Dilithium Grinding explained (again)
(you can consider this the Dilithium Bible - incomplete but entertaining)
I bring up this topic again as ive heard about people with problems on this matter lately.
Yesterday I did a test (with the background that i need 300.000 additional dil atm) just to see if I am able to refine the maximum dil per day for all my chars (7x8.000 -> 56.000 dil).
Well, I made a bit more than 60.000 dil in 7 hours and got the 56.000 refined. That however was under perfect conditions (more about that later).
Task is not to make 56k dil now... task is to let people understand how to earn dilithium for 1 char... day by day. If people want more they just have to invest more time.
Main focus should be on what i did with 5 of the chars. For my main chars different rules apply for the fact that I do dil mining with my main chars (OP-R8R and J'Ton) mainly via doffs and STFs.
Making dilithium via STFs is btw. a valid possibility (eventhough i consider it boring after some time).
Reward on elite STFs = 960 dil.
Lets assume you need 10mins for a STF (some take less, some take longer -> just an assumed time) you could do 7 STFs for 7.000 dil in ~70mins. Since you have also some doffs that you send on mission you should get an average reward of 500 dil from there and if you do the quiz at the Starfleet Academy you can get another 480 dil (it takes me less than one minute to do that).
So with other words... with this method you can get your daily dilithium in a little more than one hour.
Actually you can do it even faster since you get for every done STF 1-11 Borg processors which you can sell. 5 Processors for 1000 dil (that of course if you dont need these processors for something else).
IF you have a big amount of rare and very rare doffs your reward from the doff missions also might be higher (on my main char 1000-2000 dil per day).
Now lets assume you dont want to do STFs (because you got bored or because you dont know how to do them effectively).
Your alternative is are the daily missions.
So lets see what I did yesterday.
Of course I started getting my 500 dil from the doffs + 480 dil for the quiz. So 7.000 to go.
Most important for doing daily missions is to do them effectivly in a way where you dont have to travel around the entire galaxy (this saves time).
Well, from Sol its not that far to Eta Eridani with Slipstream... so i went there.
The Traellus system is not far from the spawnpoint so this was my first mission. It takes ~5mins and is worth 480 dil.
Now the already mentioned "perfect conditions" apply. -> I have not done this mission with those chars the day before so i was able to do the Traellus mission twice. -> 960 dil
From Traellus its not far to Ker'rat.
There is a mission called "to the Frontlines" worth 1440 dil that can be done in Kerrat. It takes about 15mins to finish it (unlikely that it takes less due the 4mins cooldown). Again the "perfect conditions" apply... I was able to do the mission twice because I have not played it the days before. -> total reward: 2880 dil
Since I am always in a hurry I already queued up other dailies (Gorn Minefield and Big Dig) while the Kerrat mission was on the 4mins cooldown. But you can also make some coffee or get a beer if you wish.
But ok... Gorn Minefield and the Big Dig take about 10mins each and reward a bit more than 3.000 dil (together).
Finally since I am already in Eta Eridani I can also take care of the Sh'mar encounter in the lower area of the sector. It takes less than 5mins to do that and is worth another 460 dil.
So lets see how much dilithium we got this way and how much time it did cost:
Quiz = 1 minute = 480 dil
Doffs = 4 minutes = ~500 dil
Traellus = 5minutes = 480 dil
Kerrat = 2x 15mins (less if you use the cooldown for other missions) = 2880 dil
Big Dig = 10mins = 1600 dil (i think even a bit more)
Gorn Minefield = 10mins = 1440 dil
Sh'mar = 5mins = 480 dil
Total = 65 mins = 7860 dil
Well - not exactly 8000dil but infact it might be that you get more than 500 dil from your doff missions... and if you are clever you could when you schedule your doff missions at the beginning of your "dilithium tour" choose a few missions which take 30mins - 1 hour. So with other words... at the end of this Dilithium tour these missions are completed and offer additional rewards.
And if that fails and you really want the 8.000 dil... just queue up the Crystaline Entity on normal difficulty (it takes about 5mins to finish and you get 480 dil reward).
Depending on your skills this is a real alternative to STFs grinding.
Now somebody could say "BUT... you cant do the "to the frontlines" mission this way every day". This is a valid arguement actually but there are alternatives.
E.g. Today I would instead go to the asteroid field in Beta Ursae. If i do that while the Dilithium mining even is running I could do 3000 dilithium in 15mins. If that event is not running I can do 2000 dil in the 15mins. IF that event is not running I earn 1000 dil less than in Kerrat... but i also spend only 15mins instead of 30 so i could decide to schedule a STF now which would be worth ~1000 dil.
So no matter how I do it... i can make the complete amount of dil for a day in a reasonable time.
You can do the asteroid mining twice every 2nd day if you want (i would do it this way as you dont have to travel there each day then). You can do the Kerrat mission... dunno... every 4-5 days.
But there are more alternatives.
Defera patrol missions (can also be done twice every 2nd day).
The main mission there rewards 1440 dil (x2), the ground mission rewards 480 dil (x2) and the breen patrol rewards 480 dil (x2). That is 4.800 dilithium and if you hurry you can do all that in 30mins.
Now add your 1000 dil from the quiz + doffs you reach 5.800 dil. To do the remaining 2.200 dilithium via other dailies, STFs or whatever comes to your mind should really be no problem anymore.
As you can see I have given 3 examples (4 with the STFs) where you can make dilithium in a relative short time.
Maybe you have noticed that these examples can all be done in a specific sector... the first one was in eta eridani, the 2nd one in beta ursae and the 3rd one in deferi space. You dont have to travel much... that saves time. And no day is like the other... you dont have to do a mission 100 times... you can variie.
One last and in my eyes interesting way to earn dilithium is the Mirror Universe Invasion event.
That event is scheduled at least once a day and it has no cooldown.
Reward = 480 dil.
The mission takes 3-4mins.
Lets assume 4mins... so you can do it 15 times in that hour.
15*480 = 7200 dil
Assuming you have a good team and only need 3mins you can do it 20times -> 20*480 = 9600 dilithium.
Conclusion: There is no best way... just many good ones.
Last but not least there is an aspect that also needs to be mentined.
I have 7 chars.... all of them do doff missions.
I always make sure to have "confiscate contrabant" as a mission running which rewards 2 or more Contrabant on success.
Now if 50% of these missions are successful (very realistic) then I get enough contrabant per day to use it for a "turn over contrabant" doff mission which rewards 2000 dilithium.
