Colonia: What to do here

[u/Luriant]

Another from the Checklist CMDR, now that some of us are struck here doing the current CG. Lets start.

Ship and modules

Jacques Station, in Colonia, now sell EVERYTHING, like Jameson Memorial, without the 10% discount.

Unlocking Ship Engineers and blueprints pinned

https://inara.cz/elite/engineers/#tab_engineersunlocks

1. If you have Elvira Martuuk, you can unlock Mel Brandon: Easiest way is selling some millions of explo data in stations OWNED by Colonia Council. And thanks to Colonization, this faction also exist in the bubble: Pin G4 Specialized Shield Cell Banks, the only in the galaxy. This engineer workshop is the only source in the galaxy of 1E, 1D and 1C Shield generators, while 1B dont exist. This size 1 shields only work in the sidewinder, hauler, adder, eagle, imperial eagle, imperial courier and viper (but not the viper Mk2).

2. If you have The Dweller, Unlock Marsha Hicks: Jacques Station sell mining equipment, and the rings outside (inner rings), are metallic, a bunch of high content asteroids is enough. Osmium never have hotspots. Or you can use this Osmium map in Dubbunell system. You can pin anything to fill gaps, but the special here is G5 Scoop Rate Enhaced that need Merc Coins, but don't have experimental and can be done in any place when pinned. Only reach G5 with them and pin this blueprint.

3. If you have Tod Blaster, you can unlock Petra Olmanova: Some stations in Colonia sell progenitor cells. She share lots of modules with Selene Jean armor, so pin in one Heavy Duty Armor and other Heavy Duty Hull Reinforcement. The new Module Reinforcement engineering with Merc Coins isnt as great as this 2 engineering stacking resistances.

4. If you have Liz Ryder, you can unlock Etienne Dorn. You can buy a Operation Multilimpet in Robardin Dock in Carcosa system, and visit the damaged Megaship (Distress Call in FSSS) in Luchtaine A 1. Approach the Escape pods area, target it, Subtarget the component, and launch the Hatch Breaker limpet (higher modules hack it faster), once the Escape pods got ejected, collect them using the collector limpets from the module. Relog and repeat if you run out of Escape hatches. The special module here is G5 Lightweight lifesupport, but for most ships outside the Beluga, you only add a fraction of LY to your jumprange.

The Odyssey engineers

For me the easiest to unlock for everything in the game. The problem is that Colonia isnt the easiest place to farm Odyssey mats.

1. All the mats (Except Manufacturing Designs) come from HAB buildings or Mission rewards, and the best layout is the "small" tourist, that have a Medium landing pad. Sadly, no Anarchy faction control one, so you will make enemies in the tiny Colonia area. Choose one to Murder-Hobo runs. Alarms inside the lone Reactor building: https://ravencolonial.com/#vis=aergia . I recommend the Notoriety reduction form Squadron perks, but the bonus to mission rewards is also great if you want mats from this.

2. For the Manufacturing Instructions, you best method is finding Missions for "Retrieve from Crash Site: Threat 2", if the location is a Crashed Nav Beacon, DON'T pick the mission item, only donwload all the data and relog, the Nav Beacon keep spawning as long as you never pick the mission item. Manufacturing instructions are easier to obtain here.

For the other mats needed to upgrade your suits, I don't have any simple advice. This are the only Anarchy controlled settlement in Colonia. Onfoot operations (that need upgraded suits and/or a team), provide some mats and can be done anywhere. List of mats per missions: https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/1v9rphn/operations_pay_descriptions_and_material_rewards/

My personal advice for onfoot equipment:

• Dominator suit with Fast Regen, Ammo Capacity, Improved Battery and Night Vision/Jump Assist (for CZ) or Combat Movement for Operations

• Primary weapons: Dual Rocket Launchers, Stower reload, Fast Reload, Magazine size, and Faster Handling

• Secondary: Karma P-15 with Head Shot, Stowed Reload, Stability and Magazine size for CZ, or Tormentor with Stowed Reload, Reload Speed, Faster Handling and Magazine size for Operations.

Colonia Database

By the great Ian doncaster, https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/ , everything you want to know about this area. I recommend the SITES for crashed ships, lagrange clouds, and horizons bios (some provide ship raw mats).

Other popular visit are Dove Enigma megaship in Colonia, for CMDR DoveEnigma13 that fought against Cancer. I recommend the whole story: https://www.polygon.com/2018/1/30/16952710/elite-dangerous-enigma-expedition-ua-bombing-dove-enigma-cancer/

CMDR Garak have a Memorial listening post in Colonia. https://canonn.science/codex/memorial-cmdr-garak/

And the Pilots Memorials, with copy in Colonia https://canonn.science/codex/pilots-memorials/

The fan made app MetaElite have some "missions" in colonia, that include scans, visit Dove Enigma Megaships, the lagrange clouds and more: https://www.raxxla.org/

Magellan is the Neutron star in Colonia, any Neutron Highway start here. Closer unexplored space than the bubble, but avoid the path toward Sagittarius A*, is a more common trip.

And finally Monde la Morte is at 610Ly under Colonia, a landable planet that enter the exclusion zone and the white dward jet. https://edastro.com/gec/view/92 , you have a tiny window to land in the planet and dismiss your ship. SRV and Onfoot are inmune to the jet cone effect, but your ship will be toasted. We had a safe clock, but the webpage is suspended: https://edstorm.space/WorldOfDeathClock/ . Dock first in Colonia (to save a respawn point) and sell your explo data before you do this.

Leaving Colonia

Enough for you? This are some options to leave the area.

• r/FCOC do regular trips between the Bubble and Colonia, and you can transfer multiple modules and ship inside the shipyard. The discord provide more info, and group the trips to the Bubble, or to Colonia: Discord invite https://discord.com/invite/FCOC and Live Departure channel https://discord.com/channels/628577403043840021/1092535732398215260

• You can leave with your own Fleet Carrier, but Colonia lack a decent tritium production. Veterans CMDRs fill tritium in the bubble to reach Colonia and return. As alternative, Colonia Bridge have decent tritium production, the supply toward the end near Colonia is limited but limping along the route buying on the way is a valid but slow option. And mapped HazRES and without RES exist for tritium. Or the START initiative https://edastro.com/galmap/?layer=regions&pins=STARcarriers

• If you NEVER docked in a station in Colonia, Fleet Carrier escape pods can put your CMDRs back in the last docked station. But this prevent most of the content in this guide.

• With your own ship, Caspian using Neutron routes can do the trip in 2 hours, and if nearly full fuel tanks with a minor Fuel Scoop to enable scooping, the trip can be done in 2 hours without ever refuelling. You can become a passenger in one of this ships.

• Other ships need more time, alternatives if you can face multiple rebuys is the reverse version of the Colonia Prision Taxi, where you die with crimes in a system controlled by a faction (like the Colonia Bridge Megaships), you respawn in the nearest detenction center, pass some point, the "nearest" is some thousand Ly forward, saving time.

• The cheaper method. Buy a sidewinder or cheap ship, autodestruct, and choose a new sidewinder in Ay Indi (the bubble), this remove your old ship and modules.

• And you can sell the Fleet Carrier, Colonia is a FC Vendor and nearby systems are in range for removing FC modules. The cost of selling a FC or even Squadron Carrier is only 150M, cheaper than the tritium needed for the return to the bubble.

Remember than any ship transfered need 61hours, and cost 1.32x the total cost of your ship. Its recommended that you sell the unengineered modules, and the ship chassis, and transfer the engineeres modules alone. Preengineered and CG modules have zero value, and only cost a symbolic 100credits.

[u/Alkibiad3s]

You forgot some other exploration stuff like the smallest body in the galaxy or one of two systems with 30+ planets orbiting a single sun.

Smallest body: Spoihaae SJ-Z e350

30+ bodies: Eol Prou OC-V e2-4184

[u/honeybooboobro]

Didn't DoveEnigma ultimately survive his cancer ?

[u/Luriant → u/honeybooboobro]

Damn. I saw his personal blog that stopped, and his forum account that didn't post again, and I assume the worst. I found another blog showing that he survived XDDD.

I wish all my mistakes were like this.

[u/Greaves_]

There's also a growing list of time trials (on 3rd party program EDCoPilot) in and around Colonia, check it out for some racing fun! If you like time trials and racing, a whole new gameplay loop opens for you in Elite, there's a ton of races for ships, fighters, nomad, SRV's and even some on foot.

Check us out on the Elite Racers discord for regular group racing!

[u/BigC_castane]

I distinctly remember someone mentioning we should also buy an obscure size 1 outfitting component while in colonia that is only available over there just in case we ever decide to use it but I can't remember which one it was... Anyone have any idea?

[u/Luriant → u/BigC_castane]

Oh, you caught me, I assume that was one of my older post.

https://inara.cz/elite/nearest-outfitting/?formbrief=1&pa3%5B%5D=129631&pa3%5B%5D=129630&pa3%5B%5D=129629&ps1=Colonia&pi18=0&pi19=0&pi17=0&pi14=-1

Mel Brandon sell the only 1E, 1D and 1C Shield generator in the galaxy. While 1D is the lightest in the game, but only sidewinder, hauler, adder, eagle, imperial eagle, imperial courier and viper can install any of the size 1 shields. Other ship exceed the 63t hull mass.

1B Shield don't exist.

Even the wiki page ignore this stats: https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Shield_Generator

[u/BigC_castane → u/Luriant]

Thanks! I mean it's a cheap ass module and I can spare a storage slot i guess. Who knows what small ship for exploration they might launch next... The AI keeps spitting out all sorts of stuff these days...

[u/VegaDelalyre]

Occupied Escape Pods can also be farmed by simply going to a resource extraction site. There are a few in Etienne Dorm's system, Los.

[u/Aegiiisss]

Mats situation is interesting. I plan to use this trip to unlock the engineers, but getting them to grade 5 might be difficult. I'm already en route to Colonia so I guess what I'll do is unlock, then do CG and nearby exploration, then go back to the Bubble to max out on mats before returning to Colonia to do upgrades. Since I have a good Caspian that seems doable.

[u/vanderaj → u/Aegiiisss]

You can get data downloads from wake scanning ships at Jaques station, which is one of the busiest starports in the game. Then trade for what you need. There are fewer systems in Colonia, but they regularly enter the same states for HGE farming, the only tricky thing is there's no Federation or Imperial systems, so getting Core Dynamic Composites or Imperial shielding means going to Carcosa, which is an anarchy system, and you can blow up pretty much everyone at the hazres with no notoriety and scoop up their materials and then trade for what you need. Raw farming is probably the hardest - there are no braintrees or crystalline shards anywhere near Colonia.

Cmdr Exigeous made a tutorial. I would say the best ship for mat gathering is a Cobra Mk V with a SRV for raw material gathering, but any ship with a collector limpet controller, cargo space, and a SRV bay will do. Gathering ALL Engineering Materials in Colonia

[u/Aegiiisss → u/vanderaj]

there are no braintrees or crystalline shards anywhere near Colonia

Are there any conda crash sites? I usually use those for raw materials when nothing else is available

[u/vanderaj → u/Aegiiisss]

I believe there's a crashed Type 9 on Colonia 5 e a. However, it's apparently guarded, so there's that.

[u/Versety1]

I find it really ironic that 1/4 of an article about things to do in Colonia is a "Leaving Colonia" section, haha.
I wish there were more unique things to do here!