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Dilithium - Needed?

mrushbrookemrushbrooke Member Posts: 0 Arc User
edited June 2014 in The Academy
Just a quick question :)

I am level 36, do I need to mine as much Dilithium as I can as I level up, will I be needing it later or not?

Thanks all.
Post edited by mrushbrooke on

Comments

  • nccmarknccmark Member Posts: 1,084 Arc User
    edited June 2014
    You will surely want dilithium later. Do some duty officer (DOff) missions to at least get a little bit at a time. Trying to get more dilithium is what consumes so much time for many of us..."daily grind".
    Once you hit level 50 (or 40??) some daily missions will appear. Traelus system takes 5 minutes or so, and you get 480 dilithium for doing it.
    Easy-level STFs (such as The Cure) will take 10-15 minutes, provide 480 dilithium, and can be repeated every hour.
  • shockwave85shockwave85 Member Posts: 1,040 Arc User
    edited June 2014
    Yes, you will need it later. Tons of it. Everything at endgame costs dilithium to some degree. Fortunately, when you are level 50 you will have access to things like the Voth Battlezone and STFs where you can earn a lot of it, so I wouldn't worry too much about it now. You can take the mission "Investigate Officer Reports" and play a long form Foundry mission to get a good chunk of repeatable dilithium, and you can get even more once a day for playing a Foundry spotlight. The Foundry is available from level 1, though individual missions may have higher level requirements depending on the type of enemies the author used.
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  • fraghul2000fraghul2000 Member Posts: 1,590 Arc User
    edited June 2014
    I am level 36, do I need to mine as much Dilithium as I can as I level up, will I be needing it later or not?

    It's one of the major endgame currencies. You're going to need it if you want to advance your character beyond a certain point. Endgame equipment, fleet advancement, the reputation system, duty officers all require certain amounts of dilithium.

    In addition to that, dilithium is the ingame currency that can be traded to other players for Zen, STOs real-money-currency. So in the essence, enough dilithium can buy you items from the real-cash store that aren't obtainable through ingame means, without having to spend your own money.
  • jaguarskxjaguarskx Member Posts: 5,945 Arc User
    edited June 2014
    Refined dilithium has a major role in STO; up to 8,000 dilithium ore can be refined to dilithium crystals once per day. However, using dilithium is totally optional. They are used for reputational gear, fleet projects and conversion to Zen to be used in the C-Store for purchases.

    Once players reach level 50 the reputation system becomes available. There are several reputation systems and they each offer different gear (space & ground). each gear purchased from rep systems needs dilithium. I think on average it is 32k dilithium or 4 days of dilithium grinding. I am working on leveling up a few rep systems, but have not made any purchases yet.

    If you plan on joining a fleet, then the dilithium you have can help with fleet projects. The more advanced (higher level) the project itself is the more dilithium the fleet needs to finish the project. I am not in a fleet, but I imagine that advanced projects need over 1 million dilithium to complete the project.

    Like many MMO games, STO has a "Cash Store" where virtual money known as Zen is used to make purchases. You can either by Zen directly with money, or you can exchange dilithium crystals for Zen. The last time I check 152 dilithium = 1 Zen; the exchange rate fluctuates on a daily basis. Using US currency as a comparison 1 Zen = $0.01. Zen is used to purchase starships, costumes, specific races (like the Reman and Joined Trill) as well as services like the EC Cap Remover (removes the 10 million EC limit for free players), and Duty Officer (Doff) slots if you are into doing Doff missions.

    I recently created a Romulan toon and I only have 3 empty Doff slots left of the default 100 slots the game gives you when you reach level 11. I will be buying 100 Doff slots soon so that I can increase the number of Doffs I have to do the various Doff missions. That costs 725 Zen ($7.25 USD) which I can either purchase with real money or I can use the refined dilithium crystals I have been grinding away to convert to Zen so that I can purchase the 100 Doff slots for free. Assuming the 152 : 1 exchange rate is set in stone, I would need 110,200 dilithium crystals to get 725 Zen. That works out to 14 days of grinding dilithium assuming I max out refining 8,000 dilithium ore per day; 8,000 ore * 14 days = 112,000 crystals.
  • desertjetsdesertjets Member Posts: 207 Arc User
    edited June 2014
    It is, but I would not stress about it. As everyone else pretty much said most endgame/reputation content rewards dill. But there is plenty of stuff out there pre-end game that will award dil. Defera sector dailies, the three EE sector dailies, exploration cluster daily, investigate officer reports, doffing. And while some of that stuff can get boring and repetitive it does offer an alternative to story missions to level up.
  • mrushbrookemrushbrooke Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2014
    Thanks for all the helpful replies.
    I think I will do a bit of grinding each day, but maily concentrate on levelling up.
  • damix4damix4 Member Posts: 609 Arc User
    edited June 2014
    Dilithium can also be exchanged to ZEN. You probably noticed all those shiny stuff there.
  • jaguarskxjaguarskx Member Posts: 5,945 Arc User
    edited June 2014
    Thanks for all the helpful replies.
    I think I will do a bit of grinding each day, but maily concentrate on levelling up.

    Is your toon in the Federation?

    If so, then there is a relatively quick way to fulfill half of your daily 8,000 dilithium refinement limit. You need to do the following both of which are in your "journal" of available missions:

    1. Select the Investigate Officer Reports daily repeatable (every 30 minutes) mission. This gives you a reward of 960 dilithium for completing any Foundry mission; they are community created missions.

    2. The "Foundry" tab lists "Spotlight" Foundry missions by default. "Spotlight" missions provides a daily reward (repeatable every 20 hours) which is based on the average time it takes players to complete the mission and also your time as well. You want to select the "Purity I : Of Denial" (or something like that) which is part one in a series of 6 related missions (I think) designed by the same author. It has a mix of space combat, ground combat and dialog. The first time you play it will probably take you 30 minutes especially if you read through the dialog. At the end of the mission you should receive 3,074 or 3,047 dilithium ore.

    Completing "Purity I : Of Denial" will automatically reward you with the dilithium and XP. You need to manually turn in the Investigate Officer Reports to get the other 960 dilithium. Combined you will receive just over 4,000 dilithium which is half your daily quota.


    As you repeatedly play "Purity I" you should be able to cut down the amount of time it takes to complete the mission. However, do not complete it too fast otherwise, the reward will be around 2,000 dilithium instead of about 3,000 dilithium. I believe that in order to get the full award you must complete the mission in least 20 minutes. 4,000 dilithium for 20 - 30 minutes of play time is very good. Feel free to try other Foundry missions as well.
  • jaguarskxjaguarskx Member Posts: 5,945 Arc User
    edited June 2014
    Do not do more than one Spotlight mission every 20 hours if dilithium ore is the goal. Playing a 2nd Spotlight Foundry mission (any of them) in less than the 20 hour cold down period will result in only gaining XP.

    There are "non-Spotlight" Foundry missions though that rewards around 600 dilithium and they have a 1 hour cool down time in between dilithium reward. Some of these missions are not eligible for the dilithium reward which I believe is stated in red text.
  • dracounguisdracounguis Member Posts: 5,358 Arc User
    edited June 2014
    Just a quick question :)

    I am level 36, do I need to mine as much Dilithium as I can as I level up, will I be needing it later or not?

    Thanks all.

    Unfortunately, Cryptic has attached a Dil cost to just about everything.
  • policestate76policestate76 Member Posts: 1,424 Arc User
    edited June 2014
    Dilithium is maybe the only currency that is NEEDED in the game. You can do everything with dilithium, but without it, you cant do almost anything. And dilithium is really important because u can even trade it for zen, the "real" money used in the game.

    A way to gather A LOT of dilithium is just playing as a klingon or romulan-klingon allined character. You will get dilithium 1000 times faster than playing with a federation toon, specially if you farm contraband (and you can trade the extra contraband to your other fed characters to help em gather dilithium as well).

    But, dont waste time doing mining missions, maybe at first, but you will get bored really fast and its really not worthy. There are more ways to gather more dilithium in the same time. Until you reach level 50, dont worry too much about dilithium, just gather a small ammount just doing doffs assignments and thats it. When you reach level 50, you will have plenty of options to gather dilithium.
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