Will kit modules be getting added to the upgrade system? As a member of a small fleet I was really hoping I'd be able to upgrade my Mk XI fleet kit modules as we're still a long way away from being able to buy the Mk XII modules without having to try and get an invite to another fleet's base.
Join date is wrong, I've actually been around since STO Beta.
True alters don't have a "main". Account wide unlocks for all unique event rewards!!
I too am aghast at the cost in terms of ECs, Dilithium & time or some combination to upgrade gear. A long time player who has amassed almost every worthwhile item or ship in the game will basically never have all thier gear upgraded. Just doing one ship build cost me a bloody fortune and I only got about 6 items to epic quality before giving up.
I grind for months to get an item, and even new rep items are only Mk XII, and then have to spend a fortune upgrading them.
To be clear, I'm grateful effort went into creating an upgrade system, a lot of MMOs wouldn't have bothered, but the cost is astronomical. At the very least:
1) A purple upgrade should guaruntee one Mk level increase or rarity upgrade chance.
2) The rarity upgrade % should go up about 5x faster.
3) Purple upgrades need to drop far more often & creating them in the R&D system should be less costly & should get made instantly requiring no dilithium.
4) Dilithium costs per use of an upgrade item is a **** move guys. It should only apply to the actual Mk upgrade stage.
The R&D system could almost be thought of as an upgrade reputation system. Doing a daily research xp task when level 15 should award you at least 1 purple tech upgrade for the type of research completed, beams or whatever. As you level beyond 15 you should get a good chunk more, so maybe at level 16, now bear in mind the xp required to get from 15-16, you should get at least 5 per project, something of that nature.
Also ship upgrade from the z-store should be 500 each not 700.
I don't really like the Rarity upgrade process at the end. Having a rarity upgrade as a tiny 5% chance that is guaranteed to fail 99.99% of the time isn't fun. Having the rarity upgrade fail 5 or more times in a row is the antithesis of fun.
Right now a rarity upgrade attempt costs 1.5x the cost to upgrade from XIII to XIV. But if--excuse me when--it fails several times in a row the true cost is more like 4-9x the cost of upgrading from XIII to XIV.
So if I have a standard Ultra Rare beam array* Mk XIV that costs 144,000 TP to upgrade from XIII to XIV, then it that means the cost to attempt a rarity increase is 216,000 TP. If the upgrade does fail 5 times before succeeding on the 6th time that's a whopping 1,944,000 TP needed to go from UV to Gold.
Rough numbers say that this is (assuming you crafted the upgrades yourself): 163,400 dilithium to apply the upgrades + 2,280,000 EC to craft the upgrades +
crafting mats & components (and their EC cost if you bought rather than farmed them)
for one rarity upgrade on one weapon**, and that's using only Superior tech upgrades which require level 15 in an R&D school to craft (I'm not going to even try to predict what the going rate for these on the exchange will be for those that don't have level 15 or refuse to participate in R&D but I can guarantee it's not going to be 15,000 EC which means inflate the EC number above by another digit to 22mil. Also note that my above math doesn't take into account TP overflow but the difference would be negligible. And that's not to mention the cost of getting to XIV UR in the first place.
Honestly it's really not fun at all, even if you ignore the staggering cost of a Gold item, to have an upgrade fail repeatedly. Can't we just have a fixed cost on rarity upgrades (frankly 90,000 dilithium should be plenty for a Gold upgrade)? Mark Level upgrades are already a fixed cost; you get a guaranteed Mk level for X amount of TP. Why can't we get a guaranteed Rarity level after finishing XIV for Y amount of TP? What we have right now is a hidden cost system for rarity upgrades. If you only casually glance at the TP price to "attempt" a rarity increase it looks fairly reasonable on its face, "Hey 216,000 TP is about 18,000 dilithium, that's not so bad for Gold quality."
Of course I expect that if we had a guaranteed Rarity level for Y amount of TP then instead of being 1.5x the cost of an XIII to XIV upgrade, they would probably jack the price of a rarity upgrade up to 3x or 4x the cost*** of XIII to XIV and that would scare away the aforementioned 'casual glancers' that don't pay attention to the hidden cost system that will blindly throw more money at the system, because then the true cost of a rarity increase would be laid bare right up front for them to see; info they would normally not calculate.
And of course, none of the above includes any "Skip now" dilithium costs during the R&D or Upgrade process for the impatient ones out there. Of course, the time gating required for crafting literally hundreds of upgrades, plus the time gating on the upgrade process itself is designed to 'encourage' clicking on that Skip button. Who wants to wait weeks for upgrades?
*or standard deflector, shield, engine, warp/singularity core. (Including Fleet gear and Lockbox/Reputation store weapons [not reputation set weapons])
**For space reputation gear, multiply these numbers by 1.66
***This is effectively how the system works right now already, it's just that the system is designed to obfuscate the fact that the true cost is several times more than an XIII to XIV upgrade. When you take into account the RNG's fail/success ratio it's probably tuned to average out to a rough X cost for a rarity upgrade that is some multiple of the XIII to XIV upgrade.
What he said.
New home of the Romulan Republic.
I have an idea for what Season 11 should be; Season 11: The Big Bug Fix.
I have not been able to read my bug tickets in over a year, not even the tickets about not being able to see my tickets.
I find the drama of your signature proof of your immaturity, this means you, DR whiners.
Seriously, when are kit modules getting added to the upgrade system? I got a little excited when DR missions rewarded us MK XIII kit modules, but then you made the terrible move of making replays of these missions reward us only MK XII items... What's the point in that?
Join date is wrong, I've actually been around since STO Beta.
True alters don't have a "main". Account wide unlocks for all unique event rewards!!
Let me put in enough tech upgrades and dil to get it to 98% and now it's permanently stuck.
Allowed upgrade types is blank, "Tech Upgrade" wont let me slot anything,
"Apply Upgrade" permanently grey. Resources already applied effectively lost at this point.
edit: Later tests reveal I can finish the last 2% with a Shield tech. So the bug is Ground tech only lets you get to
98% and no further. I used only "Superior Ground" tech at first to get the original 98% and then it borked.
having used the upgrade system now to upgrade many items (including quite a few to epic) - I can confirm that the current upgrade system is sh*t and faaaar too expensive and thirsty on dilithium.
As a quick example -
noteALL OF THE BELOW ASSUMES YOU HAVE A TIER 14 ITEM ALREADY AT UR:
(if you dont.. which you wont... then you can expect to approximately double the below cost)..
A typical tier 14 item need around 250k of tech points to upgrade, so this is 20 superior tech upgrade, at 300k a piece.
This totals 6 million in tech upgrade (for one run at the upgrade) - I havent even factored in the dilithium cost yet..
HOWEVER - this 1 level of upgrade will give you around 4% rarity chance. Ive upgrade enough items to know that they usually 'ding' to epic.. somewhere around 20-30% on average.. so this is a MINIMUM of 5 runs, so thats currently 30million in tech upgrades (or around $15 of real life cash).
Now for the dilithium... 1075 dilithium per tech upgrade, and so far we have used 100 tech upgrades.. so thats 107k of dilithium (remember this is one item..). At a dillithium refining rate of 8k per day.. thats around 2 weeks of dilithium refining for this one item upgrade... (remember all of this assumes your item STARTS at tier 14 UR.
Now - there are 22 items slot approx on an average ship.. so 2 weeks and 30 million multiplied by 22, gives around 650million cost, and 44 weeks of refining to upgrade your whole ship (assuming you do not change any modules in that time - or, god forbid consider flying another starship...)...
I have just 3 words...
WHAT
A
JOKE
I mean Cryptic.... are you frickin serious or what..????
Anyway - the good news is I have a simple fix - and this is REALLY simple and is at the heart of the problem in my opinion for why the current system is a joke... Simply add a new tech upgrade to the current crafting system that gives not 12,400 tech points (which is WAAAAAY to low), but say around 25-30k tech points. This would be a REALLY simple fix that would effectively solve all of the current issues around this broken upgrade system..
Cryptic - I've said it many times before and ill say it again - SORT IT OUT...!
There's still a bunch of items that need to be made upgradeable by hand but haven't and the system is still too pricey. There's needs to be more relief.
What's the current status? I feel like there was a lot of attention and now the system is in maintenance mode. Are there going to be no more updates? No more fixing of items that aren't currently upgradable? What's the deal?
I noticed yesterday whilst going through the weapons on my ships that I can upgrade the Polarized Tetryon Beam Arrays (which I think was a previous issue bought up on this thread) but I cannot upgrade the Polarized Tetryon Dual Beam Banks, I'm guessing as that you can upgrade one weapon type but not the other, it must be a bug? If this has been reported already and I've missed it, then disregard this message.
The devs really need to do something about us spending 14,000 dil + mats to craft a weapon with [ PVP Res ], [ PVP Dmg ] or [ Thrust ]. Or [ Snare ], which apparently is currently snaring your own ship.
One simple change that would improve crafting immensely would be to either drop them from the RNG mod table, or make them optional for the few people that want PVP mods.
If the RNG table had just Acc, Dmg, CrtD, CrtH, and maybe Pen then the odds of getting the specific 3 you want would be 1 in 80 instead of 1 in 144.
That isn't the change we really want, picking our own mods, but would still cut the worthless results down by a huge margin.
I can confirm that the Plasma-Disruptor Hybrid Dual Heavy Cannons and Polarized Dual Tetryon Beam Bank are not upgradeable. I have had no trouble upgrading the Plasma-Disruptor Hybrid Beam Array and the Polarized Tetryon Beam Array from the same missions. I've also been able to upgrade the Dominion cannon and array.
Nobody currently has Mk XIV gear. We're all starting out on the same somewhat (un)even playing field. We can all craft it and upgrade it or buy it and upgrade it. I'm sure the new missions will have at least a few drops of gear that won't have to be upgraded unless you're set on having all Epic rarity gear. If you already have Mk XII VR, you're closer to Mk XIV Epic than someone who doesn't. And I'm confident a few enterprising souls will sell you Mk XIV off the Exchange for a few hundred thousand EP.
How do new players get an advantage? I don't understand that logic at all.
There is an inherent 'tax' on reputation gear. It currently costs 51% more to upgrade than say VR Mk XII gear.
The difference here is that Rep gear starts with additional abilities or procs.
Crafting from scratch has 2 major advantages:
1.) You can do it over and over till you get what you want.
2.) The overall cost is less than reputation gear.
The argument against crafting is you miss out on set bonuses, or you limited to AEGIS for example, and that craft exactly what you want will take hundreds of reality cheap attempts.
From my point of view - with virtually every Reputation set at my disposal, I would craft my way on a new alt rather than grind for reputation gear because it's inherently cheaper.
Hi developers. It has appear in many, many threads in the forums since NOV 2014: THE EPIC WARPCORES ARE BUGGED. The do not give the new mod W-S or W-Sx2.
PLEASE FIX THIS BUG. IT HAS BEEN OVER 5 MONTHS
:mad:
Capt. Robert J. Tyler
NCC 95170 USS ARTEMIS "Audentes fortuna iuvat"
(Virgil, Aeneid X, 284)
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Comments
I grind for months to get an item, and even new rep items are only Mk XII, and then have to spend a fortune upgrading them.
To be clear, I'm grateful effort went into creating an upgrade system, a lot of MMOs wouldn't have bothered, but the cost is astronomical. At the very least:
1) A purple upgrade should guaruntee one Mk level increase or rarity upgrade chance.
2) The rarity upgrade % should go up about 5x faster.
3) Purple upgrades need to drop far more often & creating them in the R&D system should be less costly & should get made instantly requiring no dilithium.
4) Dilithium costs per use of an upgrade item is a **** move guys. It should only apply to the actual Mk upgrade stage.
The R&D system could almost be thought of as an upgrade reputation system. Doing a daily research xp task when level 15 should award you at least 1 purple tech upgrade for the type of research completed, beams or whatever. As you level beyond 15 you should get a good chunk more, so maybe at level 16, now bear in mind the xp required to get from 15-16, you should get at least 5 per project, something of that nature.
Also ship upgrade from the z-store should be 500 each not 700.
Finally, these items have no upgrade options:
Kits & modules
Hangar pets
Federation combat environmental suit
Nelen Exil's wide beam pistol
Shuttle gear
Devices
Wide angle voth transphasic-chroniton launcher (torpedo)
Vaaudwaur cluster torpedo
i saw that all reputation weapons could be upgraded but would yield exactly the same dps after the upgrade according to the preview than before ...
can we have the numbers reflect the actual outcome please?
I have an idea for what Season 11 should be; Season 11: The Big Bug Fix.
I have not been able to read my bug tickets in over a year, not even the tickets about not being able to see my tickets.
I find the drama of your signature proof of your immaturity, this means you, DR whiners.
And this upgrade system needs a cost overhaul, it's idiotically expensive.
Let me put in enough tech upgrades and dil to get it to 98% and now it's permanently stuck.
Allowed upgrade types is blank, "Tech Upgrade" wont let me slot anything,
"Apply Upgrade" permanently grey. Resources already applied effectively lost at this point.
edit: Later tests reveal I can finish the last 2% with a Shield tech. So the bug is Ground tech only lets you get to
98% and no further. I used only "Superior Ground" tech at first to get the original 98% and then it borked.
As a quick example -
note ALL OF THE BELOW ASSUMES YOU HAVE A TIER 14 ITEM ALREADY AT UR:
(if you dont.. which you wont... then you can expect to approximately double the below cost)..
A typical tier 14 item need around 250k of tech points to upgrade, so this is 20 superior tech upgrade, at 300k a piece.
This totals 6 million in tech upgrade (for one run at the upgrade) - I havent even factored in the dilithium cost yet..
HOWEVER - this 1 level of upgrade will give you around 4% rarity chance. Ive upgrade enough items to know that they usually 'ding' to epic.. somewhere around 20-30% on average.. so this is a MINIMUM of 5 runs, so thats currently 30million in tech upgrades (or around $15 of real life cash).
Now for the dilithium... 1075 dilithium per tech upgrade, and so far we have used 100 tech upgrades.. so thats 107k of dilithium (remember this is one item..). At a dillithium refining rate of 8k per day.. thats around 2 weeks of dilithium refining for this one item upgrade... (remember all of this assumes your item STARTS at tier 14 UR.
Now - there are 22 items slot approx on an average ship.. so 2 weeks and 30 million multiplied by 22, gives around 650million cost, and 44 weeks of refining to upgrade your whole ship (assuming you do not change any modules in that time - or, god forbid consider flying another starship...)...
I have just 3 words...
WHAT
A
JOKE
I mean Cryptic.... are you frickin serious or what..????
Anyway - the good news is I have a simple fix - and this is REALLY simple and is at the heart of the problem in my opinion for why the current system is a joke... Simply add a new tech upgrade to the current crafting system that gives not 12,400 tech points (which is WAAAAAY to low), but say around 25-30k tech points. This would be a REALLY simple fix that would effectively solve all of the current issues around this broken upgrade system..
Cryptic - I've said it many times before and ill say it again - SORT IT OUT...!
Can't pick mods so you feel like you're wasting your time.
Too pricey on dil
Not going to bother for more than one toon
All this has been said before. Just wanted Cryptic to know nothing has changed.
Great question!
What's the current status? I feel like there was a lot of attention and now the system is in maintenance mode. Are there going to be no more updates? No more fixing of items that aren't currently upgradable? What's the deal?
The devs really need to do something about us spending 14,000 dil + mats to craft a weapon with [ PVP Res ], [ PVP Dmg ] or [ Thrust ]. Or [ Snare ], which apparently is currently snaring your own ship.
One simple change that would improve crafting immensely would be to either drop them from the RNG mod table, or make them optional for the few people that want PVP mods.
If the RNG table had just Acc, Dmg, CrtD, CrtH, and maybe Pen then the odds of getting the specific 3 you want would be 1 in 80 instead of 1 in 144.
That isn't the change we really want, picking our own mods, but would still cut the worthless results down by a huge margin.
do not upgrade either
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I can confirm that the Plasma-Disruptor Hybrid Dual Heavy Cannons and Polarized Dual Tetryon Beam Bank are not upgradeable. I have had no trouble upgrading the Plasma-Disruptor Hybrid Beam Array and the Polarized Tetryon Beam Array from the same missions. I've also been able to upgrade the Dominion cannon and array.
There is an inherent 'tax' on reputation gear. It currently costs 51% more to upgrade than say VR Mk XII gear.
The difference here is that Rep gear starts with additional abilities or procs.
Crafting from scratch has 2 major advantages:
2.) The overall cost is less than reputation gear.
The argument against crafting is you miss out on set bonuses, or you limited to AEGIS for example, and that craft exactly what you want will take hundreds of reality cheap attempts.
From my point of view - with virtually every Reputation set at my disposal, I would craft my way on a new alt rather than grind for reputation gear because it's inherently cheaper.
Shuttle weapons don't upgrade because they scale to your level, though I can't explain the MkXI... at all.
PLEASE FIX THIS BUG. IT HAS BEEN OVER 5 MONTHS
:mad:
NCC 95170 USS ARTEMIS
"Audentes fortuna iuvat"
(Virgil, Aeneid X, 284)
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]