Initializing NVIR systemsGuides // Engineering
Unlocking engineers, what a grade costs, experimental effects, pinning, and the order to modify a ship in.
Engineers modify modules. You take a ship to their workshop, pick a blueprint — Increased Range for a Frame Shift Drive (Frame Shift Drive: The drive that does both jobs: hyperspace jumps between systems, and supercruise inside them.), Dirty Drives for thrusters — and pay in materials rather than credits. The module keeps its class and rating and gains a large boost to what the blueprint targets, at a cost to something else.
That trade is the whole system. A long-range drive burns more fuel. Dirty drives run hot. Nothing here is free, and nothing here is permanent: a module can be re-rolled onto a different blueprint whenever you change your mind.
Every engineer is locked behind the same four steps. None of them are hard; they are just rarely explained in order.
Each engineer wants something before they will talk — an exploration rank, a distance from your starting system, a number of bounties, a faction standing. Felicity Farseer wants Exploration rank Scout; Elvira Martuuk wants 300 ly of travel.
Meeting the requirement mails you an invitation with the workshop location. The system stays permit-free — the invitation is the permit.
Turn up with what they asked for. Farseer wants one Meta Alloy, bought at Darnielle's Progress in Maia for about 80k credits. Others want commodities, data, or a bounty total.
One modification of anything unlocks them properly. From there their reputation climbs as you work, and reputation is what opens the higher grades.
A blueprint has five grades (How rare a material or blueprint is, from 1 to 5. Higher grades store fewer units and cost more.). Each grade is a separate recipe with its own material cost, and you climb them in order — there is no jumping to grade 5. Grade 5 is expensive twice over: the recipes want higher grade materials, and you need maximum reputation with that engineer before the grade is even offered.
Inside a grade you apply the blueprint repeatedly. Each application is a roll (Engineering Roll: One application of a blueprint to a module. Each roll spends materials and improves the result a little.), spends the recipe once, and moves the module a little further toward that grade's ceiling.
| Engineer reputation | Applications for a G5 recipe | What to budget |
|---|---|---|
| Just unlocked the grade | 5 | Five of everything the recipe lists — the safe assumption |
| Maxed with that engineer | 5 | Same at G5; lower grades finish faster |
| Maxed, working a G1 recipe | 1 | One application is the whole grade |
An experimental effect is a second modification layered on top of the blueprint — Stripped Down on a drive, Thermal Cascade on a weapon. One per module, paid for in materials like everything else, and applied at the workshop of an engineer who offers it.
Not every engineer offers every effect, and the effect you want is often the reason to unlock a particular engineer rather than the blueprint grade. Check who offers what before you fly.
Each engineer lets you pin one blueprint. A pinned blueprint can be applied from the Remote Workshop in your ship's modules panel, anywhere in the galaxy, without flying back — up to the grade that engineer has unlocked for you.
That makes the pin worth spending on the blueprint you will re-apply on every new hull, not the one with the biggest number. Frame Shift Drive range on Farseer is the classic first pin: every ship you ever buy wants it, and none of them want to fly to Deciat for it.
Materials are finite and rolls are cheap only in hindsight. This order gets the most out of the fewest materials on almost any hull.
Increased Range, every time. It shortens every trip you will ever make, and it is the one modification that improves a ship you have not bought yet — the jump range follows you to the next hull. Farseer at grade 5 with Mass Manager is the standard result.
Dirty Drives for speed and handling, Clean Drives if heat is the problem. Speed is survival: it decides whether you can leave a fight, hold a firing angle, or land without bouncing.
Reinforced for raw strength, Thermal Resistant if you fly near stars or Thargoids. Shield boosters take the same treatment and are cheap by comparison — engineer those before you re-roll the generator again.
Last, because they are the most specialised and the most likely to change with your build. A weapon modification is worth little on a ship that cannot get into position, which is why thrusters come first.