Dilithium grinding

glenn · June 2016

Of late the price of dilithium has gone through the roof. It has made it so that dilithium grinding is no longer worth it.

Am I the only one here that feels liberated by this? I no longer have to grind, day in day out. I can do stuff that is fun. Yeh, I will pick up some dil on the way but that is just a bonus.

officerbatman81 · June 2016

Actually yes i do. But i didnt do a whole lot of grinding before anyway, a little, but now its off the table completely.

legendarylycan · June 2016

i'm still doing the exact same dil grinding i've been doing for years now - T5 rep rewards and 14 day event rewards...and whenever i get some, rich mining claims

farmallm · June 2016

I refused to buy Dil after it hit 160 for 1 Zen. Since then they can go to 100k. I don't care, and still won't buy it.

I don't have time to grind dil each and every day. Specially to get the cap level. So most of the time, I rarely hit 2k. Specially if you spend your usual playing time getting a FE in. And maybe a 2nd or do something quick. This is why I don't use the zen market. I want zen I use $ as its cheaper.

However currently I'm doing some Dil grinding, but its for weapon upgrades for my new Lv50. So they can get some better weapons. Other gear I will get from other rewards. I still need like 2 arrays and a torpedo to upgrade. So at my current rate it will be around Aug or Sept before that ship will be ready to take on the rest of the FEs and Reps. In the meantime I been working on my other characters. My KDF is now getting close to finish the Iconian story arc. Who is my 2nd character. Soon that is done, I will send in my Romulan to do it. So I can get those out of the way. Hopefully in time for AOY to come out. Since I will work on that one some.

sheldonlcooper · June 2016

The spice flows now without any effort from the user.

We will flirt with 400 before AOY but when the ships go on sale individually for that we will say goodbye to 400 forever. The only remaining question is whether they will leave the cap at 500.

It's not so big a deal though with how much we get now. For example last upgrade weekend I got each character down to 1.5 million refined. Now they are all back over 1.7 and I almost do literally nothing. If you grind you will quickly have a months worth in the hopper. I say 500 is the new 130.

fatman592 · June 2016

When recently asked about dilithium grinding by one of our fleet members I wrote the following:

Speaking as someone who has farmed 8 million dilithium since Delta Rising and the Upgrade System wiped me out last time: Doff, doff and doff (and Admiralty isn't bad either).

I have 8 characters, 5 KDF/3 Fed. I doff on all of them, Admiralty on only my Feds (if there was an auto-filling system for Admiralty I'd run that on all of them). I focus my doffing strictly on the following, in order of priority: contraband, R&D mats, doff recruitment mostly colonists/forced labor. That gets you generous amounts of dil, and a steady ec source in mats and common doffs which people buy up to fill fleet projects.

Logging in once a day, for 1 hour at most I generate: A minimum of 16k dilithium (though often much more, I'd say I average more like 24k), enough R&D mats to fetch at least 500k ec on the exchange (though I let these accumulate and then sell in bulk, especially during events), enough colonists and blue/purple prisoners to get around 700k-1 million ec.

Admiralty rewards on three characters is harder to quantify, so I'll leave it out. But the rewards are indeed excellent. Purple R&D mats, dil, salvaged tech, lump sums of ec can easily match the take from doffing on all my characters.

16k dil and say 1 million ec a day, for less than an hour online. Let's do the math:

16k/1mil x 7 days = 112k/7mil
112k/7mil x 4 weeks = 448k/28 mil
448k/28mil x 12 months = 5,376,000 million dilithium and 336,000,000 million ec

And that is with the most minimum of effort. Add some discipline when it comes to spending (never upgrade any gear unless you absolutely have nothing else to spend your resources on), and all the events where they double dilithium, etc and you'll generate even more. I didn't even log in for months at a time, and I'm sitting on enough Zen to get the AoY pack, absolutely free - just as my Delta Rising Pack was absolutely free.

And yes, never ever ever and under no circumstances gamble on lockboxes. Open them strictly for lobi and you'll come away a happy customer.

Edit: Totally forgot about selling excess contraband. Stacks of 250 go for around 10 million ec. Usually I get that many every couple of weeks, so add in say another 120 million ec per year (conservatively) in doffing profit.

Though yes, I'd never discourage anyone from buying zen. Working just a few days at a minimum wage job here in the US gets you more dilithium. I know, about an hour of logging in - doffing, chatting, and maybe running a queue - is considered a massive grind by some. But for me, being a relatively long time player, I have the advantage of years of accumulated things and game knowledge.

I stopped doing events some time ago, that's the real grind. Anyway, with all the power creep, Mk XII on a T4 ship is all one really needs to play Advanced content. After that, it's all just working on space barbie or being stupidly OP.

Unknown · June 2016

This content has been removed.

bernatk · June 2016

fatman592 wrote: »

being a relatively long time player, I have the advantage of years of accumulated things and game knowledge.

Yeah, me too. And one of that knowledge is that doffing and admiralty is boring, tedious and extremely time consuming. Both to build up your very own Rura Penthe and then operate it.

I just wish they would put it on the Gateway or a mobile app or whateva. Then when you have suicidal thoughts or just want kill some brain cells you can load up that app and do some doffing...

One can dream lol...

vegeta50024 · June 2016

sheldonlcooper wrote: »

The spice flows now without any effort from the user.

We will flirt with 400 before AOY but when the ships go on sale individually for that we will say goodbye to 400 forever. The only remaining question is whether they will leave the cap at 500.

It's not so big a deal though with how much we get now. For example last upgrade weekend I got each character down to 1.5 million refined. Now they are all back over 1.7 and I almost do literally nothing. If you grind you will quickly have a months worth in the hopper. I say 500 is the new 130.

Neverwinter's cap is 500 AD (their Dilithium) and has been that way for a long while.

kekvin · June 2016

Hopefully it will drop soon. Its to high for my tastes atm

jbmonroe · June 2016

Over in Neverwinter Astral Diamonds are running 400+ per Zen. I have a level 60 warlock with a level 35 companion because it will cost me over $21 USD to buy the ability to gain five more levels with that companion. (Meaning, 1,000,000 AD. I haven't any idea what 40->45 would cost, and I'm not even going to look.) The warlock has three other companions, so if I want to give up paying my son's tuition for a semester I might be able to afford to bring Neverwinter up to par.

But then I'd have to figure out how to pay $129 for the Temporal Agent Budget-Buster pack. (I've already figure that out, frankly--no sale. Sorry, Cryptic/PWE--I draw the line at $129 for pixels. That's more than half of what I paid to become a lifer during pre-release. No. Just "no." "No Man's Sky" is $59, and it's an entire game. Someone's perception of economics at PWE--because I'm pretty sure that's where the pricing directives come from--is severely unbalanced.)

ktmcdo1968 · June 2016

i believe the duty officer assignments offer dilithium ore

warpangel · June 2016

sheldonlcooper wrote: »

The spice flows now without any effort from the user.

We will flirt with 400 before AOY but when the ships go on sale individually for that we will say goodbye to 400 forever. The only remaining question is whether they will leave the cap at 500.

As long as the exchange rate doesn't hit the cap, it doesn't matter. If it's ever reached, the devs will have to raise it or the economy will go down the drain, because people won't want to sell below fair market value.

There's about 100 points of AoY bloat in the current rate. But it also indicates this game badly needs some major dil sinks. We're at the pre-S6 level already. That's ridiculous. It's not even funny.

starmanj · June 2016

I am at 10 mil Cap un-refined Dill and I cry every time I go over that as I watch it go into the Bit Bucket

kiralyn · June 2016

warpangel wrote: »

sheldonlcooper wrote: »

The spice flows now without any effort from the user.

We will flirt with 400 before AOY but when the ships go on sale individually for that we will say goodbye to 400 forever. The only remaining question is whether they will leave the cap at 500.

As long as the exchange rate doesn't hit the cap, it doesn't matter. If it's ever reached, the devs will have to raise it or the economy will go down the drain, because people won't want to sell below fair market value.

There's about 100 points of AoY bloat in the current rate. But it also indicates this game badly needs some major dil sinks. We're at the pre-S6 level already. That's ridiculous. It's not even funny.

Given how long the Neverwinter economy sat pegged at a 500 exchange rate, with so little zen in the market that it took three days for an offer you posted to be met? I seriously doubt they'd up the cap. The entire point of the cap is limit how far the exchange can go.

What they have to do is come up with some things for players to buy for Dil, rather than just pumping out item after item after item that make people want more zen. Starbases were a good sink for awhile, but that's seemingly run out. And upgrading doesn't seem to be it - the super-high-end players have done their upgrades, and the less-min/max folks don't care enough to spend lots of Dil on it (I just upgrade with 'free'/event/omega kits, for instance. Think I've spent less than 10k-20k dil on upgrades since the system launched.

I know that Neverwinter periodically had items for sale to suck lots of Diamonds off the people who were rolling in them - rare pets, things like that. Hmm, what could STO do.... super-expensive costumes? Ship costumes? Ship visual items, now that we have those visual slots (since that way, you don't have to balance the engine/shield/deflector's stats... it's just a visual item.)

lapisexillis · June 2016

fatman592 wrote: »

When recently asked about dilithium grinding by one of our fleet members I wrote the following:
Speaking as someone who has farmed 8 million dilithium since Delta Rising and the Upgrade System wiped me out last time: Doff, doff and doff (and Admiralty isn't bad either).

I have 8 characters, 5 KDF/3 Fed. I doff on all of them, Admiralty on only my Feds (if there was an auto-filling system for Admiralty I'd run that on all of them). I focus my doffing strictly on the following, in order of priority: contraband, R&D mats, doff recruitment mostly colonists/forced labor. That gets you generous amounts of dil, and a steady ec source in mats and common doffs which people buy up to fill fleet projects.

Logging in once a day, for 1 hour at most I generate: A minimum of 16k dilithium (though often much more, I'd say I average more like 24k), enough R&D mats to fetch at least 500k ec on the exchange (though I let these accumulate and then sell in bulk, especially during events), enough colonists and blue/purple prisoners to get around 700k-1 million ec.

Admiralty rewards on three characters is harder to quantify, so I'll leave it out. But the rewards are indeed excellent. Purple R&D mats, dil, salvaged tech, lump sums of ec can easily match the take from doffing on all my characters.

16k dil and say 1 million ec a day, for less than an hour online. Let's do the math:

16k/1mil x 7 days = 112k/7mil
112k/7mil x 4 weeks = 448k/28 mil
448k/28mil x 12 months = 5,376,000 million dilithium and 336,000,000 million ec

And that is with the most minimum of effort. Add some discipline when it comes to spending (never upgrade any gear unless you absolutely have nothing else to spend your resources on), and all the events where they double dilithium, etc and you'll generate even more. I didn't even log in for months at a time, and I'm sitting on enough Zen to get the AoY pack, absolutely free - just as my Delta Rising Pack was absolutely free.

And yes, never ever ever and under no circumstances gamble on lockboxes. Open them strictly for lobi and you'll come away a happy customer.

Edit: Totally forgot about selling excess contraband. Stacks of 250 go for around 10 million ec. Usually I get that many every couple of weeks, so add in say another 120 million ec per year (conservatively) in doffing profit.

Though yes, I'd never discourage anyone from buying zen. Working just a few days at a minimum wage job here in the US gets you more dilithium. I know, about an hour of logging in - doffing, chatting, and maybe running a queue - is considered a massive grind by some. But for me, being a relatively long time player, I have the advantage of years of accumulated things and game knowledge.

I stopped doing events some time ago, that's the real grind. Anyway, with all the power creep, Mk XII on a T4 ship is all one really needs to play Advanced content. After that, it's all just working on space barbie or being stupidly OP.

So you have 8 million dil on your main toon or 8million dil for all of your toons?

You should make a youtube video.

kylethetrue · June 2016

Still grinding away but you make a point maybe I'll try and think of it like that and be free of it....

fatman592 · June 2016

lapisexillis wrote: »

So you have 8 million dil on your main toon or 8million dil for all of your toons?

You should make a youtube video.

I estimate that I have gotten about 8 million since DR, with taking a few months off the game here and there. That number would be for all characters, funneled to my main. I converted enough dil to have 15k Zen once AoY was announced. At the time the conversion rate was around 310, so that's 4,650,000 dilithium currently tied up in that. I also got the Presidio, the Battlecruiser pack, and upgraded some additional gear on my main to Mk XIV. Add to that my current refined stores, and you get my estimate.

If I were to make a Youtube Video, it would be boring. Login, doff, move items and currency, change characters, repeat. It only takes an hour or so because I chat with fleetmates usually. But the PvE queues are just as boring. At this point, socializing and the foundry are pretty much what I do for fun.

The spice does indeed flow freely.

nikephorus · June 2016

Unfortunately, I'm still grinding dilithium. It's still the easiest way I know to get the currency I need to buy what I want without spending any real funds. I've added a few more contraband farmers to the mix to make up for the elevated transfer rate. I'm by no way a hardcore dilithium farmer, but I can manage about 200k dilithium a week with very little time or effort.

echatty · June 2016

I'll spend real money on zen if I want something. That means I may have to wait to be able to afford it. But I am not using my hard-earned dil to trade for such piddling amounts of zen.

warpangel · June 2016

kiralyn wrote: »

warpangel wrote: »

sheldonlcooper wrote: »

The spice flows now without any effort from the user.

We will flirt with 400 before AOY but when the ships go on sale individually for that we will say goodbye to 400 forever. The only remaining question is whether they will leave the cap at 500.

As long as the exchange rate doesn't hit the cap, it doesn't matter. If it's ever reached, the devs will have to raise it or the economy will go down the drain, because people won't want to sell below fair market value.

There's about 100 points of AoY bloat in the current rate. But it also indicates this game badly needs some major dil sinks. We're at the pre-S6 level already. That's ridiculous. It's not even funny.

Given how long the Neverwinter economy sat pegged at a 500 exchange rate, with so little zen in the market that it took three days for an offer you posted to be met? I seriously doubt they'd up the cap. The entire point of the cap is limit how far the exchange can go.

Like I said, either they raise it or the economy goes down the drain. I don't see any positive effect to anyone for having a cap in the first place, but then I don't see any positive effect for a lot of things in this game.

What they have to do is come up with some things for players to buy for Dil, rather than just pumping out item after item after item that make people want more zen. Starbases were a good sink for awhile, but that's seemingly run out. And upgrading doesn't seem to be it - the super-high-end players have done their upgrades, and the less-min/max folks don't care enough to spend lots of Dil on it (I just upgrade with 'free'/event/omega kits, for instance. Think I've spent less than 10k-20k dil on upgrades since the system launched.

I know that Neverwinter periodically had items for sale to suck lots of Diamonds off the people who were rolling in them - rare pets, things like that. Hmm, what could STO do.... super-expensive costumes? Ship costumes? Ship visual items, now that we have those visual slots (since that way, you don't have to balance the engine/shield/deflector's stats... it's just a visual item.)

Could be anything really. As long as its something that makes dil more desireable. Expensive cosmetic items are the industry standard. Question is, what could they make at this point that people would actually be willing to shell out "super-expensive" prices for? Solid gold ship skins?

I'd say customizable ship interiors, but considering the work required that seems unlikely. Customizable houses and/or offices on the faction homeworlds?

Fleet holdings were indeed a great sink. They are the one thing that originally brought the rate down from 300-400 in season 6. But major fleets have long since finished all the holdings, so there is no major demand anymore. New holdings have not kept up and old holdings have never been upgraded.

Equipment upgrades failed as a dil sink because the game is so easy you don't really need them. And then they stared giving out the dil-free upgrade kits like candy.

And then there's the mobile game paid timeskip method they tried with R&D. I wonder if anyone uses it.

nightken · June 2016

warpangel wrote: »

kiralyn wrote: »

warpangel wrote: »

sheldonlcooper wrote: »

The spice flows now without any effort from the user.

We will flirt with 400 before AOY but when the ships go on sale individually for that we will say goodbye to 400 forever. The only remaining question is whether they will leave the cap at 500.

As long as the exchange rate doesn't hit the cap, it doesn't matter. If it's ever reached, the devs will have to raise it or the economy will go down the drain, because people won't want to sell below fair market value.

There's about 100 points of AoY bloat in the current rate. But it also indicates this game badly needs some major dil sinks. We're at the pre-S6 level already. That's ridiculous. It's not even funny.

Given how long the Neverwinter economy sat pegged at a 500 exchange rate, with so little zen in the market that it took three days for an offer you posted to be met? I seriously doubt they'd up the cap. The entire point of the cap is limit how far the exchange can go.

Like I said, either they raise it or the economy goes down the drain. I don't see any positive effect to anyone for having a cap in the first place, but then I don't see any positive effect for a lot of things in this game.

What they have to do is come up with some things for players to buy for Dil, rather than just pumping out item after item after item that make people want more zen. Starbases were a good sink for awhile, but that's seemingly run out. And upgrading doesn't seem to be it - the super-high-end players have done their upgrades, and the less-min/max folks don't care enough to spend lots of Dil on it (I just upgrade with 'free'/event/omega kits, for instance. Think I've spent less than 10k-20k dil on upgrades since the system launched.

I know that Neverwinter periodically had items for sale to suck lots of Diamonds off the people who were rolling in them - rare pets, things like that. Hmm, what could STO do.... super-expensive costumes? Ship costumes? Ship visual items, now that we have those visual slots (since that way, you don't have to balance the engine/shield/deflector's stats... it's just a visual item.)

Could be anything really. As long as its something that makes dil more desireable. Expensive cosmetic items are the industry standard. Question is, what could they make at this point that people would actually be willing to shell out "super-expensive" prices for? Solid gold ship skins?

I'd say customizable ship interiors, but considering the work required that seems unlikely. Customizable houses and/or offices on the faction homeworlds?

Fleet holdings were indeed a great sink. They are the one thing that originally brought the rate down from 300-400 in season 6. But major fleets have long since finished all the holdings, so there is no major demand anymore. New holdings have not kept up and old holdings have never been upgraded.

Equipment upgrades failed as a dil sink because the game is so easy you don't really need them. And then they stared giving out the dil-free upgrade kits like candy.

And then there's the mobile game paid timeskip method they tried with R&D. I wonder if anyone uses it.

people did at first at least, crying the whole time about cryptic stealing there hard earned dil which the seemed to have thought... I have no idea what they were thinking but the really didn't like the option to use it to speed up time gates and it still confuses me.

I still vote for personal housing as the next one it about the only thing they haven't tried yet.

misterferengi · June 2016

I'm still grinding. But the exchange is a little high for my tastes so its back to hoarding my dil and waiting for what i feel is the right price. I'm trying to save and exchange dil every 21-30 days. It nets me between 8-10k zen depending on price between 335-380. So hoping by the time i can refine again there will be either a shiny new T6 Nebula, Vor'cha, Sovereign, Norway, Steamrunner, Ambassador, K'Tinga, New Orleans class starship for me to spend it on.

evilmark444 · June 2016

samt1996 · June 2016

They have flooded the market. I'm not the conspiracy sort but maybe they liked the ~400 rate in Neverwinter and drove STO up on purpose? Just a thought.

There are plenty of other things I'd rather have as a reward like dilithium vouchers for fleet and reputation or even character bound refined dilithium.

trekpuppy · June 2016

Make anything purchasable for outrageous prices. Pre-order items, event ships and items, retired accolades...

alcyoneserene · June 2016

It used to be fun grinding Dilithium, acquiring new things, getting fleet members together, and facing some challenge leveling new toons. Now, it's ever more DPS or nothing, pitiful amount of new end-game content, empty rosters, and exchange rates that ensure you'll grind yourself out of it long before enjoying the fruit of the game time spent.

I don't even want to log in across 9+ toons to hit that refine button anymore.

jaguarskx · June 2016

I recall back in Feb 2014 when I first started to accumulate dil that the Exchange rate was as low as 118:1.

I still grind dil, but I do not specifically aim to hit the cap everyday that I play. If I do, then great, if not then no big deal since I have a reserve of unrefined dil to ensure that I can still refine the max amount of dil when I decide to log in.

I use a combination of dil and real money to get Zen so instead of doing something like a 50%/50% split between the two to buy something on the Exchange, it will be 60% Zen from cash and 40% Zen from dil, or whatever...

If the exchange rate does eventually go to 500:1, then at least it cannot get any worse. If I need refined dil, then I will probably just purchase it with Zen rather than grind for it. When the individual AoY ships are available in the C-Store, then I can see the exchange rate going up to around 410:1. By the end of the year we will likely be at about 450:1 based on the current direction of the economy. If nothing changes, then by the time the 2017 Crystalline Catastrophe event comes we should be at 500:1.

warpangel · June 2016

jaguarskx wrote: »

If the exchange rate does eventually go to 500:1, then at least it cannot get any worse.

It can and it will. If the devaluing of dilithium continues and the cap is not raised, people will simply stop selling Zen at any price.

sheldonlcooper · June 2016

Hey, I think I have a solution.

New fleet Starbase level. Massive cost. Unlocks, among other things, private living quarters on the starbase - with many accessories to buy.

Combine with ski lodges on Andoria, some sexy Orion nonsense, and a Meditation retreat on P'jem and we can bring this back!

jaguarskx · June 2016

warpangel wrote: »

It can and it will. If the devaluing of dilithium continues and the cap is not raised, people will simply stop selling Zen at any price.

I don't play Neverwinter, but based on the above comments regarding Neverwinter and the exchange rate of Astral Diamonds to Zen being at 500:1, the economy seems to be chugging along.

Dilithium grinding

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