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Starbase Construction and small fleets - How to plan and have fun with a small base.
carmenara
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
Hi all,
With all the talk about starbases being a resource sink and favouring large fleets, the general consensus is that a small fleet would not be able to compete on fair grounds. For better or for worse, small fleets would not and cannot have cheaper construction projects because such cost scaling could be easily exploited.
Long story short, there has been a lot of 'Join a big Fleet or be left behind!' talk, which is the natural conclusion.
I'd like to play devil's advocate here and state that there's nothing stopping a small fleet from going ahead with base construction too. Small fleet base construction will of course have vastly different objectives from big fleet bases. You got to be realistic with goals and you must know what you want from starbase construction, and not be caught up in the race against time and start using real money to finance the Dilithium costs, which is IMO, wrong and unnecessary.
It can be said that a large wing of heavy bombers and support craft IRL requires an enormous airbase (or even a few bases) for support.
On the contrary a counter-insurgency unit somewhere in say, Columbia can make do with a tiny dirt strip out in the jungle.
The same logic can be applied to the topic of starbase management.
For a simple explanation - take a good look at the Fleet Ship tiers. If the game were really built to favour mega-fleets, you'll see the mighty starships placed on Tiers 3 to 5 and all the useless ships restricted to Tiers 1 and 2.
In my honest opinion, this is not the case. You can get competitive Fleet ship types from T iers 1 and 2. Granted, I'd love to have the Fleet Recon Science Vessel which is my favourite torpedo bomber, but technically it is not a 'better' ship than those in Tiers 1 and 2.
My actual Fleet ship chosen is actually the Patrol Escort, which, as a Tier 1 ship, offers me all of the endgame PvE and PvP capability I'll ever need. Other pilots of mine chose the Cheyenne, and another chose the Deep Space Science Vessel, which are all solid ships in their own right. The Cheyenne might be a bit squishier than the Space Whale but with Omega engines and shields, that thing was massively fast and we use it like a skirmishing light cruiser in fleet actions. Also has 3 tac boff powers, so its like a small Sovereign. Not too shabby.
It is here that I'll say that my Fleet and I have, in the span of a month, completed all of our starbase construction projects.
We aren't going to bother with higher Tiers because we'll be finishing up our KDF base over the next month or so. The costs ramp up dramatically enough past Tiers 3 and above that I will be indeed forced to do some Fleet marketing and start getting annoying on the forums with fleet invites.
That's not what I'm going to do. Redneck Academy was founded for the purpose of pulling a small band of spacefaring barn-stormers together into a cohesive unit. I like this small unit very much, because each individual pilot has his or her role in managing the unit, its ships, and the starbase projects.
It is here that formerly shy and indeed, fleet-shy forumers (who I eventually got to know) developed a love for project management and "resource acquisition" activities, and were formally recognized in said roles. Some "newbies" too have progressed beyond simply learning about the game and have moved to command level positions in our KDF branch, leading yet more dilithium and resource acquisition runs.
Others, like me, think that there is no way an acquistion team of less than 5 members can personally finance starbase construction and have fun at it, without using any form of real money or participate in any prolonged grinding.
And that's why I'm putting a cap at our base at Tier II. Not because we don't want to undertake the challenge of aiming for Tier V in 1-2 years like everyone else, but because we find that starbase construction is and never was about competition.
It's about knowing what you want, and knowing how to get there
With all the talk about starbases being a resource sink and favouring large fleets, the general consensus is that a small fleet would not be able to compete on fair grounds. For better or for worse, small fleets would not and cannot have cheaper construction projects because such cost scaling could be easily exploited.
Long story short, there has been a lot of 'Join a big Fleet or be left behind!' talk, which is the natural conclusion.
I'd like to play devil's advocate here and state that there's nothing stopping a small fleet from going ahead with base construction too. Small fleet base construction will of course have vastly different objectives from big fleet bases. You got to be realistic with goals and you must know what you want from starbase construction, and not be caught up in the race against time and start using real money to finance the Dilithium costs, which is IMO, wrong and unnecessary.
It can be said that a large wing of heavy bombers and support craft IRL requires an enormous airbase (or even a few bases) for support.
On the contrary a counter-insurgency unit somewhere in say, Columbia can make do with a tiny dirt strip out in the jungle.
The same logic can be applied to the topic of starbase management.
For a simple explanation - take a good look at the Fleet Ship tiers. If the game were really built to favour mega-fleets, you'll see the mighty starships placed on Tiers 3 to 5 and all the useless ships restricted to Tiers 1 and 2.
In my honest opinion, this is not the case. You can get competitive Fleet ship types from T iers 1 and 2. Granted, I'd love to have the Fleet Recon Science Vessel which is my favourite torpedo bomber, but technically it is not a 'better' ship than those in Tiers 1 and 2.
My actual Fleet ship chosen is actually the Patrol Escort, which, as a Tier 1 ship, offers me all of the endgame PvE and PvP capability I'll ever need. Other pilots of mine chose the Cheyenne, and another chose the Deep Space Science Vessel, which are all solid ships in their own right. The Cheyenne might be a bit squishier than the Space Whale but with Omega engines and shields, that thing was massively fast and we use it like a skirmishing light cruiser in fleet actions. Also has 3 tac boff powers, so its like a small Sovereign. Not too shabby.
It is here that I'll say that my Fleet and I have, in the span of a month, completed all of our starbase construction projects.
We aren't going to bother with higher Tiers because we'll be finishing up our KDF base over the next month or so. The costs ramp up dramatically enough past Tiers 3 and above that I will be indeed forced to do some Fleet marketing and start getting annoying on the forums with fleet invites.
That's not what I'm going to do. Redneck Academy was founded for the purpose of pulling a small band of spacefaring barn-stormers together into a cohesive unit. I like this small unit very much, because each individual pilot has his or her role in managing the unit, its ships, and the starbase projects.
It is here that formerly shy and indeed, fleet-shy forumers (who I eventually got to know) developed a love for project management and "resource acquisition" activities, and were formally recognized in said roles. Some "newbies" too have progressed beyond simply learning about the game and have moved to command level positions in our KDF branch, leading yet more dilithium and resource acquisition runs.
Others, like me, think that there is no way an acquistion team of less than 5 members can personally finance starbase construction and have fun at it, without using any form of real money or participate in any prolonged grinding.
And that's why I'm putting a cap at our base at Tier II. Not because we don't want to undertake the challenge of aiming for Tier V in 1-2 years like everyone else, but because we find that starbase construction is and never was about competition.
It's about knowing what you want, and knowing how to get there
STF Flight Instructor since Early 2012. Newbies are the reason why STO lives and breathes today. Do not discriminate.
My Youtube Channel
My Youtube Channel
Post edited by carmenara on
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Member since December 2009
Awesome
My Youtube Channel
I run a fleet of 17 people, but only a handful are active. So we are not even to tier 1 yet.
Kyle
I run 2 fleets (one Fed, one KDF), and the only members in them are me and the missus.
We try to split our time between the fleets to keep them on a similar footing, but despite that the Fed fleet has a Comms Array, T1 starbase upgrade and a Transwarp Array, and the KDF fleet has a Shipyard, with the starbase T1 upgrade currently ticking down to completion.
That's not a very good sign Kyle, as above-posted it's possible to literally solo Tier I.
What part of the project contributions are you stuck on? When Season 6 went live common doffs became super expensive due to undersupply but now the prices are back to normal so it's a great time to rally the troops and blitz T1.
For dilithium contributions, just ask people to donate 1-3k per day and you'll get the projects moving in no time at all.
For small fleets it helps to pool resources between alts as well so you can have a force multiplier in dil earning and doff recruitment rate.
My Youtube Channel
We're a very alt-heavy small fleet with a small core of active and semi-active players. There are only about 5 players (not characters) on our leaderboard.
We do leverage alts for resource gathering, and we've opted for a balanced approach to advancing the categories. We only just today finished getting 10k in Military and started our shipyard upgrade. But we've got 8k in Science and about 5k in Engineering, so those aren't too far behind.
From what I'm hearing about how projects work after Tier 0, that might be the best way to go anyway.
It's okay to take your time on starbase construction. We'll probably get to Tier 2 sometime after Labor Day and before Thanksgiving at this rate, and that's okay by me. If we manage to recruit another active player, it will go even faster.
What we really need are good reasons to convince new players to try STO, though.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
2 active, 3 semi-active and a lot of people who don't help. it is starting to pick up but not much. Also, we got stuck on heavy phaser turrets.
Kyle
The CXP2FM missions are helping immensely as the gathering of Fleet Marks is the biggest hurdle that I've faced. Dil, Doffs and Samples I have in abundance and I am repeating a group of the projects that focus on the contributions I readily have available. In other words, I am not scheduling the 2-category-doff project, the turret project or the fighter project.
p.s. IMHO, the only players/fleets doing anything "wrong" are those chastising other fleets for not "keeping up with the Jones". Enjoy YOUR game YOUR way and I will do the same.
I did pull several security officers from them though, so selling those covered the cost of buying the Astrometrics DOffs on the exchange.
I have my 2 VA Escort alts run the 3 Eta Eridian dailies each day, and those 2 and my other 2 VAs run the 2 480 Dil dailies in the Defera sector. Sometimes I'll do some Foundry missions as well. I can make about 6500-8000 Dil a day this way.
I'm not setting any timelines on myself, I'm just going to play as I want and see how far I get. If something quits being fun, I'll stop doing it for awhile. I think Tier 2 will be my max level, and that's okay with me.
For Starbases, it seems like the journey is going to be more important than the destination for me. I don't have any plans for using my Starbase for anything once its "finished". I just enjoy having a reason to play all my alts each day and have "them" coordinate "their" efforts for an overall goal.
The problem I see with the current economic system is that it focuses far too much on grinding a very small amount of content over and over when it should be encouraging play/replay of all content.
I don't have a problem with a project like this taking a lot of time. It took me years to get my bases in City of Heroes fitted out the way I wanted them
When I was building those bases I got everything I needed from regular game play of my various characters. I could play when I wanted for as long as I wanted and be guaranteed to get something useful for my base building project. Nothing needed was locked away behind 'exclusive' content.
But in STO, one absolutely essential material (FMs) is locked in a handful of missions and awarded in those missions only grudgingly unless you play them during randomly scheduled events for slightly enhanced rewards.
In CoH players earn Prestige (the main base building currency) simply by being in a super group and playing the game. Prestige, in combination with other salvage items (also earned during regular play), is used to craft and install everything in the base
Why not do FMs the same way here?
Make FMs the primary fleet currency by attaching them to each arc in the game with either a few per mission or a large lump sum at the end and allow them to be converted into other required materials (at a reasonable rate) to allow constant, measurable progress on base building. Materials could also be donated as they are now to allow additional flexibility.
This has the added benefit of making ALL content in the game desireable for replay. Given that the Devs have all but directly stated that 'play-it-once' content is dead, this is a good thing.
Have the current fleet events award larger numbers of FMs than they currently do but increase the cooldown accordingly to maintain balance. This would allow for larger crunches of materials to cover special projects like the interior decorating ones we've already had assuming they use something other than dilithium.
All of this should allow small (even solo) fleets to get more enjoyment, and less frustration, out of what is now the center piece of the game.
We have been moving forward, slowly grant you, but I knew going in that it was going to be a slow process.
No biggie, I'm not on any particular time table and having fun getting the resources to construct it.
We're closing in on Tier 2 pretty quickly, and none of us have done anything I'd consider hardcore grinding so far, at least no one has said anything about it.
But I agree that the way FM's are rewarded is a bit odd. You get them for doing fleet events, but there's no bonus for doing them with members of your fleet. 5 of us could each pug a different group and end up with the same number of marks.
So clearly it's not intended that you earn marks by playing with your fleet mates. So there's no reason why there shouldn't be other methods of getting them. Have them tied to episode content, the user content daily and exploration missions. Have it be say 5 per episode, and 10 for the two dailies.
Then the content would be worth doing, rather then how it is now, with most missions not being really worth doing again.
Tier 2 sci project done tier 2 shipyard at 10pm tonight - 4 days later the T2 Upgrade or the Eng Fab start then 4 days after that the last tier 2 project gets sent off (not sure about doing the transwarp yet as I don't know how necessary it is - but I don't think its a 4 day CD
I really do apologize for judging your play style, but I don't see the point behind a one person fleet. (Is the fleet bank really that necessary?)
Anyway, Godspeed.
500 years in the future and we still look like schmucks when getting our ID photos taken...
I am a part of the Redneck Fleet, led by our Lady of Aggression, Whiskey Rose.
For my part, I am having a blast helping with the Star Base.
We get together for Fleet marks events and have a great time together. Its fun!
Coordinating tactics to achieve the strategic goal of freighter safety, or, protecting the Star Base, its great. And we do it well. I say it is because of exemplary guidance from veterans like Whiskey Rose, Hippie John, Son of Ramon, Voriz, and many others. They have been great to me. I am learning the game and having a fun time. No pressure. No negativity. Just gentle guidance here and there, with loads of experience to tap into when needed.
You ought to give us a try if you like the sound of my statement above.
You will have fun and get better at the game at the same time.
Join us!
Bamm-Bamm Hammer, Vice Admiral
Redneck Academy Fleet
Some people who just want to play the game, some of which are smaller groups just barely able to make a fleet, have realized the nearly impossible proposition of building a star base for their small fleet.
If all of the star base rewards were available thru some other equitable means for smaller fleets or even individual players, that would be great. Actually it would be smart for the game's long term health.
However, if STO is going to Fleet-centric game mechanics, offering the best items in the game only to fleets capable of clearing all of the grinding hurdles, why would anyone else want to continue to play the game?
The suggestion smaller fleets or individuals should join larger fleets simply ignores how such people think and why they play STO or any game.
Membership in larger fleets has it's pros and cons. Sometimes the cons far out weigh the pros, so STO is treading on shaky ground, if the game mechanics continue to exclude smaller fleets and individual players from equitable game items.
I'm not saying smaller fleets and individuals should have access to the exact same items. But they should have access to competitive items thru some other achievable means.
I am a new "life" player to the game and a member of a small fleet. I was excited about season 6 and star bases. I am one of the fleet leaders who has invested serious resources trying to help our progression, and honestly, everyday the effort feels more of a waste of time than the day before. If we do endeavor to persevere, I imagine the game moving onto the NEXT THING before we are even finished building a star base.
So, to larger fleets who are at tier 2, tier 3 and beyond... congrats and cudos to your effort. I hope you can appreciate a large potion of the player base is not enjoying a similar progression and no other progression is available to us.
We did strategic prepositioning of resources which means we already have a massive cache of white doffs to operate projects or manipulate the market accordingly. Same for any other resource type.
I also did some "FCA liquidation" to obtain more of said sensors officers for 160k using temporary market control techniques.
My Youtube Channel
Also to add to what carmenara has said... if you go to SFA/KA and talk to your faction personnel officer, there is an option to downgrade 1 of a higher rank to 3 or 5 of a lower rank (think its 3 but i don't have reference to this statement, so pls do correct me if i'm wrong)... so just use an uncommon doff, and downgrade. Think the only caveat is that the resulting doffs won't be of the starting doff type (1 rare biochemist =/= 3 uncommon biochemists, also if wrong, pls correct)...
As one of Redneck Academy's FCA's, I can assure all of you that smart management of project costs is the only way to advance efficiently through your projects without the need of sinking real currency to bolster stocks/supplies. This applies to both large, medium small, and single player fleets. There, my Samaritan deed for today.
IF YOU ARE READING MY SIG - THEN YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG
Even if you only have 50 members, you'll still need to run ship provisioning 10 times for each person to get 1 ship each.
Similarly for the weapon provisioning, 10 provisions per project, on average each ship has 7 weapon slots. So you'll need to run that 35 times just to give every fleet member a full set of ship weapons.
Yes, you'll be able to get the projects going quicker, but no matter how big your fleet is you'll still be stuck with the completion cooldowns*. What takes longer to guarantee your weapon set, a 20-hour cooldown and a few days grinding on your own, or 35 20-hour cooldowns and next to no grinding time?
*unless you do the 200k dil versions, which averages out at 4,000 dil per member each time.
Military T2
Eng T1
Sci T1
No one should tell me small fleets can't compete.
I noticed someone suggestion that a fleet should have everyone contribute 1-3k of dilithium a day, some people do have lives with work, family etc and can't be online everyday. Nor do they want to spend all their time fleet mark and dilithium grinding. I think Cryptic does need to make it easier for small fleets with scaling how many resources are needed for projects a lot like how they scale NPC's for the different ranks/levels in the game. Not all fleets have 100 active members or even 25.
A lot of people are in small fleets simply due to the fact they want to hang with their friends keep away from some of the larger and somewhat rude and unkind fleets.
I have to agree, each day it seems to get more and more pointless. I have actually lost all interest in the fleet ships myself, due to this endless grinding and overpriced fleet modules. I have actually decided to buy lock box ships off the exchange, it's much easier and they have been adjusted to keep up with the fleet ships and they are all single character unlocks so no difference at the end of the day, except I still have my Zen for other things and when our fleet does get the shipyards going, my fleet mates can get the fleet ship priority, they have earned it. So it's a win, win.
Welp, shows you exactly how much attention I truly pay. I'll just go and sit in the corner for a while. :cool:
500 years in the future and we still look like schmucks when getting our ID photos taken...
I read something on the forums and I'm hoping to get clarification on something...
Somebody said that once you reach Tier 1 for your starbase, the original set of projects becomes unavailable and the new set of projects are harder to complete (more resources for the same XP gain).
Is this accurate, and is there any benefit to holding off on the upgrades to position yourselves better for Tier 2?
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
LOL, I'm at T2 on all 3, trying to decide which 4 day project to start after the current project finishes.
Solo.
That's why it's odd to have people claim they're having problems in "small fleets" of 20-50 people. Only active players count. If your fleet has 500 members but 495 of them haven't logged on in a year... you're not really in a fleet with 500 people now, are you? It really skews the numbers when people make erroneous, inflationary claims. Then we have recksracer on the other end, messing up our numbers! I think you're on par with the (500 member) Fleet I'm in. Kudos!
Tier one only.
For Military Tier 1
I would recommend doing this active project.You can keep doing the same one over and over.
Reinforce Local systems
For Engineering Tier 1
I would recommend doing this active project.
Support local systems.
For Science Tier 1
I would recommend this active projects.
Ongoing research projects
Reason i would recommend these is be cause they are the cheapest to aford.
And yes i was able to complete Tier 1 in under 5 weeks.I busted my butt.
Now if you have 4 VA's that Can do colony invasions i would recommend doing them with them 4 VA's log in and out multi times that is what i did.I was able to make 80 to 90 Fleet marks every hour.
Have multi toons to do Daily missions at earth space dock i have a total of 20 toons so far that can collect 1,440 per day that is total 28,800 per day i do have multi accounts bye the way not just one.
These tactics can boost your Complet Tier 1 levels.Now Tier two i have not started on yet.
And all so byeing some Z-points and turning them into Dilithium helps Drasticly.
Well if you want exact numbers, its 90% of the bar after T2 to T3 military, 70% to Eng T2 and 50% to T2 Sci.
The diffrence between you and me, is that I have to consider taking the projects that assign provisions, so that my fleet can get them shiny ships and items... Wich means accepting 500 fleet XP over 1000... Wich will naturally slow us down a tad.
Yes. This is true. Tier 0 projects all require 180 fleet marks for example. Tier 1 projects all require 300 fleet marks. All Tier 2 projects require 600 fleet marks. The doff requirements go up as well. The regular tier 2 military projects that give 1000 military XP require 60 tactical doffs AND 60 security doffs.
You cannot hold off on the upgrades. Once you hit 10,000 XP, you can't level that track anymore until you upgrade. You may have noticed that while you are building the shipyard, there aren't anymore military assignments available to be put into the que.
Come join the 44th Fleet.
startrek.44thfleet.com[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]