As I am nearing Colonia for my first visit I though I'd start a thread about my efforts to unlock the engineers there. Maybe it will help anyone who has not done this and decides to do it later. As I may never be back, I will need to get them to G5 and to pick the right blueprint to pin. It wouldn't be a simple matter to swap the choices to different ones. Making the right choices is crucial.



The engineers residing near Colonia

Mel Brandon (Luchtaine / The Brig on planet A 1 C)

This is the best engineer in the game, too bad he's so far away. He does G5 thrusters, shields, FSD, all three laser types, shield booster and FSDIs!

Invitation: Friendly status with Colonia Council, then run invitation mission.

Unlock: 100k of bounty vouchers

I hit Allied with Colonia Council when stopping off on the Colonia highway and selling my accrued exploration data at the station Caravanserai in Gandharvi system, about 6,000 light years short of Colonia. I wish I had saved some bounties from the bubble, but 100k is nothing, and I have whistled for my mining Krait, which is on it's way to Caravanserai in my wake. Once it is in Colonia, I can engineer some weapons for it, to get the bounties and to boost access rep with the engineers. Mel Brandon is also one of the few people in the galaxy who does not look like he is strung out on a meth/smack cocktail.


Petra Olmanova (Asura / Sanctuary on planet 1 A)

Petra's G5 blueprints are armor, HRPs and heatsinks. She does a lot more, but not to G5. I will only pin G5 blueprints of course.

Invitation: Grade 4 access rep with the Blaster + Gain combat rank Expert or higher.

Unlock: Provide 200 units of Progenitor Cells

The progenitor cells are available for purchase near Colonia. At least that's what I've been told. We shall see!



Marsha Hicks (Tir / The Watchtower on planet A 2)

Marsha does G5 collector and prospector limpets plus fuel scoop and multi-cannon

Invitation: Grade 4 access rep with the Dweller + Gain exploration rank Surveyor or higher

Unlock: Mine 10 units of Osmium

Osmium is available nearby, but I do not know yet which type of mining is required to get it.


Etienne Dorn (Los / Kraken’s Retreat on planet A 2 B)

Mr Dorn does G5 life support, power plant and power distributor

Invitation: Grade 4 access rep with Liz Ryder + Gain trade rank Dealer or higher

Unlock: Provide 25 units of Occupied Escape Pods

The unlock requirement makes me think if there is one of these engineers I will not unlock, it's this one. We shall see.

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Material Traders

Encoded Colonia Dream in system Ratraii
Raw TolaGarf's Junkyard in system Kojeara
Manufactured Foster Terminal in system Coeus



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Grade levels for all of these engineers is not static. They can be improved by use. I listed their current G5 capability above (4/18/20), but this can and will change as time goes on

From Frontier:

Improving the Colonia Engineers

Each Engineer will start at skill level 1 for the modules they support and can increase in levels with your help. By completing upgrades engineers earn skill points for that specific module. Skill levels are per module type so for example if you focus on modifying Beam Lasers with Mel Brandon then Mel will get better at upgrading Beam Lasers unlocking higher level upgrades.

All engineers can be levelled up to support grade 5 of the modules they support. The engineer’s level up for everyone, not just the person using the modules, so working together the Elite Dangerous community can increase the grades on offer for each Engineer! There will be a local news article in the engineer's base showing their progress to the next skill levels per module type.

I reached Colonia, putting in to port at Jaques Station, after a trip of 28,931 light years. I took the scenic route

In order to have a better ship than the DBX for unlocking the engineers, I had whistled for my mining Krait II, Twin Reverb, when laying over at Caravanserai in the Gandharvi system. It's one of the stops along the Colonia highway, about 6,000 light years short. I'll need to do some combat, mining and cargo hauling to get the unlocks, and a Krait is perfect for all of that. This ship is configured for mining, so outfitting and engineering it for the other roles while out here will go some way toward reaching the highest access levels with the engineers. I'll engineer beams and multi-cannons which raise rep with Marsha and Mel. I'll mod the prospector and collector limpets already aboard for more with Marsha. And I'll do some HRPs for the combat, for more rep with Petra. Dorn is a question mark, as I don't know where or how to get the escape pods.

I do not see any alternative ways to raise access rep with the Colonia engineers, like you can do in the bubble, by selling exploration data, commodities or mining depending on the engineer. If that's the case it will all have to come through modifications.

After arriving at Jaques Station I called again for the Krait, which had arrived at it's stop-over. To get it there cost 98 million. To get it from Caravanserai to Jaques is another 40 million plus 17 hours. Sh!t's not cheap. All that VO and LTD mining was done so that decisions like this are no problem haha. Of course it will cost just as much to send it home. I think whistling for it while enroute is a good move, as it saves a couple days instead of waiting to reach Colonia before calling for it. It will be here in 17 hours instead of 60.

To get Mel Brandon's invitation I need a station controlled by Colonia Council, which Jaques is not. So I flew from Jaques to nearby Colonia Orbital, an outpost, to look for the invitation mission, muttering before I landed "Please be a courier mission". Until the Krait arrives, there's not much more I could do. A massacre or cargo haul mission would need to await the Krait. Fortune smiled upon me though as it was indeed a courier mission, a quick 8-light year jump to Ratraii, and a station called Colonia Dream. This was done and I have the Mel Brandon invitation, completing the set, and all four engineers are now ready for the unlock.

While awaiting the Krait I spent some time surface prospecting in the rover at a few nearby planets, and then flew to Jaques. I swapped out the Guardian FSD booster, fuel scoop, AFMU and SRV hangar for cargo racks, which gave the DBX 40t of cargo space. Using Inara I found a station in the nearby Macrath system called Spassky's Prospect, an outpost, selling the Progenitor Cells that Petra requires for unlock. She asks for 200, so that meant five trips between Spassky's Prospect and her base Sanctuary to deliver the full amount. I did this and unlocked her. The PCs were selling for 5,600 credits, so 1.1 million for the lot.

After unlocking her I put lightweight on the heatsink, and at grade 4 reached G5 access. One down, three to go! I pinned heavy-duty HRPs. Heatsinks and armor are the other options, and I can always reconsider before heading back to the bubble. The key is to choose blueprints to pin that I will use often, since I probably won't be coming back to Colonia to change which one is pinned. Another consideration is which other engineers back in the bubble can be freed up to change their pinned blueprint, based on what I pin out here.



Sanctuary in Asura.

For the Colonia engineers I remember being very disappointed with the available upgrades for the fuel scoop. What I really wanted was to increase the fuel scooping rate but that upgrade apparently doesn't exist.

You have to do the surface mining with a mining laser in order to extract osmium. Personally, I've found it pretty difficult to find asteroids with any kind of significant osmium content.

Thanks PM, I'll be looking to find some Osmium today. The Krait should have arrived by now and time to get down to business.




The best way to increase fuel scoop rate is to downsize the fuel tank

Or build them to run cool. Making a ship run say 15 to 20% cooler has a real effect on scoop rate at any given heat point.

My Asp Explorer and Krait Phantom run quite cool since they have zero weapons but forget about the Fed Corvette, Python, Anaconda or the Imperial Cutter.

With Twin Reverb having arrived at Jaques station I was ready to get Marsha Hicks unlocked. She requires 10t of osmium. As Panzer said above, strip mining is the way to go. The Krait was set up for core mining, with a seismic launcher and an abrasion blaster in the medium hardpoints, so I loaded mining lasers in all three empty large hardpoints. I haven't laser-mined in two years, and it's all the rage these days, so I'm joining the club!

Osmium is a metal, so I looked at the system map for Colonia and saw planet Colonia 2 was metal rich rings and the planet Colonia 4, which Jaques orbits, is metal rings. I loaded up with 40 limpets and went to the rings right outside. This planet is the one shown in the screenshot in the opening post, along with Jaques station. I shot probes in to the rings and found hostpots but none labeled osmium. Only the inner A ring is metallic, the larger B ring is rocky. I dropped in and began pulse wave scanning, not knowing what type of asteroid I need to find for osmium. I fired off a lot of limpets without finding any before switching to asteroids which gave no return on the pulse wave. These were full of stuff too, but no osmium and once I was down to 12 limpets I went back to Jaques to stock up and sell the few rocks I had mined. Should have loaded more limpets.

This time I took 65 limpets and flew to Colonia 2, with rings labeled metal-rich. Again, probed the rings for hotspots, but no osmium, then dropped in to start looking. Before too long I found what I was looking for by prospecting random rocks without the pulse wave. Lit up the first one with the lasers, which run mighty hot, requiring bursts not steady fire lest the ship explode. Too bad we can't thermal vent mining lasers. Lots of fragments came off, but in the end it only added up to two of the ten osmium. So I kept on going and after finding three or four good rocks, I had 12 osmium onboard, enough to unlock Marsha Hicks. Flew back to Jaques and sold two osmium, plus a number of others the limpets had picked up. None of it was worth anything.

In outfitting, I sold the mining lasers and bought two large beams, one large multi-cannon and two class one cannon! Never used them before so it's just for fun. They'll be sold before shipping Twin Reverb back to the bubble. It's just to arm the Krait to get the bounties needed to unlock Mel Brandon. It only needs 100k as far as I know and that can be just a single wanted ship. I also loaded a KWS and some HRPs and flew to Tir, and Marsha's base Watchtower on planet A2. I had already scanned Tir when I was doing my orientation tour after arriving in Colonia.

I donated the 10 osmium, unlocking her, and then modded the multi-cannon with overcharged and corrosive and also put lightweight on the collector limpet controller. These mods got me to grade five access. Two down, two to go! I pinned overcharged multi-cannons, which is already pinned in the bubble with the Blaster. Unfortunately, his other G5 blueprint is rail guns, which I do not use. I could always pin a mult-cannon mod other than overcharged I suppose. So this doesn't free him for any useful switch. Marsha's other G5 blueprints are not important to me to have pinned (limpet controllers, frags, fuel scoop) . This one is sort of a wash, but it's done. Now to go drop in a RES and grab the bounties to unlock Mel Brandon.

With the Krait now armed, I flew directly from Tir to Luchtaine and scanned the system, which has a few gas giants and I dropped in to a High RES near Mel Brandon's base. I had read that the bounties he asks for must come from the Nameless faction. Not knowing where I would find these ships, I checked out this RES and saw no ships of the sort. Having been out of combat for over a week while I jumped halfway across the galaxy I was eager to wade in to the fray. Straight away I noticed that in this RES, the wanted ships were fighting the wanted ships which I never see. Seeing system security fighting each other is common lately, but I can't say the last time I saw the bad guys fighting each other in a High RES.

So I joined in with my armed mining Krait and soon had a half-million in bounties and bumped combat rank by a point. I like the sound the cannon make by the way, and they make a nice dust-up when they strike the target. I then flew to The Brig, Mel's base to see if he would take these bounties. He did and was unlocked. I applied efficient thermal vent to the beams, and did some work on the boosters and shields. What a great engineer. I'd like to pay him to move to my home system. These mods got me to grade 5 access. Three down one to go! I pinned Thermal Resist for shields. And I've read of a way to get the escape pods needed to unlock Dorn.

The final engineer to for me to unlock is Etienne Dorn. He asks for 25 occupied escape pods. Not sure what he does with them, best not to wonder too long. Business is business.

I didn't know how to go about gathering these. I was ready to accept not unlocking him. The usual ways I knew of, like finding them is USSs or on planets would be far too tedious for me. But before doing so I had a look on the Elite boards and found a way, thanks to a commander called C64fan. He posted a guide to get the escape pods, and I basically followed those directions.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...ccupied-escape-pods-near-colonia.447311/

Right next to Mel Brandon's base in Luchtaine is a distress signal. In there you find a cargo ship that has been disabled. By using hatch breakers, escape pods can be ejected and collected, no crime. So after leaving Mel Brandon's I had to fly back to Jaques in Colonia to get a hatchbreaker limpet controller. In retrospect I could have or should have mounted this before flying to unlock Marsha Hicks, and if anyone follows my plan could save a couple jumps by doing so. The distress signal is just a couple of light seconds from the Brig.

I dropped in to the distress signal with 60 limpets and followed the directions in the post I linked to. Scan the cargo ship, then locate hatch 3, scan the hatch, sub-target the limpet attachment point and fire a limpet. When it does it's thing, all sorts of stuff pops out. At first I was letting the limpets go free, but soon I began selecting limpet targets to get the escape pods and not all of the other junk. That burns through limpets but gets the right ones. I had to leave the signal source to reset it a couple times before I had all 25. When I had 24, there was one escape pod left that the limpets could not pick up, just kept circling it since it was in tight to the ship, among some superstructure. I thought I could wedge my Krait in there and scoop it manually, but the parts of the ship extending away from it prevented me from getting quite close enough. I then had the brilliant idea to shoot it. Maybe I could send it spinning to where I or the limpet could grab it. Of course this immediately made me wanted and the cargo ship started lobbing missiles at me. I quickly retracted the cargo scoop and boosted away and flew back to Jaques to pay the fine, one escape pod short!

After paying the fine I returned to grab the last remaining pod and flew to Los, where I unlocked Etienne Dorn. I applied charge enhanced and super conduits to the power distributor which got me to grade 5 access. Four up and four down. I pinned overcharged power plant, which is also pinned by Hera Tani. I will swap her over to G5 probe radius. And that's it, all Colonia engineers unlocked to G5 access and blueprints pinned. Somewhat easier to do than I might have guessed really. The hard part is getting here



Here I try to make Twin Reverb just a little smaller as I try to manually scoop the last escape pod before deciding to open fire, which was not my best moment