How To Accumulate Dilithium
Posted: Sat Jun 29, 2013 3:19 pmDilithium (Di) is the commodity that is most in need, be it for building a Fleet Holding (Starbase, Embassy, Dilithium Mine) or for obtaining outstanding gear. As many Fleet Members do not have a great deal of time to play and/or do not like to “grind for Di”, I wanted to create a working guide to identify those missions that give the greatest Di payout for the least amount of time. In this manner, everyone will be able to contribute towards the Fleet in STO.
STO provides a multitude of opportunities to earn Di Ore; every Duty Officer mission provides some amount of Di as well as many player missions. You can refine up to 8,000 Di per day which can begin to create a backlog after awhile, but it’s not something to worry about until you get around 1M Di Ore. Keeping in mind that I only see things from a Federation perspective (I don’t have a Klingon or Romulan character), below is the highest payout missions for the least amount of time invested. “Biggest bang for the buck”
1. Daily Foundry Mission – The Foundry is an outstanding place for people to write their own missions. Some truly outstanding stories have been written by players and they are quite fun to play. Playing these missions, any one (1) mission per day, will give you a Di payout. (I do not know if you can play different missions per day and still get a Di pay out.) I choose “Repairing Utopia Planitia” every day; the payout seems to vary between just over 2300 and just under 2300 per day. It takes me about 15 minutes so that’s about 153 Di/min.
2. Deferi Sector Block Daily Missions – Hail Ambassador Surah. There are actually 3 separate daily missions which you can do to earn a total of 2400 Di. Rescue Deferi Captives (480 Di) is 1 mission, Emancipation (480 Di) is 1 mission and Aiding the Deferi (1440) comprises 3 missions. All three take me 25 minutes for a payout of 2400 Di or 96 Di/min for all 3 missions.
3. Asteroid Mining – Bajor Sector. Beam down and mine Di from an asteroid. The amount of Di that you get depends upon your performance. You get to mine 5 different locations and have 1 minute to score as many points as possible. If you score less than 735 points, you get less than the maximum Di payout for that location; if you get 735 points or more, then you get the maximum payout. Payouts are typically 200 Di for each of the 5 locations for a total of 1,000 Di. Sometimes you get a bonus at each site for a max of 1,500 Di. Mining usually takes me 7 minutes, 30 seconds for a 133 Di/min (avg) or 200 Di/min (w/bonus).
4. STFs – You can earn 480 (regular) or 960 (elite) Di for STFs as well as accolades. Each STF will take a different amount of time depending upon the mission and who you complete it with, if you complete it at all.
5. Turn Over Contraband – Duty Officer Mission; you can accumulate contraband through various duty officer missions (strike against fugitive network, inspect civilian freighter, confiscate contraband from crew, investigate reports of trafficking on xyz, etc). Go to any starbase (not Fleet starbase), find the security officer and for 5 contraband, you get 2,000 Di.
Even if you only decide to do 1 or 2 of these missions, it will help the Fleet tremendously in our efforts to build our facilities and you’ll help yourself by having enough Di to buy some sweet gear. Right now only a few are contributing Di at all; I can give about 50,000 Di per character (2) per 7 days (ish). Even if you can’t build Di that quickly, just do one mission above…that’s still more than nothing and will help.
Alright, these are all great ways to earn Dilithium from a Federation character perspective. If anyone knows of any other ways for a Federation character, please post and I’ll update this first post. Those with Klingon and Romulan characters should make notes similar to mine and post below. Basically no one in this Fleet who plays STO has an excuse for not knowing how to get Dilithium.
STO provides a multitude of opportunities to earn Di Ore; every Duty Officer mission provides some amount of Di as well as many player missions. You can refine up to 8,000 Di per day which can begin to create a backlog after awhile, but it’s not something to worry about until you get around 1M Di Ore. Keeping in mind that I only see things from a Federation perspective (I don’t have a Klingon or Romulan character), below is the highest payout missions for the least amount of time invested. “Biggest bang for the buck”
1. Daily Foundry Mission – The Foundry is an outstanding place for people to write their own missions. Some truly outstanding stories have been written by players and they are quite fun to play. Playing these missions, any one (1) mission per day, will give you a Di payout. (I do not know if you can play different missions per day and still get a Di pay out.) I choose “Repairing Utopia Planitia” every day; the payout seems to vary between just over 2300 and just under 2300 per day. It takes me about 15 minutes so that’s about 153 Di/min.
2. Deferi Sector Block Daily Missions – Hail Ambassador Surah. There are actually 3 separate daily missions which you can do to earn a total of 2400 Di. Rescue Deferi Captives (480 Di) is 1 mission, Emancipation (480 Di) is 1 mission and Aiding the Deferi (1440) comprises 3 missions. All three take me 25 minutes for a payout of 2400 Di or 96 Di/min for all 3 missions.
- Rescue Deferi Captives takes 1 min 30 seconds to complete for 480 Di, so 320 Di/min
- Emancipation takes 10 min to complete for 480 Di, so 48 Di/min
- Aiding the Deferi takes 14 min to complete for 1440 Di, so 102 Di/min
3. Asteroid Mining – Bajor Sector. Beam down and mine Di from an asteroid. The amount of Di that you get depends upon your performance. You get to mine 5 different locations and have 1 minute to score as many points as possible. If you score less than 735 points, you get less than the maximum Di payout for that location; if you get 735 points or more, then you get the maximum payout. Payouts are typically 200 Di for each of the 5 locations for a total of 1,000 Di. Sometimes you get a bonus at each site for a max of 1,500 Di. Mining usually takes me 7 minutes, 30 seconds for a 133 Di/min (avg) or 200 Di/min (w/bonus).
- Note: If you are able to do a Rich Dilithium Claim, that takes 1.5 minutes for 5,000 Di or 3,333 Di/min. To be able to do the Rich Di Claim, you must have a claim ticket which you can get through some lock boxes.
4. STFs – You can earn 480 (regular) or 960 (elite) Di for STFs as well as accolades. Each STF will take a different amount of time depending upon the mission and who you complete it with, if you complete it at all.
5. Turn Over Contraband – Duty Officer Mission; you can accumulate contraband through various duty officer missions (strike against fugitive network, inspect civilian freighter, confiscate contraband from crew, investigate reports of trafficking on xyz, etc). Go to any starbase (not Fleet starbase), find the security officer and for 5 contraband, you get 2,000 Di.
Even if you only decide to do 1 or 2 of these missions, it will help the Fleet tremendously in our efforts to build our facilities and you’ll help yourself by having enough Di to buy some sweet gear. Right now only a few are contributing Di at all; I can give about 50,000 Di per character (2) per 7 days (ish). Even if you can’t build Di that quickly, just do one mission above…that’s still more than nothing and will help.
Alright, these are all great ways to earn Dilithium from a Federation character perspective. If anyone knows of any other ways for a Federation character, please post and I’ll update this first post. Those with Klingon and Romulan characters should make notes similar to mine and post below. Basically no one in this Fleet who plays STO has an excuse for not knowing how to get Dilithium.