Just because I kept records today....
DScottHewitt
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in The Bridge
Did the second Epic Cadet Mission, since I am 100% *'ed on that one.
Six runs, seven IDICs {2*}. One Run was 3/3, one was 2/3, others dropped solo in Runs.
Scott
Six runs, seven IDICs {2*}. One Run was 3/3, one was 2/3, others dropped solo in Runs.
Scott
"The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself."
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I don't know how you manage it. I've been running 2 to 4 made-to-fail Section 31 shuttles in every group of 4 I've sent out for well over a month now (except during faction events) and I'm still nowhere near a low enough rating on them to have any hope of getting the low value items. How do you do it?!?
Chiming in with my own experience here.
It took me a few weeks. The first week, I was doing nonstop S31 missions, purposely trying to fail all of them. I say "trying" because even at 0%, about 10% of them came back successful. Anyway, starting to get discouraged, but not ready to throw in the towel yet, I eased off, only doing two 0% S31 missions at a time, while doing other factions with the other two shuttles. Note that I did not attempt to do any non-0% S31 missions at all.
I was close to calling it quits, when one day after running a few more of the shuttles, I noticed Section 31 missions were now at :30 seconds. I had finally done it.
Now, I don't think many players will want to go through all that, because it means either giving up all other faction shuttles for a period of time, or giving up half of them for a much longer period of time. And this is just a guess, but I think that the amount of time it takes you to reach that point will probably vary wildly depending upon the currently difficulty level you're at with Section 31.
Anyway, now when I need Holoprograms, I will run "good" and "bad" S31 missions in equal amounts. Either 2 and 2 or 1 and 1. And again, some of the "bad" missions will still come back successful, so then I just know that I need to increase the ratio of bad to good missions until it stabilizes at the lower-length missions again. They will occasionally go up to 2 minutes in length, but then will drop down to :30 seconds again as long as I watch my ratios. Once they increased to 10 minute length missions, so then I just purposely failed a bunch in a row until I got back down to the lower length again.
EDIT: One additional thing I neglected to mention — thanks to Captain Jello for reminding me — is that maintaining these shorter missions will burn your merits at twice the normal rate, since you are planning on failing half of your shuttles each time you sent them out, so you'll be buying 2x the transmissions you normally would.
Could you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most intriguing.
~ Data, ST:TNG "Haven"
Use the replicator.
They do drop at the higher level just not as frequently.
OK, I would go through all of this to get 0* holoprograms. But being that low again, how often do 2* Security Codes drop? And then you also give up the hard-to-farm 3* Isolinear Chips (and 4* faction only mission), and 3*/4* Sensors. And then you waste 50% of your transmissions on failures so that's 2x as many that you have to buy from the faction center - 4 good runs for 75 merits that last 30 seconds. I already have a problem with merit and credit consumption...
Not complaining... glad you got it to drop to 30 seconds. Just pointing out a few flaws in the design.
Survey says... XXX
I have 4 replications/day at VIP13, but most people only have 1. I have so much fuel between rations and schematics alone I will never use them all before I die. I have so many other things to replicate each day that I already have a hard time choosing what to replicate - I have to balance credits with this choice as well. The easy ones are like a 2* Champagne for a Tuxedo - 9k and I save 2 or 4 holoprogram replications. Do I farm 18 3* and 4* items for a 5* piece of equipment that costs over 100k to build after farming all the items, or just replicate it for 250k and save the chrons? What is the least rarity item I can replicate to complete this 4* or 5*? Great, I have to replicate this 4* because 1 sub-tree needs 2 Ancient Films and the other requires 4 Orchids - so 90k used. "Replicate It" isn't always an option.
It would be nice if DB implemented the suggestions of others to be able to sell items for credits. WTH am I going to do with 42,000 4* and 5* ship schematics when I have 18,000 Replicator Rations, of which I only use 40-50 a day? The problem is when DB makes any change to the economy of the game, another part of it suffers. I couldn't get enough chrons... EVER... before Voyages. Now they are abundant and I can farm items, but can't build equipment because I have no credits. And I'm just referring to building equipment, not replicating it and using 250k for a 5* replication. Some equipment over L70 (especially newer crew) have so many sub-items it can cost upwards of 80k to build.
Oops, yes, one other thing I was going to mention as a downside to this (as if there weren't plenty of downsides already) is the bite it takes out of your stash of merits to be able to maintain this (since you're buying double the amount of transmissions you would normally need). However, after the first day, when I ran a few dozen missions in a row, I have been doing, at most, a couple a day since. And fairly often in the average week, I don't run any S31 shuttles within a given day.
As far as the drops, I have definitely gotten both 1* and 2* items falling at that lowest difficulty. I haven't tracked how often they drop, because I'm inherently lazy, but it's possible it's not as often as they would if the difficulty was higher.
Could you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most intriguing.
~ Data, ST:TNG "Haven"
Thank you for sharing your experience. I'll keep plugging away.