I've been playing STO off and on for awhile, but a group of my friends just started and we decided to make our own fleet. I know small fleets face an uphill battle, but we're willing to be patient in order to have control of our personal playgroup fleet.
That said, I'd still like to pick an efficient order for advancement of our holdings. The dilithium mine and spire are new since last time I played and I don't really have a good feel for which tiers offer the best rewards, even on the starbase and embassy holdings.
Can anyone suggest areas of advancement that offer the best bang for the buck, or tiers that are particularly useful to achieve for us as a small group? Should we prioritize some of the D. Mine before working on star base?
Do the Dilithium Mine first as it will ultimately provide cost discounts to Fleet Gear, and Fleet Projects slotted after certain tiers are achieved for the Dil. Mine holding. After that, it depends on what type of Fleet Gear is more important to the members of your Fleet.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Dilithium Mine lvl 1
Starbase lvl 1
Spire lvl 1
Embassy lvl 1
Dilithium Mine lvl 2
Dilithium Mine lvl 3
Starbase 2 -> 5
Rest as they get done.
If you do it this way you'll get the first dilithium and fleet input discount before leveling the rest of the holdings. You would then focus on getting the ability in each area to provision (necessary to obtain fleet items). Then, you would focus on getting maximum discounts followed by maximum shipyard.
Note: This method ONLY works if you utilize the FREE NoP Channel to access other fleets to get your items using your fleets provisions. The ONLY thing you cannot buy from another fleet is ships and there are even fleets that will allow you to join just for that.
Provisions:
Mine - Engines, Cores, Extra Personal Dilithium Refinement
Starbase - Deflectors, Shields, Weapons
Spire - Tactical Consoles, Engines, Cores, Active DOffs, Kits
Embassy - Science and Engineering Consoles, Kits
Edit: Also note it will take 1 person roughly 1 week to accomplish a tier in any holding due to 20hr timer. You should be able to get all of your holdings to lvl 1 in short order if there is a small group of you dedicated to getting it done.
Dilithium Mine lvl 1
Starbase lvl 1
Spire lvl 1
Embassy lvl 1
Dilithium Mine lvl 2
Dilithium Mine lvl 3
Starbase 2 -> 5
Rest as they get done.
If you do it this way you'll get the first dilithium and fleet input discount before leveling the rest of the holdings. You would then focus on getting the ability in each area to provision (necessary to obtain fleet items). Then, you would focus on getting maximum discounts followed by maximum shipyard.
Note: This method ONLY works if you utilize the FREE NoP Channel to access other fleets to get your items using your fleets provisions. The ONLY thing you cannot buy from another fleet is ships and there are even fleets that will allow you to join just for that.
Provisions:
Mine - Engines, Cores, Extra Personal Dilithium Refinement
Starbase - Deflectors, Shields, Weapons
Spire - Tactical Consoles, Engines, Cores, Active DOffs, Kits
Embassy - Science and Engineering Consoles, Kits
If you're using NoP for your actual purchases, you can pretty much totally neglect the Embassy after Tier 1, can't you? There are basically no benefits from levelling it up, unlike the Mine and Spire. I mean, discount commodities vendor? Not exactly cost effective. The same with the Engineering and Science tracks on the Starbase (though since the daily projects don't cost dil, they're a good way to get Fleet Credits...)
The advice so far is pretty good. The dil mine is the obvious priority, since the sooner you get it done the more it pays off in the form of discounts. If your fleet is small, you may need to take a hard look at the starbase and figure out how far you can reasonably take it. SSOG has probably 20-30 really active members, and dozens more that don't play all the time but in aggregate add up to a lot. We began our starbase on day 1 of Season 6, but even though our progress has been solid, and we have a very generous patron who takes care of almost all our dil requirements, we still aren't quite done our starbase. We've got at least a month or so more of grinding the science track to be totally done, this almost two years into it. Tier 4-5 on the Starbase has brutal requirements, especially in regards to Doffs. A small fleet may need to accept that Tier 3 is as far as it's practical to go. As long as there are public service channels to help you buy stuff, the only issue becomes Fleet Ships (some fleets have leveled the Military tier and ignored the others just to make sure they got the fleet ships). The other holdings are completely doable by a smaller fleet, it's just a matter of which order. Dil Mine first as stated, I'd then go for Spire as the stuff it grants is generally as much or more desirable than the Embassy (with the exception of Romulan Boffs).
Do Provisions and get invites to other fleets, some very organized fleets even have people assigned to deal with other fleets as a diplomatic corps; if you don't do this people will see their dil and effort providing no access to the good stuff.
I'd say why bother at all just join a fleet and have a separate channel for you and your chums.
Thank you all for the excellent responses. I did not know about the NoP channel; that will help greatly. I appreciate the sentiment about it not really being worth it to make our own fleet, but it looks like there are some good options to allow us to play at our own speed and still access higher level holding resources if we need them.
Comments
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Starbase lvl 1
Spire lvl 1
Embassy lvl 1
Dilithium Mine lvl 2
Dilithium Mine lvl 3
Starbase 2 -> 5
Rest as they get done.
If you do it this way you'll get the first dilithium and fleet input discount before leveling the rest of the holdings. You would then focus on getting the ability in each area to provision (necessary to obtain fleet items). Then, you would focus on getting maximum discounts followed by maximum shipyard.
Note: This method ONLY works if you utilize the FREE NoP Channel to access other fleets to get your items using your fleets provisions. The ONLY thing you cannot buy from another fleet is ships and there are even fleets that will allow you to join just for that.
Provisions:
Mine - Engines, Cores, Extra Personal Dilithium Refinement
Starbase - Deflectors, Shields, Weapons
Spire - Tactical Consoles, Engines, Cores, Active DOffs, Kits
Embassy - Science and Engineering Consoles, Kits
Edit: Also note it will take 1 person roughly 1 week to accomplish a tier in any holding due to 20hr timer. You should be able to get all of your holdings to lvl 1 in short order if there is a small group of you dedicated to getting it done.
If you're using NoP for your actual purchases, you can pretty much totally neglect the Embassy after Tier 1, can't you? There are basically no benefits from levelling it up, unlike the Mine and Spire. I mean, discount commodities vendor? Not exactly cost effective. The same with the Engineering and Science tracks on the Starbase (though since the daily projects don't cost dil, they're a good way to get Fleet Credits...)
I'd say why bother at all just join a fleet and have a separate channel for you and your chums.