Searching for S-class Sentinel ships (progress!)

[Galadhlinn]

I think I've made progress on searching for an S-class version of a sentinel ship once you find a ship model you like.
(Disclaimer: I haven't found an S-class yet)
Up until this morning, Once I used the AI Fragment to locate a sentinel ship on a Dissonant planet, if I liked the ship but wanted to try for a better class, I would abandon the mission, fly to another part of the planet and use another AI Fragment to locate another. This had mixed results. Often I could get a second ship in the new location, but after that, it would send me back to one of the two ships I'd already spawned. I could confirm this in two ways. First I always remove the pugneum, the glass and the brain. (tip: always remove the brains on ships you don't want, as they can be refined for 2,500 nanites.), so after using the AI Fragment to find another ship, and that "new" ship has those three items already removed, it is a ship I've already spawned and checked. Also, if the "new" spawned ship is more than 40 seconds away (flying time), it is a telltale sign that it is a ship I've already spawned/checked, (warning: you still have to fly to that ship, get out, trigger "Arrived at your Destination" so that you can then abandon the quest and try again, or your next AI Fragment will not work.) I was able to get three new ships a couple of times on a given planet, but most of the time I could only get two ships before repeatedly being sent back to previously spawned ships. Now there is always some inconsistency with all of this which is likely game coding stuff. Sometimes I could only get one ship and no second ship. No matter how many AI Fragment/abandoning the mission I did.
My first discovery was that using an Echo Locator to locate a camp and then using the terminal to locate a ship could get me unstuck and find a "new" ship. But again, it had its limits, and eventually, I'd start being sent to previously spawned ships. I could never get past 3-4 "new" ships per planet.
This morning I think I cracked the nut. I'll bullet my process below. I do not know which of the steps are necessary (aside from reloading a restore point). I'm only presenting what has worked for me. I look forward to hearing from others on if this process works for you, and if you have any additional info to add. The goal is to develop a reliable process for finding an S-class version of a ship you find.
1. Land on planet with corrupted sentinels in a Dissonant system and exit your ship.
2. Use Echo Locator to locate the camp. (for ship hunting only use the Echo Locator the very first time after you land on a new planet.)
3. After checking multitool case (unlocking) use terminal to locate ship #1.
4. After locating the ship, if it is a ship you want, but the class is too low, remove the pugneum, glass and brain from ship #1 and then cancel the ship mission in your log.
5. Fly to a new place on the planet (I recommend heading above the atmosphere and going a decent ways away from the ship you just found).
6. Land, get out of ship and then reload restore point. *(this is critical)* It seems to clear the cache in a way that abandoning the mission does not. I'm sure the more techy inclined can provide better explanation. : P
7. Use another AI Fragment. Get in ship launch, check distance to "new" ship. If it is 40 seconds or less away, you have found a "new" ship (same ship model but new dice roll on the class).
Using this method I am currently on my 11th try at an S-class on the same planet. Note: once in while it still seems to send me to a previously spawned ship, but it's only happened a couple of times, and I was able to keep going and get "new" subsequent ships repeating the process above. I'm confident that if I stayed on this planet and kept trying, I would eventually get an S-class. But I'm not interested in this ship, only in the process. I'm heading off to find a ship I like, and then I will stick with this process until I get an S-class version. Also this process can be modified to find an S-class Sentinel multi-tool in the camps, same process but using the Echo Locator each time instead of the AI Fragment. Using this process for multitools, I have found both rifles and pistols on the same planet and multiple classes. But if you are after the ship, using the Echo Locator (other than the very first time you land on the planet) adds more steps and therefore slows you down.
Hope this helps you find your dream ship in an S-class!

[Ender's games]

I have way too many nanites, and anyone playing long term also has them. If you find an A-Class, you can upgrade it with nanites and not spend a lot of time searching.

[Galadhlinn]

Originally posted by Ender's games:

I have way too many nanites, and anyone playing long term also has them. If you find an A-Class, you can upgrade it with nanites and not spend a lot of time searching.

. . . ok

[Eventide]

Economic Balance broken further by this ability to find more than one Sentinel ship on the same planet. Cash them out at a station ship recycler. Standard Sentinel Pillars don't pay off like this, for a similar amount of effort. And corrupted worlds have too high a chance to find walker brains. (I've scraped off 10, attached to "Autophage" containers. One is enough, imo.)

[Galadhlinn]

Originally posted by Eventide:

Economic Balance broken further by this ability to find more than one Sentinel ship on the same planet. Cash them out at a station ship recycler. Standard Sentinel Pillars don't pay off like this, for a similar amount of effort. And corrupted worlds have too high a chance to find walker brains. (I've scraped off 10, attached to special containers. One is enough, imo.)

Sorry, ya this was a wall of text, so this sentence may have been lost on some:
"The goal is to develop a reliable process for finding an S-class version of a ship you find."
The post was not intended to debate the status of the economy. It was just for folks who found a ship they love, to provide them a process to eventually get an S-class version of it. It is a fair amount of work. Upgrading a lower class ship at the space station or using a save editor are also ways to accomplish this. It's geared more for the tech/process oriented person who wants to "find" an S-class version of a ship they "found."
Hope this helps clarify.

[Jaggid Edje]

I haven't been using the Dreadnaught AI fragements at all. Other than my save that has gotten them every day from expedition rewards, I don't have any on the other saves.

Echo locators are less time-consuming to gather. Once I get one on a save, I get them while ship-hunting faster than I use them, so I just have been going to dissonant systems and using Echo Locators, then dropping a save beacon at the Harmonic camp and scanning for Dissonant Spikes (interceptor crash sites) over and over from the same camp until it stops pointing me to ships.
The main downside of this is that exiting/reloading the game causes you to start getting duplicate crash sites that you've already been to, so it works best if you can tap out the camp in one single play session.

I also recover EVERY interceptor, rather than mucking about trying to scrap the in-progress save. And then just scrap the ones that aren't S-Class. It helps that I have most of my ship slots free on all of my saves, so I can recover quite a few before I need to go scrap. The recovery process only takes a couple minutes.

I've got S-class interceptors on 3 of my 4 active saves using the above method, so it's worked for me. (I have an S-class on the 4th as well, but I got that when I was testing if the variable that controls s class ships, multi-tools and freighters also applies to interceptors, so that one was gained artificially. i.e. I had the chance modded to 100%).

I've been focusing on Outlaw and High Wealth dissonant systems only....and honestly the worst part is finding those on the galaxy map. LOL

I've definitely scrapped a metric ton of interceptors at this point.

[Eventide]

Originally posted by Galadhlinn:

Sorry, ya this was a wall of text, so this sentence may have been lost on some:
"The goal is to develop a reliable process for finding an S-class version of a ship you find."
The post was not intended to debate the status of the economy.

Sorry, couldn't help but use this to go off on my own tangent. No disrespect intended to the work you put in, refining your method.

[Galadhlinn]

Originally posted by Eventide:

Originally posted by Galadhlinn:

Sorry, ya this was a wall of text, so this sentence may have been lost on some:
"The goal is to develop a reliable process for finding an S-class version of a ship you find."
The post was not intended to debate the status of the economy.

Sorry, couldn't help but use this to go off on my own tangent. No disrespect intended to the work you put in, refining your method.

I appreciate the reply. No offence taken. ; )

[Galadhlinn]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

I've definitely scrapped a metric ton of interceptors at this point.

What works for the player is all that matters.
As mentioned in the other thread we conversed on, my goal was to develop a reliable method to find an S-class version of a lower class ship on a planet. It took a lot of experimentation to weed out all the, I'll call them false positives, where the player keeps burning AI Fragments (or echo locators) and keep getting sent back to previously spawned ships. I did try just using Echo locators and spawning the ships from the camp terminals, but this process too would frequently point to previously spawned ships. It wasn't until I started combining abandoning the mission, flying to a new spot, exiting and reloading save, that I mostly (85-90% of the time) will get a new ship spawn.
If this process helps another get an S-class ship they otherwise might have missed out on, I'm happy. I realize that the "new, modern" way is just to turn on creative mode in the SS and max out a ship to S-class with max cargo and be done.
I suppose I'm just an old fart doing things the slow, old fashioned way. 8-)

[Jaggid Edje]

Yep, I do something similar once a camp starts pointing me to duplicate sites more often than new ones. I just fly to a new area and use the echo locator to find another camp, but it's the same principle.

Personally, I wish there was a exocraft that could scan for the interceptor crashes, because the exocraft scanners have a shorter range. It makes them ideal for avoiding duplicates.

There's a mod that adds scanning for the crashes/camps to the distress signal scan of the minotaur, but I didn't bother trying it, seeing as they would be mixed in with regular distress signal scan results. Sounds like more hassle than distress signal scans already were to me.

Originally posted by Galadhlinn:

I realize that the "new, modern" way is just to turn on creative mode in the SS and max out a ship to S-class with max cargo and be done.

Bah, that's just a good way to run out of things to do in the game. Personally, other than my 'testing' save which I use to test various scenarios and mods, etc. I have my difficulty options locked on all my saves. I can't use that method even if I would want to.

[Galadhlinn]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

Personally, I wish there was a exocraft that could scan for the interceptor crashes, because the exocraft scanners have a shorter range. It makes them ideal for avoiding duplicates.

I agree. I think I get why HG came up with this method (spawning them), and it is fun the first few times. My guess is, while not against ship class hunting, HG is not interested in facilitating it in any way. Likely they want us to settle for whatever class we get and then work on nanites to upgrade it into the ship we desire. Finding an S-class is probably just there for the "wow" factor of finding a very rare class ship randomly, once in a blue moon. Trying to find one is not really intended.

[Kobs]

That's the only S class I could find

https://www.reddit.com/r/NMSCoordinateExchange/comments/12k5tlj/red_and_black_s_class_sentinel_ship_with_4_close/

[Migromul]

Did you know, that you don't need to be on a planet to use an echo-locater? (It ieven didn't function for me there.. I always got the message "local disturbance")

Also I just would claim and scrap the ships you don't want... or at least leaf a map-location there, if it is needed to NOT claim a ship for a higher chance of a better class. (so you can com back later.)

BTW: is there somehow a way to finde those resonators without the mission? I still need one for the multitool....

Originally posted by Eventide:

Economic Balance broken further by this ability to find more than one Sentinel ship on the same planet. Cash them out at a station ship recycler. Standard Sentinel Pillars don't pay off like this, for a similar amount of effort. And corrupted worlds have too high a chance to find walker brains. (I've scraped off 10, attached to "Autophage" containers. One is enough, imo.)

Who cares? if you realy want to make money fast, just land on an extreme planet and collect storm crystals... they're 4-5 times more worth than walker-brains. (10 sell for over 2 million., while 10 walker brains sell for ca. 500.000.) And are much easier to find, even in the storms, because they shine bright, and are easy to spot even from the ship-veiw.
I realy don't know a way to make money faster.
OK, sentinel-ship-scrapping will come close and is less boring. but takes the risk of getting killed, because of the sentinel-fights. I think the risk is higher, because you can just use your ship on extreme planets. (make sure you have enough starter-fuel, though.)

My first ship was ca 33.000.000 . That's ca. 150-200 storm crystals. I'm not sure what takes more time. (the ship is more risky, but much less boring imho. Time-efford might be the same, including the initial fight of the sentinels to get the echo-locator. and the "maybe-waiting" for storms on extreme planets.)

[Galadhlinn]

Originally posted by Migromul:

Did you know, that you don't need to be on a planet to use an echo-locater? (It ieven didn't function for me there.. I always got the message "local disturbance")


OK, sentinel-ship-scrapping will come close and is less boring. but takes the risk of getting killed, because of the sentinel-fights. I think the risk is higher, because you can just use your ship on extreme planets. (make sure you have enough starter-fuel, though.)

My first ship was ca 33.000.000 . That's ca. 150-200 storm crystals. I'm not sure what takes more time. (the ship is more risky, but much less boring imho. Time-efford might be the same, including the initial fight of the sentinels to get the echo-locator. and the "maybe-waiting" for storms on extreme planets.)

Yes, you can use the Echo locator from space. What I found was that it often pointed to either another system altogether, or it pointed to a ship I had already discovered (spawned) and had passed on. I search a corrupted sentinel planet like a grid, checking a ship, if not the class I want, abandoning the mission, creating and then reloading a restore point to clear the cache, moving to a new point on the planet, using another Echol Locator, rinsing and repeating. I have spawned as many as 15 different ships (same model, reroll the class) on one planet using this method.

"Local Disturbance" is either caused by not following the quest exactly the first time (I.E. let the quest choose the planet, don't choose your own the first time) or by not properly abandoning the mission and saving/reloading restore point to clear the cache.

I think that Sentinel ship scrapping far surpasses any other way of earning units (not counting duping/glitching). your 33,000,000 is a low amount. I had one sentinel ship with a scrap value (with zero upgrades) of 143,000,000 units. 75,000,000 is fairly common. Plus, if you are spawning all your ships through the camp terminal (using Echo Locators to find the camps), you are getting a steady supply of nanites and multitool, exosuit, ship storage augmentations (from the wheelbarrows in the camps).

If you go to a Dissonant pirate system and farm the mirror guys from your ship, you will not get attacked at all, as sentinel ships will not attack you on pirate systems. So you can farm sentinel ships without danger. You should be getting your Sentinel ships from pirate systems anyways because you have a 5% chance at an S-class each time.
Hope this helps.

[GenSec39]

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[Galadhlinn]

Originally posted by GenSec39:

What about ship model? it works like with freighters (1 specific model per system) ot like with starships, so you can get different ones within 1 planet/system?

All I've seen so far (searching about 75+ systems) is 1 ship model per system.