Gameplay-Strategy #14 - Galaxy Quirks

In STFC, there are several places on the galaxy map that are different, unique, or just odd in how it acts. Some of these can be an advantage to other players, especially if others don't know about them. Here are some interesting quarks of the galaxy that I can came across:

System	Area	Warp Required	Information
Wolf (39)	Federation	40	This area is unique area as it allows for "pocket mining" of Gas (Groombridge 34 (40)) and Latinum (Barnard's Star (38)) using ships with a Warp range of 8 for Barnard's Star, and Warp 27 for Groombridge. The warp 40 limit to the area reduces the hassle of mining in the area, but requires a Warp 40 ship to enter and leave the area. This limits Swarm and Borg activity if based in Wolf. Wolf also has Explorer Hostiles, making Pike/Moreau/Chen a good crew for grinding, especially during a Faction Hunt. See Faction Hunt
Romii (38)	Romulan	40	Mining 3* Gas in Romulan space? Usually the Federation is associated with Gas, Romulan with Crystal, but there is a single system near Romulus that has 3* Gas nodes.
Ty'Gokor (39)	Klingon	53	This area is hard to get to, but spawns only trade ships LVL38-40. This area also has a higher PVE loot chest yield than other systems of similar level.
	Borg Transwarp	20	These systems require special warp tokens to access, but have a higher mining base rate (5x), and huge nodes (1m). Due to this, it is an easy way to get a stock of materials built up. See Lucrative 3* Transwarp Systems
	Rogue Transwarp	20	Simular to the Borg Transwarp systems, these systems require special warp tokens to access that can be gained from the Rogue faction store. Mining nodes in these systems have a higher mining base rate (2x), and larger node sizes (27k). Due to this, it is an easy way to get a stock of materials built up. See Rogue Warp Tokens
Pareleon (26)	Area		Pareleon contains Explorer ships for the Separatist Bosses. These ships are strong, but are only energy weapons, making Pike/Moreau/Chen an excellent crew for grinding these hostile ships See Separatist Event
Roda Gamma (29)	Borg		Roda Gamma contains Borg probes that rarely fires energy weapons, making Pike/Moreau/T'Laan an excellent choice for hitting hostiles, without taking much damage. This system is special because the unique firing pattern of the hostiles, and the ability to hit many targets for more cargo. See Probe Hunt Testing
Groombridge (40)	Federation	40	Groombridge not only has 3* Gas nodes, and is difficult to get to (needs Warp 40), it also contains LVL40-41 Mining ships that yield 4* Broken Survey Parts or 4* Broken Explorer Parts. This is one of the systems to contain hostiles that can be destroyed without going to Dark Space.
Ursva (40)	Klingon	40	Similar to Groombridge, but containing 3* Crystal nodes, it has LVL40-41 hostiles which yield 4* Broken Survey Parts or 4* Broken Explorer Parts.

Mining #10 - Bonus Refinery

It is a good idea to always have at least 150k (450k is better) raw of each material (Ore, Gas, Crystal) in the event that a Bonus Refinery occurs. This is a rather special event on the server, and usually coincides around a special event (holiday, or after server crash compensation). Based on history, the Bonus refine is usually a 1 day event, but occasionally is 2 days. This shows up in the Refinery Tab, with a Pre-Cool Down timer showing when it will start, and how long it will last. Once you start refining, the cool down is 10 hours, so you can get in 3 for a 1 Day Bonus, and 5 on a 2 Day Bonus. 

*Prime Refine has no effect on Bonus Refine*

The type of resources vary by level, and it is still governed by random chance, but there are no Common Materials in a Bonus Refine batch, only Uncommon and Rare. This will usually produce a good yield of materials, especially if you have recently moved up in Ops Level (see data below for explanation):

For math nerds, this is from Maztec (Server-32):
The refinery basically operates as a random number generator between FLOOR and MAX. Where MAX = [ f(Ops / ( log(To) )) + f(R&D / ( log(Trd) )) + f(Ref / ( log(Tr) )) - f(PeriodicCap - PeriodicGain) ] and FLOOR = [ MIN - f(PeriodicCap - PeriodicGain) ]. Where f() is a function that is modified by those variables, To/Trd/Tr are time since that level was achieved, PeriodicGain is how much of an RSS you received within a specific period of time (24 hr and 8 day appear to be the time periods), and PeriodicCap is the maximum that’s you can receive a bonus to obtain within that time period. There appears to be a logarithmic decrease in the bonus quantities refined after upgrading Ops, R&D, or the Refinery, which is why those functions include not just the bonus amount for that level but are reduced by the quantity of time at that level. Note, when FLOOR or MAX would be below certain set amounts, the game does flatten out to the preset minimum amount for that level range. From there, it’s basically a matter of RNG(FLOOR,MAX), which generates a value from which the available Quality*Quantity values are factored out from HighestValue to Lowest Value. As people said, it appears (although I’m not absolutely convinced) that you get two rolls per chest and then the rewarded amount is SUM’d and you’re done.

The problem here is that it is very difficult to account for all of those variables, because the PeriodicGain includes some but not all of the sources of uncommon and rare refined materials that would otherwise be available. It appears that at a minimum it is likely something like PeriodicGain = aEventGain + bRefinedGain + cStoreGain + dItemsGain. Where a,b,c,d are some value of constant modifier to each of those and it appears there are some forms of each of those or subforms that are exempt from inclusion in PeriodicGain.

All of this combined ultimately means that it is very hard to fully reverse engineer how the refinery works, without a tremendous amount of data at each level and tracking of many seemingly unrelated variables.

Oh! I almost forget, in MAX, there also appears to be an f(ResourcesSpent / log(Ts)) which functionally decreases your gains the longer you go without spending resources.

Basically, when your’e saving up for that single 2000 uncommon part, if you’re not spending uncommons ANYWHERE, then your gain will slow down. There does seem to be both a general cap for these resources as well as independent caps based on resource type as well. But I haven’t quite figured out where to shove those into the predictive model.

Sooo..... in reality, the formula is probably fairly simple, but it has a lot of variables that go into it that impact the RNG range that generates the award.

For example, in tracking my own data, when I do NOT buy the monthly pack, my daily average TOTAL return on materials is about +9-15 (depends on month/levels/tc) each type, but my REFINERY rates go down by about -3 uncommon per refine and -0.2 rare per refine....
Finally the RNG range is large enough that it makes it difficult to really say what the floor and max really are because a fair amount of it is as it says... random.