I've really got my mat gathering act together at the moment. Before, I rarely went out of my way for mats. If I happened to come across a HGE I'd drop in of course and scoop it up. But lately I've been focusing on it. During combat I repeatedly check contacts and grab the stuff I want. When I drop in a new system I scan it for emissions signals. I check every HGE I can find and can get to in time. I also hit up the occasional Decoded which are chock full of mid-tier stuff. Yesterday I spent an hour in a CNB targeting cargo ships and Anacondas since they tend to be loot pinatas.

Over the past month I reckon about 1/3 of my Elite time is dedicated to this pursuit. It includes a planetary landing every couple of days for more raws. My home system is amazing for this. For example I needed antimony for G5 heavy duty booster modification. Dropped on a planet that had it, along with the cadmium I was in need of. An hour later I had oodles of it, and interestingly it was the first antimony I had ever found!

It can be a bit of a grind, but I've sort of now woven it in to my everyday play so that the stocks are rising, and engineering is picking up pace. The Courier, the Krait and the FDL have all seen nice gains over the past two weeks. Combined with frequent stops at mat traders, I really feel like I'm making good progress now. I fear the day all of my ships are done and there are no more ranks to chase.