Who Gets a Citation and Who Gets Defenestration?
in Ready Room
Not exactly defenestration I suppose, because airlocks are more like doors than windows. 
I have amassed over sixty Super Rare Crew at level 1 with 1-3 stars each. I'm looking for advice on who to keep. My 185 slots are full, including the minimum crew for Cadet Challenges. Any of these four-stars with the proper Trait (except Vulcan) would count towards my Vault Collections. And I could use a deeper bench on Security for Away Team Missions, Shuttle Missions, and the Arena.
Additionally: I have 120 Premium Awards banked up, so there’s a lot to open if I want to check for matches before I airlock. I’m also open to immortalizing and freezing someone who’s easy to advance.
The List - All Crew at Level 1:
¼ Augment Riker
¼ Automated Unit 3947
¼ Blood Oath Jadzia Dax
¼ Captain Janeway
¼ Captain Q
¼ Captain Sulu
¼ Commander Barak
¼ Commander Uhura
¼ Commando Shran
¼ Disguised Tuvok
¼ Dr Crusher
¼ Friar Tuck Data
¼ Fierce Guinan
¼ Forra Gegen
¼ General Martok
¼ Human Q
¼ Kazon Seska
¼ Klingon Torres
¼ Lieutenant Tarah
¼ Laas
¼ Lucien
¼ Lt Commander Airiam
¼ Malik
¼ Mutated Paris
¼ Pel
¼ Princess Jadzia
¼ Prospect Michael Burnham
¼ Rianna Mayweather
¼ Rogue Harry Kim
¼ Romulan Kirk
¼ Silk
¼ Sheriff Worf
¼ Tactical Michael Burnham
¼ Warship Yar
2/4 Rakal Troi
2/4 Alan-A-Dale
2/4 Holonovel Doctor
2/4 Breen Disguise Dukat
2/4 Yelgrun
2/4 Combat Medic Paris
2/4 Captain John Harriman
2/4 Michael Sullivan
2/4 Prospero Data
2/4 First Goran’Agar
2/4 Warship Janeway
2/4 Demora Sulu
2/4 Defiant Commander Worf
2/4 Wedding Day Quark
2/4 Warship Chakotay
¾ Lieutenant Chekov
¾ Lady Beverly
¾ Admiral Ross
¾ Arik Soong
¾ Antaak
¾ Assimilated Troi
¾ B-4
¾ Commander Ellen Landry
¾ Festive Lwaxana Troi
¾ Incognito Kirk
¾ K’mtar
¾ Lewis Zimmerman
¾ Mintakan Troi
¾ Mirror Keiko
¾ Tieran Possessed Kes
Do you see any favorites? Least favorites? Any advice is appreciated!
I have amassed over sixty Super Rare Crew at level 1 with 1-3 stars each. I'm looking for advice on who to keep. My 185 slots are full, including the minimum crew for Cadet Challenges. Any of these four-stars with the proper Trait (except Vulcan) would count towards my Vault Collections. And I could use a deeper bench on Security for Away Team Missions, Shuttle Missions, and the Arena.
Additionally: I have 120 Premium Awards banked up, so there’s a lot to open if I want to check for matches before I airlock. I’m also open to immortalizing and freezing someone who’s easy to advance.
The List - All Crew at Level 1:
¼ Augment Riker
¼ Automated Unit 3947
¼ Blood Oath Jadzia Dax
¼ Captain Janeway
¼ Captain Q
¼ Captain Sulu
¼ Commander Barak
¼ Commander Uhura
¼ Commando Shran
¼ Disguised Tuvok
¼ Dr Crusher
¼ Friar Tuck Data
¼ Fierce Guinan
¼ Forra Gegen
¼ General Martok
¼ Human Q
¼ Kazon Seska
¼ Klingon Torres
¼ Lieutenant Tarah
¼ Laas
¼ Lucien
¼ Lt Commander Airiam
¼ Malik
¼ Mutated Paris
¼ Pel
¼ Princess Jadzia
¼ Prospect Michael Burnham
¼ Rianna Mayweather
¼ Rogue Harry Kim
¼ Romulan Kirk
¼ Silk
¼ Sheriff Worf
¼ Tactical Michael Burnham
¼ Warship Yar
2/4 Rakal Troi
2/4 Alan-A-Dale
2/4 Holonovel Doctor
2/4 Breen Disguise Dukat
2/4 Yelgrun
2/4 Combat Medic Paris
2/4 Captain John Harriman
2/4 Michael Sullivan
2/4 Prospero Data
2/4 First Goran’Agar
2/4 Warship Janeway
2/4 Demora Sulu
2/4 Defiant Commander Worf
2/4 Wedding Day Quark
2/4 Warship Chakotay
¾ Lieutenant Chekov
¾ Lady Beverly
¾ Admiral Ross
¾ Arik Soong
¾ Antaak
¾ Assimilated Troi
¾ B-4
¾ Commander Ellen Landry
¾ Festive Lwaxana Troi
¾ Incognito Kirk
¾ K’mtar
¾ Lewis Zimmerman
¾ Mintakan Troi
¾ Mirror Keiko
¾ Tieran Possessed Kes
Do you see any favorites? Least favorites? Any advice is appreciated!
"Risk! Risk is our business. Risk is what this starship is all about."
-Captain Kirk, ST:TOS, "Return to Tomorrow"
-Captain Kirk, ST:TOS, "Return to Tomorrow"
1
Comments
I would make cuts starting with the ones you only have 1/4. These can easily go, as they are all common skills with weak stats:
¼ Captain Q
¼ Commander Barak
¼ Commander Uhura
¼ Lieutenant Tarah
¼ Silik
If that is not enough, there are several more that can follow them out the airlock, with rarer skills but would still not be missed:
¼ Automated Unit 3947
¼ Forra Gegen
¼ Kazon Seska
¼ Laas
¼ Rogue Harry Kim
As for the best, looking at your 3/4 crew, Lewis Zimmerman, Assimilated and Mintakan Troi, and Tieran-Possessed Kes will all be very worthy additions and are worth leveling up, followed by B-4 and K'mtar.
First of all always evaluate 1/4's first as they are furthest from fusion and therefore lowest stats and farthest from being immortalised / frozen. Above are my thoughts in bold.
Conversely your 3/4s are pretty solid and will help you well in voyages, keep all.
Your 2/4s are probably mostly worth keeping with exception to Harriman we have had his event rerun not so long ago therefore is of limited worth, also Michael Sullivan he's not in the portal currently you have and you have far better med options in Combat medic Paris and Lady Beverly for Dip/Med
2. Only airlock 1/4s ... some good suggestions have been given above.
3. Friday we'll know what the next event is ... it will probably be a re-run ... Laas is a distant possibility to be part of that re-run ... I'd hold off on any major airlocking until Friday's event announcement.
4. Just know/be aware ... once you start airlocking 4*s you're on a slippery slope ... every event has one old 4* crew and your voyages will continue to bring in 4*s on a regular basis, so there is plenty of opportunity to add stars to what now might seem useless crew ... a long time ago I took the decision to freeze any 4* crew I immortalised to be able to keep non-FF 4*s on board.
I have 170 slots, of which 20-25 are now "free" and used as flex-spots for event crew ... I have 71 non-FF 4*s on board and immortalise a couple each week through voyages/community pulls etc. (e.g. a 4th copy of Klingon Neelix is on my current voyage, he'll be frozen once he gets back ... I've had him FE since 1/4 and slowly added stars through voyages).
I've got it down to that I'm just missing 4 4*s that are available in the portal at the moment ... so 4*s are basically direct Honor or adding stars to get them immortalised and add to my 333 immortals (i.e. bring in Dil through achievements and collections).
Anyway ... point being; I make top 1500 in events, all voyages are 8+ hrs, can make top 10 in Gauntlet, am in top categories for Arena etc. etc. etc. just with a bunch of immortalised mega-event 5*s, non-FF 5*s (have only managed to immortalise one non-mega event 5*) and non-FF 4*s.
Could I do better? Sure ... but an immortal 4* is not really going to help me out there, so into the freezer they go (and out for relevant events they come).
My 2 cents ... just a different perspective on things.
ps - level your Defiant Commander Worf ... you'll get one star through Community Rewards this weekend and you can probably pick up a second star through rank rewards ... then freeze ... another free slot.
Are there any good uses for citations? How do you prefer to spend honor?
I really appreciate the head's up on Defiant Commander Worf. I'm also happy that I've been leveling Kol of House Kor!
-Captain Kirk, ST:TOS, "Return to Tomorrow"
Most definitely! Legendary citations are all I spend my Honor on (except for the Honor Hall exclusive characters and the one-off 50% off sale for Legendary beholds) and are the best use of your Honor. What I was referring to is Super Rare citations. To me they are a poor use of Honor because the crew you would use them on will be easier to obtain in portals and Voyages, and you burn up 36% of your way to a Legendary citation to do it.
You only need one warpable Elite mission for Thursdays, one elite or epic for mon/wed/fri, and any one for Tue.
You have 185 slots, 60 slots are full of level one super rares. This suggests to me you have a lot of immortalised super-rares. Go through these and see which ones are rarely used, or non-main crew and freeze a few for slots.
If you have 4/4 close to be immortalised, then finish these and freeze some.
Keep all of the 3/4. B-4 could be useful for unlocking a node in episode nine. All the Physicians will be useful for the collection.
Lewis Zimmerman skills are good for voyages, not the strongest but good when two of med/tech/sci come up, he has already had a seat in one of my voyages. I am surprised you did not get him to 4/4 in the recent galaxy event.
Landry is Discovery crew. If there is another Discovery mega she might be useful. She is also a reasonable security crew.
I would say forget about pushing for security crew for shuttles. Out of events the strength of shuttle crew does not matter, as you improve shuttle crew, the shuttle missions get harder to compensate.
During events, event crew matter most.
Finish Kol, he is the best security crew I have.
This. I have only ever bought one 4* citation with honor, and that was because I was impatient to finish Tommy Gun Dixon (one of my all-time favorite Picard moments). I did open up the wallet for a couple of the $25 4* citation deals and used most of those on voyage-exclusive crew before DB made it possible to get extra stars from repeating the dilemmas.
Even the noble goal of clearing crew slots isn’t a great use for 4* citations given their relative expense. Better to freeze a lesser-used 3* or 4* crew member, or be a little more aggressive with airlocking useless 1/4* crew, than to slow the rate at which you can improve your legendary crew.
One of the things I used to do ... now not needed because I've only got 3 crew left to level at present ... when an event was announced I would level every single associated crew from the announcement onwards ... that would give me Friday to Thursday ...
Example
Tomorrow's event has:
- Discovery crew;
- Worf variants;
- Siranna variants (none at present);
- Pike variants.
as associated crew.
I would start with all direct crew (e.g. Defiant Commander Worf), no matter what fuse level, and then move on to best skill crew ... this could be a 1/4 or a 3/4, depending on what I needed.
... A 1/4 Sheriff Worf has around 1200 CMD base for shuttles ... how does that rank with your other potential (event) crew? ... at 4/4 he's my #3 CMD crew (behind T'Kuvma and Kol).
For some events I'd have a ton of crew to level and wouldn't be able to do so for all associated crew ... but that did mean that the next time a (e.g.) Worf event came around I might only have 1 or 2 to go instead of 4.
Slowly, over time you really reduce the pile of crew to work on ... and if you only need to level one crew for the next event then shift to 3/4 crew once completed, as these have move direct benefit from an voyage drop (i.e. can immediately be frozen).
So ... In my case that would mean (using your list above) I would already start working on Disguised Tuvok for the event after this weekend ... as a 1/4 he has 173/264/473 base for CMD/SEC/SCI without collection/starbase bonuses ... that can easily mean 1000+ SCI base for shuttles (should it be a Faction event) at 1/4 ... not counting other Tuvoks or possible event crew, I only have 2 crew with SCI over 1000 base at the moment (5/5 Surak and 3/5 Honey Bare).
Thanks to Rararacing’s advice on this previously all I can say is that it is a strategy that has served me well, probably better part of a year now. I’m now at a stage usually on who do I level questions when I don’t have event bonus crew to work on.
At this moment in time I’m cautiously levelling my Janeway’s (ie running only daily mission quota/adwarps as I need to replenish chronitons). This is a wee gamble that next event is a rerun featuring her, but the cards are also a 3/4 warship Janeway and a 1/5 Katrine so potentially good cards to level should I get the final star on warship Janeway as for Katrine well she can make a gauntlet but will also be ready for the next Janeway event either way it’s a win.
It’s a good approach and gives you that little focus needed when you are scrolling through a messy sea that is your crew roster, and that’s where lists and spreadsheets come to the rescue.
My first thought is the 120 Premium Awards not claimed - how can you decide who to spend citations on if there might be a 2nd - 3rd - 4th star lurking in there for any of these crew?
Sure some of them are useless but if you can immortalise them they are out of your way and are gaining you Achievement Points.
Having said that, unless you can immortalise some of the first few, you will quickly run out of crew slots.
Do you mean that because all my cadet challenges are warpable, I can freeze all of the cadet crew? I don't need to keep any of them active?
Apologies, but I'm not sure what that means.
I was really glad to get him. Before that my only other 750+ security was Mirror Picard. He's been indispensable, but I'm happy to have another powerhouse.
-Captain Kirk, ST:TOS, "Return to Tomorrow"
Yes, it means exactly that and so will nicely free up some of your slots...
-Captain Kirk, ST:TOS, "Return to Tomorrow"
Why didn't you take advantage of the crew slot sales when they were offered? That way you would have more than enough room to keep all your crew. I have 485 crew slots and still not enough space.
I can't get Siranna for the current event. She's waiting to be joined.
Correct - once you have gotten all three stars on a cadet mission it works like any regular away mission and can be warped without needing crew. Most of us keep only enough 3* crew to staff our Commander division arena ship...some don’t even go that far.
The big reward on Thursdays is the shuttle boost pack available on any Elite mission. I always do the second one because the things that aren’t the boost pack are less terrible than the other five missions.
For Monday/Wednesday/Friday, the third mission on Elite drops 0* holoprograms. I don’t bother with any other Normal or Elite missions. I’m not sure I agree with my colleague about only needing to unlock one Epic mission, however: each of the five missions has at least one item that is useful. The first mission supplies 2* security codes, the second has 2* IDICs and 0* casino chips, the third has 0* science experiments, the fourth has 2* novels, and the fifth has 0* encoded communiques and 0* translation algorithms.
For Tuesday and Sunday, most of the items are worthless. I run the third mission on Normal to get 0* gagh or on Epic for 2* Encoded Communiques. Sunday drops replicator rations instead of trainers, so you may wish to run the third mission on Epic exclusively if you find yourself low on those.
On Saturday, I exclusively run the third mission on Epic to get 1* identification codes. You could run the final mission instead if you want extra credits and need to bulk up on 0* translation algorithms.
I'm trying to wrap my mind around having 485 crew spots and not enough space. I'm no where near that and have space to spare.
I saved dilithium from achievement awards and crew freezing and monthly card for a long time. When the crew slot sale came, I got 60 crew slots. I still have empty space and have not yet frozen my cadets. In addition, I have been thawing previously frozen crew for events and not freezing them again. I know that eventuality I will start freezing them again, but... I just don't understand why you can't get Siranna.
I'm sure the OP has his reasons, but let's just assume that he didn't have the necessary dilithium to spend on crew slots. Everyone plays the game differently. I have 245 slots and usually maintain around 10 openings (other than during a mega-event).
As for your issue with Siranna... that is a self-made crisis. Just send someone non-essential to the vault. I know some players - you included apparently - believe that we should be able to have every single card active at all times. I may even agree with that, but that's not the game interface that DB built. So, when in Rome (or STT)...
I can't get Siranna because all my slots are full. She's number 486.
Maybe I should freeze all my unwanted crew. I have a few Super Rare and Rare crew that I should freeze, which I do anyway. I always keep my Legendaries lying around.
Assuming you have all cadet missions 3-starred, the only crew below Super Rare that you would need are for staffing your Commander division ship in the arena. You could save two more slots by going without crew.
Beyond that, look at your immortal super rare crew and freeze those who don’t get used at least, say, once a week on a voyage, on shuttles while others are on a voyage, or in the gauntlet. If you have fully fused but not fully leveled crew, level them and then see if they would get use or not.
After that, if you’re still having problems with slots there is always the opportunity to start airlocking 1/4*s that are poor or likely to drop again.
why are you bolding every other word in your messages? I'm sure you don't intend it that way, but it kind of seems like you're emphasizing words as if the reader needs help to understand them.
If you have that many slots full, surely some of them are 1/4. There are plenty of those who are terrible non-main crew cards, airlock a few if you really don't want to freeze all your cadet crew for some reason.
hehe ... I often bold a crew who I consider important in a large wall of text that I'm sure most people can't be bothered to read.
Spirk here on the other hand ... usually I can't understand head or tail of their posts even with the bold words ... so I never reply to them.
I bold my words to emphasis a point, like names and the game play structure, like Events, Voyages, Missions, etc. After all, the bold option is here for a reason.
Otherwise, I wouldn't get my point across. Is there anything wrong with that?
What else do you use the bold option for?
I also use bold for relevance reasons as well.
RaraRacing; I can't understand what others say often as well. People should really use the Edit button if they make a spelling or grammar error, which I do, in case people don't understand me.
Since I started crew use-logging (early November), it appears I have used a total of 224 crew at least once (including some extracted from freezer) in either shuttles, voyages, gauntlet or events. (100 5*, 124 4*).
If I exclude events-only use, it drops to 180 crew. The other 44 were 4* crew kept around or thawed out for event use. So, not inconsistent with your 245 being a comfortable number of slots (at this point in time), assuming one is not going for duplicates.
Those number seem...high. I don’t have the same rigorous analysis but I came up with this for the last week or so for me (not counting the events or crew used for more than one activity):
Gauntlet - 12 (seems low but Musketeer La Forge, The Caretaker, and Revolutionary Damar got a lot of repeat business thanks to trait bonuses)
Voyages - 28 (a fair amount of repeats here as well)
Shuttles - 12 (most of the 4* crew I still use are here)
Arena - 7
Although I froze my event crew, napkin math says I used another 15 unique crew for the events this week and last week (maybe another one or two have slipped my mind already but that should be a good approximation). Even adding in the crew I use in the arena, I’m only up to 74 unique crew used in the last two weeks. There are maybe another 19 that see limited situational use (mostly for certain gauntlet traits or as shuttle backups for when others are in use on certain voyage skill combos)...even if I add a few extra to that total for fudge/forgetfulness factor, and more yet to account for events over the same time period, and I am still well below your number. How do you do it?
I think it's IAP and its fallout (my own replacement algorithms to recommend crew), with emphasis on the voyage recommends - both IAP and my algorithms turned/turn up some unexpected "best seat" fits digging into the SRs, especially with trait bumps considered. The associated crew are pretty far down the in-app sorted crew recommends (same for gauntlet, to a much lesser extent). I also don't have a huge number of golds immortalized yet ... I think one good immortal gold takes well more than one SR out of contention for the same seat.
We also had the Pilot mega (with a Sisko event in there) in that timeframe, which took large swaths of prime crew out of service during the factions, so lots of second/third string shuttle crew got at least 3 hours in the sun in December. The Discovery mega doesn't have me digging as deep.
That said, looking at the associated optimization metrics for voyages when selection time comes, it's a matter of hyper optimizing down to the last bits of percents. I'm pretty sure I could get by with much fewer crew without much of a noticeable performance hit; I hyperoptimize more to say to myself "ooh, I got to use that crew" and reverse-rationalize my ridiculous time investment in this game
you will get them when they are in the pool and you do 8 hour voyages.
To do those 8 hour voyages you need probably some immortalized legendaries, there are a few that I cited from 1/5 or got out of the honor hall and cited them but most were mega event legendaries that just needed one cite. Which made most of those the best honor investment so far.
There are very few purples that make an impact on a roster which has only 9 immortal golds, and all others are quite obsolete now.
So if you want to spent honor spend it on golds. If unsure which one to cite just ask