So on Tuesday, I went over the basics of the Discovery. Today I’m going to going to hit the actual using and upgrading of your new ship. So get ready: Black Alert!
How Black Alert Works
In terms of practical use, it’s not really an instant jump. It’s more like super speed than beaming in. So you’re not going to be instantly appearing in the middle of a system, you’re going to be entering from the edge. From a competitive balance standpoint, this is probably a good thing, especially in PvP. Gives targeted players a little bit of warning. But I understand why this might cause some consternation to players.
It’ll costs me 850 Cultivated Mycelium to complete one Black Alert jump. This cost will go down as you upgrade your Discovery’s warp engines. (More later on how you get and cultivate Mycelium.)
You can only jump to systems that are within the Discovery’s warp range, which isn’t very great. For instance, until you get your Discovery to tier 6, you’ll need to have Cadet Scotty on your ship in order to reach the level 28 Mycelium systems.
How Strong is the Discovery?
Not very. It’s a ship you can build at level 21, so out of the box, it’s only a little bit stronger than a Vahklas. Obviously your research will have a big impact on the initial numbers, but a new Vahklas for me would be 87,540, and a Discovery would be 102,159.
If you’re a level 21 player, you’ve got to feel like you hit the jackpot. While I certainly wouldn’t have recommended skipping the Vahklas before, now I think it’s not the worst idea. For comparison’s sake, here’s my level 15 (tier 4) Discovery, and a level 10 (tier 2) Vahklas. Same crew. Same research. And the Vahklas is a little bit stronger. I suspect this difference will increase as each is leveled up.
Firing Pattern
For an explorer, the Discovery has got a nice firing pattern, and it’s got a nice (for it’s size) kinetic weapon that fires every other round.
(Once again, thanks to our friends at LCARS for the firing pattern. )
Crewing your Discovery
So the Discovery crew that we’ve gotten thus far isn’t really great for the Discovery. They’re good officers (Burnham and Saru in particular.) But their big impact is on PvP, not on hostiles or mining.
Ten of Ten works on your Discovery, but it’s not the massive improvement that you’ll get when mining say, Latinum. For hunting the hostiles, the Pike crew is best, with T’Laan. If you’ve got 5 of 10, she’d be a huge help.
Powering Black Alert: The Care and Feeding of Mycelium
First of all, to power your Discovery’s Black Alerts, you’ll need to cultivate Mycelium (see below). You get Mycelium in one of two ways, either by harvesting (mining) it, or by attacking hostiles. You’ll then cultivate it in the Mycelium Greenhouse that you’ll find in the refinery tab, under Discovery.
If you haven’t built your discovery yet, it won’t appear.
Here’s a list of the systems where you’ll be able to find Mycelium.
First, the level 23 systems
| Amagi | Arcadion | Babishta |
| Esteria | Izanami | Jizo |
| Netron Alpha | Netron Omega | Salara |
| Tenzen-1029 |
And then the level 28s.
| Cada-X | Dis | Nalomas |
| Risette | Sae |
Harvesting vs. Hunting
Your harvesting rate of Mycelium is dependent on your ship’s level. So hunting hostiles for Mycelium will help level up your ship,
But in general, it’s much faster to harvest (mine) than it is to collect it from defeated hostiles.
Just doing some quick math, you can mine 800 raw Mycelium in a little less than two minutes (depending on your Discovery’s level. My level 14 can do it in 84 seconds, but the exact number is trivial.)
You can certainly get more by grinding out level 29 hostiles at around 150 a pop, but the question is, what’s the opportunity cost of doing this? What’s the best use of your time. You only have so many hours in the day, and many tasks to accomplish.
If you’re in a pinch and need some right now to cultivate, then hunting will be better. In the long run, harvesting should allow you to get all the Mycelium you need AND go hunt swarm, or grind out hostiles for faction rep, or anything else you can think of to advance yourself in the game.
Upgrading the Discovery
The thing that’s going to slow you from upgrading your Discovery is going to be the spore drive parts (kinda like the way D’Vor parts are a brake on upgrading that ship. Again, as a basis for comparison, I’ll use the Vahklas. Given that it’s a specialty ship, and that it can eventually get you officer badges, you’d expect it to be more expensive. It’s a good deal more expensive in every area other than ship parts.
| Item | Vahklas | Discovery |
| Spore Drive Components | 0 | 48,025 |
| Tritanium | 126,369,000 | 1,823,800,000 |
| Dilithium | 12,437,750 | 20,709,000 |
| 2★ Common Gas | 0 | 50 |
| 3★ Common Gas | 3,759 | 13,400 |
| 3★ Uncommon Gas | 1,720 | 2,460 |
| 3★ Rare Gas | 235 | 395 |
| 3★ Common Ore | 706 | 4,740 |
| 3★ Uncommon Ore | 538 | 1,150 |
| 3★ Rare Ore | 60 | 285 |
| 3★ Explorer Parts | 18,366 | 2,370 |
You’ll get the Spore Drive parts from your Discovery refineries. You’ll find these in your refinery menu.
You can also get some from the Discovery Recruiting Special.
And, if you’re just not that patient, and you want an Oompa Loompa now, you can purchase packs in the store that include spore drive components.
Random Black Alert Question
Can you Black Alert jump to a system that requires a warp token?
Yes. Yes you can. Are you happy now?
Disclosure
For the purposes of this article, I did receive Discovery blueprints and cultivated mycelium from Scopely.