Question about building galaxy items.

Ironagedave

So there's this little question I wanted to ask for a while but I think I kind of know the end answer (which is don't bother) but what is the purpose of the apply boost function and should one use it?

It looks like the shuttle boosts are also usable to boost the chance of a super rare on a galaxy build but after selecting one there is zero percent increase in the chance of getting one. Therefore the question(s) are; is it broken? is it the wrong boost? is it a .00000000...000000...00001% increase? Or is it just a way to reduce the copious amounts of 3* science/engineering and med boosts you will never get to use otherwise? Is it worth it or is just extra tapping for no purpose whatsoever?

Feel free to answer or add more questions below.

HaBlack

You have use the right boost - paired with skill
No boost



With 3* boost - gives 8% more chance to get rare item

DavideBooks

My first galaxy event I used quite a few. Then I realized I had none for faction missions and events. I also realized that I could go much faster skipping adding boosts. I now have such a stockpile that i could use them and never notice the difference, but I still believe they are pointless in the long run. If you have a weak enough crew that they make a difference, you probably don't have enough. If you have a strong crew, they probably won't be a noticable difference.

Synthetic Commander

If you have the patience, in the long run using skill boosts will mean you get roughly 8% more super rare items, which means a higher rank (or using less chrons for the same rank). It does add a fair bit more tapping, especially since you have to select the appropriate skill every time (ie ENG vs MED, etc) so you have to decide if that's worth it to you. That being said, I think the mechanic where failures mean more boost from event crew on the next build makes this 8% boost less valuable.

5000 Quatloos

Not that you asked but if you hoard boost packs for time-doublers for factions, there's a good chance you have a significant surplus of ENG/SCI/MED skill boosts. Since these seats are much less common in daily shuttles, I almost always throw a skill boost at these skill galaxy crits. Also a good way to get rid of 1* and 2* skill boosts which are pretty useless in daily shuttles - I always use up those first regardless of skill. After that, I decide on CMD/DIP/SEC 3* boosts based on how much surplus I have. Keeping a reserve of 100 or so seems to still give me the flexibility to use them on daily shuttles in between galaxy events without running out. I never use 4* or 5* for Galaxies, I save those for faction or daily shuttle triage when I need it.

Since daily shuttle drop rates for the things I want/need are generally pretty low (1 per 4-6 shuttles for the easiest items, rapidly downhill after that, with Sec 31 and Borg being a little easier to get good stuff to drop), overall I lean towards using skill boosts for Galaxies rather than daily shuttles. The value of accumulating crits for the final morning assault to me outweighs tiny incremental increase in shuttle item drop success, but YMMV based on your needs...

Ironagedave

thanks all good food for thought.

Data1001

DavideBooks wrote: »

I still believe they are pointless in the long run.

Completely agree. And I want to stress that this is my opinion, based solely upon the results that I recall seeing, which may or may not be totally accurate. But I decided early on that despite me having way more skill boosts than I will probably ever use, they didn't really do much to alter the percentage of rare rewards dropping. (However, if SC is correct about the 8% increase, then it makes sense I wouldn't have noticed much of a difference.)

Also, as others have stated, it slows things down quite a bit, and I like to speed through as many recipe builds as I can, within the time I've allotted myself to play STT for that particular day.

5000 Quatloos

We can do the math on their value (under an assumption that DB has implemented them honestly and correctly):

- The base value of a mission once fully bootstrapped is 1025 VP

- The average number of crits/mission (using my event crew and the odd smaller bonus crew or two) during Phase 1 was 2.15 crits/mission. (In previous Galaxies it was closer to 1.95-2.0, but close enough). That's before boosts and any crafting to get around the chance increase mechanic.

- Assuming crit turn-ins at 4850 VP per 15 rares, that puts the average VP value of a mission this Phase 1 at 1719 VP/mission. So the additional value of crits in a given mission is about (1719-1025) or 694 VP / mission. A 3* skill boost might increase that from anywhere from 5-15%, so lets say 10% and estimate the VP value of a 3* skill boost at 0.1*684 = ~70 VP.

- Assuming a ranked legendary reward target of around 550K for a pure Galaxy, that's about 550,000 / 1719 or 320 toothpicks to insert into my eyeballs missions to run. 70 VP * 320 missions is ~ 22,400 VP, or about 4% of the ranked target. (Or perhaps less pessimistically stated, using them would save you about 13 missions)

- The hassle of taking time to add boosts to save 13 missions (out of 320) is definitely debatable. The chron value possible matters a little more, unless you're at a game stage where you're drowning in chrons. My top 5 missions this Phase 1 (with the easier stuff pre-farmed) give about 75 VP/chron. So 22,400/75 ~= 300 chrons value out of boosts over the whole event. With less pre-farmed, missions could easily be more in the 30-40 VP/chron range, so an upper bound might be ~750 chrons.

So I would estimate that using 3* skill boosts (and assuming you're playing for the ranked legendary) provides you:

1. A savings of having to run about 13 fewer missions out of 320 (~4%)
2. A savings of 300-750 chrons, depending on what items you have prefarmed

Either of those things may or may not be of value to a specific player!

Then there are those of us who stubbornly refuse to allow DB to squeeze a drop more of anything out of us without also optimizing our just rewards

Synthetic Commander

5000 Quatloos wrote: »

We can do the math on their value (under an assumption that DB has implemented them honestly and correctly):

- The base value of a mission once fully bootstrapped is 1025 VP

- The average number of crits/mission (using my event crew and the odd smaller bonus crew or two) during Phase 1 was 2.15 crits/mission. (In previous Galaxies it was closer to 1.95-2.0, but close enough). That's before boosts and any crafting to get around the chance increase mechanic.

- Assuming crit turn-ins at 4850 VP per 15 rares, that puts the average VP value of a mission this Phase 1 at 1719 VP/mission. So the additional value of crits in a given mission is about (1719-1025) or 694 VP / mission. A 3* skill boost might increase that from anywhere from 5-15%, so lets say 10% and estimate the VP value of a 3* skill boost at 0.1*684 = ~70 VP.

- Assuming a ranked legendary reward target of around 550K for a pure Galaxy, that's about 550,000 / 1719 or 320 toothpicks to insert into my eyeballs missions to run. 70 VP * 320 missions is ~ 22,400 VP, or about 4% of the ranked target. (Or perhaps less pessimistically stated, using them would save you about 13 missions)

- The hassle of taking time to add boosts to save 13 missions (out of 320) is definitely debatable. The chron value possible matters a little more, unless you're at a game stage where you're drowning in chrons. My top 5 missions this Phase 1 (with the easier stuff pre-farmed) give about 75 VP/chron. So 22,400/75 ~= 300 chrons value out of boosts over the whole event. With less pre-farmed, missions could easily be more in the 30-40 VP/chron range, so an upper bound might be ~750 chrons.

So I would estimate that using 3* skill boosts (and assuming you're playing for the ranked legendary) provides you:

1. A savings of having to run about 13 fewer missions out of 320 (~4%)
2. A savings of 300-750 chrons, depending on what items you have prefarmed

Either of those things may or may not be of value to a specific player!

Then there are those of us who stubbornly refuse to allow DB to squeeze a drop more of anything out of us without also optimizing our just rewards

Wish i could upvote this more than once. What a great analysis. I thought the standard boosts were always 8% when you checked how much increase you got, I guess I was not paying that much attention.

Dirk Gunderson

5000 Quatloos wrote: »

We can do the math on their value (under an assumption that DB has implemented them honestly and correctly):

- The base value of a mission once fully bootstrapped is 1025 VP

- The average number of crits/mission (using my event crew and the odd smaller bonus crew or two) during Phase 1 was 2.15 crits/mission. (In previous Galaxies it was closer to 1.95-2.0, but close enough). That's before boosts and any crafting to get around the chance increase mechanic.

- Assuming crit turn-ins at 4850 VP per 15 rares, that puts the average VP value of a mission this Phase 1 at 1719 VP/mission. So the additional value of crits in a given mission is about (1719-1025) or 694 VP / mission. A 3* skill boost might increase that from anywhere from 5-15%, so lets say 10% and estimate the VP value of a 3* skill boost at 0.1*684 = ~70 VP.

- Assuming a ranked legendary reward target of around 550K for a pure Galaxy, that's about 550,000 / 1719 or 320 toothpicks to insert into my eyeballs missions to run. 70 VP * 320 missions is ~ 22,400 VP, or about 4% of the ranked target. (Or perhaps less pessimistically stated, using them would save you about 13 missions)

- The hassle of taking time to add boosts to save 13 missions (out of 320) is definitely debatable. The chron value possible matters a little more, unless you're at a game stage where you're drowning in chrons. My top 5 missions this Phase 1 (with the easier stuff pre-farmed) give about 75 VP/chron. So 22,400/75 ~= 300 chrons value out of boosts over the whole event. With less pre-farmed, missions could easily be more in the 30-40 VP/chron range, so an upper bound might be ~750 chrons.

So I would estimate that using 3* skill boosts (and assuming you're playing for the ranked legendary) provides you:

1. A savings of having to run about 13 fewer missions out of 320 (~4%)
2. A savings of 300-750 chrons, depending on what items you have prefarmed

Either of those things may or may not be of value to a specific player!

Then there are those of us who stubbornly refuse to allow DB to squeeze a drop more of anything out of us without also optimizing our just rewards

And don’t forget that the process of using boosts adds RL time spent running the missions. If it takes, say, ten to twelve seconds to complete a mission normally (assuming you have all the components and don’t have to scroll to find the crew yielding the highest bonus) and it adds, say, two or three seconds to open the boost screen, sort by the required skill, and select the boost, we’re talking about 15-30% more time involved in running the missions. On a VP per unit time basis, that puts you behind...not good for those with limited time to spend on events.

Even if you account for time spent on farming components during the event and tapping to make the pop-up animations go away, the VP bonus ends up being so small that I don’t see how you could really end up coming out ahead unless time spent tapping over the weekend isn’t a concern.