Encoded Materials

Main article: Materials

Encoded Materials, also known as Data, is a type of material gathered by scanning various technological sources and used in Engineer blueprints. It is stored in a dedicated data store, up to a maximum of 500 units.

Encoded Material Sources

Encoded Materials can be acquired by scanning various suitable source types:

Ships

Target any ship (either in Supercruise or sub-light speeds) and centre it in your field of view. Your ship will scan it automatically, and sometimes you will receive data, typically shield or emissions-related.

Private Data Beacons

Found in Degraded Emissions and Encoded Emissions amongst destroyed ship debris.

Satellites

Found in Encoded Emissions around populated Earthlike worlds, or at some installations.

Planetary Outposts

Planetary outposts (not Starports) typically have 1 or more data points that can be scanned with your SRV's Data Link Scanner. They come in 3 security levels (Low, Medium, High) and 3 sizes (Small '+', Medium '++', and Large '+++').

Higher security outposts provide rarer data, but also have stronger defences.

Ancient Ruins / Guardian Structures

Ancient Guardian ruins on the surfaces of certain planets are the sole source of Guardian-related data and materials. Obelisks at Ancient Ruins can be scanned by an SRV in order to acquire the various types of Obelisk Pattern Data (Alpha, Beta, etc.).

Surface Scan Missions

Some missions will require you to scan the data point of a nearby small settlement not otherwise listed in your navigation panel. These settlements can only be found as mission targets, and the data point scan will often produce rare and very rare data.

Wakes

Frame shift drive wakes are a source of frame shift related data. You must scan the wake with a Frame Shift Wake Scanner to retrieve this data.

Mission Rewards

Some missions offer data as part of the mission rewards. It is difficult to predict what missions are available at starports, let alone predict what data will be provided as a reward, so it is not recommended that you rely on these when looking for specific data types. Nevertheless, they are a useful way to acquire data when not looking for specific data types.

List of Encoded Materials

Name	Grade
Aberrant Shield Pattern Analysis	Rare
Abnormal Compact Emissions Data	Very Rare
Adaptive Encryptors Capture	Very Rare
Anomalous Bulk Scan Data	Very Common
Anomalous FSD Telemetry	Common
Atypical Disrupted Wake Echoes	Very Common
Atypical Encryption Archives	Rare
Classified Scan Databanks	Standard
Classified Scan Fragment	Very Rare
Cracked Industrial Firmware	Standard
Datamined Wake Exceptions	Very Rare
Decoded Emission Data	Rare
Distorted Shield Cycle Recordings	Very Common
Divergent Scan Data	Rare
Eccentric Hyperspace Trajectories	Rare
Exceptional Scrambled Emission Data	Very Common
Inconsistent Shield Soak Analysis	Common
Irregular Emission Data	Common
Modified Consumer Firmware	Common
Modified Embedded Firmware	Very Rare
Open Symmetric Keys	Standard
Pattern Alpha Obelisk Data	Standard
Pattern Beta Obelisk Data	Common
Pattern Delta Obelisk Data	Rare
Pattern Epsilon Obelisk Data	Very Rare
Pattern Gamma Obelisk Data	Very Common
Peculiar Shield Frequency Data	Very Rare
Security Firmware Patch	Rare
Specialised Legacy Firmware	Very Common
Strange Wake Solutions	Standard
Tagged Encryption Codes	Common
Unexpected Emission Data	Standard
Unidentified Scan Archives	Common
Unknown Material Composition Data	Standard
Unknown Residue Data Analysis	Rare
Unknown Ship Signature	Standard
Unknown Structural Data	Common
Unknown Wake Data	Rare
Untypical Shield Scans	Standard
Unusual Encrypted Files	Very Common