Mining is one of the more important tasks you need to do in Star Trek Fleet Command. You’ll need it to complete your daily goals, for missions, and to complete events. The better you get at maxing the speed of your miners will let you finish all of those things faster – and let you move on to other more fun things. Hopefully, these mining basics will let you do just that.
I like to have my mining done each day before I finish my coffee. (Speaking of coffee, Get your First Bag of Amora Coffee Free, Pay $1.00 Reservation fee today!)
What You’ll Be Mining
The resources
- Parsteel
- Tritanium
- Dilithium
The materials. Each of these comes in three grades (2*, 3* and 4*), and you’ll need to refine them to produce the materials needed to upgrade your ships, your station, and your research.
- Gas
- Crystal
- Ore
Specialty Items
- Data (corrupted and uncorrupted)
- Raw Latinum
Mining Basics – The Right Ship for the Right Job
Different ships specialize in mining different things. These ships give you a bonus that will increase as you level them up. The bonuses listed are for level 1 ships.
- ECS Fortunate +15% mining rate of Parsteel
- Envoy +15% mining rate of Tritanium
- The North Star 0.1% off officers health into 3* mining bonus
- Horizon +15% mining rate of Dilithium
- Botany Bay +26,500% mining bonus for corrupted and uncorrupted data
- D’Vor +12,000% mining bonus for raw data
- K’Vort +70% mining rate of Crystal
- Antares +70% mining rate of Gas
- Valkis +70% mining rate of Ore
- B’Chor +120% mining rate of Crystal
- USS Hydra +120% mining rate of Gas
- Vorta Vor +120% mining rate of Ore
- Related Article – Please Stop Mining Latinum with Envoys
You can increase the mining speed of your ship by upgrading its mining laser. And by selecting …
The Right Captain
Selecting the right captain for your ship depends on what you’re trying to mine. Each of the members of the Surveyors and Miners group specializes in on resource of material.
- Helvia +40% mining rate of Parsteel
- K’Bisch +40% mining rate of Tritanium
- Domitia +40% mining rate of Dilithium
- Barot +40% mining rate of Crystal
- T’Pring +40% mining rate of Gas
- Stonn +40% mining rate of Ore
- Joaquin +50% protected cargo
- Ten of Ten +50% mining rate to Parsteel, Tritanium, and Dilithium
The Officers Matter, Too
Some of the officer abilities also make a huge difference. (In parentheses are the amounts by tier)
- Joaquin – speed of data mining (40%, 60%, 80%, 100%, 125%)
- Ten of Ten – overall mining speed (80%, 100%, 120%, 140%, 160%)
- T’Pring – protected cargo (50%, 100%, 150%, 200%, 300%)
- Five of Ten – protected cargo (30%, 35%, 40%, 45%, 50%)
Cadey McCoy’s officer ability, “psychologist,” which increases the effectiveness of the captain maneuver has no impact on mining.
Synergy is King
The other officers on your bridge matter as well. Putting your officers with others from their group will give you a “synergy” bonus to the captain’s ability. Placing a command, science, and engineering officer will also increase your synergy bonus. Officers of higher classes will give even greater synergy bonuses.
The lightning bolt symbols and yellow lines indicate a synergy bonus. The percentages between the officers let you know how much synergy has been added.
Location, Location, Location
Not all nodes are the same. Resource and material nodes will vary by the amount capacity the node has before you have to reset it. This is a big reason why you don’t want to ignore the engines on your miners, and why sometimes it may be worth it sacrifice some synergy to add warp range with Scotty.
Data and Raw Latinum nodes will vary by the speed they allow you to mine. In general, the higher the warp range required to enter a system, the faster the mining rate for these nodes will be.
There are also two systems in Borg space that have the fastest raw latinum nodes in the game. You’ll need special latinum cells obtained by hitting assimilated traders in Borg space and refining the ‘Latinum Antiques” they provide order to gain access to these systems. You’ll need a level 4 to 6 Vi’dar to get Rare Latinum Cells. Your Vi’dar will have to be levels 7 to 9 to get Epic Latinum Cells.
Torra Sedra is a level 28 system, it requires Rare Latinum Cells to enter. Zed Alpha is a level 31 system, and it requires Epic Latinum Cells to enter.
Mining Basics – Protecting Your Cargo
In most servers, unprotected cargo is fair game, and going OP, or “over-protected” cargo leaves your ship vulnerable to attack. You can increase this by upgrading the cargo bay on your survey ship, or by tiering up your ship – and by using your officers.
Three officers in the game provide you with cargo protection bonuses. Joaquin’s captain’s ability gives a protection bonus. The officer abilities T’Pring and One of Ten also give protection bonuses.
If you wanted to leave out a miner overnight, you could put all three on one ship and create a Max Protect Crew – or you could put an Augment synergy crew with Joaquin to increase your protected cargo.
Resetting a Node
From time to time, you’ll exhaust a node. You can keep mining it, but you’ll need to reset the node. To do this, simply take the miner off the node, and put it back on. In days of yore, you’d need to change your view out of the system, and put it back in again for the node to reset – but no longer. Of the simple mining basics, this is a big one.
Some of them may be French, who knows?
Cashing in Your Score
Scores for events and daily goals are calculated by when you take your miner off the node (you can put it right back on to keep mining). So you want to make sure that you’ve done frequently so as close to the ending of the current event as possible to make sure all of your points are counted.
You can also “preload” mining for events, but mining as much as possible and not cashing in before dailies or events begin.
Good luck out there.
LLAP,
Carnac.
Cover Photo by j3net 