4Game

<rant> >! My favorite part of Elite is choice. There's no one way to make money. Some people choose to become bounty hunters, kicking criminal ass and taking names. Others choose to stare into the void and explore this massive galaxy, becoming their own tour guide of an unknown land. Maybe space trucking would be more one's style, opting to play the economy in the same manner as a stock trader, looking for the next golden stock. Frankly, I think choice is the best thing Elite has going for it. A randomly generated universe leaves little in the way of overarching narratives, aside from what is directly exposed through GalNet articles, and Odyssey didn't exactly revolutionize the FPS genre. As such, the allure of Elite becomes the ability to be what and who you want to be. However, the engineering system kills that. !<

I mine and fight for my in-game living, and have done so successfully for over 12 billion credits. A Cutter, a Krait, and a few others later, I'm looking to build a new ship for general purpose content. However, an empty wallet of materials concerns me. Much of this build becomes pleasant due to the edge cases I have pushed the modules to through engineering, but a lack of materials seem to prevent me from achieving this.

I turn to the usual spots; the crash site of CMDR Jameson, the geological anomalies of that one HIP system I cannot recall the name of, and the nearest Imperial systems.

However, is this really peak gameplay? There must be more than the series of "Continue", wait, 'j', turn around, target, 'j', fire limpets, pause, exit game. This cycle must have more to offer than sitting my SRV on a rock to cycle between relogging and scanning 4 beacons.</rant>

Frankly, I've gotten sick of these ways to farm engineering materials, and so went back to what I love about this game; self-deposition. Missions sometimes offer manufactured materials; why can I not go clear systems of criminals in order to get materials?

Well, 40 missions later, I find myself with a lot of biotech conductors but few of much else. While mercenary work is plenty more bearable, it is significantly less effective than cycling the game state between closed and opened.

My question is as the title describes. How do you guys get your engineering materials without selling your soul in the process?