Where do YOU get your mats from

vawlkus

Since ASTFs are a waste of time ATM, my crafting experiments have come to a complete halt, and I started wondering where other people would get their crafting materials from, so I thought "why not start a thread and see what pops up".

decronia

Depends what mats you are talking about.

I get a lot of the mats from DOFFing, that only gives me upto blue. It's my main souce of rubidium.

Then there as the R&D assistance DOFF missions, long cool down when finished but can pay out well, I have a ton of blue componants and quite a few purple ones as well as all level of mats except for the ur one from them. Given the reduction in cost these will easily cover purple componant making. As a bonus you can get the DOFFs needed for lvl 15 crafting from this if lucky, even the Aegis DOFF. IF RR you can do two of these at a time.

Finally when I feel like it I do buy R&D boxes. You can buy these for zen or EC depending on which you have and are willing to spend.

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lindaleff

I get mine from queue missions, like STFs and Bug Hunt, and such. There is one particular fleetmate who is always random inviting me to STFs because he knows I am among the better ground players in the fleet. I used to never accept random invites, but he changed that. Nowadays, every time I get a random invite, I always know he is somehow involved.

sheldonlcooper

well right now all are pretty reasonable with the ship hunt on. Usually rubidium is a bear. But you can doff for it on several characters.

The only expensive ones are argonite and plekton. I would just buy them now.

Plekton is too much of a pain to collect in large quantity from borg ground.

Argonite should be ok but the missions it comes from are either dead or too difficult to pug. I did manage a Viscous yesterday which made me feel all warm and tingly. The challenge seemed just about right, too.

The other very rares are dirt cheap.

hypl

Mainly from doffing. I often get crits from assignments, getting plenty of uncommons and rares. I then sell the excess to buy what I need from the exchange. If there's an R&D promotion, I pick up a bundle pack or two. I also do the R&D assistance at the academy across my alts.

generator88

Doffing, ASTFs, and the Exchange.

Generator

centaurianalpha

Plekton is too much of a pain to collect in large quantity from borg ground.

I have only ever gotten Plekton from the Transdimensional Nukara ground STF, except for a few I bought early on the exchange. I'm not doing any crafting yet, so I'm mostly getting mat's from mining, STF's & DOff missions. Probably won't reach lvl 15 in crafting this year, so no worries... :cool:

orangeitis

vawlkus wrote: »

Where do YOU get your mats from

Queued events and DOFF assignments. Sometimes, and I do mean SOMETIMES I get some from the exchange.

Never bought any Z-store R&D-related item.

cmdrscarlet

Bought a Box with Zen once. Once.

I can only play for about 30-45 minutes about 3 times a week so I do queued events mostly for mats. I should do more DOffing though. After that, I buy from the exchange that which I need most. Otherwise, I'm hunting Borg in space or playing a Foundry mission. I just can't log on to R&D only, that's boring :P

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vawlkus

decronia wrote: »

Then there as the R&D assistance DOFF missions, long cool down when finished but can pay out well, I have a ton of blue componants and quite a few purple ones as well as all level of mats except for the ur one from them. Given the reduction in cost these will easily cover purple componant making. As a bonus you can get the DOFFs needed for lvl 15 crafting from this if lucky, even the Aegis DOFF. IF RR you can do two of these at a time.

Where do these crop up? I haven't come across them yet, although I haven't really been looking.

I have one character that's high up the crafting trees, the rest haven't hit a single 15 yet. I have 8 toons basically feeding my crafter all their mats, but DOFFing isn't dropping JACK for crafting mats of any type for me of late.

ASTFs I have no group, so they're all PUGs, which brings the usual challenges inherant with them. I still try one or two now and then, but finding a group that can do them only nets about a 1/5 chance of competence. Add in the broken "optional" garbage, and it just isn't worth the effort most of the time.

bergins

I DOff as much as I can, open boxes from PvE completions, and buy the rest off the exchange. Always compare the cost of mats vs cost of components, some components sell for less than the mats needed to make them!

Then again, last I checked, some of the finished products sell for less than the sum of the needed mats, and I'm not just talking about people dumping things they didn't like the [MOD]s they got...

bergins

vawlkus wrote: »

Where do these crop up? I haven't come across them yet, although I haven't really been looking.

Starfleet Academy. What's his name, the Caitian who does other DOff stuff, too. Talk to him. Or is it the NPC in the same kiosk? Anyways, right there.

futurepastnow

Mostly from the exchange.

I doff very heavily, run a fair number of queues, and "Requisition R&D Assistance" 13 times every four days, and I could not possibly begin to supply enough rare-quality materials for my crafting needs. I have to buy most of them.

There's no good source for the so-called "rares". If I need a Radiogenic, I can run CCA. If I need a Plekton, I can run a Borg ground STF. But if I need a Rubidium, I could run 4, 5, 10 queues and not get any. And I don't need one, I need hundreds.

heckgoblin

The drop rate of rubidium is probably intended to encourage players to buy some of their rubidium from the exchange. Creates an economy, sorta. Some players won't bother with crafting, so selling their mats is a good source of income.

ddesjardins

R&D material sources I use:

Doffing
I was surprised at the volume of R&D materials, include some rare materials that could be done my this. Areas like the Solanae Dyson Sphere are rich with science mission that generate them well. 30 minutes 1x a day, and I've managed to generate sevral thousand over the course of the last 5 weeks.

R&D Support boxes (1000 dil)
These have been very helpful with the random assortment of materials and components it's produced. It's helped me generate 100's of millions in ec while still enabling me to save a variety of materials for later use. I run it every 3 days on every alt. The results are random, but I would say overall in my favour.

STF's - Normals
These can be done with relatively few failures. A small but consistent source for rares, marks and dilithium.

STF - Advanced
Crystalline Catastrophe is hard to fail, and generates 5 rare as the core reward plus a daily reward of dilithium. It's a must for each toon.

ISA, KSA - you need to have a decent group with minimum 12-15K dps and a plan.

STF-Elite
Bug Hunt Elite, Undine Infiltration Elite - as long as you know the plan, these can be achieved very easily.

prierin

What I would suggest, if it hasn't been suggested already, set up mat farming runs with your fleet and/or friends.

nickodaemus

common, uncommon, and rare mats - 80% doffing, 20% STF's

very rare mats - ASTFs or the exchange 100%

I had a huge stockpile from before all the changes kicked in, with the exception of a handful of very rares...plekton, argonite, craylon.

warmaker001b

For the more common mats, DOFF missions, in-mission nodes are my typical source. Another good source is to go somewhere like Dyson Battlezone (not ground of course). There's tons of DOFF missions in there to net you some R&D mats.

The higher end R&D mats are from Advanced and Elite instances. Completion of these instances will get you the R&D Advanced/Elite boxes for the fancier goods.

You have to be active in getting the mats though. It's not just going to fall in your lap in meaningful numbers.

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gerwalk0769

Grind ANRA and VCE for Argonite when I need and needed it.

I tried the Assistance mission at the Academy. I'd like better doffs (doffs an lvl 60 player can use to craft) from that mission.

Right now I am grinding BHE (again), DRE, NTTE, and UIE for salvage.

ironchefbbq

vawlkus wrote: »

Since ASTFs are a waste of time ATM

Why exactly do you believe Advanced STFs are a waste of time (and which ones do you run)?

Refer to post #6 in the Everything you need to know thread.

** Crafting Materials **

Legacy Crafting Material Conversion
If you have old crafting materials sitting around (gathered prior to the crafting system change in July 2014), you can convert them to new materials. The materials need to be in your Inventory in order to access the Material Conversion dialog. You have two options to make the dialog appear: Double click the trace/scan. Or open the Available skills dialog and place the Open Material Conversion Store button on your tray. Once you get the dialog open, you will only be able to convert materials located in your Inventory or Bank. You will not be able to convert items located in the Account Bank or the Fleet Bank. When you do convert, the resultant material is completely random and the source material has no bearing on the end product.

Duty Officer missions
The best way for any character (including alts) to supplement their crafting material gathering is to run a specific class of Duty Officer missions. Travel to Sector Space (normal sector, Allied Sphere, Delta Quadrant sector) and open the duty officer dialog. On the Assignments tab, goto the Current Map. In the Science and Exploration sections, look for the assignments that have 'Special Items' listed under the assignment results. Running those assignments will generate crafting materials (you can get rares on crits).

Also, it was previously mentioned that you can run Request R&D Assistance. The "Request R&D Assistance" assignment requires 1000 dilithium, takes 48 hours to run and has a 48 hour cooldown. The Personnel Officer at the Academy offers this mission (Submit Request for Personnel >> Request R&D Assistance). This assignment can reward crafting materials (common through very rare), crafting components (common through very rare) and R&D School duty officers.

Scanning
When you are inside instanced areas, use your scan. Daily mission maps, episode maps, etc. You will primarily find common and uncommon materials, but it is possible to find a rare.

C-store
You can buy a Research and Development Pack from the C-Store if you are super impatient.

Catalysts
You can find Catalysts in two places, in Research and Development Packs from the C-Store and during R&D bonus weekends they can appear in R&D reward boxes from running queues.

Complete a Queue Run
Run queued PvE missions to get R&D reward boxes. There are some easy/quick missions (Undine Infiltration or Nukara Transdimensional Tactics) if all you care about is Salvage. All Rewards boxes have a chance to crit when opened (not sure on the percentage, but it is low). When it crits it bumps the rarity of the item stack. That is why you will sometimes see a stack of 10 Very Rare materials in an Elite Reward box (the rare stack crit and gets merged with the very rare 7+3).

This is the outline of what you can expect to see in the queue reward boxes (non-crit):
Normal Queue R&D Material Reward Package
> 10 Common material
> 7 Uncommon material
> 3 Rare material

Advanced Queue R&D Material Reward Package
> 6 Common material
> 6 Common material
> 7 Uncommon material
> 5 Rare material
> 1 Very Rare material

Elite Queue R&D Material Reward Package
> 10 Uncommon material
> 7 Rare material
> 3 Very Rare material
> 10 Common material
> 1 Salvaged technology

Bonus box (from bonus weekend) (I'll have to pay attention next time, but it looks something like this)
> 5ish common
> 3ish uncommon
> 1 rare
> 1 very rare

If you are short on time, try running Crystaline Catastrophe Advanced (CCA) as there are always people running this in the public queue. Undine Infiltration Advanced is about as simple as it can get and you don't need any special equipment.

vawlkus

ironchefbbq wrote: »

Why exactly do you believe Advanced STFs are a waste of time (and which ones do you run)?

Because of the stats I quoted before: failure rate of PUG ASTFs is currently sitting at 4/5 or 80%. Those are MY numbers based on MY experiences, and nothing else. I have a preference for the Borg STFs because I'm very familiar with them, but I'll run most of the rest, except some of the newer ones like Disconnected, Bug Hunt and any Undine ones, as I find their failure rate even higher in PUGs, close to 100%.

EDIT: I haven't tried Infiltration, and currently I have no plans to do so, as I find ground mission irritating.

Khitomer Space is my benchmark STF for evaluating ships and builds. I'm currently experimenting with the Breen carrier, although I'll doubt I'll be using it long enough to get the trait unlocked on any of my chars.

I can't run with fleet or friends because they've all been chased away from STO.

ashkrik23

Easily get everything via missions.