite to Bill Turner

Take your 50 Tons of Bromellite to Bill Turner in the Alioth System. That's it. You already did all of the work during Steps 3 and 8.

Step 10: Didi Vatermann

Time: Moderate

Best Module: Shield Boosters

Requirements:

• Have a trade rank of Merchant or higher

• Provide 50 Units of Lavian Brandy

Due to your conquest of the galaxy's markets for Lei Cheung, you should be relatively close to having the Merchant rank already. If not, run a few cargo missions until you get there, then head to the Lave system.

Once in Lave, go to Lave Station and buy the max capacity of 12 Tons (10,365 Cr each). Take them to Vatermann LLC, donate them, then head back and do it again until you've donated 50 units. You have now completed the Tod "The Blaster" McQuinn line!

Step 11: Liz Ryder

Time: Moderate

Best Module: Missile Racks and Torpedo Pylons

Requirements:

• Gain Cordial or Friendly Status with the Eurybia Blue Mafia DONE

• Provide 200 units of Landmines.

You should already be friendly with the Eurybia Blue Mafia from way back in Step One, so all you really need to do is source 200 Tons of Landmines to donate at Demolition Unlimited. Rank Liz Ryder up to grade 3-4, and you should get an invite from Hera Tani.

Step 12: Hera Tani

Time: Moderate

Best Module: Power Plants

Requirements:

• Become an Outsider or Higher in the Empire.

• Provide 50 units of Kamitra Cigars

Find a nice Empire system with a station near its star, and grind out a few missions until you get an Imperial Rank Up mission. Complete that mission, head to Kamitra, buy the maximum 14 Tons of Kamitra Cigars (6218 Cr Each), donate them to Hera Tani in The Jet's Hole in the Kuwemaki system, then do it again and again until you've donated all 50 Tons. Rank her up until you receive information on Broo Tarquin and Tiana Fortune.

Step 13: Juri Ishmaak

Time: Moderate

Best Module: Mine Launchers and Sensors

Requirements:

• Earn more than 50 Combat Bonds

• Provide Juri with 100,000 - 1,000,000 Cr worth of Combat Bonds (it changes).

Juri's pretty straight forward. Find a system in a War or Civil War state on the Galaxy Map, go to a Conflict Zone, and side with a faction in the Functions tab in your System Panel. Fight with them until you've destroyed 50 enemy ships (You may need several trips to and from a station to do so), then save up 1,000,000 Cr worth of bonds. Head to the Giryak system and turn in the bonds to unlock Juri. Rank him up until you get the invite from The Sarge and Colonel Bris Dekker.

Step 14: Broo Tarquin

Time: Short

Best Module: Beam, Burst, and Pulse Lasers

Requirements:

• Gain combat rank of Competent or higher DONE

• Donate 50 Units of Fujin Tea.

Dealing with Tod "The Blaster" McQuin and Juri Ishmaak should have you at Competent, or close to it. Finish out the rank at a Resource Extraction Site or Conflict Zone, then head to Futen Spaceport in the Fujin system. This one takes a while, as Fujin Tea is only sold 5 Tons at a time, but has a low cost of 397 Cr/Ton. Make your trips to and from Broo Tarquin at Broo's Legacy in the Muang System until you've delivered all 50 Tons.

That's the end of the guide. The other engineers are listed below, with their requirements and why they were omitted from the guide.

Zacariah Nemo: Dead End Engineer

Nemo doesn't really provide any meaningful grind that can be used to further your progress with engineers, nor does he engineer a critical module.

Best Module: Fragment Cannons

Requirements:

• Gain invitation from the Party of Yoru

• Provide 25 units of Xihe Companions

Lori Jameson: Time Consumption

Lori Jameson is stationed in Shinrarta Dezhra, which means you must have at least one Elite ranking to access her.

Best Module: Fuel Scoops, AFMUs, Life Support, Shield Cell Banks, Refineries, and all Utility Scanners.

Requirements:

• Gain Combat Rank of Dangerous or higher

• Provide 25 units of Kongga Ale.

Ram Tah: Dead End Engineer

See Zacariah Nemo.

Best Module: Limpet Controllers, Point Defense, ECMs, and Chaff Launchers

Requirements:

• Have an Exploration Rank of Surveyor or higher (note that this meeting requirement and all previous engineer discovery requirement can be bypassed by the Unclassified Relic method, refer to Professor Palin for this).

• Donate 50 units of Classified Scan Databanks

Tiana Fortune: Dead End Engineer

See Zacariah Nemo

Best Module: Utillity Scanners, Interdictors, Limpet Controllers, and Sensors

Requirements:

• Become friendly with the Empire

• Provide 50 units of Decoded Emission Data

Colonel Bris Dekker: Useless

She doesn't lead to any other engineers, nor does she provide a service that other engineers can't do better.

Best Module: FSD Interdictors

Requirements:

• Become friendly with the Federation

• Provide between 1,000,000 -10,000,000 Cr in Federal Combat Bonds

The Sarge: Dead End Engineer

Yup, this again.

Best Module: Cannons

Requirements:

• Become a Midshipman or higher with the Federal Navy

• Donate 50 Aberrant Shield Pattern Analysis units.

Well guys, firstly, I hope this all fits in one reddit post, but secondly, thanks for reading, and I hope this helps you carve out your way to having a superior ship! All feedback is welcome!