Mining Dilithium: Is It Worth The Effort?

[Ricco]

Okay now. I've been there and tried it. Experience. That's about all I have to say about the trouble. At least I can say I know what it's all about. And here's the scoop:

First you get your EV suit. Then equip it and turn it on. Then (after getting the daily assignment from Ishi), push the Exit Air-lock button, and if you have a mining claim you can push the other button.

So, jumping around from point to point mining Dil' , wow, I can think of 100 million trillion things I would rather be doing than this. Even the job I had shoveling horse sht was 100 thousand times more enjoyable. You get 5 places you can mine from and at each place you get to mine 80 Dil. That translates to 400 Dil after mining all 5 spots. Two rounds was all I could stand before I felt like unequiping my EV suit out on the asteroid. ...I tried to jump off the edge of the rock, but I wasn't allowed to do it. Somehow I knew they would keep me there alive, just to see how long I could tolerate the experiment. Kind of like the episode "The Cage" in some unexplainable way.

So. I quit after only 800 Dilithium and was ever so happy to be back aboard my ship again! Checked out the rate of exchange for 800 Dil' at 245 Dil to 1 Zen! What a major ...just can't think of a good word to describe the stupidness of it (there are many, but I just can't find one I like)!!!!

Anyway... end of the story, I got 3 Zen for 735 Dil'.

At that rate, to make enough for 10 keys (1,125), and at the rate of 800 Dil a day, it will take me 375 days. I think it's safe to bet that no one will see me back at the mine ...ever!

[AbsynthMinded]

Depends on your time investment and play prefrences. If theres nothing better to do, it's something to do thats generally worth while. Do you need to, to get the minimum Dilithium refinement per day? nope.

[Ricco]

:) The way I see it, it took me about 10 minutes of exploring that asteroid, and I decided there were much better scenes I could be enjoying. Then, I added up all the minutes it might take to get 7000 refined Dil. I couldn't comprehend that kind of math. How long does it usually take to mine 7000 refined Dil's worth of ore at 80 ore per spot? Is there a way to get more than 80 from one spot? Am I doing something wrong? I think I need a bigger laser lol. If I could only get my ship to fire on some of these rocks, it might make the job a little easier and quicker.

[Serious Dave]

Here's the thing with mining:
the better you do at the minigame the more ore you get. At around 700 points you get 200 dil per mining spot, so that's 200 x 5 ('cause that's the amount you can mine) = 1000 dil per daily mining
Rather easy once you get used to the minigame.

But the real farming grounds are PvE queues, battlezones and the foundry mission and maybe even stuff like the aiding the deferi and contraband.

Long story short, you can only really start farming dilithium once you hit 50 and are eligible for all the endgame stuff.

Srsly, can't stress enough how rewarding the battlezones are. Spending 1 or 2 days in the dyson ground bz will make you swim in unrefined dil.

[kalinrey]

So honestly if you are all about the Dil grind, the Dil mine is an important step.

let me break down my Dil gathering rotation for you.

Dil mine - scoring above 700 on each minigame = 200dil each +crafting mats. Getting a preferred mining claim - I have enough to do over 300 days worth = 5000 dil from the large dil deposit. Now if you add in the Bonus Dil weekend - 300 for each regular mining and 7500 for the preferred mining claim

Dil Mine:
Regular - 1000 Dil
Regular with Claim = 6000 Dil
Bonus weekend 2X = 1500 Dil
Bonus weekend 2X + Claim = 9000 Dil

Now if you are in a fleet there is a Dil mining daily, Depending on your fleet holding level you can have up to 3 dailies from the Fleet mine. Level 2 mine = 1 daily, Level 3 mine = 3 dailies
Daily1 - Mine Impure Dil - 1000 Dil (assuming you score over 700 in the mini game for all 5 Dil spots)
Daily 2 - Mine Pure Dil - 1000 Dil (Assuming the 700 minigame)
Daily 3 - Mine Rich Dil - 480 Dil (only 1 node - 700 minigame)

Assuming a Bonus weekend that is
Daily 1 - 1500 Dil
Daily 2 - 1500 Dil
Daily 3 - 580 Dil

So that's 2480 without an event or 3580 with an event
Note: The Fleet mine also has 2 special events from a Duty officer assignment guy. First one is a mining mission that at level 1 awards 250 Dil (375 bonus) Level 2 awards 375 (565 bonus) and Level 3 awards 500 (750 bonus)
As well, there is a mission at level 2 mine that you can refine an additional 500 Dil per day (no DOFF's required, and doesn't use up one of your DOFF mission slots)


Next, you should be doing Doff Missions ALL THE TIME on all your characters. You are looking for a mission that comes up under personal (there are other nebulas in the game that give other missions as well) The mission is confiscate contraband from crew. This rewards anywhere from 1-3 contraband if it succeeds and whether or not it crits.

At ESD (or Qo'nos) there is a security guy that has DOFF missions. One of them is turn over contraband. that awards 2000 Dil

Next we look at regular Doff missions. There are at least 10 missions a day that award 50 Dil. Plus a mining one under the Engineering Duty Head that gives 250 Dil. There is also a colonial mission under Operations that gives 500 Dil (it is linked to the - resettle colonists mission, basically you do the resettle colonists mission first, which awards you with 5 colonists, then for 5 provisions and 1 medical provision you can send those 5 colonists out to colonize, which awards the Dil)

Sometimes you will get rare very rare missions that pop up that award 125 Dil.

So from DOFF missions you can get approx 1325 + the 2000 contraband one =3325 Dil/day on a perfect day.

Next we have Episode missions and Feature missions.
First time play in an episode can award up to 780 Dil
Normal replays = 192 dil plus whatever other rewards are given.
My preferred mission is under the Breen Campaign - Cold Comfort. - This also awards a nice transphasic mk xi torp - Once you get doing this mission often the answers come easy and you can complete the mission in about 5 minutes
Each episode has a 30 min cooldown (with all the episodes you could play, find ones you can do in a short time, or that give you rewards you want and do 6 missions back to back and then cycle to the first again and start over)

We also have patrol missions (aka Tau Dewa Patrol) which award 480 Dil each and 10 Romulan marks. There are 14 patrol missions with a 30 min cooldown each system, so 14X 480 = 6720 Dil and 140 Romulan marks

There is also the Tholian Red Alert = 480 Dil every time it pops up plus a mark package.

Then we have Foundry missions. Each qualifying Foundry mission gives you 1440 Dil. If it is a Spotlight mission it gives you an extra 1440 Dil. If you do the 30m cooldown mission in sector space (investigate officer reports) it awards you an additional 960 Dil.
Thats 1440 for reg
2880 for spotlight
and 3840 for doing the officer reports option on a spotlight (only foundry mission you should do the reports for is a spotlight)

Starfleet academy in by lt. ferra, there is the midterm mission - 480 Dil/day (use the online resources from Google to find the answers for the midterm)

Now as well as the tholian alert above over by new romulus (480 Dil)
There are also the Borg Alerts - 480 Dil

There are the Deferi Daily missions in the Orellius Block
Captives - 480 Dil (Diplomacymakes it easier)
Emancipation 480
Aiding the Deferi - 1440

Eta Eradni sectory block 3 dailies
Sattelite repair - traelus system - 480 Dil
Sh'mar distress signal - 480 Dil
Defense contract - 480 Dil

There are also FLEET ACTIONS at 5 places
Starbase 24 - 960 Dil +50 fleet marks
Slowing the Expiditionary force - 960 Dil +50 Fleet marks
Halting the Gorn Advance - 960 + 50mark
The big dig - 960 +50mark
Breaking the planet -960 +50mark

There are PVP dailies that award 1440 as well (not going into those)

Nimbus dailies
On the Desert Front - 480
Creatures of the Desert 380-680 (get more for killing more, so the better equipped the better)
Orion Contraband -480

Then there's the Dyson Sphere
Contested zone - 960 +50 mark
Allied Zone - 960 +50 mark
Secure Voth Points -960 +50 mark
Call in reinforcements at captured points - 480 +25 mark
Acquire battlezone command credits - 240 +10 mark

Also don't forget STF's Normal Advance and Elite queues giving 360, 720,1440 dil respectively

So the TL:DR version. Make use of ALL your DIL gathering missions - If you do (yes it will eat up your day) You can make a total of over 40000 dil. Yes it will take you probably 12 hours to do, but think of it this way, You can only refine 8000Dil/day + 1000more refining per day if you are a sub (mission on Academy 48hr turn around for 1000 dil - works out to 500/day + the 500 per day at the fleet mine)

So if we look at that, if one 12hr play session could potentially net you 40k dil or more, that is 5 days worth of conversion.

So you can do binge days of 20-40k dil and ten not have to farm dil the rest of the week.

Just my two cents, hope it helps.

Also to note: if your goal is getting ZEN, the current median price to buy zen is 238 dil to 1 zen. Looking at maxing out your Dil every day at 8000, this means 33 Zen per day.

Daily 33 Zen
Weekly 231 Zen
Monthly 990 Zen +500 zen if you are a sub or lifer
Yearly 12045 Zen + 6000 if sub/lifer

So a grand total of 18045 zen give or take a little a year.

[AbsynthMinded]

if only you could distribute unrefined Dilithium to your alternates.. When I was on that hamster wheel of doom, I would Play STFs, gaining 600-900 Dil per round, till I Caped each of my 6 primary characters for the Daily Refinement.. 48k a day on a 8-10 hr play round.

STFs are now no longer any real fun. They are designed with a difficulty curve which is unreasonable vs the now reduced general rewards for a sucessful completion.

[kalinrey]

Originally posted by N3MES1S:

Originally posted by kalinrey:

So honestly if you are all about the Dil grind, the Dil mine is an important step.

So a grand total of 18045 zen give or take a little a year.

I hope you are kidding lol.

Almost NOBODY does the regular dilithium mining because it is a waste of time, and it gets really boooooring when you do it several times, specially if you already played for a few months and you know all the things you can do to grind for dilithium. The regular dilithium mining needs a revamp and in the official forums it has been discussed so many times.. but that was time ago.

I can gather 20000 zen in about 2+ months. Of course i have 14 characters, and a lot of em are kdf. But having multiple characters in this game is something essential, so this is not weird. Everybody who starts playing this game will end with a lot of charactes, because it is the way it is.

Nope, I am not kidding. It takes all kinds to play the game. The importance of all the ways to get Dil is that most of them differ from the others. This keeps gathering dil and other events fresh and prevents burnout. Personally in the last 2 hours before I go to bed I am useless to anyone else in the game. I may as well mine Dil, because it is all I am mentally capable of doing at that point.

[AbsynthMinded]

Originally posted by N3MES1S:

Originally posted by AbsynthMinded:

STFs are now no longer any real fun. They are designed with a difficulty curve which is unreasonable vs the now reduced general rewards for a sucessful completion.

This has changed in the last patch but still doing elite queues is a waste of time lol. In my opinion, at least.

It's not balanced by any estimation I've seen so far.

[AbsynthMinded]

Originally posted by N3MES1S:

But 1000 dilithium is meaningless. If you need to go to the dilithium mining only to waste more than 10 minutes to get 1000 dilithium when you can do it just with 2 doff assignments.. lol, well, its because you trully enjoy the dilithium mining, what can i say lol.

There is something to be said for the mindlessness of the activity. Almost as fun as Dabo and you get a real resource.

[Tint]

I actually did the Dil mining the other day for the first time in probably 11 months. Watching netflix on one screen and playing on other so I did it since I didnt want to do anything too involved at the time lol.

Nukara is great for Dil. Both easy missions give I think 560 each and the mediums give 900. Doing those over and over a few times will rake up some nice dil. 3 out of the 4 missions are also team points, meaning 1 person could peform the needed tasks and all get credit for it.