I think it's going to be a long, long time before I make a proper attempt at another faction event.
It's rough, but there's one take-away here. When there's a desirable card on the line, you have to have a good stockpile of resources. Boosts and rentals for faction, chronitons for galaxy, and time for a skirmish.
I’ve only gotten below 1K three times (been playing for a year and a half). Trying really hard to not think about how many 3* time boasts and shuttle rentals I used to get here, but I got what I wanted: Wrathful Kirk and the under 250 achievement!
I recognized that kickstarting does not pay off so much if you constantly fail your shuttles afterwards. This was the first Faction event where I constantly could maintain 4000 VP shuttles. It really is a question of the proper crew, as mentioned before. Without it I felt that kickstarting just a bit or not at all works better and in any case is more fun.
I choose the boost before the crew to give a better list of best crew taking the bonus already into account, also I consider the AND situation (1st stat giving 100%, second only 25% of the skill).
I mostly use skill boni and constantly 2 shuttle tokens per round, sometimes only one. I do not use extenders as I go to bed late and get up early anyway. Doublers I only use if the natural chance is above 85%.
If I cannot get a regular shuttle to at least 66% with a rare bonus I use a better one, and if I cannot get a token shuttle to 66% with a super-rare bonus I rather save the token.
I do not throw away shuttles, even if they need 5 crew, I am too stingy with merits but probably this is unreasonable. Still it feels better for me.
Yesterday I cleared the threshold and stopped using tokens. I ended up at 1949 which was better than desired as I only wanted 3 Anastasias, but 200 extra honor were fine as well, even though I'd rather have saved some tokens. But for me this is too hard to exactly balance out in advance.
Wir, die Mirror Tribbles [MiT] haben freie Plätze zu vergeben. Kein Zwang und kein Stress, dafür aber Spaß, Discord und eine nette, hilfsbereite Gemeinschaft, incl. voll ausgebauter Starbase und täglich 700 ISM.
I think it's going to be a long, long time before I make a proper attempt at another faction event.
It's rough, but there's one take-away here. When there's a desirable card on the line, you have to have a good stockpile of resources. Boosts and rentals for faction, chronitons for galaxy, and time for a skirmish.
Indeed, and it was much the same a few weeks ago with the Neelix event that I finished around the same place.
So now I'm out of boosts and rentals with nothing to show for it again. This time I shall learn my lesson and not try again until a have alot more top their crew.
I think it's going to be a long, long time before I make a proper attempt at another faction event.
It's rough, but there's one take-away here. When there's a desirable card on the line, you have to have a good stockpile of resources. Boosts and rentals for faction, chronitons for galaxy, and time for a skirmish.
Indeed, and it was much the same a few weeks ago with the Neelix event that I finished around the same place.
So now I'm out of boosts and rentals with nothing to show for it again. This time I shall learn my lesson and not try again until a have alot more top their crew.
It's not just about the crew. They help for sure, but sitting out an event here and there to stockpile resources (or buying them, if that's how you play) is necessary. Otherwise, you're on an even playing field with many, but at a disadvantage to the few who save. On the heels of a disappointing La Rouque and a disappointing Reno... There were too many stockpiled resources to overcome.
And time for a plug... Joining an awesome fleet (or family of fleets like 10FH ) can help you decided when you have a proper supply of resources for a run.
I recognized that kickstarting does not pay off so much if you constantly fail your shuttles afterwards. This was the first Faction event where I constantly could maintain 4000 VP shuttles. It really is a question of the proper crew, as mentioned before. Without it I felt that kickstarting just a bit or not at all works better and in any case is more fun.
I choose the boost before the crew to give a better list of best crew taking the bonus already into account, also I consider the AND situation (1st stat giving 100%, second only 25% of the skill).
I mostly use skill boni and constantly 2 shuttle tokens per round, sometimes only one. I do not use extenders as I go to bed late and get up early anyway. Doublers I only use if the natural chance is above 85%.
If I cannot get a regular shuttle to at least 66% with a rare bonus I use a better one, and if I cannot get a token shuttle to 66% with a super-rare bonus I rather save the token.
I do not throw away shuttles, even if they need 5 crew, I am too stingy with merits but probably this is unreasonable. Still it feels better for me.
Yesterday I cleared the threshold and stopped using tokens. I ended up at 1949 which was better than desired as I only wanted 3 Anastasias, but 200 extra honor were fine as well, even though I'd rather have saved some tokens. But for me this is too hard to exactly balance out in advance.
I understand the desire to save merits, but if you think about resources to rank return, using a couple extra merits to improve your success percentage will yield a better return than having to use your other shuttle boosts.
Also, for this event specifically, there were plenty of people who had enough bonus crew that they were running 6+ shuttles over 80% with no skill boosts. They were running doublers or time reducers to effectively double the shuttles non-stop. If you were using skill boosts while they were using time reducers, they effectively ran twice as many shuttles as you. You're not going to be able to compete with that.
In the end, it all comes down to needing better crew. Especially on a bonus heavy event like this one.
This event was the hardest faction event I have seen in a long time. People were going bananas with points and I had to use up most of my stockpiled extra shuttle tokens. Most faction events are not like this.
It was the first really good card in a pure faction event in a while. Plus everyone had a ton of bonus crew. Between all the boosts people had accumulated and the bonus crew, this event was going to be brutal and that's what happened.
I understand the desire to save merits, but if you think about resources to rank return, using a couple extra merits to improve your success percentage will yield a better return than having to use your other shuttle boosts.
Also, for this event specifically, there were plenty of people who had enough bonus crew that they were running 6+ shuttles over 80% with no skill boosts. They were running doublers or time reducers to effectively double the shuttles non-stop. If you were using skill boosts while they were using time reducers, they effectively ran twice as many shuttles as you. You're not going to be able to compete with that.
In the end, it all comes down to needing better crew. Especially on a bonus heavy event like this one.
From the mathematical point of view I know that you are right. But... first of all I did not have so many tokens anyway. I ended up with 10 that I saved up. So running the double amount and more than 6 would have been impossible anyway.
For the basic shuttles the argument still is true. But games are not pure maths. To waste merits is just terrible to me and I would probably rather quit the game than force myself to do so. Ranking lower does not bother me on the other hand as long as I reach my set goal.
And I have so many boosts of all kinds that it sometimes is tempting to replicate them if I run out of other stuff. I actually do not, but I probably could and would recognize some shortage maybe in a year or so.
/edit: Maybe I should add that I really had no desire for Wrathful Kirk, so ranking among 2500 was my goal which I over-achieved.
Wir, die Mirror Tribbles [MiT] haben freie Plätze zu vergeben. Kein Zwang und kein Stress, dafür aber Spaß, Discord und eine nette, hilfsbereite Gemeinschaft, incl. voll ausgebauter Starbase und täglich 700 ISM.
I managed to stay above the fray (or at least find a soft middle between the top tier fighting for top 25 and the fray at 500)
In the final day and a half, I was hovering between rank 130 and rank 200. I was occasionally spending time boosts and stopped using rentals. I saw @DavideBooks a few times.
Is it usually more of a coast at that stage David?
This event was the hardest faction event I have seen in a long time. People were going bananas with points and I had to use up most of my stockpiled extra shuttle tokens. Most faction events are not like this.
Yeah, it was quite the bloodbath even with the holiday weekend. I went from about 110 3* and 45 4*/5* time reduction boosts to 35 and 31, respectively. Used all of my remaining tokens (I think a dozen and a half, plus the threshold rewards) and a couple of 5* reward doublers. I hope the next full Faction event has a 5* I don’t care about, or that I get real lucky on Thursday cadet boost packs for the next few weeks.
I ended up at 559, I didn’t note my final vp but it was right around 630k. I used a big chunk of my doublers Thursday and Friday with additional boosted shuttles running along side them. From Saturday on I ran standard 4 shuttles every 3 hours and overnight doublers. I had pretty good luck and didn’t have too many failures. I managed to hang onto almost all of my reducers I think I only used eight because I started to get a little skittish a few times.
Never pushed this hard before in a faction event, I think I was as high as 85 at one point then took my foot off of the gas.
Hi, As a relative new comer, could someone explain 'kick starting' to me? Cheers.
The way shuttle math works is, there is a certain sequence by which you can open certain numbers of faction transmissions early (the 1 minute missions), run only a few, then run more at a higher point value to "trick" the game into ramping up the point value faster once you complete the 1-minute ones.
We had much debate back in the day about whether this was an acceptable way of "hacking" a shuttle event instead of just running 4, waiting for them, running 4 at the next highest difficulty level, and so on, but DB continues to allow it so we continue to do it
if you're in a fleet, talk to your fleet leadership about the specific quickstarts they used for this one, and if you're not in a fleet then you're welcome to shoot me a message to learn more!
For what it's worth to anyone else, I ran 6 shuttles at 1.5 hours for most of the weekend, then at 2x points once I ran out of the (roughly 100) 3* reducers for the last day or so I started running shuttles 7 and 8 and still wound up with about 20 tokens left after using about 60 total, so it took lots and lots of saving but he is absolutely worth it!
I understand the desire to save merits, but if you think about resources to rank return, using a couple extra merits to improve your success percentage will yield a better return than having to use your other shuttle boosts.
Also, for this event specifically, there were plenty of people who had enough bonus crew that they were running 6+ shuttles over 80% with no skill boosts. They were running doublers or time reducers to effectively double the shuttles non-stop. If you were using skill boosts while they were using time reducers, they effectively ran twice as many shuttles as you. You're not going to be able to compete with that.
In the end, it all comes down to needing better crew. Especially on a bonus heavy event like this one.
From the mathematical point of view I know that you are right. But... first of all I did not have so many tokens anyway. I ended up with 10 that I saved up. So running the double amount and more than 6 would have been impossible anyway.
For the basic shuttles the argument still is true. But games are not pure maths. To waste merits is just terrible to me and I would probably rather quit the game than force myself to do so. Ranking lower does not bother me on the other hand as long as I reach my set goal.
And I have so many boosts of all kinds that it sometimes is tempting to replicate them if I run out of other stuff. I actually do not, but I probably could and would recognize some shortage maybe in a year or so.
/edit: Maybe I should add that I really had no desire for Wrathful Kirk, so ranking among 2500 was my goal which I over-achieved.
If you hit your goal then that's all that matters. I hear what you're saying about wasting merits feeling wrong, but to your point about having so many extra boosts, if I weren't using extra merits they would just go into the same pile of use for something else.
Also, to put the numbers in perspective, the shuttles last 12 hours and it's only 4 that you're wasting. There are 8 12 hour periods over the event, you lose 75/2 merits in each period, so only 300 merits per event. That's less than you earn from ranking in the event.
Rough event, so proud of my fleet getting our first 1st place fleet (and squad) in any event.
I got my first top 100 and top 50 (right on rank 50). Early on thought I had a chance at top 25, but didn't have the crew depth to succeed more overnight rental shuttles. Tough fight, but a great one.
Hi, As a relative new comer, could someone explain 'kick starting' to me? Cheers.
I agree with @eXo | das411 . A fleet is the best way to learn the nuances of things like the "kickstart". And it just so happens that I can recommend a fleet for relative newcomers. The 10F fleet family has a "training acadamy" called Startrek Timelines Acadamy [STA] where questions of all levels can be answered.
I understand the desire to save merits, but if you think about resources to rank return, using a couple extra merits to improve your success percentage will yield a better return than having to use your other shuttle boosts.
Also, for this event specifically, there were plenty of people who had enough bonus crew that they were running 6+ shuttles over 80% with no skill boosts. They were running doublers or time reducers to effectively double the shuttles non-stop. If you were using skill boosts while they were using time reducers, they effectively ran twice as many shuttles as you. You're not going to be able to compete with that.
In the end, it all comes down to needing better crew. Especially on a bonus heavy event like this one.
From the mathematical point of view I know that you are right. But... first of all I did not have so many tokens anyway. I ended up with 10 that I saved up. So running the double amount and more than 6 would have been impossible anyway.
For the basic shuttles the argument still is true. But games are not pure maths. To waste merits is just terrible to me and I would probably rather quit the game than force myself to do so. Ranking lower does not bother me on the other hand as long as I reach my set goal.
And I have so many boosts of all kinds that it sometimes is tempting to replicate them if I run out of other stuff. I actually do not, but I probably could and would recognize some shortage maybe in a year or so.
/edit: Maybe I should add that I really had no desire for Wrathful Kirk, so ranking among 2500 was my goal which I over-achieved.
If you hit your goal then that's all that matters. I hear what you're saying about wasting merits feeling wrong, but to your point about having so many extra boosts, if I weren't using extra merits they would just go into the same pile of use for something else.
Also, to put the numbers in perspective, the shuttles last 12 hours and it's only 4 that you're wasting. There are 8 12 hour periods over the event, you lose 75/2 merits in each period, so only 300 merits per event. That's less than you earn from ranking in the event.
Further along that line, merits are the most plentiful and replenishable resource in the game. By being more selective, it makes all the other resources you’re using more likely to succeed and more productive. You may think you’re saving merits, but you’re really wasting your other boosts by having more of them fail, and in effect wasting more of your time for less return, all to conserve something we all receive in relative abundance.
Further along that line, merits are the most plentiful and replenishable resource in the game.
Funny, I view credits this way more so than merits. But then, I basically have no crew to level (other than whatever new event crew we get), so I don't have a lot of build costs anymore. I do agree that merits have become far easier to accumulate than they once were.
Further along that line, merits are the most plentiful and replenishable resource in the game.
Funny, I view credits this way more so than merits. But then, I basically have no crew to level (other than whatever new event crew we get), so I don't have a lot of build costs anymore. I do agree that merits have become far easier to accumulate than they once were.
True, once you get beyond frequent expensive replications credits will pile up too. But in my view campaigns have especially added a significant amount of merits to everyone’s pool.
This event was the hardest faction event I have seen in a long time. People were going bananas with points and I had to use up most of my stockpiled extra shuttle tokens. Most faction events are not like this.
You are absolutely correct. That was completely bonkers!
I was sending out 5 shuttles for 3 straight days, and in the 5 minutes before my shuttles would come back I'd be around 1,400thish place. When they came back (keep in mind RNGesus was being a BLEEP to me and failing my shuttles around 35% of the time for the entire event!) I'd score somewhere around 20K points and jump all the way up to 1,100thish place. That means the line between 1,500 and 1,000 was RAZOR thin!
As a result I never let up going right to the finish line, and in the last 20 minutes I sent out a single shuttle with a 5* time reducer, instantly recalled, and resent 6 times just for insurance, and I'm VERY glad I did. I finished in 1,218th place, but my score was only a little bit ahead of the score posted by @Yeldoow, so I'm guessing the line between 1,500 and 1,000 at the end was around 20,000 points, give or take.
Absolutely bonkers!
-EDIT-
To summarize, this faction event was absolutely determined by RNG as a single failed shuttle was probably worth 20 rank spots by the end.
Comments
The last of my shuttles are back and with 6 1/2 minutes left I'm 1,433 with 579,488vp
I think it's going to be a long, long time before I make a proper attempt at another faction event.
I've been there. It **tsk tsk** and I feel your pain.
It's rough, but there's one take-away here. When there's a desirable card on the line, you have to have a good stockpile of resources. Boosts and rentals for faction, chronitons for galaxy, and time for a skirmish.
I’ve only gotten below 1K three times (been playing for a year and a half). Trying really hard to not think about how many 3* time boasts and shuttle rentals I used to get here, but I got what I wanted: Wrathful Kirk and the under 250 achievement!
Took the screen 3:49 before the end, ended up at 1512.
Now i'm sad
I choose the boost before the crew to give a better list of best crew taking the bonus already into account, also I consider the AND situation (1st stat giving 100%, second only 25% of the skill).
I mostly use skill boni and constantly 2 shuttle tokens per round, sometimes only one. I do not use extenders as I go to bed late and get up early anyway. Doublers I only use if the natural chance is above 85%.
If I cannot get a regular shuttle to at least 66% with a rare bonus I use a better one, and if I cannot get a token shuttle to 66% with a super-rare bonus I rather save the token.
I do not throw away shuttles, even if they need 5 crew, I am too stingy with merits but probably this is unreasonable. Still it feels better for me.
Yesterday I cleared the threshold and stopped using tokens. I ended up at 1949 which was better than desired as I only wanted 3 Anastasias, but 200 extra honor were fine as well, even though I'd rather have saved some tokens. But for me this is too hard to exactly balance out in advance.
Indeed, and it was much the same a few weeks ago with the Neelix event that I finished around the same place.
So now I'm out of boosts and rentals with nothing to show for it again. This time I shall learn my lesson and not try again until a have alot more top their crew.
It's not just about the crew. They help for sure, but sitting out an event here and there to stockpile resources (or buying them, if that's how you play) is necessary. Otherwise, you're on an even playing field with many, but at a disadvantage to the few who save. On the heels of a disappointing La Rouque and a disappointing Reno... There were too many stockpiled resources to overcome.
And time for a plug... Joining an awesome fleet (or family of fleets like 10FH
I understand the desire to save merits, but if you think about resources to rank return, using a couple extra merits to improve your success percentage will yield a better return than having to use your other shuttle boosts.
Also, for this event specifically, there were plenty of people who had enough bonus crew that they were running 6+ shuttles over 80% with no skill boosts. They were running doublers or time reducers to effectively double the shuttles non-stop. If you were using skill boosts while they were using time reducers, they effectively ran twice as many shuttles as you. You're not going to be able to compete with that.
In the end, it all comes down to needing better crew. Especially on a bonus heavy event like this one.
For the basic shuttles the argument still is true. But games are not pure maths. To waste merits is just terrible to me and I would probably rather quit the game than force myself to do so. Ranking lower does not bother me on the other hand as long as I reach my set goal.
And I have so many boosts of all kinds that it sometimes is tempting to replicate them if I run out of other stuff. I actually do not, but I probably could and would recognize some shortage maybe in a year or so.
/edit: Maybe I should add that I really had no desire for Wrathful Kirk, so ranking among 2500 was my goal which I over-achieved.
In the final day and a half, I was hovering between rank 130 and rank 200. I was occasionally spending time boosts and stopped using rentals. I saw @DavideBooks a few times.
Is it usually more of a coast at that stage David?
Yeah, it was quite the bloodbath even with the holiday weekend. I went from about 110 3* and 45 4*/5* time reduction boosts to 35 and 31, respectively. Used all of my remaining tokens (I think a dozen and a half, plus the threshold rewards) and a couple of 5* reward doublers. I hope the next full Faction event has a 5* I don’t care about, or that I get real lucky on Thursday cadet boost packs for the next few weeks.
Never pushed this hard before in a faction event, I think I was as high as 85 at one point then took my foot off of the gas.
The way shuttle math works is, there is a certain sequence by which you can open certain numbers of faction transmissions early (the 1 minute missions), run only a few, then run more at a higher point value to "trick" the game into ramping up the point value faster once you complete the 1-minute ones.
We had much debate back in the day about whether this was an acceptable way of "hacking" a shuttle event instead of just running 4, waiting for them, running 4 at the next highest difficulty level, and so on, but DB continues to allow it so we continue to do it
if you're in a fleet, talk to your fleet leadership about the specific quickstarts they used for this one, and if you're not in a fleet then you're welcome to shoot me a message to learn more!
For what it's worth to anyone else, I ran 6 shuttles at 1.5 hours for most of the weekend, then at 2x points once I ran out of the (roughly 100) 3* reducers
If you hit your goal then that's all that matters. I hear what you're saying about wasting merits feeling wrong, but to your point about having so many extra boosts, if I weren't using extra merits they would just go into the same pile of use for something else.
Also, to put the numbers in perspective, the shuttles last 12 hours and it's only 4 that you're wasting. There are 8 12 hour periods over the event, you lose 75/2 merits in each period, so only 300 merits per event. That's less than you earn from ranking in the event.
I got my first top 100 and top 50 (right on rank 50). Early on thought I had a chance at top 25, but didn't have the crew depth to succeed more overnight rental shuttles. Tough fight, but a great one.
I agree with @eXo | das411 . A fleet is the best way to learn the nuances of things like the "kickstart". And it just so happens that I can recommend a fleet for relative newcomers. The 10F fleet family has a "training acadamy" called Startrek Timelines Acadamy [STA] where questions of all levels can be answered.
I hope you'll check our thread at:
https://forum.disruptorbeam.com/stt/discussion/14031/10f-family-of-fleets#latest
Further along that line, merits are the most plentiful and replenishable resource in the game. By being more selective, it makes all the other resources you’re using more likely to succeed and more productive. You may think you’re saving merits, but you’re really wasting your other boosts by having more of them fail, and in effect wasting more of your time for less return, all to conserve something we all receive in relative abundance.
Funny, I view credits this way more so than merits. But then, I basically have no crew to level (other than whatever new event crew we get), so I don't have a lot of build costs anymore. I do agree that merits have become far easier to accumulate than they once were.
True, once you get beyond frequent expensive replications credits will pile up too. But in my view campaigns have especially added a significant amount of merits to everyone’s pool.
You are absolutely correct. That was completely bonkers!
I was sending out 5 shuttles for 3 straight days, and in the 5 minutes before my shuttles would come back I'd be around 1,400thish place. When they came back (keep in mind RNGesus was being a BLEEP to me and failing my shuttles around 35% of the time for the entire event!) I'd score somewhere around 20K points and jump all the way up to 1,100thish place. That means the line between 1,500 and 1,000 was RAZOR thin!
As a result I never let up going right to the finish line, and in the last 20 minutes I sent out a single shuttle with a 5* time reducer, instantly recalled, and resent 6 times just for insurance, and I'm VERY glad I did. I finished in 1,218th place, but my score was only a little bit ahead of the score posted by @Yeldoow, so I'm guessing the line between 1,500 and 1,000 at the end was around 20,000 points, give or take.
Absolutely bonkers!
-EDIT-
To summarize, this faction event was absolutely determined by RNG as a single failed shuttle was probably worth 20 rank spots by the end.
Mine doesn't.
If that's the case across the board, then WHAT. Was. The. Point. Of. This. Event....