Dilithium, Or The 8,500 Grind…

[Marcase]

This map is aimed at Federation characters and most of all speed, so certain obvious missions will be absent. Klingons and KDF Romulans can also use this but obviously have different starting points:

10x Missions (480) + Bridge Sci Doffing (3x 250) + Research Lab Daily (1,200) + contraband (2,000) = 8,750 Dilithium Ore.

To be clear, once you reach level +50 you can farm dilithium really quick when you unlock access to the Solanae Dyson Sphere/Joint Command. Every 3 minutes there’s a stupid simple mission that will earn you 480 dilithium.

Yes, every 3 minutes.

So when you finish one the next can be triggered (“Hail Joint Command”), on and on and on untill you’re ready to pull your hair out. Combine that with Doffing, Admiralty and Hourly Reputations (140-340 dili each) the daily 8,500 dilithium max really shouldn’t be an issue anymore for any 50+ player.

So why this map then ? This ‘run’ will let you collect free white/common doffs for fleet projects which earn you Fleet Credits to buy that shiny Fleet ship, various Daily 15+50 Reputation marks, R&D materials and Deuterium Surplus, aka Evasive Maneuvers in a can.
All the goodies with the least hassle. A Ferengi would sell his mother for this because, well, they do. 🙂

As said these particular missions are chosen for simplicity and rapid completion-times. In general, The Mighty 44th always recommends you to play STO on Advanced difficulty, but Normal does not change the dilithium ore rewarded.

Note also that most of these missions can be done in a team, but everyone must be of the same faction.

First a map of where to go, with details later:

0 – Start slotting Doff, Reputation and Admiralty projects (various)
1 – Faction Academy – Academy Lore (480 dili), pickup all free white (common) Doffs (Tac/Eng/Sci/Cvl)
2 – ESD or Qonos – Contraband turn-in (2,000 dili)
3 – Ship bridge, Science Dept. Daily 3x (250 dili)
* Visit your ship’s bridge, and Contact Duty Officers / Science Dept./Special Projects there are three Analysis projects awarding 250 dilithium Ore and one for 500 Dilithium Ore (this last one is not recommended due to the rarity of the RD materials required). 6hr duration.
4 – Fleet Starbase Daily – Fleet Research Lab (1,200 dili) / Fleet Mine (+500 bonus)

5 – (Optional) Zibal aka Sh’mar (480 dili)
6 – (Optional) Traelus – Satellite Repair (480 dili)
7 – Alhena – Defense Contract (480 dili), Deuterium surplus
8A – Sector Red Alert – Borg (480 dili), 65 Omega marks (when available)
8B – Sector Red Alert – Tholian (480/720 dili), 65 Nukara marks (when available)
* Note: don’t bother with the Na’kuhl Red Alert for now.
9 – (Optional) Japori (480 dili), 65 Romulan marks, level 50+ (see Tau Dewa Run below)
10 – Crystalline Catastrophe Advanced (PVE) (480/960 dili), 65 Fleet / Nukara marks, level 50+
* Due to powercreep even sub-par builds can benefit; often the Giant Snowflake has melted before you’ve reached it.

11 – Solenae Dyson Sphere Daily – Hail Dyson Joint Command (480 dili), 65 Dyson marks, level 50+
* This is the ever-repeating one. Can’t help to think a mistake was made and 3min cooldown should be 30mins.
12 – Undine Space Battle Zone Daily (480 dili), 65 Undine marks
* Get there from the Dyson jump-in point. Check for lucrative Doff missions. Pick a Klingon Cannon zone on the map – simple, easy, fast.
13 – Delta Quadrant Daily – Ocampan freighter (480 dili), 65 Delta marks (which is much faster than Argala, again: speed)
* Circle the Delta sphere to find the Freighter.
14 – Several Doff, Reputation and Admiralty projects should have completed by now. Rinse, repeat.

Total; 8,750 Dilithium Ore in <60 minutes.
Daily Marks farmed; +65 Fleet, 65 Omega, 65 Nukara, 65 Romulan, 65 Dyson, 65 Undine, 65 Delta.

Missing Marks – recommended run;
Temporal marks – Na’kuhl Red Alert (offers a choice of Reputation marks, good for finding that missing one).
Iconian marks – PVE Gateway to Grethor Adv (Space), PVE Brotherhood of the Sword (Ground).
Terran marks – PVE Counterpoint Advanced (space).

The three (Optional) missions can be skipped and replaced by 3x extra Dyson Hail Joint Command missions if your captain has unlocked the Solanae Dyson Sphere/Undine space and Delta Quadrant, if not, see Tau Dewa Run below.

You should be able to increase your daily dilithium to +10,000 per day (defined as 1 play-hour per character) when doing the hourly Reputations (15 Rep marks for 140-340 dili / hour on 9x Reps = 1,260-3,060 dilithium) during this run.

(Edit; 140 dili for unfinished Reputation, 340 dili for finished ones).

The “Tau Dewa Run”

The Romulan Tau Dewa Sector has various patrols that need to be cleared of enemy’s ships; these particular patrols are identical with only the enemy race differing. They can be done in a circular pattern, earning dilithium, ec through loot drops, 15 Romulan marks per patrol and some xp as well. In fact all planets in Tau Dewa have a patrol/mission, but the following are considered fasted. They all have a 30 minute cooldown, so when you’ve finished the run you can do 1-2 Red Alerts then start over.

Japori, Carraya, Gamma Eridon, Narendra and Beta Thoridor should net you 2,400 dilithium and 125 Romulan marks (including Daily bonus) plus decent xp. On Advanced it will take about 20x patrols to complete a ship’s Tier V mastery. Keep a look-out for Borg and Tholian Red Alerts in the area, as those are xp bonus events.

You can visit New Romulus for bank, exchange, mail and vendor access (to sell loot), Romulans can visit the Romulan Flotilla. An alternative is nearby Dyson Joint Command, which also has a Ship Selector NPC for outfitting. Dyson also provides a short-cut to our Fleet Spire, which in turn allows a quick jump-off point for picking up the 1,200 dilithium Daily from the Fleet Research Lab, and extra 500 dilithium refine bonus from the Fleet mine. All this is usefull for when your patrols are still on cooldown.

XP is usefull for when leveling a new ship’s mastery for its space trait. Again these mini-battles can be done in a team of same-faction players, which will cause more enemy NPCs to spawn, which will provide slight increase in loot drops and xp, and it breaks the monotony of the patrols.

"Boldly bashing Borg to bits since 2012..."

[Damix]

#11 – Rescue Deferi Captives – 480 dili.
You have to find Breen patrol ship (it appears near Raveh system in Deferi sector and travels toward Kelvani Belt).
I do this one because I can complete it in less than 60 seconds by choosing the right dialogue options – you don’t have to fight.
– Fed – You can rescue Deferi captives by firing the deflector pulse (dialogue option) and transporting the captives or by paying 1000 GP-Latinum.
– Kdf – They can only rescue them by paying 1000 GP-Latinum.. Other than that they can fight the Breen but this takes more time than Fed version.
When you transport the captives, you don’t have to stay and fight – you can depart the system. Really fast way to get those 480 dili.

[fatman592]

Great guide, I’d like add my two ec as well.

I rely purely on doffing to generate dilithium. So the biggest tip I give people is to make kdf alts. I have my kdf toons run a route from Ganalda to Tau Dewa. I usually get about 40 contraband total and several forced labor missions per run. Takes all of a couple minutes.

Next is semi off topic since its about ec, not dilithium.

Beyond doffing I spend most of my time in Ker’rat. It’s like a never ending foundry farm mission with no loot cap. As long as you’re okay with potentially PvPing you can generate tons of ec. All drops are XI or XII.

Even if I get nothing good a full inventory nets 1 million ec for 5 minutes of time. But a lot goes up for sale. I usually get at least two XII blue damage consoles and some weapons per run. It’s not uncommon to get a blue XII AP Mag, for example.

In addition there are “dailies”. Fed side has a 1440 dil 50 fm reward that can be earned by going afk. Many kdf dailes can be done there too. We should make a fleet run. Where else besides Hive elite can you face a huge swarm of Borg?

"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe." - Marcus Cole, Babylon 5

[Ganellon]

@Marcase wrote:

…
#2 – Zibal / Sh’mar – 480 dili.
Dirt simple rescue mission – rescue freighter from True Way attack. Nigh impossible to frak it up.

I cant find that mission, is this a daily? or only for KDF?

[Marcase]

It’s a daily, in that it has a 20hr cooldown, similar to Traelus. It’s both Fed and KDF, and located in EE’s Donatu sector, between K7 and Drozanna. Sh’mar (the freighter) is near Zibal (South west iirc) and keeps jumping in and out. To get the mission you have to get close to the freighter.

"Boldly bashing Borg to bits since 2012..."

[Ganellon]

OK, found it, thanks!
btw, “Traelus” daily is available directly from Franklin’s “Available Missions”.

[Damix]

Edit: It is no longer possible to turn in Reputation Marks, Borg Neural Processors, Isomorphic Injections, etc. for 50% more Dilithium. Same goes for Tier 5 Reputation reward and Mirror event/Crystalline Cataclysm event reward. No more keeping Marks for some extra since 05.02.2015.

What I can suggest is that you start doing hourly reputation project that is unlocked after you complete each reputation, as it gives more dilithium in long term, compared to 15 second one.

[Stone Gold]

Hello Fleet mates. It is time for the awaited Dilithium 8000 Run, as I call it, post. I have only 3 toons with the fleet. A FED, KLINGON, and ROMULAN. I play them every 3rd day with a day off, if I choose to take it. This means I play my FED toon on Sunday and Wednesday, my Kling on Monday and Thursday, and my Rommie on Tuesday and Friday and then Saturday off. This gives me a variety of ways to play missions or just hang out with the fleet. Playing this way, for me, keeps the burnout, or the “WALL” as some call it, from happening. With this being said, I recently read Marcase’s post and it gave me an idea. Why not put what I do down on paper and organize it using what I do and what Marcase and others suggested to get the maximum refined, or unrefined, dilithium possible per day. So, I created a spreadsheet, captured as an image since I use OpenOffice instead of Microsfot Office and the fleet forums will not accept a PDF file, that can help with this dilithium grinding. The run itself should only take about 1 and 1/2 hours, depending on wait times for PvE que’s, and I have tested it on KDF side and as we know KDF PvE’s take forever to que. All the extras is what brings the total time to about 2 and 1/2 hours give or take 15 minutes. This should seem to be better than sitting there ginding for 4 to 8 hours a day just for dilithium. Some of the stuff included in this run also reward you with Drops, Marks, and BNP’s. That is a good thing, right? And the plus is, if you don’t mind sitting there grinding for dilithium for up to 8 hours, you could reach 20k unrefined dilithium per day, or even more. So, without further adois, here is the Dilithum 8000 Run (Space) spreadsheet. Feedback is welcome whether criticism, suggestion, or kudos. Hope this helps out and enjoy.

[attachment=0:3a8w0jzi]Dilithium 8000 Run.jpg[/attachment:3a8w0jzi]

[Melock]

Very nice guys! I can’t add anything as I tend to do a random (what do I feel like today) of the above.
Definitely not as planned out.

Need to spend more time in ker’rat as I want to buy a few things on the exchange.

It is my spending that keeps me broke!

[Damix]

Thanks Stone, this will be of great help to newcomers and those that are not familiar with getting their daily dilithium dose. Have a question.. did changes to Defera Hard rewards made any changes to your spreadsheet calculations? Now you get 320*4=1280 dilithium for completing “Hard” missions and it can be done really quickly.

Also, I’m adding link to the guide made by Latinumbar so we can have everything in one place:
The couch potato Dilithium farmer’s guide

[Cryptixx]

Another 3 dili missions you could add to that list are on Nimbus III.
The contact for all of them is Yamlon Nuk and all of them are within the 5 minute range.

On the Desert Front requires taking out one group of enemies a little bit of a distance outside of Paradise City. The time spent walking there is the better half. This gives you 480 dili.

Creatures of the Desert takes place right behind Paradise City. Take the back exit from the bar and it’s pretty much right there. When you hit the first glowie a countdown of 2 minutes starts during which you need to kill as many of those crab-like things coming up from under the sand as you can.
You can probably get more than 480 dili here, because it depends on how many enemies you’ve killed.

• 0: 1
• 1-19: 380
• 20-29: 480
• 30-39: 580
• 40+: 680

Even I with my crap-ass team with lousy gear and ground skills got the 480.

Orion Contraband is the quickest of them all. It takes place within Paradise City and all you need to do is hit 6 glowies throughout town. The first is at a fixed location. After that one you have 1:30 to get the rest.
I timed myself last time and it turns out I was able to beam down to the planet from space, run to the contact, get the mission and successfully complete the mission for 480 dili in no more than 1:50.

[Cryptixx]

• Orion Contraband: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXt0SyMJG6Q
• Creatures of the Desert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UddjWyaV04
• On the Desert Front: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S_0U5pZqsA

More coming over the next few days. I intend to make a video of each daily dilithium mission so that anyone can see clearly who to talk to, what to do, etc…

[Marcase]

Nice vids, thx.

"Boldly bashing Borg to bits since 2012..."

[Damix]

Thank you, this will be very helpful : )

[Cryptixx]

Sh’mar – Distress Signal (Zibal): http://youtu.be/-mzZQsUer84

Traelus System – Satellite Repair: http://youtu.be/XPS5smKJ-vE

Defense Contract (Alhena): http://youtu.be/V_KlCixfOWM

[Author]

Posts