ok yeah, I wish there was a good path to welding machines too. Most places do not make them.

The items you find on map seem to be tied to station types. Navigation equipment like Switchboards are found in communication center stations. Food drops are found in food stations like Sterling Farm and Welding Machines are more commonly found in heavy industrial stations, so try your luck at figuring out those, otherwise your best bet is trading and tunnel rats random drops.

Training Center Type Stations seem to be loaded with ammo and weapons. These are all new changes.

In my current run in the newest update, i also did run into this issues. 53 missions completed and 2 welding machines dropped or found during missions.

That thing said, i feel in the new update you might want to check the trading option from the factions you did not have negative reputations with, check all the available possible trade in every system even if the items you need are not listed on the locations. Because they often do have other items to trade and if you are lucky you might find some welding machines to buy.

Like you can see in below screenshot

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3547317234
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3547317279
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3547317355

You can see that, in the station there are additional items for trade.

I found like at least 5 of welding machine sold in the location that did not produce them. Hope this helps

Originally posted by Pinhead Larry:

This is the second run too where this seems to be the norm. I can't ever trade for them either because the only places selling them seem to be factions I am not backing and thus have negative rep with

Help your allies to capture these stations or do missions there. In the latter case the mission may have some of the station's loot. So if a station produces Welding Machines then during missions there you could find it.

I did a video where i explained the factions and endgame.
But to give more context, the devs have shifted looting to producing ship upgrades. Usually you found materials in engineer crates or specialist soldiers.

Now, mostly the minor corporations produce working man's materials. For example coreward/planetbridge tend to produce a lot of stuff for the production upgrades of the ship, some for shuttles.

What a station produces depends mostly on the faction.
Since 90% of players ignore these little mechanics, the hexarchy takes over or tetzclan expands too much.

Basically now you have to help the minor factions survive and produce stuff.
I took over planetbridge and i get all stuff they produce for free wich was great because i finaly got 6 welding kits.

You wont find almost any good loot if you dont upgrade the navigation stuff and production line bellow scavengers.

Its a balance thing and this is how its supposed to be, we are mercs, not burglars😀 unless we take missions from the pirates wich seem to alway be called robbery.

You are also heavily encouraged to do missions and plan a course to reach a station that produces something you need. So you should be generating missions with navigation on your way to a location that makes cool stuff.

Originally posted by Neyreyan_Youtube:

I did a video where i explained the factions and endgame.
But to give more context, the devs have shifted looting to producing ship upgrades. Usually you found materials in engineer crates or specialist soldiers.

Now, mostly the minor corporations produce working man's materials. For example coreward/planetbridge tend to produce a lot of stuff for the production upgrades of the ship, some for shuttles.

What a station produces depends mostly on the faction.
Since 90% of players ignore these little mechanics, the hexarchy takes over or tetzclan expands too much.

Basically now you have to help the minor factions survive and produce stuff.
I took over planetbridge and i get all stuff they produce for free wich was great because i finaly got 6 welding kits.

You wont find almost any good loot if you dont upgrade the navigation stuff and production line bellow scavengers.

Its a balance thing and this is how its supposed to be, we are mercs, not burglars😀 unless we take missions from the pirates wich seem to alway be called robbery.

You are also heavily encouraged to do missions and plan a course to reach a station that produces something you need. So you should be generating missions with navigation on your way to a location that makes cool stuff.

Whoa whoa whoa whoa WHOA.

The first Maxim states: "Pillage, THEN burn." And what is pillaging but burglary with violence?

Originally posted by XantchA:

In my current run in the newest update, i also did run into this issues. 53 missions completed and 2 welding machines dropped or found during missions.

That thing said, i feel in the new update you might want to check the trading option from the factions you did not have negative reputations with, check all the available possible trade in every system even if the items you need are not listed on the locations. Because they often do have other items to trade and if you are lucky you might find some welding machines to buy.

Like you can see in below screenshot

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3547317234
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3547317279
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3547317355

You can see that, in the station there are additional items for trade.

I found like at least 5 of welding machine sold in the location that did not produce them. Hope this helps

The problem there is I tried that but either the only places I have enough rep to trade with are so far out that by the time I reach them the place has been taken over or is blocked by a mission, or they aren't accepting any of the loot I've collected or want stuff that's equally rare to find.

Loot is abysmal in this version. Ceramic plates, for example, are dime a dozen in early game. Inventory management has gone up exponentialy since 9.2. I'm not having fun.

Originally posted by Pinhead Larry:

Originally posted by XantchA:

In my current run in the newest update, i also did run into this issues. 53 missions completed and 2 welding machines dropped or found during missions.

That thing said, i feel in the new update you might want to check the trading option from the factions you did not have negative reputations with, check all the available possible trade in every system even if the items you need are not listed on the locations. Because they often do have other items to trade and if you are lucky you might find some welding machines to buy.

Like you can see in below screenshot

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3547317234
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3547317279
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3547317355

You can see that, in the station there are additional items for trade.

I found like at least 5 of welding machine sold in the location that did not produce them. Hope this helps

The problem there is I tried that but either the only places I have enough rep to trade with are so far out that by the time I reach them the place has been taken over or is blocked by a mission, or they aren't accepting any of the loot I've collected or want stuff that's equally rare to find.

Seeing your situation then, I think you need to start backing some other (1 or 2) faction that control welding machine production sites (even hitting your currently backed faction, can always grind back the lost reputation later).

Or start on a full looting run with minimal starting gear and/or consumables. I usually did this with a tunnel rat class, hence i call it rat run, go in with 9mm disposable weapon, some sorbent and ammo and extract out when you find an item chip or class chip. Normally i run on a location that has alot of server container (these are good for trading loot) which helps on trading. I usually picks Mars or the earth (No Quasi).

That said though, with how i play the games and the difficulty i set up, I can live with 1 Production line only, the 3 most important Magnum upgrades to go for after new save file(at least for me) is the:

1. Navigation (Monitoring, Scanner and Management) all 3 now is very good and useful (spawn mission, scan up to 3 level, increase loot quality and taking over minor corp)
2. Hangar (Evacuation and Shuttle) : for extra loot extraction
3. Cloning (Hierarchy) : actually makes your clone very useful, even the useless one

With your save file condition now, i strongly recommend you to make new faction allies. Since we are basically a gun for hire, loyalty has a price after all. Choosing between survival and old allies are basically not a question, survival will win all the time.

Sounds like a death spiral, you can recover but it will be a tough game to beat.
You have to get lucky with materials and missions.
I recommand playing percy tunnel rat with yukie kenzio ultimate and replace an active skill with a passive dodge, level up dodge with items.

Originally posted by Neyreyan_Youtube:

Sounds like a death spiral, you can recover but it will be a tough game to beat.
You have to get lucky with materials and missions.
I recommand playing percy tunnel rat with yukie kenzio ultimate and replace an active skill with a passive dodge, level up dodge with items.

Tunnel Rat are good only for early game, class good for loot but bad with survival past early to mid game.

I usually plays with Eclipse Blades, low investments, and with good setup can do well into mid game, just dont plays purely melee, you need some range capabilities (for setting ambush and for situation where melee is just not possible). Capet, Yukio, Wulfnod and Reid-Daly a good clone for it (decent dodge and melee acc).
Mid game you can swap Cannibalism with Marauder if you need more loot or with Training to make it more deadly in range situation.

My second favourite class is Spaceborn Ghosts for non Melee, it got Athletics (less sprint penalty), Reflexes (dodge), Immune response (less wound chance), and Warcrime (stun non robot on kills). Other 2 skill are kinda mid especially sneaky shot which is so out of place. You can change this 2 skills with Marauder and Training for crazy combination.

Speaking of Sneaky Shot, this game needs better tells for when I count as being hidden from enemies or not. Lost too many runs sneaking around a corner only for some enemy who wasn't even facing my direction to just 180 and stunlock me to death with multiple full auto bursts

Originally posted by Pinhead Larry:

Lost too many runs sneaking around a corner

Rounding a corner in sneak mode is self-chosen suicide. The reason you sneak is to temporarily check the vicinity or to mess with a bunch of items without turns passing, but the pain system means you never want to do it when in actual danger. Quasimorph is not like other games where you gain a combat advantage from sneaking, it's more like strapping a bomb to your chest for a moment of utility.

Originally posted by Pinhead Larry:

Speaking of Sneaky Shot, this game needs better tells for when I count as being hidden from enemies or not. Lost too many runs sneaking around a corner only for some enemy who wasn't even facing my direction to just 180 and stunlock me to death with multiple full auto bursts

when u sneak u see them around the corner. Just get them to follow u around the corner, by making loud noises (sometimes running around helps, sometimes shooting backup gun)