So, a character is at level 40 or 50 ...
![[VIP0]USS Dart](https://us.v-cdn.net/6030345/uploads/userpics/221/n4CWY5SMJG7T5.png)
[VIP0]USS Dart
✭✭✭
in Ready Room
And all progress seems halted either due to lack of equipment or needing thousands of XP. What’s the recommended way of working through?
For bonus points, how do you do so when you’re at a point in the episodes where your characters don’t have a high enough score to finish?
For bonus points, how do you do so when you’re at a point in the episodes where your characters don’t have a high enough score to finish?
0
Comments
It makes it even worse that my shuttle missions are so "advanced" now that I only get 2* items and up as rewards. Rarely any 0* stuff. So what do I do? I end up replicating it. Most of the time, it's cheaper than buying it from the faction store.
Voyages have effectively gotten rid of my chroniton bottlenecks, so yea, it's only the stuff that I LITERALLY CANNOT GET that bothers me. You'll get there, too.
EDIT: To your second question, I would say just stop trying and come back to it later, when you've gotten that extra star or leveled up. There will be a point where you'll be able to do it easily. This game isn't a race, it's a marathon! They have to keep you coming back every day to try.
If it's faction only items then patiently repeat shuttles, or look for cadet challenge alternatives, leaving other crew locked on the starting level tier. IE the 3 equipment items below uniform are still locked. Whilst having the card you are levelling open/unlocked may help a dabo or gauntlet drop.
Regarding XP spending honor for extra trainers is really the only solution until you gain more shuttles / faction reputation, develop longer voyages - oh yeah through better crew - so you see it's very much chicken and the egg scenario - and honor purchasing really is the only thing that will help you break the circle. However use frugally on your best crew only - and then you will be able to get more bread and butter through utilising them.
Also Episodes I still don't have all characters with the right traits etc - it will come in time - patience is the virtue much needed in the game.
The biggest way to get past the trainer crunch is getting the third and fourth shuttle. These will also help in farming faction items, so you are mitigating two bottle-necks at the same time.
A good cadet squad will get your 150 chrons on MWFs if you haven't built that up already.
Improving your crew, overall, will get your more chrons (in the form of longer voyages), but this is much more of a long-term goal that isn't easily solvable quickly.
The latter two because you can't get them anywhere else.
1* Security Codes can be obtained via a cadet mission, but I only have 3 greens active and none of them will pass the mission.
The others can't be obtained through cadet missions so they HAVE to drop in shuttles. As GhostStalker said above, 0* items rarely drop when you reach a certain level.
That's why having Ru'Afo and Diseased Founder drop in the same day was not fun for me. All those dominion padds!!
I strongly endorse failing your shuttles until you've reset the difficulty, even with the recent reward revamp. It takes me ~2 months on average to fail back to 30 second missions, one mission per run.
9 months after starting with Section 31 missions, I had over 300 basic holoprograms sitting around before the last event. I've now also reset KCA, Terran Empire, Augments, Maquis, Cardassian, and Federation. The Klingons are almost back to under 3 hours, and I've got good progress on the Bajorans, Romulans, and Ferengi Alliance.
Not only does this put basic item stockpiles within easier reach, it's great for when there's a winning faction bonus. My Federation shuttles were at 30 seconds after the event ended, so seeing that those autocomplete due to the timer being shortened, I opened ~12 missions to autocomplete. Spent the rest of the bonus days sending nothing but 99% Federation shuttles and didn't fail a single one.
The one downside is that you do get less common equipment, but I personally find it easier to replicate around those recipes rather than the ones requiring basic or common equipment.
As to the OP's question, the answer is: patience. Lots and lots of patience.
Also, most uncommons that are regularly used in recipes can be farmed in cadet missions. The only exception that comes to mind are Science Experiments. If I replicate 10 uncommon Science Experiments, that'll probably get me through a character. If I replicate 10 basic faction items, that'll probably net me 2-3 pieces of equipment.
Sure, there's a cost savings. Sure, replicating basic items is showing even more patience. But you're always going to need more basic and common items - that is the bottleneck. Uncommons are nowhere near the same import in my experience and I maintain that they're easier to replicate around.
I regularly have 300-400 super rare replicator rations, with an 500-600+ rare and uncommon rations, not to mention useless ship schematics, so replicating around uncommon faction items is no sweat. Credits? I farm those from arena battles and usually have around 10 million.
I similarly keep around 10,000 merits which used to go exclusively to faction shop items, but I've slowly come around to converting those to honor as being more useful. Heck, I even got my first legendary from a merit pull yesterday.
I certainly understand why players are resistant to failing shuttles to reset, I had many of the same reservations. Experience from the other side, for me, confirms that it's absolutely the best way to go in terms of alleviating frustration.
Consider: faction item drops are still going to be random, you're still going to fail shuttles, and you're still never going to get the amount of faction items you need to avoid a bottleneck.
Well, shuttle failure reset mostly eliminates the bottleneck in a way that purchasing items does not, I choose when shuttles fail (though unexpected success is the new frustration), and it makes winning faction bonus really sweet.
My only regret is that I de-prioritized resetting the Dominion. Sitting on top of 200 Dominion Padds would be really helpful right about now.
YMMV
Also, absolutely check the STT wiki for details on hard-to-get items, as the efficiency tables for specific missions will make your chronitons go a lot farther, long-term.
I do this and it saves on a lot of replicator rations or any other item you use for replications. Great tactic.
You had to fail shuttles every day for 2 months just to reset one faction? It must be a nightmare trying to level crew while doing that. Clearly you'd benefit from at least doing this for starfleet, section 31 and augments at least, so we're talking about tanking ALL your daily shuttles (except faction events) for 6 months?? This sounds like a strategy to pursue when you've got a very established crew, but not when you've got a pile of 2/4 and 3/4 super-rares and have a lineup of legendary to finish like me. That would massively stagnate my game progress. I don't even know if it would be possible to level more than one event crew after the next week's event is announced, and perhaps even less than one if event crew belong to the faction you're tanking.
I won’t bore you with details here, but I do have a pretty comprehensive guide (from choosing an Avatar to Skirmishes) at dougberry.hubpages.com If you google the game, my article is generally the first thing that pops up after the Disruptor Beam sites, it is on LevelSkip, but my Hubpages site is, well, my hub of most of what I have online...