Main details:

So you wanna farm High Grade Emissions (HGE) huh?

Every video game has something that ya have to do, that sucks.....BAD! Well getting Engineering Materials in ED is #1 on that list!

So in ED, when you build and outfit a ship, the modules that go in it can be Engineered. Problem is, that engineering costs "materials" from your MAGIC INVENTORY (a collection of stuff that follows you wherever you go and doesn't seem to weigh anything or take up space!).

There are three types of material:

1. Raw
2. Manufactured
3. Encoded

This article covers Manufactured materials farming (duh!) 

It really doesn't matter what ship you use. Just make sure that it can hold enough limpets to get one slot (in this case Imperial Shielding) of grade 5 to it's maximum (100 items...so you'll need 34 limpets).

While we will be focusing on Imperial Shielding in the Achenar system, this method can be applied anywhere, to any HGE site. So here we go...

Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?
― Friedrich Nietzsche

This is incredibly repetitious, so the second you get bored, stop and do something else! If you do this for 30 minutes every time you play, you will always be max'd out on manufactured mats! So no need to burn yourself out!

#1

Jump into Achenar and check your left (Nav) panel for "High Grade Emission" signal sources.
Note: Use your filters! Set it to "Signal Sources" ONLY. Makes things easier

#2

What you want is an HGE that, when selected (and your ship is pointing at it) displays over 25 minutes in the top-right "Info" panel
Note: You can take an HGE with lower time on the clock, just means you won't MAX out in a single session. That's right, you will get 100 Imperial Shielding from a single HGE site!

#3

Once located, fly to this sight and drop in on it.

#4

This is the repetitive section:

1. Deploy all the limpets you can, wait for them to collect everything
2. The INSTANT you get the message "NO VALID COLLECTION TARGETS", Press Escape, Click Exit, Click "QUIT TO DESKTOP"!
3. When the launcher PLAY button lights up (game has successfully closed), click Play
4. When the main menu appears, enter THE SAME game mode (Open, Private Group, etc) you were in previously.
   Note: For speed, I suggest using OPEN or SOLO.
   Note: If you do this in Private Group....MAKE SURE that you enter the SAME group previously used
5. When the game loads, IMMEDIATELY hit your FSD button. Right before the "Charging" bar gets to 100%, hit your boost button. You will jump into Super-Cruise BUT STAY THROTTLED DOWN! (0% throttle)
6. Look on your Nav panel for an "Unidentified Signal Source" less than 100Km from you. THAT is the HGE site! Select the entry, then select the "Supercruise Assist" option.
7. Turn you ship around as fast as you can. Supercruise Assist will drop you into the instance when the "target dot" gets close.
8. Once in instance (the only time you should use the throttle) throttle up to get to the HGE's
9. Return to step 1

Some quick math!

You should, after some practice, be able to execute all 9 steps in less than 3 minutes. Lets say your HGE had 25 minutes on the timer:

 * = Grade 5 materials have a MAXIMUM storage capacity of 100

 Each item you collect is actually 3 items! This applies to all materials (Raw, Manufactured, Encoded). FDev made this change several years ago to address the "grid problem". 

So if you jumped into an instance with 3 Imperial Shielding, once collected your count would increase by 9.

It would be nice to get 6 items each time you dropped in, but you won't. The most I have ever seen is 6, the least 2. The count is (usually) different each drop.

Dropping in and out of a HGE site, you should MAX out Imperial Shielding (or whatever you are collecting) well before the timer expires. You will know you're max'd out when your limpets won't collect any more items. Once you are, jump to the Lombi system and head to Xin Hub station. There is a manufactured material trader here to trade for the items needed.

That's it! Hope this helps you out! Check out my Encoded Material Farming article before you go.

Fly dangerously Commander!