Mainframe Expansion Union Outer Rim

[Johny_Drifter]

Anyone find this thing yet? I have all of the mainframe expansions except this one and I cannot find it anywhere.

[ToJKa]

This was the place with the Stealth Base, right?

Surrounding the base are some kind of drones or something. Inside one of them is a bulletproof container containing the expansion.

The one i can't find is in Anandra Bishop Starbase. There should be one there, but i've never found it.

Also, is there an extra Power Core in Avonrest, or am i missing something?

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

In Anandra Bishop Starbase, there are several wreckage fields in the corners of the map barely visible in the clouds when you're directly overtop them. Each field has a shipwreck in them. The mainframe is in one of the shipwrecks.

In the case of where I just found mine, start at the trading hub landing pad, put the sun at your back, and look just right of the planet on the horizon and down into the clouds. It's about 10 km ahead.

[Johny_Drifter]

Thanks guys. Found the Mainframe Expansion in The Outer Rim and completed my collection. Funny, I must have traveled to that area 5 or 6 times and never thought to search the satellites. it was probably the easiest one to find.
AdmiralTigerclaw gave a good description on where to find the Mainframe Expansion in Anandra Bishop Starbase. I found that by boosting around the limits of the boundary until the shipwreck popped up on sensors.

[Ubik Valis]

So, basically, what you guys are saying is that the mainframe expansions don't appear as random loot, but are to be found in fixed locations?

[Johny_Drifter]

Yes. Once you unlock Khala, she will give you the Location Scanner perk. The perk allows you to see what every system has. For example, Prescott Starbase has 12 Secret Stashes, 2 Mainframe Expansions and 1 Device. The perk also shows you how many you have found so far (e.g. 7/12 or you have found 7 out of the 12 secret stashes in that system).

[Ubik Valis]

Originally posted by Johny_Drifter:

Yes. Once you unlock Khala, she will give you the Location Scanner perk. The perk allows you to see what every system has. For example, Prescott Starbase has 12 Secret Stashes, 2 Mainframe Expansions and 1 Device. The perk also shows you how many you have found so far (e.g. 7/12 or you have found 7 out of the 12 secret stashes in that system).

Unlock Khala? Sounds like something from Khait, or I've missed something in Ceto/Union/Zarkhov...? In my 2nd playthrough (my 1st since the Khait update) I sort of gave up at the "Search the wreck" mission with Maddox and Eduardo, since I couldn't figure out how to solve it...

[Johny_Drifter]

Yes, Khala is another companion that player will find in Khait. She give 2 perks. Discover Location and Fast Travel

[Ubik Valis]

Cool, thanks. I guess that gives me a little bit more to look forward to in a future 3rd playthrough.

[ToJKa]

Originally posted by AdmiralTigerclaw:

In Anandra Bishop Starbase, there are several wreckage fields in the corners of the map barely visible in the clouds when you're directly overtop them. Each field has a shipwreck in them. The mainframe is in one of the shipwrecks.

Thanks, found it finally. In the middle of nowhere. Hell, i found the stealth container before it

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Originally posted by ToJKa:

Originally posted by AdmiralTigerclaw:

In Anandra Bishop Starbase, there are several wreckage fields in the corners of the map barely visible in the clouds when you're directly overtop them. Each field has a shipwreck in them. The mainframe is in one of the shipwrecks.

Thanks, found it finally. In the middle of nowhere. Hell, i found the stealth container before it

No worries. I actually fired up the game after reading this thread to take a look. As a result, when I went into Ananda and looked around, I immediately went: "Okay, it's cloud world. It's either in one of the main structures... which would be obvious, or hidden in the clouds."

I found a, I guess you could say, 'gas extractor' hidden deeper in the clouds with a cloud of scrap metal around it. That reinforced the 'okay, the devs did make use of hiding things in the clouds' mode of thought, so I continued sweeping by flying higher up and looking down so I could see structures poking out here and there.

Then I found some twisted and broken cross-member wreckage strung out around it with a shipwreck. That shipwreck was no joy, but I continued sweeping around the map until I found the second cluster of twisted wreckage.

Moral of the story is that sometimes you just have to think like a Dev or even a story writer. I entered a map that had an obvious 'cloud deck' that most maps don't have, so that's like a Chekov's Gun in map form. It's a little hard because games these days have a bad habit of making us follow obvious clues like neon signs glowing on a foggy night. This game has a lot of 'pay attention to structures' in the exploration. Refreshing, but a little hard to break from traditional habit.

[Johny_Drifter]

I caught on to that as well AdmiralTigerClaw. In some systems, you look around and see a wreck in the distance and think "ok, that one has sparks coming out of it. Why did the devs put sparks there?" In ES2, if something is different, there is most likely a reason for it. If you jump into an "Unknown Signal", there will usually be 2-3 groups of enemy and each group of enemy may be clustered around a container or multiple containers. If you use the same logic in some of the systems, it often correlates to something you might be looking for. For example, if you're in a system looking for a secret container and there are a group of enemy off in the distance next to an asteroid, there is probably a reason they are there.

[ToJKa]

Yes, the devs seem to have a habit of marking stuff for you. Like in the Warship Wreck, the billowing smoke shows the locations of the power cores and where to use them.
Then there was was find the hidden ore veins, that were marked by a purple color on the asteroids.

I had found the other shipwreck before in the clouds, so should've just figured there's more of them.

Now, what's the trick in Avonrest? That place has shootable switches and destroyable hatches...

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Originally posted by ToJKa:

Yes, the devs seem to have a habit of marking stuff for you. Like in the Warship Wreck, the billowing smoke shows the locations of the power cores and where to use them.
Then there was was find the hidden ore veins, that were marked by a purple color on the asteroids.

I had found the other shipwreck before in the clouds, so should've just figured there's more of them.

Now, what's the trick in Avonrest? That place has shootable switches and destroyable hatches...

Not sure. I picked the place clean sometime last week. So I can't even remember if I nabbed a mainframe in the progress. I just did a fly-around in there just before coming to type, and the only things I note is that I have opened three secure containers with power cores, and I have a spare power core floating around with apparently nothing to plug it in to.

The station with the remote landing pad is also picked clean so... I've got a spare power core, and somewhere, there's a socket.

EDIT: Okay, I think I might have gotten that. A wiki page talking about Avonrest says there is a cloaked container below the landing pad that contains the expansion. I'm not getting the sensor screeches for a cloaked container, and I do remember sniffing one out a while back.

[ToJKa]

I've know where the expansion is there, i'm just wondering about the extra Power Core. No other area in the game has extra Power Cores.