Or at least this noob. looked around online for a guide but they all seem to be a year old....I need to start making some better weapons...lol
I feel kind of dumb for even posting this now, From reading some of the older "how to's" the crafting system seemed a bit convoluted. Now having gone to memory alpha, I can see it's been simplified a great deal. (dumbed down perhaps?) So know my question changes to: is it worth the effort? it seems like alot of grinding is involved, both in and out of your starship. I made the mistake of essentially discarding the majority of my samples I acquired, just assuming I would buy or "loot" whatever I needed. Is crafting the only way to obtain certain items? or am I better off using the exchange?
I just recently hit max crafting skill level so here's what I find useful. All crafting is done at Memory Alpha. There are research and development stations placed in the large central chamber as well as many of the smaller rooms that can be used to craft items. Just walk up to any of these stations (they can be simultaneously used by any number of players) and hit "F" to bring up the crafting interface. The interface itself is pretty easy to understand. It lists all the items you can craft, the quantity of each raw material required to craft the item and the minimum skill level required to craft the item. To craft an item, you just have to make sure you have enough raw materials and skill level. Simply select the item you want to craft and hit the "Fabricate" button. Most items require a two-step crafting process where you first craft a schematic, then use the schematic to craft the actual item. You will need lots and lots of data samples that are collected from scanning anomalies or from doing certain duty officer assignments. The best way to gather these samples is to go to a star cluster, half the "uncharted" waypoints are anomalies just waiting to be scanned so just fly around scanning every anomaly you can find. You can get about 300-400 samples in just under an hour of scanning. Crafted items are split into roughly 8 tiers of difficulty where each tier offers equipment suitable for at a specific starfleet rank. For example, tier 1 goes from crafting skill 0 to roughly 240 and offers gear that can be used by Ensigns, tier 2 goes from about 240 to 470 and provides gear suitable for Lieutenant characters, so on and so forth. On average, crafting an item will gain you anywhere from 10 to 50 crafting skill, depending on difficulty level of the item being crafted. So on average you'll gain 30 crafting skill points with every item you craft. This means that you can easily gain max crafting skill level of 1650 ( any EQ crafters notice this? ) by crafting 50-60 items. However bear in mind that at about Commander level, some of the more powerful items will require you to spend dilithium to buy either common or uncommon unreplicable materials.
It depends on what is more valuable to you, energy credits or time. I find that its more convenient to spend an hour just scanning anomalies in the right star cluster and then craft a full set of good gear that would have costed me at least 200k-400k energy credits to purchase in the exchange. This works all the way up to Captain rank. Once you hit Rear Admiral, every single crafted item requires a heapload of refined dilithium, which makes the exchange a much better option. So my suggestion is to craft your lower rank items, save all your energy credits for your admiralcy.
I just kept crafting hypos and shield and power cells from the beginning and got to max crafting level at about just before getting to captain. Didn't have to use dilithium, so i have some to start crafting the better gear. Meanwhile, i'm using the best gear i could buy from the exchange.
If I'm not wrong, hypos and other consumables only give 10 research points whereas if you're creating a something that has a difficulty level close to your research skill level, you can gain up to 50 research points AND possibly create something powerful that you can use or sell for some good amount.
The dilithium tax kinda pisses me off. I've maxed out just about all of my data samples, just don't want to ALSO burn a ton of dilithium (which now translates to C-points, which translate to real money) to craft shit. Especially since I don't quite have the max points yet, so I'd be crafting things to throw away (well, scalp in the exchange, anyway) just to get more crafting points. Yeah, I know there's the crafting 'special' time, when it costs less, but it's the idea. Plus they didn't make it cost less in data samples or time to craft, just added the dilithium tax right on top of the old costs. Usually way cheaper/easier to just buy things on the Exchange, even at bad prices. Guess if I had high enough crafting, could be selling them at a killer markup, but no real need. When I'm bored, I scalp things on the exchange. Find items that are under-priced, buy them, and immediately re-list them for a ton more. Sometimes people sell things based on what it says they are worth, and not what they are selling for on the exchange, so there's opportunity to buy them and relist for a couple hundred thousand more.
I am wondering if it is worth the effort to craft a few Aegis pieces and put them up in the exchange. They seem to be going for about 1.5 mil per item.
If you're at that level, probably make more off of crafting purple Antiproton beams/cannons. Those are always a fortune. But because of the dilithium tax, you're just trading dilithium (C-Points, really) for Energy Credits, so not really worth it. You never really lose items in the game, so EC hyper-inflation has gotten out of control. Anything worth having is a million+ at this point. Almost doesn't matter what it is, if it's purple, it's a million or more credits. And after 2+ years of inflation, people can pay it, except for the newbies, and they'll be able to soon.
Start with the consumables and outfit your away team. Then start crafting either things your people need or things that sell well. You can get tons of crafting material from the DOFF system. If not just ask around. Most fleets and individuals have more than what they need (due to the DOFF system).
Before the dilithium requirement, it was a good way to get rich. Now it doesn't make sense. I can sell a green efficient saurian for more than that and it doesn't cost any dilithium.
I finally maxed out crafting. If anyone needs something built, and don't have the crafting points for it yet, feel free to give me a buzz @JScout33. You supply the materials, I'll bake the cake...
I'd rather craft 165 consumables with data samples only than use dilithium for medium tier items. I know its a grind but I saved it for the aegis set and max tier weapons. For me those are the only ones worth spending dilithium.
Right, save your dilithium for your own high end items. If you want to craft something to sell, look for things that go for a chunk of money. Rare deflectors, engines, shields, and certain weapons make good choices. Check the Exchange and see what things are selling for. .
I never said anything about using dilithium for crafting. What I said was that prior to Rear Admiral rank, you can still gain a lot of useful gear via crafting items that do not require any dilithium. Once you hit Rear Admiral, the only thing that is worth crafting is Aegis Shield, Aegis Deflector and Aegis Impulse Engines.
I'd say high-end weapons, but since you have to grind STFs anyway, that's a better use for the Rare Borg Prototypes, since you can't do much else with them. They turn into purple Mk XI ship gear nicely, and cheaper than wasting dilithium on it. Although, it's essentially taking that amount of dilithium and turning it into about 1.5 million EC, as long as you pick a popular Antiproton weapon...