Starfleet/Klingon Strike Group

I somewhat expect this to be a very controversial subject. I also expect that EVERY member is asking this question at least once, or twice, or thrice.....


So here goes:
Read This.

I recommend everyone read the link above. It might make you ask a lot of questions, but that's a good thing. It also lists quite a few of the ways to earn dilithium. This list by no means is exhaustive, but it is updated by the community and does touch on some very nice points.
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1. Confiscate Contraband from Crew, buying Contraband, and Turning Contraband over to Secuirty Officer (Fed/Kling)
   This is an incredibly NICE way to earn dilithium. Do not under estimate it. The best part? It's earned with very little effort on your part.
   
2. Dyson Sphere: Battle Zone
   This is a "global team" ground based mission that you can play all day if you choose, and earn dilithium while doing it. It's worth nothing that many people do these in a very uncouth & uncool way which often makes it harder than it needs to be. However, there is a nice way to get maximum reward and still be a team contributor. This topic warrants a separate thread even to give a guide.
   
3. Elite PvE's
   Do not underestimate the Reputation system and Elite PvE's. Here is where you will earn ~2000 - ~3000 dilithium in an hour with a decent team, and you are also earning marks and item drops helping you get more Energy Credits, or even additional Dilithium. As an example, Elite Omega missions reward Neural Processors which are used to make Mk XII gear, or turn in for another 1000 dilithium.
   
4. Daily's:
   These missions are area based, and exist all over the universe. They award a reasonable amount of dilithium. They can also reward marks for Reputation. Such as the Romulan based dailies. If you get bored with one style of play, you can do some other dailies, and then come back to doing some Elite PvE's when the cooldown is over.
   

those are (imho) the most widely used and most frequent ways of earning dilithium. Another one that should not be overlooked is the Mining missions. I'm not going to say these are exciting by any means. But it is a way to bring in an extra 1000 dilithium (or 5000 if you have mining claims). And it is well worth doing since you SHOULD be headed to the Fleet Mine every day anyways, you are right there with the Ferengi Asteroid mine and the fleet.

Why are you headed to the Fleet mine daily? Because PWE/Cryptic/STO limits you to 8000 refine-able dilithium in a day. This is their way of "capping" dilithium farming and controlling the market. Since dilithium is used for everything in the game this is also the main way PWE hopes to get you to spend money to buy zen to exchange to Dilithium. Well, the Fleet mine will allow you to refine another 500 dilithium making it a 8500 maximum refined dilithium daily.

last but not least, this is a "well known trick" that PWE has not chosen to patch and it seems they are ok with this so there is no reason not to take advantage of it:
If you have alts on the same account, (or make new characters on the same account so you now have alts), you can transfer dilithium between these characters. So it is possible for you to earn and refine 8500 dilithium on each character and then transfer it all to a main character. So if you are playing for free, you can get 8500 * 2 = 17000 dilithium a day. If you buy zen (with money or dilithium), you can unlock up to 40 character slots so 8500 * 40 = 340,000 dilithium a day is not impossible (but I can't imagine anyone would want to do this).

So, with all this said, what are your thoughts and or suggestions?

Great topic for a thread, perhaps long overdue!

As someone who refines the 8k each day on my 3 toons but has not consciously sat to 'farm' dilithium for some time, it might help some people to outline how I maximize my dilithium take. It differs for my fed and klingons so I'll outline them briefly by faction below:

Fed:
Hoarding:
1. Dyson Battlezone - Before the battlezone I never made 8k a day, now because of it I never fail to make 8k. Its by a long way the most profitable way to farm dilithium in the game. Even if you hate ground at least try it out once.
Can be done once a day to get the bonus of the daily missions given by the commander in the command centre, but for best effect team up and complete multiple times to build a stockpile of dilithium.

2. Bonus Weekends / Marks and Implants: If you have no immediate need for the marks and implants you earn in the battlezone and other pves, then hoard them for the bonus dilithium weekend (one is coming this Thursday) and get an extra 50% when you trade them in.
Remember you get 5 voth implants and 135 marks if you successfully complete one run in the battlezone - ordinarily this converts to 3,016 dilithium, but with the bonus this is 4,525 per run!
If you have the time over the dilithium weekend to run the battlezone then go for it, as it tends to be busy and very profitable with a 50% bonus on regular dilithium rewards too.

Maintenance:
Once I have a stockpile I do a few different things to stop it deteriorating too fast.
1) PVE: 960 diltihium from Infected is very handy and its a good fun pve. Dont forget the daily bonus marks also which can be traded for dilithium. Azure Nebula/Rhi'hho Station/Crystalline and Undine Infiltration are handy for getting the other factions daily mark bonus.

2) Dailies: Separate to those that Ver mentions above, there are a few dailies available via the mission screen from Admiral Yanishev that offer additional rewards for completion within a PVE - The Big Dig, Gorn Minefield, Klingon Scout Force and Breaking the Planet. They can add an additional 960 dil and 50 fleet marks to the exisiting rewards so are well worth picking up. However queues for all but the Gorn PVE are tough to get sufficient numbers to start.

3) Hourlies: This is where you get the best return on your marks. Provided you have completed a reputation to T5, you can trade 15 marks for 340 dilithium per hour.

4) Mining: I really don't enjoy mining but if you find yourself at the fleet mine its worth a go as you can mine about 2400 dilithium there per day. Also as Ver mentions you can refine an additional 500 and there are a couple of handy doff missions for diltihium and ec rewards.

5) Nimbus III: A lot of people forget about this place after the storyline missions here but its very close to new Romulus, has bank access and 3 missions from Yamlon Nuk give a very easy 1500 dil in about 10-12 minutes. This is especially useful pre-level 50 as a lot of other missions are not yet available.


Klingon:
I have yet to take my Klingon to the Dyson Battlezone, but he still hits 8k per day by a combination of 2,3 and 5 above as well as:
1) Contraband: Its many times easier to gain contraband on the Klingon side... Cybrox has a great set of tips here:
The Cybrox Guide to Contraband on KDF

2) Trading in Prisoners: From the contraband missions you also acquire a good many prisoners which are tradable for dilithium also, though the rate of success is a lot better in those doff missions found in space as opposed to from the security officer on Qo'nos.

NB - Season 9.5 also introduced dilithium rewards to the ground missions on New Romulus, Defera and Nukara Prime - a great way to combine getting the daily mark bonus with some dilithium.

Hope the above is helpful and if anyone has any questions on this then post here or pst me in game @beardypicardo

I have 9 toons so I have to get my dil in the most efficient manner there is. I use rich mining claims when I have them doff assignments but in the event I don't have claims or contraband I have come up with what I think is a very efficient system. This system works for me with the following assumptions:


1. In a fleet with a tier 3 mine
2. You know your way around the galaxy.
3. You are able to get at least 735 points on the mining mini game

The times I have listed is done with a Tac Cpt in a Ar'Kif Tac Carrier Warbird Retrofit with fleet weapons.

1st group: Time: 9 minutes Dil Reward: 2400
Investigate Officer Reports - under available missions
Sword of the Kuav'Magh - Foundry mission (replace this mission with vulture's wheel on KDF side)

2nd group: Time: 18 Minutes Dil Reward: 2400
Emancipation- Deferi Daily
Rescue Deferi Captives- Deferi Daily
Aiding the Deferi- Deferi Daily

3rd group: Time 23 Minutes Dil Reward: 3480
Asteroid Mining- Hit esc at 735 points or 775 for max trace reward
Fleet mining- do all 3 quests and hit esc at 735 points

4th Group: Time 1 minute Dil Reward: 480
History 102: Alpha Quadrant Midterm

This gives me a total of 8760 unrefined dil a day in which I refine 8500. I didn't add the deferi ground missions or anything that the time factor is out of my control. I do other things for dil to change things up i.e. STF's, Doff assignments, trading marks for dil. But if you do the above it wont cost you any materials just time.

Hope this help out a little

Kenthend