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Optimally Efficient Doffing
amezuki
Member Posts: 364 Arc User
If you haven't heard, the Delta Recruit goal for the following week is doffing--that is, completing duty officer assignments. Some of you will have barely touched this system. Some of you are old hands at this. I hope the following information will be useful to both newbies and experienced doffers.
This is not a comprehensive tutorial on every aspect of doffing. This is simply advice that is narrowly focused on completing the greatest number of assignments with the most CXP in a given time frame.
At the time of this writing, it is unclear whether the Delta progress will be tracked by the number of assignments completed, or by the amount of CXP earned. Either way it doesn't matter for the purposes of this guide, because the answer is going to be the same either way:
Prioritize short assignments.
There are several reasons for this.
1. Generally speaking, the shorter the assignment, the more efficient it is in terms of time vs. reward when compared to similar assignments with longer durations. By parking at the intersection of several sector blocks (e.g. northeast corner of Sirius) and quickly zoning between them, it is usually trivial to fill up your assignment slots with short assignments. Southeast of Beta Ursae is good as well, especially for the Gamma-specific assns.
2. The game auto-allocates the optimal doffs for an assignment. You can change this, of course--but it usually isn't necessary. The upshot is that as you queue up assignments in a given sitting, the first ones you start will get your best doffs, while the later ones will have to make do with your "bench". By filling the shortest assignments first, you ensure that your highest-quality doffs will be available again before any of the others.
3. The "scan for R&D material" class of assignments should be any doffer's bread and butter. They are all short (3 hrs or less, most 30m-1h), appear frequently in every sector, require usually-inexpensive doffs, and you get rare R&D mats and lots of Sci or Dev CXP on a crit, which will happen most of the time with blue and purple doffs.
The main exception to this general rule about shorter = better are the 1 and 2 hour "review credentials" and "submit research" assignments that are usually found around Sol and ESD. These assignments have no risk and complete quickly, but award around half of the CXP of most other assignments of comparable length.
A few million EC should be fairly easy for a Delta recruit to accumulate. Spend some of that EC on buying up blue doffs that fit the "scan" assignments--whatever of the following you can get the cheapest:
Astrometrics Scientist
Gravimetric Scientist
Biologist
Geologist
Sensors Officer
Energy Weapons Officer
Systems Engineer
Research Lab Scientist
Most of these can be found for around 100k blue, 500k-1M purple. The main exception are Resarch Lab Scientists, which you need anyway for R&D but which therefore tend to go for very inflated prices. You need a few for this, but don't break the bank.
For crit traits, look for Eidetic Memory and Logical. Here's the trick though: you will see a lot of doffs with "undesirable" traits such as Unscrupulous or Unruly. Guess what? Those traits are irrelevant to both R&D, and to these scan assignments. There are NO fail/disaster traits for these!
My daily routine goes something like this:
5:00 AM: Wake up and spend a couple minutes before work accepting completed assignments. I fill up with as many R&D scans as I can, then go for things like Zero-G Combat Training, Shroud Process, or other 4 and 8 hour assignments which award 50 dill (150 on crit). These will complete before I get home from work.
10:30 AM: On my lunch break, I use Chrome Remote Desktop on my phone to login for a few minutes, accept assignments, and quickly queue up a few more. If I'm planning on getting in serious playtime that evening, I don't fill up with any assignments >4 hours.
3:30 PM: I get home from work, accept completed assignments, and again queue up a bunch of short ones.
5:00 PM: After dinner, or whenever I'm done playing for the evening. NOW I queue up those long assignments--8 hours will complete before I wake up, 20 hours will complete around the time I get home from work the next day. Even so, I will still prioritize shorter assignments if they have a better return, because 30 minutes or 8 hours is the same investment if you're going to be asleep for it.
If you are not actually playing the game (e.g. running queues, missions, etc), you can still pull off this routine with perhaps a total of half an hour to an hour a day. And while I'm actively playing, of course, I am always grabbing the short assignments from whatever sector I'm traveling through.
TL;DR version:
If they are tracking progress per-assignment, you want to do shorter assignments so that you can do more of them in a given span of time.
If they are tracking by CXP earned, the shorter assignments are still almost always more efficient and your best doffs become available again sooner.
Either way, prioritize shortest assignments first unless you can only log on once per day for a short time.
If your playtime is limited, try to set specific times of the day to check in on your doffs for a few minutes.
Now let's bust out Tier 3 on this thing!
This is not a comprehensive tutorial on every aspect of doffing. This is simply advice that is narrowly focused on completing the greatest number of assignments with the most CXP in a given time frame.
At the time of this writing, it is unclear whether the Delta progress will be tracked by the number of assignments completed, or by the amount of CXP earned. Either way it doesn't matter for the purposes of this guide, because the answer is going to be the same either way:
Prioritize short assignments.
There are several reasons for this.
1. Generally speaking, the shorter the assignment, the more efficient it is in terms of time vs. reward when compared to similar assignments with longer durations. By parking at the intersection of several sector blocks (e.g. northeast corner of Sirius) and quickly zoning between them, it is usually trivial to fill up your assignment slots with short assignments. Southeast of Beta Ursae is good as well, especially for the Gamma-specific assns.
2. The game auto-allocates the optimal doffs for an assignment. You can change this, of course--but it usually isn't necessary. The upshot is that as you queue up assignments in a given sitting, the first ones you start will get your best doffs, while the later ones will have to make do with your "bench". By filling the shortest assignments first, you ensure that your highest-quality doffs will be available again before any of the others.
3. The "scan for R&D material" class of assignments should be any doffer's bread and butter. They are all short (3 hrs or less, most 30m-1h), appear frequently in every sector, require usually-inexpensive doffs, and you get rare R&D mats and lots of Sci or Dev CXP on a crit, which will happen most of the time with blue and purple doffs.
The main exception to this general rule about shorter = better are the 1 and 2 hour "review credentials" and "submit research" assignments that are usually found around Sol and ESD. These assignments have no risk and complete quickly, but award around half of the CXP of most other assignments of comparable length.
A few million EC should be fairly easy for a Delta recruit to accumulate. Spend some of that EC on buying up blue doffs that fit the "scan" assignments--whatever of the following you can get the cheapest:
Astrometrics Scientist
Gravimetric Scientist
Biologist
Geologist
Sensors Officer
Energy Weapons Officer
Systems Engineer
Research Lab Scientist
Most of these can be found for around 100k blue, 500k-1M purple. The main exception are Resarch Lab Scientists, which you need anyway for R&D but which therefore tend to go for very inflated prices. You need a few for this, but don't break the bank.
For crit traits, look for Eidetic Memory and Logical. Here's the trick though: you will see a lot of doffs with "undesirable" traits such as Unscrupulous or Unruly. Guess what? Those traits are irrelevant to both R&D, and to these scan assignments. There are NO fail/disaster traits for these!
My daily routine goes something like this:
5:00 AM: Wake up and spend a couple minutes before work accepting completed assignments. I fill up with as many R&D scans as I can, then go for things like Zero-G Combat Training, Shroud Process, or other 4 and 8 hour assignments which award 50 dill (150 on crit). These will complete before I get home from work.
10:30 AM: On my lunch break, I use Chrome Remote Desktop on my phone to login for a few minutes, accept assignments, and quickly queue up a few more. If I'm planning on getting in serious playtime that evening, I don't fill up with any assignments >4 hours.
3:30 PM: I get home from work, accept completed assignments, and again queue up a bunch of short ones.
5:00 PM: After dinner, or whenever I'm done playing for the evening. NOW I queue up those long assignments--8 hours will complete before I wake up, 20 hours will complete around the time I get home from work the next day. Even so, I will still prioritize shorter assignments if they have a better return, because 30 minutes or 8 hours is the same investment if you're going to be asleep for it.
If you are not actually playing the game (e.g. running queues, missions, etc), you can still pull off this routine with perhaps a total of half an hour to an hour a day. And while I'm actively playing, of course, I am always grabbing the short assignments from whatever sector I'm traveling through.
TL;DR version:
If they are tracking progress per-assignment, you want to do shorter assignments so that you can do more of them in a given span of time.
If they are tracking by CXP earned, the shorter assignments are still almost always more efficient and your best doffs become available again sooner.
Either way, prioritize shortest assignments first unless you can only log on once per day for a short time.
If your playtime is limited, try to set specific times of the day to check in on your doffs for a few minutes.
Now let's bust out Tier 3 on this thing!
Fleet Admiral L'Yern - Screenshot and doffing addict
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster
Post edited by amezuki on
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[Redacted]
I feel like posting ANYTHING beneficial to players makes it a target for nerfing. Shoot, the last Doffing Nerf - which was supposed to be partially reverted according to a dev post from last year - was quietly forgotten about and swept under the rug.
1.) Dump all of my common quality duty officers into the fleet project meat grinder. You only have a roster size of 100, so making space for quality is important. If there is no fleet project available, dismiss them.
2.) On all of my other KDF characters, run the Operations mission from sector space that gathers up five Colonists. Then mail them to my new character. You have an extra 20 slots available for just Colonists, make use of that space. Take a similar approach with Prisoners. Also, send yourself some Contraband.
3.) Stock up on Commodities (basically all of them). Try to get one stack of each type, multiples of Provisions, Shields, Medical. You will need these for some missions and definitely if you run the Colonization chains and the really short duration Nebula/Cluster missions (found at same place as the Colonization chains).
4.) From your other characters, mail yourself multiples of the following (in blue or green quality):
- Security Officer
- Quartermaster
- Armory
- Research Lab Scientist
- Technician
- Assault / Energy Weapons / Projectile / Conn
- Doctor / Medic / Biochemist
- Geologist / Biologist
5.) From your other characters, mail yourself at least one blue quality DO of all the rest of the types.
6.) If you plan on doing the recruitment chains in the Gamma Quadrant, send yourself a half dozen Diplomats and Advisors.
7.) There are a fair number of high output, low risk, short duration (4 hours or less) missions under Military and Espionage. take advantage of them. You will also find a lot of quick missions in Medical, Science, Exploration and Colonial. Make sure to take a look at the ultra fast missions in the Nebula/Cluster areas.
8.) When you can make it to Spire space, check the Current tab for the ultra bingo payout Recruitment mission (stock up on Unruly / Teamwork iirc).
Some of my favorite missions in the game are the 15min "Emergency" runs in the Clusters. They come in a variety of flavors, but usually require a dozen or two commodities and two DOffs to kick-off. Most of them don't require a particular specialization, though having the Cunning trait can help.
The rewards for these 15min missions are pretty awesome, especially the rare quality versions, though even the common quality versions are worthy. Getting a crit on a rare Emergency Run can award a significant amount of XP, Dilithium, and Colonial/Trade CXP.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
op Plz Nerf!!!11!!!
I would add that these emergency runs come with a much higher cost in terms of required commodities compared to most other assignments, which balances the high return for them. The cost of replicating the necessary commodities on an ad hoc basis gets really expensive (and extremely annoying, what with the replicator sharing modality with the cluster doff assignment window), so be sure to buy stacks of commodities from a non-Ferengi Freighter. The more expensive ones you can get away with not stocking up on more than 20-50 or so until you have more money, but things like Provisions, Medical Supplies, and Industrial Energy Cells are cheap and needed for many different things, and you should always have them on hand.
The catch--other than the EC investment--is that these missions generally do not start appearing until you've begun the colony chain for that nebula, so be sure to make the rounds of all of them and get those chains going. I didn't mention these earlier because they aren't immediately accessible to everyone and require a lot of travel to hit more than a few of them (DV, Arcanis and Khazan are a good trio to hit due to close proximity to each other), but they are a fantastic source of CXP.
Oh, one last thing:
I noticed on the Exchange last night that doff prices are already starting to inflate considerably. White-quality refugees were starting at 100k when I went to bed versus their typical market price of 15-30k. Don't buy them at this price.
If you've already got a considerable amount of money on your main, or doffs you can spare them, this won't be an issue. For everyone else, you can use this to your advantage: run the repeatable recruitment missions at Starfleet Academy for white doffs, and keep an eye out for types that are running particularly expensive right now--sell 'em if you don't truly need them!
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster
But my favorite clusters to mine, by far, are the four clusters in the Klingon Omega Leonis block: T'Ong, D'Kel, Eridon and Azlesa. These can be harvested for their assignments in minutes, all four, without having to jump any sector walls. I kinda feel this is what STO will be like when Josha blows his horns and the walls come down in Season 10.
>dreams wistfully of that near future<
:rolleyes:
Ahem... Anyway, Omega Leonis is obviously available right away to Klingons, but Federation characters can't get to it right away at this time until:
1) You complete the Tier 3 Diplomacy Commendation and become an Envoy.
2) Get another player who's an Envoy to "Grant Diplomatic Immunity" to you.
3) Complete the "Solanae Dyson Sphere"-story arc mission: "Surface Tension" that moves the character in-game from 2409 to 2410 and brings about the new Fed/KDF accord.
...Speaking of Season 10... I wonder if lower-level Fed characters are still blocked somehow from entering Omega Leonis (until one of the above 3 options are met)... I mean there will no longer be a sector wall to stop them. Anyone know?
Hush you! :P
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
Really, wow. I'll be honest, I never gave those assignments a second thought. I'll try and be more mindful of them.
Thanks, LordH
Gen
I'm sure your DPS is great, but as Kahless said, "a petaQ with high system mastery is still a petaQ." (Well, he should have said it...!)
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster
-Make HEAVY use of the Dyson Sphere Zone and Undine Space Zone. They have missions all over the place, but the main thing is the sector map part of each zone as well as Department Heads. You can crit on those missions and get huge EXP, and there is even a 1000+ recruitment EXP mission that you can crit on as well. The Undine section shares most of the same missions, but there are different ones so it's best to go there and check. Do these at the end of the night, as some are the 20 hour missions.
-Keep going back to the personnel officer at Starfleet Academy and do those 20 hour recruitment assignments. You might get lucky and get R&D doffs.....just be sure not to select them for your Fleet projects because you will lose them...
You can start combining lower level doffs into higher level doffs if your roster is getting filled up. It's all random though, you usually end up with garbage doffs.
Try to get as much contraband as possible, and do the turn in at DS9. There are several FED DOFF assignments that give contraband....but it is a lot faster to make a KDF alt and just Marauder your way across the galaxy and use your account bank to transfer that contraband.
Each exploration chain ends up with a blue DOFF. They use colonists Doffs, which are always handy to have in case you need to use them for FLEET projects.
You might had some of those white con R&D hologram DOFFS. I think they are totally useless. Use them on any disposable missions that come up.
Recruitment, by far, is the hardest to level up as there are o few assignments. Make the trip to DS9, and check each Cardassian sector (the orange ones on the map). You can usually find officer swap missions and just use green doffs or white doffs, or higher level ones if you want to get rid of them and maybe crit. Plus, while in these zones you can trade for rare commodities and use those for your chain missions.
Always check department heads as well because you might be missing something in a specific sector. This ESPECIALLY applies to any chain missions.
Be on the look out for rare missions that give DOFFS. There is one for an El Alurien Bartender (Guinan) in the Sirius Sector....unless they took that out.
Make sure to check your DOFF panel in your ready room. You will find missions not listed on your regular department head list. There are quite a few. If you are in a fleet and have the Chef and Bartender, check those out as well.
Take any recruitment mission you see. There is one mission that says you will lose your Doffs, but it does not take them away. I think this is a Cardassian sector mission. I never wanted to chance it and just used green doffs just in case the devs stealth un-nerfed it.
Check the exchange for rare DOFFS, lock box doffs, and those with abilities that are not available in the Starfleet Academy Personnel DOFF store. You can find some very useful DOFFS that can really help out a ground or space build.
If you are in a fleet, you can get an extra space DOFF and ground DOFF for 100,000 fleet credits. It's pretty expensive but totally worth it.
Keep an eye out for refugees, they are good for single DOFF recruitment missions. Prisoners you can swap as well.
A lot of things you can only get by Doffing and they usually sell well on the exchange (Bajor trade goods).
With my DOFFing routine, I'm already closing out maximum XPs and having to clear on a daily basis at the Fleet Starbase to convert those CXPs to FMs. So that in the following day when I complete the previous day's DOFFing missions, nothing goes to waste for completing it when I was at or close to the 150k CXP cap. I didn't need the CXP Bonus for that but that's due to my routine. Regular XPs for leveling would have been more welcome. Faster progress to more Levels and Specialization Points > Faster CXP gains.