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What is there in game to buy with Dilithium?
midntwolf
Member Posts: 22 Arc User
Ok I got a question. What is there in game to buy with Dilithium?
I know about the Dilithium store stuff and I know you can buy Bridge Offices with it, but what else is it used for in game besides converting it over to Zen?
I know about the Dilithium store stuff and I know you can buy Bridge Offices with it, but what else is it used for in game besides converting it over to Zen?
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Finally, you also use it to buy any ships from previous ranks that you haven't bought, though this usually won't be useful.
Some people save it to donate to fleet holdings to help them advance, or just in case they ever do decide to get fleet weapons and gear, they can use the fleet credits it gives them. However, there are other things that are easier to get that will give more fleet credits each.
Others save it for something they might want later, or to convert to Zen (as you mentioned before). As Zen, you can get buy unlocks to expand that character's bank, unlock an account bank if you don't have a lifetime or monthly sub. Extra character slots, ship slots, and much more.
Personally, I am saving up Dilithium to get enough Zen for a ship bundle. Any ships you buy in the C-Store can be used by any other (even new) characters you have of the same faction. For example, all Federation characters you have can use any of the Federation C-Store ships you buy on that account.
So, Dilithium does have some uses that help keep the game entertaining at times. As to what to spend it on, that will depend on what interest you personally.
Tim.
The higher level crafted items mostly take dil (via "unreplicatable components").
Almost all fleet gear takes dil
Most starbase upgrades take dil
Dilithium is the most important currency of the game. You cant do anything without it. And you can do everything with it.
I've found a Romulan Torpedo Launcher that fires three Plasma torpedoes per shot instead of one but you can only get it by doing research on New Romulus which costs loads of Dilithium, go check it out
However, it's not like I am a parasite, where I play the game total for free by simply grinding away. I spent $20 to buy 2,000 Zen to buy services.
My Fed toon is currently grinding dilithium, but with no specific goal in mind. I compared ships that cost 2500 Zen to the free Sovereign class heavy cruiser that people can choose for free and I find it a bit difficult to justify spending Zen on a new ship.
However, for my KDF toon, I am currently grinding dilithium for a Mogh 'cause I want something a little more sturdier than the BoPs I have been flying.
The next time there is 15% bonus on Zen I will likely buy another $20 worth to be used on what else? More services...
The reason I was asking is because I just dropped $50 on the Scimitar Pack and am pretty tapped out on spending cash on this game but also was really interested in getting the Valdore + Mogai refit (3000 zen) for when i want to play something more challenging. I also kind of want to pick up a Vandal (1000 zen) and eventually a Mogh (2500 zen) for my Klingon toon plus either an Assault Cruiser refit or Avenger Battlecruiser for my Fed toon. (2500 zen each for either or). Obviiously I don't want much hehe.
Anyway, as you can see I am looking for another way to get zen without spending any more real money for a while hehe and since I am new, the use for dilithium for other than converting to zen isn't really obvious. I was figuring I can pretty easily make enough dil to get 200-300 zen per day, maybe more between all my toons without really having to go all grindy and in a few months have all the ships I want BUT 14,000 zen is about 350k dilithium and if I really am going to need tons of dilithium for other things in the game, perhaps I need to be a little less ambitious in regards to purchasing ships.
Your answers really put things to perspective so thanks.
Can I say I hate F2P games. Give me a $59.95 box followed by a $15 a month subscription with FULL access to everything in game any day.
Dilithium is necessary, since as you say it can be converted to zen.
And yes, converting dilithium to zen every day with all your alts is the only way, to gather enough zen to buy a c-store ship.
But, i can tell you that almost all of my c-store ships are adquired that way, with the exception of my 3 first months, that i used to charge about 20-30, of course that was before i realized the way the developers were breaking this game. If you have patience, you can do it without waste real money in this game. With 6 alts, you have about 300+ zen every day, so, in a month you can buy even 2 c-store ships. I think thats pretty neat , considering you will only need to wait 1 month. And my advise will be that dont you dare to use real money in this game. Is not worthy. Just day by day, patience and you can get all you want.
STO is not a game for people with no patience. Thats for sure lol.
The market changes. It is already going down. You think it is bad now when I started it could go well above 300 to the c-point as they were then. You just have to build it up slowly. I have and over the years I have bought BOFF slots, DOFF slots, inventory slots, bank slots (these are a per character items) MVAE, Vesta 3 pack, Valdor, Arkif and Scimmy three pack.
The game was that way but it was failing, going free to play is what saved it from shutting down. You have full access to everything you need to play the game, RA ships and the normal gear you can get from mission replays is ample for completing everything in the game. The c-store ships are extra fluff.
I played in my free Oddy and sci ship for a long time. The only reason I bought the Vesta was because I wanted a ship with a hangar and the Atrox and HEC didn't appeal to me. Where the Scimmy was concerned again because I wanted a hangar ship and the tac carrier didn't appeal to me.
Stop paying cash for dil. That's for chumps. Also don't bother with fleet actions. If you want dil, get into the contraband trade by making marauder mules. Roll a KDF character (or better yet, a Romulan then align them to KDF) Transfer about a million in energy credits from your main and invest in kdf aligned doffs. You want
-15 Security doffs
-20 of any combination of Energy/projectile/assault squad doffs. whichever is cheapest
-5 Transporter doffs
-5 Tractor Beam doffs
-8 Qtr masters. Or 3 qtr masters, 5 explosive experts.
Level up your alt until you can travel space unhindered, then you can get into marauding. Open up your doffing screen and check under the general tab/personal for doff missions that award contraband. Checking all of your departments is essential as well for each sector. The missions that pay out dil are
-Strike against fugitive network
-Raid this/assault that/unauthorized attack on illegal colony/anything consisting of "taking peoples stuff".
-Also do the Resettle colonists job that requires you to assign 3 qtr masters. it will net you 5 colonists that you can drop in the "deport colonists" doff mission for 500 dil. Also do the mine for dil mission that takes 5 explosive experts or 5 qtr masters. 250 dil there.
You'll have to scrounge for marauder doff missions in several sectors. I start from Qo'nos heading left to Tau dewa and go up until I reach Hylon or whatever it's called. This will pay out about 15-20 contraband per day per character depending on crits. 5 contraband can be turned in at Qo'nos for 2000 dil every 4 hours. What I do is put 5 contraband on the burner when I wake up just before work, again when I get home before doing my one sector sweep for the day and then a final time at bed time. That's 6000 dil per character per day. The other 2000 of the dil cap is made up of the dil mining/deport colonists doff missions. I have 5 marauder mules and they make enough contraband to keep my two feds fed as well three times a day. Taken together I make 56,000 dil or 414 zen a day for about half an hour of play time. Dil to time investment that good is enough to make cosmic1 vomit!
**BONUS**
If instead of making a klingon kdf character you opt to make a kdf aligned Romulan you will get your pick of 3 boffs every 15 levels with different space traits. Mouse over the traits of each one when asked to pick one as a reward for turning in the quest and only select boffs with Superior Romulan Operative, if available. There's almost always at least one. They sell on the exchange for 10 million each, x 3 romulan boffs on level up to 50 nets you 30 million credits. Not bad for a new character and certainly enough to recoup your doff investment cost and then some. If you're REALLY lucky, you might even get a Reman with superior infiltrator as a space trait to choose from. At 20 mil+, they're even more valuable than superior romulan operatives. Make all your marauder mules romulans with this strategy and you'll be making credits and dil hand over fist!
This.
I just discovered this yesterday lol. I didnt know boffs with that trait were so expensive, and actually they are not so difficult to gather if you are romulan klingon allined. Knowing, this is a great way to gather energy credits.
Wow 139 dil per Zen?
I remember checking last week and it was 133 dil per Zen. The 1st time I exchanged dilithium for Zen was back in mid / late February and it was 127 dill per Zen. That's about 9.5% inflation since Feb.
It is all over the place. I left a 134 bid overnight and had my zen in the morning. I could have sold it for 137 later in the day and made a few thousand but its not volatile enough to fool with doing that unless you can play the market all day ... it can take a couple hours to sell and many more hours to get enough variation to make much profit. You need probably 2500+ zen to start making enough profit, and that only can be done when there is an external market force (like the recent dump of dil from the MU event, we are seeing the effects of that currently).
Wouldn't it take 2 - 3 days to refine enough dilithium ore into dilithium crystals so that they can be used to purchase a key?
Assuming the exchange rate of 133 dil per Zen, that would mean you need 16,625 dil to get 125 Zen.
Players not in a fleet can only refine 8,000 dil per day and I think I read somewhere that players who are in a fleet can refine 8,500 dil per day.
Now I am not spending cash for Dil, rather I was wanting to trade dil in for zen but honestly, at 130+ dil per zen it seems like a slow boat to China to get enough Zen to buy C-store ships. 8000 dil a day = roughly 33 zen per day or .33 cents converted to cash. At that rate, it would take about two months to buy a Mogai Heavy Retrofit and that is if you made sure to get the full 8k dil a day.
EC is another story entirely. While I have figured out a way to earn EC fairly quickly at around 1-2 million a day for maybe 30 mins of work, when your looking at lockbox ships costing mostly around 100 million, your still looking at 2-3 months for a new ship.
Lobi ships, well lets forget that. I apparently would have to open around 160 boxes to get 800 lobi for a ship so that is even a longer and costly process than farming dil or EC for a new ship.
Also I could theoretically play the lottery with lockboxes and perhaps get lucky and hit the jackpot ship within my first 5-10 boxes but at a 0.2% chance per box, having to open several hundred boxes is most likely so again not very efficient.
So basically if I want a new ship anytime soon, good old hard cash is my only option and that is what I hate about supposed F2P games.
Note: The whole farming superior operatives seems like an interesting idea but on the other hand, god would that get boring about the third time through.
I could be wrong, but I think you need more than 1 million ECs for that. Then again, I do not buy white (common) Doffs on the Exchange. The average KDF Doff is generally more expensive than Fed Doff since there are few of them on the exchange (due to less people playing the KDF faction).
Actually, you only need one quartermaster. A white (common) one will do since there is no critical success for Resettle missions. There other two officers can be anyone. I use two white bartenders since they are basically useless for anything else.
Yeah, marauder Doff missions are generally easy to find. Simply fly into a sector and check available sector missions as well as the missions your 1st Officer has for you since he/she offers maraudering missions to you.
I do marauder missions not only for contraband, but also for the commodities and potential prisoners. The commodities can be sold or you can just put them in your bank (which is what I do) since other missions can make use of the commodities that you loots.
Prisoners make a decent source of dilithium as well. There are the Forced Labor missions offered by your military Doff (or available sector missions) which gives you 500 dilithium for 4 prisoners if successful.
It is worth while to save up ECs to buy green (uncommon) or blue (rare) of the officers mentioned above (excluding quartermasters) for maraudering missions. The better the quality of your officers, the higher the chances of you getting critical success. However, blues can be expensive... meaning 250k+ EC per Doff so building up a good crew will take time and lots of ECs.
Also, pay attention to the traits that helps improve success and critical success. In general you will want traits like Aggressive, Resolve, Resilient, and Efficient for example.
There is the "We Need Breathing Room" (KDF) or "Explore Strange New Worlds" (Fed) which offers a 1,440 dilithium reward. You need to accept another missions to explore 3 worlds in uncharted sectors to get the reward. They are offered by the same NPC so you do not have to search for the explore missions. The amount of time varies because the "3 worlds" missions can vary. There could be space combat, ground combat, space scanning or ground scanning. The combat missions (15 - 25 minutes depending on your skills) are generally longer than the scanning missions (10 - 15 minutes). But scanning missions can be boring.
Lastly, you can do Foundry missions. The 1st Foundry mission you do every 20 hours gives a flat bonus of 1,440 dilithium on top of the normal 480 / 960 dilithium award depending on the average amount of time all players took to complete the mission. It might go beyond 960, but I am not positive.
On the KDF side, if I want a quick dilithium fix, then I do the "Vulture Wheel" Foundry mission. There is space combat with you and 3 other ships against a single Hirogen ship so it is pretty easy. On the ground there is an option ground combat against 4 or 5 enemies; fight or ignore. The rest is dialog and there not much of it. It is a very short mission. If you take your time and read through the dialog and do the ground combat it might take you 15 - 20 minutes to complete. A speed run should only take about 10 minutes.
The reward is 1,920 dilithium (480 + 1,440 bonus), 21K ECs and some XPs.
From what I've read the exchange rate was much worse when STO launched. I believe I read it was 250 dil per Zen. That works out a max of 32 Zen per day. 133 dil per Zen is 60.15 Zen per day.
It is the way things work in the real world, and it carries over into the games. People want to make as much as they can off of the things they sell. When the player base gets a load of Dil at once, they all want Zen for it. This makes prices go up.
Personally, I just put my Dilithium on the Dil exchange at the price I want it at for Zen. Sometimes it means that I have it there for months. I pull it down to add more Dil to it, then put it back up for the same amount. When prices go up like this, the reason they stay there is because players do not have patience. For example: If everyone wanting to convert Dil to Zen would put their Dil up at about 120 Dil per Zen, then that is where the price will be, because the ones selling Zen will not be selling it at the high prices.
However, because so many either are not patient, or just don't care how much they pay out in Dil for Zen, the prices stay up.
Just like in real life. If the prices go up too high on any commodity, and people still pay for it like they always do, it tells the ones selling it that they don't need to lower the cost. In fact, it tells them that they can push the price up higher. If so many are so willing to buy at this price, then they will pay that much for it.
So many don't realize that the consumers can have a big role in setting the prices of what they buy, if they just don't buy at the high prices. There does need to be some compromise though. Consumers buying at too low of a price can discourage the selling of Zen to other players.
Very good post.
Put another way, now is a great time to buy some zen and sell it for Dilithium. That brings zen into the game and if enough people do that it brings the prices down. Right now there is a larger supply of Dil than there is Zen, so more Dil is paid.
That is true. "Supply and demand" helps with profits.