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Item qaulity upgrade!
aftulus
Member Posts: 668 Arc User
in The Academy
I just applied 3x superior engineering experimental upgrades to my borg engine. I started at 6% and ended at 8% quality improvement? Can someone explain to me why this is not applying the quality upgrade like this is supposed to. This is really starting to TRIBBLE me off.
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fftt
Member Posts: 715 Arc User
What I know is that each type of upgrade token has a fixed amount of upgrade points associated with it (the number has not been released). Better quality tokens have more points, specifically those experimental tokens have twice the amount of very rare tokens, omega upgrades four times the amount, among all the other possible modifiers (some in fact have zero, nada, zilch upgrade points associated with them
). Empirically, the higher the quality, or mark, of the item you want to upgrade the more total upgrade points you need to guarantee a quality upgrade (again the numbers/formulae have not been released). Also, empirically, the type of item also affects the number of upgrade points needed as I have found it easier to upgrade consoles than weapons and weapons easier to upgrade than shields/engines/deflectors.
As surmised there's some formula that takes the amount of upgrade points added and the total points needed for a guaranteed upgrade and converts that to a percentage chance that's used to determine if the quality is upgraded when you have accumulated enough tech points to upgrade the item.
Don't ask me what the formula or numbers are. I don't think anyone but Cryptic has those (and sometimes I even doubt Cryptic has them
) And it's not like knowing the numbers will change anything anyways. All you can do is throw upgrade tokens at items until you get what you want. And getting those Epic MkXIVs takes either luck or quite a few tokens.
I know it took me at least 50 or so omega upgrades to upgrade my MACO ship gear (50ish each during the upgrade weekends!) from elite XIV to epic.seaofsorrows wrote: »...These upgrades can cost hundreds of thousands of Dilithium to get the quality upgraded.
If you're applying an upgrade token and not seeing the quality percentage go up it *is* a display issue, but not an issue of your incorrect assumption of an automatic 2% increase not showing but rather a displayed digits issue.
EDIT: 50ish may be an exaggeration. More than 20 less than 75 though.0 -
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jaguarskx
Member Posts: 5,945 Arc User
The percentage chance to upgrade the quality of an item depends on the Mk level of the item and it's current quality. As the Mk level increase the percentage chance decreases when applying an upgrade kit. The higher the current quality the lower the percentage chance will be when applying an upgrade. The upgrade system is basically designed to make it more costly to improve a piece of gear as the Mk level increases and quality increases.
Most people recommend using Superior Upgrade Kits because they offer the best bang for the buck when you purchase them from the Exchange. Experimental Upgrade Kits are of course better, but they also cost a lot more.
Applying a Superior Upgrade Kit (S-Kit) to a common Mk II piece of gear give it about a 36% chance to upgrade to uncommon quality. However, applying a S-Kit to a very rare Mk II piece of gear will only give you a 5% chance of an improve in quality. However, it gets worse as the Mk level increases; a very rare Mk XII piece of gear will only get 1% to improve the quality for every S-Kit that is applied. You keep applying S-Kits until the gear receives enough Tech Points to allow you to upgrade it. Reputation gear requires more Tech Points to upgrade compared to something that has been crafted. A crafted piece of Mk XII gear typically needs 7 S-Kits before you can upgrade it; which means it has a 7% chance to be upgraded in quality when it is upgraded to Mk XIII. A Mk XII reputation gear may need 9 S-Kits to get enough Tech Points to allow you to actually upgrade it. If the gear is successfully upgraded to ultra rare Mk XIII the percentage chance to improve the quality resets to 0%. If the gear simply gets upgraded to very rare Mk XIII, then the percentage chance to increase to ultra rare at Mk XIV drops down to 2% or 3% and can be increased by applying more S-Kits until the gear has received enough Tech Points to allow you to upgrade to Mk XIV.
Presumably an Experimental Upgrade Kit will give a common Mk II gear a 72% chance to upgrade to uncommon quality, and a very rare Mk II gear will have a 10% chance to upgrade to ultra rare. Keep in mind that at certain Mk levels that percentage chance is going to decrease. I have actually never used an Experimental Upgrade Kit before.
Keep in mind that the upgrade window only displays whole percentages (meaning no decimal places). Beginning at Mk XIII you will need to apply multiple S-Kits before you will see the percentage chance of quality improvement to increase by 1%. I think a very rare Mk XIII gear requires 2 S-Kits and an ultra rare Mk XIII gear requires 4 S-Kits before you will see the chance of a quality improvement increase by 1%. It gets worse if you are attempting to push an ultra rare Mk XIV to epic Mk XIV. I believe you need to apply as many as 8 S-Kits before you see the quality improvement chance increase by 1%.
This is why people also recommend using Research Boosts. There are two different versions; 1.5x and 2x quality improvement. Research Boost will increase the chance of quality improvement that a S-Kit will give. Therefore, applying a 1.5x Research Boost along with a S-Kit to a very rare Mk II gear will increase the chance of a quality improvement from 5% to 7%. Remember, the percentage is only displayed as a whole number. Doing this can save you dilithium when upgrading gear; especially when you are trying to improve ultra rare Mk XIV to epic Mk XIV. But of course to need to use EC to purchase them from the Exchange.
If you want epic gear all around, then be prepared to use an epic amount of resources... especially if the RNG (random number generator) Gods are against you. Best guess, if you want all epic gear on your ship you are looking at probably spending a minimum of 500m EC to do so and that is if the RNG Gods somewhat favors you.
With regards to the Omega Upgrade Kit (and using no Research Boosts)...
- When applied to a common Mk II gear you will have a 100% chance to improve to uncommon when upgraded to Mk III.
- When applied to a very rare Mk II gear you will have a 20% chance to improve the quality to ultra rare when upgraded to Mk III.
- When applied to a very rare Mk XII gear it will give you a 8% chance to improve the quality. However, you will not have enough Tech Points to upgrade. For crafted gear you need 64,000 Tech Points before you can upgrade to Mk XIII. Each Omega Kit only provides 25,600 Tech Points. To keep it simple, you need to apply 3 Omega Kits to upgrade the very rare Mk XII gear to Mk XIII and you should have a 24% chance of a quality improvement. Note, as stated above, reputation gear needs more Tech Points compared to crafted gear before you are allowed to upgrade.
- When applying an Omega Kit to an ultra rare Mk XIV gear, it will only increase the chance of a quality improve by roughly 1% (because of rounding to whole percentages).
Miscellaneous data:
Romulan Reputation - Very Rare Romulan Hyper-Plasma Torpedo Launcher Mk XII requires 76,800 Tech Points to be upgraded to Mk XIII
Mission Reward - Very Rare Resonant Disruptor Beam Array Mk XII requires 70,400 Tech Points to be upgraded to Mk XIII.
Crafted / Random Loot Drop - Very Rare Photon Torpedo Launcher MK XII requires 64,000 Tech Points to be upgraded to Mk XIII
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Optionsjaguarskx
Member Posts: 5,945 Arc User
TL;DR....
The higher the Mk level & better the quality of a piece of gear, the lower the % chance each upgrade kit will provide. That means the better a piece of gear is (in terms of Mk level and quality), the more resources it will cost you to improve it.0 -
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arionisa
Member Posts: 1,421 Arc User
The biggest key of all of course is that the upgrades you are using do not say 2% quality improvement chance, they say 2x quality improvement chance which just means you'll only use half as many Superior Experimental upgrades as you would plain Superior upgrades to achieve the same percentage chance. If it would take 2 Superiors to get a 1% chance, it will only take 1 Sup exp.LTS and loving it.
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In absolute worst case scenario, you have to upgrade your item as many times until your quality improvement chance hits 100%.
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Is this just a display error?
No, unfortunately.. it's right.
The percentage increases once you fill the bar, not everytime you use a kit. These upgrades can cost hundreds of thousands of Dilithium to get the quality upgraded.
What it is not doing is giving you a +2% increase correctly every time it you use an experimental upgrade. It displays a number lower than what should be there.
When you apply an experimental upgrade without bonus it says it should stack another 2% chance for when you do finish getting 200k+. Each time you apply one for 1885 dil it says how much quality chance is stacked. What is happening is that it is not applying the 2% or whatever quality chance every time you spend 1885 dil on the upgrades/items application. Sometimes it adds nothing. In fact most of the time it adds nothing. something is broken!
Example: 12,800xp and 2% quality chance is added for each experimental for 1,885dill each. At the end of 10 experimentals and 18,850dill I should have 128,000xp and 20% given I used no boosters. What it is doing it giving me 128,000exp but only 4% quality chance.
I'm using the, "Superior Experimental Tech Upgrade":
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Gear_Upgrade_System
I craft them myself at lv 15 of the appropriate R&D focus.
10 Omega upgrades at 4x won't get you to a 20% quality upgrade (at MkXIV) let alone the 40% you're may suggest in your example!
Experimental Upgrade Kits (E-Kit)get 2x the quality improvement chance a Superior Upgrade Kit provides (S-Kit).
Applying a S-Kit to a very rare Mk II gear gives a 5% of a quality improvement. Therefore, applying an E-Kit will increase that chance to 10%.
The % chance of quality improvement decreases as the Mk level increases and also when the quality is improved.
Applying the same S-Kit to a very rare Mk XII gear likely gives a 1% chance of a quality improvement. Therefore, an E-Kit will give a 2% chance increase.
Applying the same S-Kit to an ultra rare Mk XIV probably increases the chance of quality improvement by 0.12%. No one knows because the % chance is displayed as a whole number (no decimal places). If so then an E-Kit would provide a 0.24% chance of a quality improvement.
The first is tech points, which are required to get an item to the next mark level. Upgrades actually tell you exactly how many tech points they apply and in the upgrade window it tells you how many tech points are needed to reach the next Mark level. In addition, any tech points above what is needed for the next Mk level are retained and apply for future upgrades also.
The second value is called (or was called) Research points and upgrades actually use to say Research Chance instead of the current Quality Improvement chance. Somewhere, hidden from the players view, a numerical value is given for an items quality upgrade, the number of research points applied is compare to the number required and a percentage chance is calculated, the percentage chance is given to the rng gods when the tech point bar gets full and the player hits upgrade. If/when the number of research (quality) points equals the assigned required value, the item will have a 100% chance of increasing it's quality, if less than the required value, then the player just has to hope the rng gods like him that day.
So basically, hidden from our view a given item has a set research required value. Also hidden from our view, upgrades also have a set research point value. To keep the math simple and kind of in line with my experience we'll say that an ultra rare MK XIII beam array has a required (hidden) research value of 100K. That Superior upgrade has a (hidden) research value of 500, so it will take two of them to provide a 1% upgrade chance. The Superior Exp upgrade at 2X has a hidden value of 1K, so it only takes one of them to give that same 1% chance.
Why the Devs decided that the actual numbers needed to be hidden from view, only they know.
May the rng gods smile upon your upgrade efforts.
I've done 30% (cause I'm cheap and buy the 1.5x boosters) and STILL didn't get a single quality upgrade out of it and that initial upgrade+booster got me from Mk2 to Mk8. So even a good initial chances doesn't guarantee anything.
With regards to Superior Upgrade, Kits quality chance can be as high as 61% when applied to common Mk I gear, it drops to 36% for common Mk II gear, and it can plummet all the way down to significantly less than 1% when applied to ultra rare MK XIV gear. That is of course when not using Research Boosts.
In a few rare cases I was extremely lucky to upgrade very rare Mk II tactical consoles to epic quality using a single Superior Upgrade Kit and 1.5x quality improvement Research Boost. Last time that happened was summer 2016.
Raising Levels is 'easy', though I am not convinced there should be a numbers equivalence between Ground Equipment and Ship Equipment. A Ground Shield is considerably smaller than Starship Shields, Phaser Banks and a Phaser Pistol. Quality Upgrade costs are crazy high.
The reason they don't tell you the percentages for Quality Upgrades is the same they don't give you the odds on Lockboxes and R&D Promotions.
That's why they introduced the Ultimate Upgrades. No muss, no fuss.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'