The envelope theory is a method to compute approximate eigensolutions of quantum N -body Hamiltonians with a quite general structure in D dimensions. The advantages of the method are that it is easy to implement and that N is treated as any other parameters of the Hamiltonian, allowing the computation for systems of all sizes. If solutions are reliable, they are generally not very accurate. In the case of systems with identical particles for D ≥ 2, it is possible to improve the precision of the eigenvalues by combining the envelope theory with a generalisation to N -body of the dominantly orbital state method. It is shown that a similar improvement can be achieved in the case of systems composed of identical particles plus a different one. The quality of the new procedure is tested with different systems.