Item drops what do the dots actually mean?
Pablo Pawly
✭✭
in The Bridge
Been playing for at least half a year and I more and more get the impression that the yellow dots do not correspond to drop rates at all.
For example 5/5 dots does not mean they will drop for certain. But then what do the dots mean??
For example 5/5 dots does not mean they will drop for certain. But then what do the dots mean??
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Nod said so back when they introduced them, one year ago.
The dots roughly indicate how likely this drop is in the context of the mission. They mean nothing specific or precise. They're just a vague "you'll get many of these, possibly", or "meh, they'll drop very rarely".
The only accurate way to get the actual drop rates is to look on the player-powered wiki.
4 out of 5 dots = Good chance of getting item half the time
3 out of 5 dots = You will never get this item. (Especially if you need it.)
2 out of 5 dots = 1 in ten pulls
1 out of 5 dots = 1 in 15 pulls.
Easy-peasy. Either find the item you need in the gallery, or search for it.
Then, let's say you are trying to get a 1* (aka "Common") Astrometric Chart... scroll down to the bottom of that item's page, and you will see a chart of the missions where it is available, plus the average cost in chronitons that it will cost you for each mission. The column you want is "Cost/Unit" -- or, how many chrons, on average, it will take for one of those items to drop. In this case, your best choice would be running the mission "A Singular Occurrence" on Normal. If you were to click on that title, it would bring you to that mission's page, where it would tell you exactly where you can find it, among the various episodes and distress calls, plus what other items would drop there.
Could you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most intriguing.
~ Data, ST:TNG "Haven"
That's so vague it's almost retarded. Until I found the wiki page (thanks to everyone who put such hard work into it) most of the time it was pot luck getting what I needed. I wasted thousands of chrons not realizing how vague the dots were. My game has improved dramatically with the wiki use, it was bad at low levels but with warp 10ing expensive missions it's essential to use the wiki.
It's just astonishing to me how vague the dot system is. Almost astonishing as how rare common and basic items can be. Or how many more super rare crew there are compared to common crew.
I was about to chide you for your cynicism, but then I realized how scarily accurate this actually is.
I'm not necessarily saying there should be such a law, because I'm well aware that it'd add a lot of expense on both the enforcement and compliance end of things. But I think the principle is sound.
I was kinda hoping the dots would be an indication of something as I assumed until now, but for rare items I will now look at the wiki instead!
Ang yes I agree if something costs dilithium it should have an indication of the chances, ot seems more ethical.
They are an indication of something - the more there are, the more likely it is to drop in a given run. They don't mean something specific like, 1 pip means 20% chance, 5 pips means 100% chance.
The wiki gives the expected number of runs and chron cost based on user sourced data. The key thing to keep in mind there is that the numbers on the wiki are only as good as the data feeding it. The wiki can be inaccurate if there is limited data, data is cherry picked before submitting, or if drop rates change.
This actually is a law in certain countries and DB is in violation of those laws.
One example:
https://kotaku.com/china-passes-law-forcing-games-with-loot-boxes-to-discl-1789828850
After all, we are simply playing a skinned slot machine.
Technically you are not even gambling with DIl, you are gambing with Chrons, which are freely available hence the loophole in most legal cases.
I note that that was similiar to an reply from my old Question Thread on this topic, lol.