Quote by Lars1091

The vid is online :woohoo:
Part of my screen isn't shown though, and I don't understand why :(

WOOTS! I'M ON TV!!!!!! :woohoo:

The vid is online :woohoo:
Part of my screen isn't shown though, and I don't understand why :(

Welcome to the Armada, new fleets :woohoo:
Also, those are some epic fleet names right there :P

That's exciting news. And such big fleets to join!

ALPHA - Stonewall Fleet (491 Members, all holdings complete)
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Beta- DeepSpace Stonewall (399 active alts, all holdings complete)
Gamma- Federation Prime Directive (22 members, lvl 14, Holdings: 1/0/0/1/2) [NEW]
Gamma- Stonewall Vault
Gamma- Network Prime (40 members) T1/T2 bases
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Beta- Stonewall Legion (Romulan & Alt fleet, 221 Active alts, Holdings 3/3/3/3.4)
Gamma - Command Nimbus (41 members) T1/T2 Bases
Gamma - Special Task Group (36 members) T0/T1 Bases
Gamma - The Nethersphere (150 members) T3 bases
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Beta - Starfleet Anti-Borg Alliance (483 Members, Fleet Level 55, all holdings complete) [NEW]
Gamma - The Federation Anti-Borg Alliance (262 Members, Level 21, Holdings 2/1/0/1/2)[NEW]
Gamma - The Expendable Redshirts (115 members, lvl 34, Holdings: 2/2/2/2/3) [NEW]
Gamma - The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything (144 members, lvl 24, Holdings: 2/1/1/2/2) [NEW]

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its Simples! We have set up Armada chat, alongside our Stonewall channel..
it should already be active, but double check just in case..
"right click" on the chat box tab you use for Stonewall channel
and this will pop up..



Ensure that "Armada" is ticked.. and choose your own colour for the text.. so that you dont get it confused with stonewall channel.

When you want to talk in "Armada chat" in your text box (where you write your text) "right click" on the active channel (the bracketed channel box) and select Armada.. then chit chat away to all our armada friends!


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It works much like our own fleet projects... which require.. doffs.. dilithium.. fleet marks and other consumables.. it still awards you fleet credits in the exact same way when you contribute to your fleets open projects... except each fleet in the Armada is open to every single member of the Armada.

Its a great way of helping you get more fleet credits.. by just looking around each fleet too see what you have.. and they need.

You can access the Armada fleets projects by clicking on "Your fleet" (under the mini map)
and selecting "Armada" tab



Once in the Armada area, you can click on each fleet.. and it will give you a list of there projects, just click on the drop down menus to see what that fleet project needs.. and donate and receive fleet credits in return!



However.. please please remember, that if the "fleet marks" have already been filled.. there are sooo many other items you can donate, yes it may cost you a few EC.. but think of going of an easy PVE run.. fleet alert for eg.. and grab as many drops as you can find.. sell them.. and use the EC to buy what a fleet project needs.

I have a great many people saying that there is never an opportunity to donate anything... but when i look.. i see that there are loads of items a project is crying out for.. we just have to think of other ways to get the items needed (as described above)

But with as many members as this Armada has.. we are all here to aid one another's projects, so we can grow into a power house of an Armada, and there is a HUGE array of chances to obtain Fleet credits in a big Armada such as ours.


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Awesome info! Thank you Alex :) (and so detailed!)

Thank you everyone who has joined today :D
I have also streamed it all to Twitch and am uploading the vid to Youtube right now. When it is uploaded, I will link it.

Now to everyone who joined the event (either in my team or in @alex's team): I forgot to add the participation prizes to one of the emails. If this was you, send me an ingame mail or pm and I'll send them to you next time I have the opportunity.

22LT-R68Z-PZZQ-77ZD

Hey guys, I have good and bad news.

Good news: I have a free code to use to try out Chapter 1 of the Knights of the Fallen Empire expansion.

Bad news: I only have one code.

I got this code from signing up for their Valentine's day promotion. If you are subscribed to the SWTOR newsletter, you may want to check it. It's at the bottom of the email that was sent on Feb. 19.

Please make sure you don't already have access to Knights of the Fallen Empire. First person to get it wins: D8XS-LKRM-YPXJ-6C7K

If anyone else has a code, please feel free to share it here.

@tek: The benefits to doing 1 school are a) a higher crit rate faster in that school and 2) 3 stacks of stuff to distribute between your characters instead of a bunch and a single giant stack of stuff to sell instead of more than 1. The benefit of doing more than one school is that you can do the more profitable one if prices change. The doffs are the same across all schools for making components and upgrades.

I stuck with 1 school because I was trying to get to lvl 15 as fast as possible in 1 school when this crafting system started in August 2014 so that I could have as many upgrades as possible for when quality upgrading was released in Oct. 2014 (for a brief period only the Mark of an item could be increased, not the rarity). I did the math and leveling up another school took 1 of my R&D slots out of commission for several months (back then we could only slot 1 of those daily projects per day instead of 3 like now) and just wasn't worth it. When my alts started getting to lvl 15 I thought I would have each one specialize in a different school but the profit was to stick with engineering: the alts could all benefit from my main's higher crit rate on components and I didn't have to hassle myself with multiple schools.

That was a year ago, though, so maybe things are different now.

@Jhered: The lowest effort way to get to lvl 15 is to slot 3 of those daily R&D bonus projects in a school each day and to head to the fleet Research Lab to do the 10-second daily bonus project.

The faster/higher effort way to level is to make gear. I did this on my main pre-DR so I could start making upgrades faster to sell when DR hit by just making tons of engineering consoles. I was working from home at the time so I could babysit these projects (one every 1.5 to 6 hours) and it requires a decent investment in materials to do this enough to level a school to 15.

Nice notes and good information. I am just now getting my primary toon just past 6th level in R&D and I am unsure how to get him there faster. Any suggestions?

Quote by GaymerGreg

From a writer/plot perspective, I would suggest that you inform the player to start in a "neutral" ship, if possible. but that is a super minor suggestion.

Argh, don't remind me of that. :P Originally I had the (foolish) idea that whatever was available in-game was available in the Foundry too, so my thought was to provide a "mission-only" ship for things here & there. You know, when you're in an episode and you end up flying something that's not one of your own ships and you only fly it for that one mission, like when you pilot the Enterprise-C or that Elachi Carrier. BUT NO. That mechanic isn't available, and there are a lot of others you can't use either. Finding out what I couldn't do made me reconsider my whole approach and reconfigure the story to match the mechanics.

Glad you liked it though, and let me know what you think of the other segments. I'm especially interested to know what people think of the shuttle/fighter mission in episode 3. I tried to balance that properly for a long time, and I'm still not sure the combat isn't actually too tough.

After publish I played it through on my low 50's KDF guys and managed (barely) with both a Klingon To'Duj fighter and a Romulan Kestrel runabout. It's semi-easy when you're playing on a test dummy in the Foundry, but when the game engine scales it up for actual characters, that combat is no joke.

I'm going to have to look this over more carefully, because the crafting in this game is more complex than I'm used to trying to figure out. But based on some of the wild-swing prices for stuff on the exchange, there's clearly profit to be made. And since I'm always dirt poor, every little bit helps.

Would you say it's useful to have different specialties per toon (say, 2 schools each) or best to just go all-in on one? I've only been doing R&D on the "technology" lvlup tasks because I didn't really know how to go about crafting yet. My Vulcan has Beams & Science, my Ferengi has Engineering & Shields, my Klingon has Cannons & Ground and I don't think I've put anything into my Romulan (he might get/have Projectiles). They're all at varying levels but I think my highest is 9 on the Vulcan.

Here is an example using Superior Engineering Upgrades and prices from right now.

A Superior Engineering Upgrade Requires 1 Rerouting Lattice, 1 Ejection System, 1 Trellium-K, and 15,000 EC. A Rerouting Lattice requires 2 Tetrazine and 1 Z-Particle. An Ejection System requires 2 Rubidium and 3 Beta-Tachyon Particles.

Using the price of the 100th cheapest of each item, here are prices from right now that I need to know to figure out if I can make money from this and if I need to make my own components (we just had an Upgrade Weekend so the prices are a little higher than normal):

Beta-Tachyon - 16,000
Rubidium - 49,800
Z-Particle - 49,000
Tetrazine - 5440
Rerouting Lattices - 77,243
Ejection Systems - 100,101
Trellium-K - 3204
Superior Engineering Upgrades - 189,000

My crit rates on my main (all purple doffs and level 20 engineering school):

Ejection System: 28%
Rerouting Lattice: 30%
Superior Technology Upgrade: 99%

First, calculate how much it costs me to make 1 Rerouting Lattice:

Cost = (2*price of Tetrazine + price of Z-Particle)/(1 + 2*crit rate)
Cost = (2*5440 + 49000)/(1+0.6)
Cost = 37,425

37,425

The purpose of this guide is to make money off of the stuff you produce. If you don't care about money, then ignore this.

For everyone else, though, here is the Golden Rule of MMO Economics:

If you craft with the materials you farm, then you are giving up the EC you could have made by selling them.

For example, you might want 10 Radiogenic Particles to make 10 Superior Beams Upgrades. You could do 10 advanced PVE queues to get them or buy them for 440,000 EC on the exchange (the current price as I'm writing this). If you do the queues, you could either use them to craft those Superior Beam Upgrades or you could sell them for 440,000 EC on the exchange. Whether you grind them or not, you're still faced with a choice between 440,000 EC or 10 Radiogenic Particles.

The only thing that is different if you grind them is that you have 440,000 EC in more in assets. If that's the best way you have of getting 440,000 EC, then go for it! But if you can get 440,000 EC in a faster/more fun way, then why not do that instead and then buy the Radiogenic Particles?

This guide is about making stuff to sell it, specifically superior upgrades. I like to make those for money because they're easy, they sell quickly, and they don't require dilithium.

If you want to put in more effort and learn how to make gear for profit, then you would (I'm just guessing) make more money than with this but you'd have to deal with the random outcomes, pay dilithium, and actually learn the markets and the chances of getting something profitable and generally putting in more work than a lazy player like me is willing to do.

This might not be the most profitable way to make EC from R&D, but it's the lowest EC-to-effort ratio that I know of.

The step-by-step guide

1. Pick an R&D school. I specialize in engineering upgrades, and my 4 favorite characters are all level 20 in that school because they've spent the last year and a half operating sweatshops on their ships. My newest well-loved character is getting there; she is already profiting from her sweatshop.

A higher level means a higher crit rate. Critting on crafting Superior Upgrades means you get 2 Superior Upgrades for the same time and materials. So focusing on 1 school means more profit. It also means less effort since selling a lot of 1 thing is easier than selling a little bit of 7 things.

2. Get the characters you like to play to level 15 in that school with the 20-hour daily projects and the daily bonus mission at the Fleet Research Lab.

3. Unlock the last 2 R&D project slots by getting 2 other schools to level 5 and by buying an extra slot at the Fleet Research Lab for 100,000 FC.

4. Buy 6 purple Research Lab Scientist doffs for each character you play regularly. Traits don't matter.

Yes, this might be a little pricey for you, but they're worth the investment and you can start with greens or blues at first if you don't have the 30 to 40 million EC these doffs cost (per toon). Your crit rate increases with doff rarity, and you can always sell them later if you change your mind.

Since they're not bound to character, you could even get 1 set of 6 for each faction and mail them between characters. I'm way too lazy for that, but it might be a way to get started.

5. Buy 6 purple Fabrication Engineers on one of your toons to make components.

6. OK, now it's time to figure out your market. This step requires a little arithmetic, so open a spreadsheet or get a pen and some paper. Or skip this step and just assume you'll make EC. You probably will, but I'm not responsible for you losing EC because you managed to be lazier than me.

A math example is in the next comment on this thread.

In your spreadsheet, calculate the cost to make each component with

Cost = (total cost of components)/(1+2*crit rate)

* means multiplication. / means division. + means addition.

You can find the crit rate for a component by clicking to make it and selecting the appropriate doff. If you crit, you get 3 times the number of components you slotted, which is the same as having 2 times your normal crit rate.

So, for example, the cost of making a Rerouting Lattice is

Cost of 1 Rerouting Lattice = (price of z-particle + 2 * price of tetrazine)/(1 + 2 * 0.30)

Figure that out for both components.

Now figure out the cost for upgrades with the formula:

Cost = (cost of first component + cost of second component + cost of purple material + 15000) / (1 + crit rate)

Critting gets you 1 extra Upgrade, so you don't multiply it by 2 this time.

Should you use the cost of components that you calculated above or the price that component is listed for on the exchange? Whichever is lower. If you can produce a component cheaper than you can buy it on the exchange, then you should produce it. If you can buy it cheaper, then you will buy it.*

If the cost of producing 1 Superior Tech Upgrade is lower than the price you can sell it for on the exchange, then you're good to move on to the next step.**

7. Buy materials that you need to make components. I like to just get a bunch of these done at once so I don't have to worry about this for a while, but you might not have the capital to buy 1000 or 2000 of each blue material in your first go. It's up to you. If you're buying components instead of making them, then buy a bunch of those.

Do this on the toon that has the 6 purple Fabrication Engineers, who should also be the toon with the highest level in your R&D school.***

8. Mail or use the account bank to give a stack of the purple material and the 2 blue components to the toons you like to play.

9. Every 15 minutes, go through and set up 6 projects to make these kits. Have fun playing the game normally outside of the 10 seconds it takes to set these up.

10. Check the market regularly and find a good time to sell. I wouldn't hold on to too many of these at first because you'll need the EC to buy more materials, but eventually you'll be able to figure out for yourself when a good time to sell is (spoiler: during an upgrade weekend).

11. Post the upgrades in groups of at least 10 because buyers often skip single Upgrades so they don't have to click so much. I do that with materials too. If I want 1000 Rubidium, I'm not going to spend 2 hours buying each one individually. I'll pay a little more per unit to get them all at once.

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When DR hit in October 2014 and upgrading became a part of STO, I made insane (for me) amounts of EC but assumed that in a few weeks, maybe a few months, the profit margin on upgrades would be razor-thin. Well, it's been a year and a half and while the prices of materials and upgrades have all dropped a lot and EC/hour is lower than it was before, but there's still nothing better in the game for getting EC than R&D.

The only reason it stayed that way is that most STO players haven't figured it out, either because it looks complicated and scary or because they can't understand the Golden Rule of MMO Economics.

It also helps that there are always nice players who post propaganda on the official forums like "Don't get into R&D for profit because you can't make any money unless you're level 20 with purple doffs and even then you might lose so don't even try!" Less competition for me!

*I recently adjusted my spreadsheet formula to say that if I can't save more than 10,000 EC per component by crafting it myself then I'll just buy it. I'm that lazy.

**You can also calculate EC/hour with

EC/hour = (price of upgrade on exchange - cost to make an upgrade from above) * (1 + crit rate for tech upgrades) * 24

Why calculate EC/hour instead of Price/Cost of making an Upgrade? Because you are limited by the number of R&D project slots and you're looking for the best way to use those. If you have a choice between making two things that each would double your EC in the same amount of time, the one that costs more initially is the more profitable choice because it would have the bigger profit margin.

For example, if you could make Widget A for 10 EC and sell it for 20 EC and Widget B for 20 EC and sell it for 40 EC, and it takes 1 hour to make each, which is the better choice? Both double your EC, but Widget B gets you 20 EC/hour instead of 10 EC/hour.

***You can make component production less work by putting all your purple materials in your account bank (or mailing them to yourself) and turning the filter in your school to "Show with met reqs." This puts the blue components at the bottom of the UI, and since it scrolls down when you go back to your school after setting one project, you won't have to scroll back up.

They did say that nothing would be worse after the change. We'll see.

I'm with sej. There will be some new meta with this new system and then people won't think of it much anymore.

The benefits seem to be centered around making the whole thing easier for new players, which is good.

We'll see....

Quote by calx

Quote by kontxesi

Of course they changed it to a bonus marks weekend. :/

IKR!!!! Damn you cryptic!!!!! *fist shakes* :evil:

I mean, don't get me wrong. Marks are great. But I just wish the calendar was accurate, you know? Helps me plan which weekends I need to be on my ass in front of the computer and when I can go do stuff. :p

Quick Mission Briefing..

The most important initial thing about a foundry mission is Location, location, location. Where does it start? I am very happy to say. This mission is very clearly identified. So off the bat, I was happy.

As far as general play, I did enjoy the plot, and the dialogue options, The fact that some of the combat was optional was a good feature.. I will have to play it a few times for any actual editing suggestions, but I liked it.

From a writer/plot perspective, I would suggest that you inform the player to start in a "neutral" ship, if possible. but that is a super minor suggestion.

I will play the other two missions this weekend also, and I would suggest to others to play, as well.

Quote by kontxesi

Of course they changed it to a bonus marks weekend. :/

IKR!!!! Damn you cryptic!!!!! *fist shakes* :evil:

Quote by WhiteOnmyoji

Tactical Readiness is now recruiting for the Positions of Test Gophers and test Guinea Pigs

ooh what's the diff between a Goph and a GP? :dry: