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Returning player trying to get back in
ultimatesd
Member Posts: 35 Arc User
So I left some time before Delta Rising (played on and off, usually quite intensely during on phases), and didn't really expect to return. Especially after I heard about some of the more unpleasant things happening in Delta Rising.
However, I was so bored a few days ago that I ended up redownloading the game. I knew a few things, like the level cap increase, T6 ships, Crafting rework and the Delta Quadrant thing (so many old and new faces, even the Pralor/Cravic Robots from Voyager Season 1 made it in :eek:).
Also, the DOFF missions are still entertaining, even though you aren't actually doing much.
However, I'm still trying to fully get back in.
- T6 Ships: It doesn't seem like they can be aquired without Zen, and a good amount at that. Am I missing something? Also, what should I keep in mind about T6 ships in general? From what I've read, T5Us are not worth it.
- Crafting: I'm still trying to get into that, and it seems more interesting than before. I actually bother scanning anomalies now, but with the amount of different resources, I never really know what I still need. I just get everything I see and hope that I need it. Anything I should keep in mind about that?
- STFs: Elite STFs seem to have become harder, and less forgiving about failing optional goals (or rather, some optional goals are now mandatory). From what I've read, Advanced is what Elite used to be, but I tried an Infected Conduit Elite (used to be pretty easy, if your team was halfway competent) and died pretty quickly, then a Nanite Probe repaired the Nanite thingy and mission failed. Given that my Ship, an Assault Cruiser, had almost everything purple MKXII and even some Fleet stuff, I was a little surprised there.
-DOFFS: It seems there are now Ultra Rare and Epic DOFFs. How do I get those? Epic sounds like the ones from Events (the last one I saw when I was still playing, the mirror universe one, had Mirror Hakeev I believe). Are they worth it?
However, I was so bored a few days ago that I ended up redownloading the game. I knew a few things, like the level cap increase, T6 ships, Crafting rework and the Delta Quadrant thing (so many old and new faces, even the Pralor/Cravic Robots from Voyager Season 1 made it in :eek:).
Also, the DOFF missions are still entertaining, even though you aren't actually doing much.
However, I'm still trying to fully get back in.
- T6 Ships: It doesn't seem like they can be aquired without Zen, and a good amount at that. Am I missing something? Also, what should I keep in mind about T6 ships in general? From what I've read, T5Us are not worth it.
- Crafting: I'm still trying to get into that, and it seems more interesting than before. I actually bother scanning anomalies now, but with the amount of different resources, I never really know what I still need. I just get everything I see and hope that I need it. Anything I should keep in mind about that?
- STFs: Elite STFs seem to have become harder, and less forgiving about failing optional goals (or rather, some optional goals are now mandatory). From what I've read, Advanced is what Elite used to be, but I tried an Infected Conduit Elite (used to be pretty easy, if your team was halfway competent) and died pretty quickly, then a Nanite Probe repaired the Nanite thingy and mission failed. Given that my Ship, an Assault Cruiser, had almost everything purple MKXII and even some Fleet stuff, I was a little surprised there.
-DOFFS: It seems there are now Ultra Rare and Epic DOFFs. How do I get those? Epic sounds like the ones from Events (the last one I saw when I was still playing, the mirror universe one, had Mirror Hakeev I believe). Are they worth it?
Post edited by ultimatesd on
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- T6 ships: well, I would not go as far and say that T5-U are not worth it. They go a looooong mile and the main advantages of the T6 ships are special Starship Traits that every ship of the same char gets access to once the Ship Mastery Level reaches 5 (T5-U can only reach 4 and thus have no Starship Trait) - and the new Specialist Bridge Officer stations (Pilot, Intelligence and Command) You may use instead of the traditional ones. And as You will need Zen for most kinds of Upgrade anyways, it might mean a tough decision between T5-U and T6 anyways. While it has become even more rough, trading Dilithium into Zen is still possible so You can get a T5-U Upgrade or T6 ship sooner or later just by playing - or get a ship from the Summer or Winter (or Anniversary) Event which is usually either T6 or upgradeable for free.
- for the more nifty things, You will need to do various STFs on Adv. or even Elite - and You will need a special DOff if You want to invest heavily into crafting. Then again, it is one of the few ways to get exactly the kind of weapon with exactly the type of modifier You want, [CrtD]*3 [Pen] being my personal favourite. And as You should go for Lvl. 15+ in any cathegory anyways for the more cost-effective Upgrades - it is mostly a time, eC and Dilithium sink that yields something.
- yep, the current Adv. is not the old Elite. One is usually required to go for DPS and even more DPS when in doubt currently.
- DOffs - apart from lock boxes, at least one can be found by doing a Mission (see link in my signature).
Taskforce 47 Falkenwacht (Federation) / Greifenreiter (KDF)
(at) deianirrah
Free Gear and where to get it
Most T6 ships must be bought with Zen. Some can be earned in events, like the upcoming summer event on Risa. But if you don't want to pay, Zen is honestly not all that hard to come by if you just keep farming dil.
Many T5U ships are TRIBBLE. Some, however, are perfectly viable endgame--indeed, some of the top players swear by theirs.
IOW, ignore the classification of whether something is T5, T5U, or T6--look at the actual boff layout, stats and aesthetics and decide if you want to fly it.
Keep everything. It doesn't take up space in your regular inventory anyway, and some mats or subcombines can be sold for quite a lot on the Exchange even if you don't use them. Run the 20-hour, 6000 exp research projects and focus on leveling one school at a time.
Don't waste time and mats grinding R&D exp or (in most cases) items higher than Mk II, though. Because you get a chance at increasing rarity every time you upgrade mark, it's better to start with a Mk II VR item and upgrade it all the way for more chances at getting it to UR or Epic.
Yep. That's how it is now. Run Advanced if you're used to the old Elite, and work yourself back up to it.
There is one single Epic doff--The Doctor, EMH Mk I--and he is a mission reward from the Delta Quadrant questline.
The UR doffs are brand new, and they drop from the Xindi Strategic Specialist doff packs in the Xindi-Terrestrial lockbox (current). They can also be found on the Exchange for what are in most cases actually fairly reasonable prices.
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster
T1-T5: nothing changed, nothing special
T5-U (normal or fleet): you can get 4 levels of starship mastery(some passive benefits), +1 console, and they have scaling hp, but they don't have starship trait unlocks. you can turn your T5/Fleet T5 with buying an upgrade token, but if you happen to have a lockbox/lobi/some other event ship, you can do it for free.
T6: you can unlock 5 levels of starship mastery, the last being the starship trait, which is some kind of ship-unique passive benefit. after unlock, you can slot it in your characters starship traits roster. you can have max 4 starship traits active at a time. once you unlocked it, you don't need to be in that exact ship to use the trait, it's active as long as it's slotted, no matter what you fly (works with under T6 as well). normal (zen store) T6 ships have only 10 console slots, but +1 boff skill slot in their layout compared to T5 and T5-U. they also have scaling hp.
zen/lobi/event T6: 5 levels of mastery (so 4 passives and a starship trait), 11 consoles, scaling hp, +1 boff skill slot so basically they are just like T6 +1 console slot.
fleet T6: +1 console and increased hp compared to normal T6 but only 4 levels of starship mastery, so they don't have a starship trait.
-imo crafting is a RNG-lottery, as you can't choose what modifiers the item will have. if you don't have vast resources to experiment, i think you're better off buying what you want from the exchange, or upgrade you existing gear (be aware - its a dilithium-graveyard).
-you'll need at least mk13 UR or mk14 VR stuff to not suck on elite space content. i think you're better off getting your marks and dil on elite ground content. you only need to buy a TR-116 from the ex, upgrade it to mk14, and put on some reputation set of your choosing for some passives.
-some lockbox UR doffs have nice passives if you slot them on duty, but nothing you won't live without, i wouldn't make getting them a priority.
-you should get your levels up, and start filling up the specializations, as they can give you some very nasty passives and actives. you can have one specialization as primary and one as secondary. they both active at the same time, but secondaries only give bonuses up to tier2. as xp is currently quite hard to get, i think try focusing on one primary (intel, command or pilot), than start to fill up a secondary (intel, command or pilot, or commando if you do a lot of ground).
deianirrah: i think the major advantage of T6 over T5 is not the starship traits but theri boff layout. +1 boff skill can really do wonders. but unfortunately you have to fly a T6 to get this advantage unlike starship traits, what you can unlock and trash the ship afterwards.
RnD and upgrade needs less RNG. Less lottery. Something has to change.
You get one for each specialisation you get to 15 spec points. It's a shame you didn't come back during the delta recruit event as that got you a free trait too. But with that, the Kobali ship event, and spec points I've now got four starship traits on my main without spending any money.
(Although I did also buy a pathfinder because I always like to make a spend when a new expansion or new content is released.)
not exactly true as T6 ships have +1 boff ability slot.
RnD and upgrade needs less RNG. Less lottery. Something has to change.
I know, that's why I've been keeping all R&D stuff I got, unless it didn't go into the R&D Tab rigth away and I didn't notice when selling loot.
Thanks for the Upgrade tip, I'm starting to understand how that works.
I just got that Gun, I haven't used it yet but I see what everyone is about (dat Shield ignore).
Thanks for the tip, now I just have to get some info on the Ground STFs (rarely did them back in the day).
I got like 500 Zen, I think it's from the short time when my subscription was still running after the game went F2P. I used Dilithium to get some Zen stuff, like 100 Duty Officer slots (so good).
I wouldn't call it easy to come by though. Hitting your daily limit is not all that hard, but since you can't refine more than 8000 (+500 in Fleet mine), there are limits.
I actually still have 200k Dilithium leftover, I checked how much then that would give me, I think around 750.
the elite ones you should be looking for are:
bug hunt - you'll need quite high toxic resist, youll probably die a one or two times per run, but dont worry, piece of cake.
defend rh'ihho station - TR is essential here, as elachis have perfect shielding (no bleedthrough).
undine infiltration - it doesn't have any specific gear req. just don't TRIBBLE up the questioning part, as ppl can get really mad for that. if you don't know what to do, just leave it to the rest of the team, no one will bat an eye if you just run around like a headless chicken in the beginning.
nukara transdimensional - you will need an EV suite, any will do, although you can farm quite nice purple ones from the step between stars episode.
RnD and upgrade needs less RNG. Less lottery. Something has to change.
What some people do to earn significantly more dil is create contraband alts and spend the hour or so that it takes to get them to level 11 and unlock the doff system. Usually KDF since they have a lot of doff missions for earning contra, but any alt will do--just buy contraband off the exchange and transfer it to said alts; it's the easiest and most reliable way to convert EC to dil.
Once you have it down, it only takes about 5 minutes or so to kick off that job on your alts. Do that once in the morning before you leave, once when you get home from work/school, and once before bed, and you've cleared 6000 dil per alt--you can make up the rest of the alt's refining limit just from idle doffing if you really want to.
Do that just on the main + three alts you'll have as a previous subscriber with the default character slot limits, and you can easily clear around 100 Zen a day. Dedicated farmers with more slots can do much more; I don't have that kind of patience and I like to -play- my toons. XD
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster
I actually heard about that method, but completely forgot about it.
I do have a lvl 50 Klingon and a 20 something Romulan, but created those during my last STO Phase. I never had Alts before, as I didn't see the point outside of experiencing their unique story missions.
For the reputations that need things like Ancient Power Cells for example there is a 20 hr project that converts 100 marks for that reputation to the item in question, for example 100 delta marks (I think) for 1 Ancient Power Cell. These projects are under the special tab, or what ever the bottom most tab is called, so the project does not interfere with rep score projects or getting a rep item like ground armor.
That is not correct, it was an Advanced one. I cannot even select the new Elite ones.
Those seem good, particularly rh'ihho station and Undine Infiltration, but qeues seem to take forever for those to fill. I did get into an Undine Infiltration, and while I had a webpage with all the answers open, some other players didn't know what to do, so no optional objective here.
That's what I thought, as far as I'm aware I cannot choose Elite qeues because I'm not at the new level cap.
You do not need a T6 ship to be effective in STFs, though it does help.
Infected Space Advanced, for one, only needs about an average of 6k DPS from each player to be able to complete all objectives if the team is good and works together. A well setup T4 ship without the rep stuff, upgraded gear, or masteries can hit around 6k DPS without a lot of effort, so T6 ships are not necessarily needed for advanced STFs.