Best way to farm EC

[C0DEx]

Hey there.
Years ago I played a char to level 50. I liked the game so much that I decided to spend some money on it. I bought pretty decent equip whithout many upgrade possibilities, which is why the game became boring pretty fast. Very stupid decision.

I started a new char, I'm currently rank 57. Since I bought all the EC years ago, I have no idea about efficient farming this time.
I'd just like to ask about some tips. Are there any group encounters that are worth doing more than others? What about difficulty, is it worth doing harder missions? And is there any way to earn credits if I want to play solo from time to time? What should I sell to vendors and what should I sell on exchange?

I'm grateful for any kind of information :) Thanks

[Termagant]

I myself came back just a few days ago after an 18 month break, but as far as i am aware things havent really changed that much. Dont bother with energy credits, sell everything you dont need and you are good. You wont be able to grind enough ec to buy the good stuff within a reasonable amount of time.

If you dont want to spend a riddiculus amount of real life money on the game, the best way to get a good equipment is leveling up your reputations. You'll get lots of sets and also normal gear from them which is of a pretty high quality.

Second option is joining a fleet with sufficient projects completed. There you can buy things from the fleet store which is almost the best stuff you can get, BUT that takes a ton of dillithium and fleet credits (you earn those by donating towards fleet projects). Besides, as the "new guy" most fleets wont allow you to buy stuff from their store since its theoretically limited how much can be bought. Probably not the best option here.

Third and last way, do crafting. Level up your crafting skills, build the equipment you want (which will most likely be just the weapons since everything else you can get from reputations in a better way) and then upgrade it with crafting upgrade materials.

Hope it helps

[C0DEx]

Alright I'll keep this in mind, thanks!

[sven10077]

Spend 10 bucks buying keys and selling said keys for 4,250,000 ec a pop....

[sven10077]

Originally posted by C0DEx:

Alright I'll keep this in mind, thanks!

Also farm some of the missions that give good loot as equipment, you can get the Bajoran set of Impulse Engines, Warp Drive, Deflector, and Shield by grinding a mission.

There's no shame in using white equipment that is dropped either.

[C0DEx]

Originally posted by sven10077:

Spend 10 bucks buying keys and selling said keys for 4,250,000 ec a pop....

Well see thats exactly the thing. This time I want to actually play the game to get good gear :P

I havent thought of redoing missions... do you know the name of that specific mission by any chance?

[sven10077]

Originally posted by C0DEx:

Originally posted by sven10077:

Spend 10 bucks buying keys and selling said keys for 4,250,000 ec a pop....

Well see thats exactly the thing. This time I want to actually play the game to get good gear :P

I havent thought of redoing missions... do you know the name of that specific mission by any chance?

I'll look into it, it is a Bajoran mission I used to kit out my Tier 6 Interceptor.

Mission: Scylla and Charybdis

[C0DEx]

Cheers, I'll check it out!

[The Arkady]

If you don't have the T6 Interceptor, that Bajoran set is misssing a piece, and tbh it's not a particularly good set unless perhaps if you're running a core energy type (phaser, disruptor or plasma).

What missions you should run for their drops depends on where exactly you want to get. For space, you need to settle on a play style (and thus beams, cannons or maybe torpedos, as well as further details like whether you want to use shield drain a lot) and an energy type (unless you're going for torpedos, obviously).

As a prime example, take the mission "Echoes of Light". If you wwant to go for disruptor beams, you absolutely have to run that 3 times for the full Entoiled Technology set (beam, console + disruptor toprpedo). If you go for disruptor cannons, you should still absolutely get the console and probably the torpedo, too. If you don't do disruptors, the mission is pointless from a build optimization pov.

Similarly, the mission "Sunrise" with the Quantum phase set is basically a must-triple if you're a F2P phasers player, you'll probably still want to get the torpedo if you run a torpedo boat, and it's pretty pointless otherwise.

if you love using shield drains, you might want to go for the "Stormbound" misssion's space set (deflector, shield + impulse engine).

The list goes on, and becomes really long once you start including reputation and possibly fleet gear, as well.

[C0DEx]

Havent unlocked all missions yet, guess I'll take a look at different sets in the wiki once I can choose freely.

[Hosanin]

Some of the best consoles you can get for your builds right now are coming from the new Discovery reputation. For example you can get a [Science - Bellum Field Generator] which increases maximum Shield HP as well as Crit chance. There are various different Bellum consoles as well as Pax (increase ship HP) for tac, engi, and sci slots.

Outside of reputations, one of the better all around survival sets for early on is the Sol Defence Set from the mission Midnight. Get really boring after the first run or two since you are required to wait for conversation prompts. Ground wise I personally Love the Na'kul Temporal Operative Set due to secondary ability of shield as well as bonus to crit chance and severity for 2-piece set.

Figure out what type of ship you want to use at 65 (tac/engi/sci based) and what play style suits it best (cannons on an escort for example). Then pick a flavor of weapon to use with it. A common one I've been seeing still is Antiproton for the bonus crit factor. If you don't have a character with level 15+ crafting see if a fleet mate or friend can craft you up some purple weapons (or elite fleet gear if possible) as well as mission items that give weapon bonuses.

TL;DR - Get elite fleet+story gear/ crafted (better with Pen) and reputation gear based around play style and weapon flavor.

[Salami Tsunami]

If you want to farm EC, pick a field for crafting, and get your skills up to 15 or better. Then just spam out superior upgrades, and sell them in bulk on the exchange. With the right duty officer roster, you can practically be guaranteed to get doubles every time, even without catalysts.

[C0DEx]

Does anyone have any recommendations regarding which TFO's drop most items? I'm not sure if it is different, but some TFO's seem to drop a lot of items, while others drop exactly nothing.

[The Arkady]

As far as I can tell, the TFOs with the most item drops are the Borg ground ones that tend to take forever, so they might not actually be the most effective way to farm for sellables.

[Varenvel The Festive Dinosaur]

Best way to farm EC is exchange

There are days(Rare but still) i made like 40mil with just few clicks by buying something somone put cheap or "whatever" and sell it for regular prize

or buying things when "new lootbox releses and its cheap" and once binge craze dies out 1-3 months later skills/consoles rise prize by 2-10 times

No amount of farming/getting items will yeld you as much as speculating on exchange

Crafting high level gear is also an option but needs really big time/money investment and dilitium (unless you craft low lv gear who is also an option)

other good way is for craftable rank 3-4 bridge officers skills , especialy these you get for spending perks (some go for really high prize)

[Atiseum]

My way of earning energy credits is selling contraband. After all these years it's still a good source for energy credits.