Getting the most out of Upgrades

[@kal0247]

MK II weapon opener 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣ah Spencer your gift for naming never ceases to amaze me👍🏽Glad your feeling better.

[@CasualSAB]

Hey folks, not been feeling the best this week, but this topic was requested by BluePearl on my Discord, and I felt it was a good time for a video like this given the upgrade event active now through Oct 11th. This was one take and had no editing on my part. I missed some things in this video, but hopefully there's enough here to help you all navigate this upgrade event.

[@gallendugall8913]

take care of yourself and get well soon

[@TimberwolfCY]

Such a great video. I keep coming back to it over and over again to reference it. Thanks so much for the work you put into this Spencer!

[@berlindude75]

Another tip: Ideally do re-engineering of items at epic quality, as then all possible mod slots will be unlocked and the more mod slots you re-roll at the same time, the more you will save on refined dilithium and salvage.

[@wkrick]

The only exception that I know of to this rule is the Risian Kit frame from the summer event. You can re-engineer it up to KPerfx4 but you need to do it before you upgrade. It's explained in the DPS League "Ground Combat in the Current Century" page.

[@shaneglover99]

Can you show how thats done?

[@chromewick]

I'm a returning player. I don't have the resources yet to do this, but thank you for the super helpful information. You are awesome.

[@MichaelPohanka]

Wow. I didn't know that upgrading low level items is more effective. Great advices and video. Thank you

[@wkrick]

Thank you for this video. I've been playing STO for over a year and I've read so many things online about upgrading gear and nobody ever explained it as clearly as you. I can't believe how much dilithium and ec that I've wasted upgrading my gear the wrong way.

[@JohnL488]

Wow, I been playing this game as an Engineer which is my crafter since Open Beta. I never occurred that openning box items on a lower level toon would never me MKII gears. I knew most items will scale but it never thought of doing this. I knew everything else. Thanks

[@goontubeassos7076]

Another tip, for console players. Any friends or family that have a game tag but don’t play STO, borrow their account to play Sto and claim their 5 ultimate upgrades from Xbox store next to zen, I assumes it’s the same for ps. You may need 2 consoles or have an sto friend help to transfer items, but the new account has to use the upgrades so they need the items you want gold mark 15. I’ve upgraded 45 items to mark 15 gold this way, you can only use tradable items to do this.

[@Vulf_Faolan]

Thanks!

[@OneCanisLupus]

Another great video! Keep up the awesome work! Nice to know how much dil I was spending not realizing I was doing it wrong for years. Thx for the help.

[@jimbodee4043]

This is a great guide, so expensive to buy zen epic and mk xv token.

[@justinwallace269]

I found one that cranked my mark 5 pistol up to a mark 15 and made it legendary. I can't even use it now because you have to be a Dahar master. Hopefully I can get more of those later.

[@nwoizaakgoldmann4519]

Thanks for the video man. I know this video is 2 Years old but i started playing again after a few years and these topics a pretty helpful

[@raijinmeister]

Compared to other games with upgrade systems, STO has a pretty chill one. I hope they don't change. I only wish we could even pay a bit more to select the suffix we want when re-rolling items and to reroll mission reward items.

[@AzraelThanatos]

One thing that you don't want to waste an ultimate on unless you absolutely need it now are rep gear if you have finished a temporal recruit. They set all of the pieces to ultra rare for all of your rep pieces (and MKXIII), so, you might want to save them. As a side note, there are the research boosts that tend to be relatively cheap on the exchange to up your chances of getting the quality increases with most of them, which can be worth it, especially if you're already at 15 and working on it.

[@benedictionkupo]

wish id known this before i used all mine! tho to be fair, im not patient enough to wait until i have the 10 level 5 reps required for the rarity+level boost before getting any of my gear

[@VorlonAngel]

Excellent job my friend. I wish I had seen this a long time ago. Hey, better late than never. LOL!! Thanks for the video.

[@jasonbrosseau1056]

Great video! This was exactly what I was looking for to figure out since I am just getting back into the game after many years and there are so many different boosts out there. You explained it very well to help minimize the cost.

[@CasualSAB]

Welcome back to the game and thanks for watching! Glad this helped you out

[@ossirioth]

I never knew the upgrade chance increased if you spammed upgrades at MkXV, I always wondered how you guys had everything upgraded to Epic on every video! Thanks for the info :D

[@JCinLapel]

The first think I upgrade is the weapon consoles because that enhances all your damage on the cheap

[@Spanners_the_Monkey]

Thank you for the explanation.

[@PaulBHartzog]

I had been using Ultimate upgrades for anything that I could not get at Mk II (which was disheartening) but thanks to your video I now realize that I can get those to Mk XV Epic also, just by using your technique. Super thx. I can't help wondering how it compares to the other method, which is to 1) use an Omega "quality" upgrade and a Basic upgrade on a NON-"upgrade weekend" to get equipment to Epic, and then 2) push it the rest of the way up to Mk XV on an upgrade weekend when you get double the tech points. I have done lots of gear this way, and it ALWAYS goes Epic by Mk V, and then pushing it the rest of the way up is really cheap on an upgrade weekend. The whole process costs almost nothing. The only caveat is that you have to spend your February collecting and crafting a LOT of Omega quality upgrades in advance. I used about 30 this year, and next year I'm going to make about twice that.

[@ocabear]

Awesome Vid, picked up a few things. Thank you! I hope you feel better

[@keith4047]

Thanks for the information

[@Grayivan]

Thanks a lot for this vid. It was very helpful.

[@XHunter442]

Ty for the video and LLAP!

[@Shaabhekh]

Some good, useful info - my only qualm about it is mostly the EC related costs - while the costs may have been cheap at the time of making the video, a Green research boost is half a mil on the exchange at time of writing, which isnt 'cheap' for a 'fresh 65'er' haha

[@coloradoing9172]

Tour the galaxy.

[@hughejass9461]

Very informative video. Thank you for posting. +1

[@TheBlackB0X]

Very awesome & informative.

[@WhiskeyTango0420]

Thanks Spencer!

[@clone1eighty7]

ahhh yes RNG the true end game boss of any MMO

[@nsr-ints]

If you want lore friendliness, you could say that the character is actually working in Starfleet/KDF logistics, and thus, is the weapons provider. 😉

[@seadog6351]

Awesome! Thx.

[@Jay-ql4gp]

I wish I'd known this ages ago, lol. Thanks.

[@Craig-xw9jq]

Great vid - ty

[@DarthSailorMoo]

I felt like a complete idiot when I just found out about phoenix tech upgrades. I don't even want to imagine how much dil I was wasting before it.

[@bombud1]

Its going to take the same number of upgrades to go from very rare to epic regardless of the level it starts at.

[@CasualSAB]

If you follow the Mk II approach I laid out in this video, then there is a chance to have the gear upgrade to Epic quality while at a low Mk. Is why most people opening weapon packs from lockboxes open at the Mk II level. Can get epic quality insanely cheap.

[@gallendugall8913]

If you're not concerned about "epic" so much you can pick up a lot of lock box weapons at XV very rare off the exchange at reasonable prices.

[@berlindude75]

Indeed, because for weapons the mark level (especially at the high end) is more important than the rarity level in terms of damage output.

[@eisenfell2818]

now to wait for a weekend

[@jmg4208]

Still very useful!

[@ZenMasterChip]

This has done a lot to help me; however, what I haven't figured out because you didn't have one, how do you use an Omega Tech 8x quality to it's greatest potential, and also I would have loved to see how to use the Omega Tech (Mark) to it's greatest potential too. I used one on a MkII (DUH! forgetting it would bump me down on next Mark (lol, so that's why Cryptic didn't make the Omega Techs a Boost! Little devils, me

[@JamesVanHyde]

So heaving all slots with different weapons so the animation of the ship shows many differen pew pews was actuly the wrong way to build a ship... who would have guessed that? Not me apperantly ;3

[@alexmarinescu2873]

good video mate!

[@brandondrew6399]

Your the best 😊

[@Vulf_Faolan]

Came back to the game after a long break and I was wondering why young me had been hording Mk II weapons in the bank...

[@matth6014]

Actually unless your doing it on a dbl tech pts weekend its easier and cheaper to just sell dilithium for zen and buy master key packs for epic tech upgrade. Can sell keys for ec and buy ships or more tech upgrades off the exchange. If not always upgrade consoles first as they are easiest and cheapest. Beams are most expensive to upgrade.

[@collectiblecardsgamescusto9827]

Yes it was helpful

[@entropy11]

hey @CasualSAB no lie this video changed how I think about upgrades it's boggling that this isn't more widely known. mind=blown. Though it looks like the price of major research boosts are the main barrier to doing this all the time. So I have some omega upgrades, regular ones as well as the tech and quality focused. Basically use the same way?

[@CasualSAB]

Yeah, use the Omega upgrades on the Mk II gear to give them a very good upgrade chance.

[@TaomaPlays]

My highest is XIV ultra rare phaser beam array.. I am basically almost at the end of the latest episodes. And my max damage is maybe about 600/700. I really dont know anything about this game other then that i want to have those fancy phaser beam arrays from the kelvin timeline.

[@CaptainCollins]

Everything is so hard to see at UI 1.0x ... Otherwise, thanks for the video, good info

[@CasualSAB]

Glad to help! And thanks for the feedback, I've been trying out 1.5x scaling for the past few months, seems to be a bit more readable for folks.

[@JCinLapel]

You can buy the omega red blue and yellow on the exchange I know because I am the jerk that buys the full stacks in season and brake them down all year to make EC. If you want some let me know

[@eddiesuen3711]

you can no longer sell them or trade them. they were all changed to bound to account last year.

[@JCinLapel]

@@eddiesuen3711 ouch I am stuck with about 9000 of each

[@short72hp1]

hi S. great vid

[@wkrick]

I have a bunch of upgrades from recruitment events that cost zero dilithium but give No Quality Improvement Chance. It sounds like these should only be used (with tech boosts) on MK 12 gear to upgrade to MK 15 and on MK 15 items once the quality chance is over 10%. Does that sound right? This whole process could use a good flowchart.

[@derek3992]

I was using the phoenix lock boxes and have never had a problem with them until now... I doubt the issue is with them, but I was upgrading a chroniton beam array and it used several of the upgrades, but when I hit "claim" it used up my upgrades but it won't actually upgrade the beam. I used 12 upgrades on it and the DPS hasn't moved from 645.2 Any help would be appreciated!

[@covingtonhalltown3730]

Great vid!! An age old question: When crafting own space weapons, at what level do you get 'pen' and when should you scrap it and start again when obtaining 'pen' is no longer possible?

[@CasualSAB]

Pen is a unique crafting mod that will randomly appear on weapons you craft. There is no level requirement, just hope the RNG works out for you. If a weapon does not have [Pen] on it off the bat, then it will never be able to get it. If you're crafting Mk II weapons, then you can just spam craft a ton until you get a set

[@covingtonhalltown3730]

@@CasualSAB Thank you for that very thorough reply! Are there any energy type space weapons that will Not have pen when crafting?

[@matth6014]

@@covingtonhalltown3730 just get spiral beam arrays

[@covingtonhalltown3730]

@@matth6014 I get dizzy with those.

[@matth6014]

@@covingtonhalltown3730 hehe very clever.

[@jasonbrosseau1056]

Looking at the high costs of getting research boosts especially the major boost. Can they be crafted or farmed from someplace?

[@CasualSAB]

They randomly drop from the "Research & Development Packs" that are obtained through the c-store, lockboxes, or via the player exchange. Exchange is best bet, it's not worth buying the packs via the c-store.

[@jasonbrosseau1056]

@@CasualSAB Thanks!

[@TriZander07]

Greetings sir 07.. I missed upgrade weekend.. i .. forgot XD

[@CasualSAB]

Wow Triz. I'm disappointed in you. Punishment shall be forcing you to use slime devils on your next theme stream. With the new nova skin.

[@TriZander07]

@@CasualSAB why.. why you so mean sir?

[@quantumjet253]

Yeah, I don't agree with not trying to get a level XII to upgrade in quality. Has no one actually noticed that that you can still have an item upgrade in quality irrespective of the 'Quality Improvement' bar? Has no one seen that bar at 35-40% and had an item not upgrade in quality several times in a row, yet has also seen a quality improvement when the bar is at minimum having just had the item upgrade in level? Or am I the only one that has the most weird and extraordinary good and bad luck!?! (I don't think so). I think two things are going on in the background of upgrading gear... the more technology points you spend as you upgrade the more likely a quality improvement will happen, irrespective of the 'Quality Improvement' bar. And you've all experienced this with seeing the relative easy, or 'luck' of seeing a console improve in quality over a weapon, with weapons outright requiring more resources to upgrade in quality than a console. The exact same 'percentage chance' in quality improvement plays out between the two items. That's not to say that increasing the 'Quality Improvement' bar isn't useful; it's just far less efficient than it appears. Also if you upgrade several items at a time, it's far more likely the latter ones will rise in quality far quicker than the earlier ones. Never upgrade just one item at a time, always try to plan on upgrading at least three items together to ensure the second, if not the third will highly likely upgrade far easier. It wasn't the slightest bit surprising to see this play out in the video with the third weapon upgrading in quality, and the first and second not. Players must have experienced similar patterns throughout their time playing!? And from my experience using the Phoenix Prize Pack upgrades is the most efficient way to upgrade (if you're out of those Omega ones, which incidentally, while their visible stats are impressive, they strangely often require a far higher 'Quality Improvement' bar to actually improve in quality'). Using those craftable/Exchange purchased upgrades is the least efficient and most Dilithium-expensive path to upgrading. Seriously, does anyone think this is a fair or trustworthy technique in a game where a percentage success differs so massively from one area of the game to the other. Compare the percentage success rate of the Admiralty system to that of Quality Improvement in upgrades to the quality chance of crafted items!!!! You can see how fixed, how contived these systems are by running just ten or fifteen Admiralty assignments at 90 to 95% to crafted items of the same success percentage and comparing what will be a dramatic difference in success over the two systems! It's outright ridiculous and I can't believe it's not a major issue amongst the hardcore fans. Upgrading should be a good old fashioned honest known cost, rather than some dodgy developer-programmed 'random' system. Unfortunately this industry has absolutely proved itself to be untrustworthy when it comes to 'random' percentage chances. As governments around the world have started to pay attention to the gambling nature of 'random' virtual items across the videogame industry where they are all failing is not demanding to see the actual code that 'determines' the random nature of lock/loot boxes, etc. It's not a coincidence in sport that the equipment can be scrutinised to ensure there's no cheating, dishonesty, manipulation, yet the same attitude hasn't applied here when it really needs to. The fact that some games now improve your chances of winning the more loot boxes you open absolutely points to the fact these things aren't at all random, but very much contrived, and naturally in the favour of the developer. Teach me to code a mini-game with a random chance of you winning everything I own and you'll win, and I guarantee I won't ever lose... but it'll be random though. Honest!!

[@michealknight6003]

How do you get technology and research points Awards?

[@CasualSAB]

The Tech and Research boosters? They're from R&D packs. Can also be acquired via the exchange.

[@michealknight6003]

Thx@@CasualSAB

[@mandroid-rb4uy]

Hello Spencer just discovered your channel STOnline is quite intimidating thanks

[@maxpayne930]

This help,s ty : )

[@paulkirby2761]

Those very gainful accelerators you're applying... where are you getting those and are they something that can be crafted in R&D or obtained through a certain episode mission, or through exchange(briefly checked and none for sale, a random drop item from a defeated NPC? Or is it cash only?

[@CasualSAB]

Phoenix packs in the dil store. You can convert the rare tokens to em. Very bottom of the list.

[@paulkirby2761]

@@CasualSAB I see that thanks, but that only appears to be the tech upgrade. I'm referring to the accelerator for the second slot. Where can I obtain those?

[@CasualSAB]

Oh sorry, R&D packs from the c-store or lockboxes. Also available on player exchange

[@jasonbrosseau1056]

I just unlocked tier V as a temporal recruit and unlocked rep gear at MK XIII UR. Is it more cost effective to rebuy rep gear I had already bought at MK XII VR to get the better quality or should I just upgrade the MK XII VR if my ultimate goal is getting MK XV Epic?

[@CasualSAB]

If you already have the rep marks, I'd probably go for it for all but the consoles. The consoles are fairly cheap to upgrade. If you have any dil mine claims, you can convert them at the Dil Mine Asteroid (near DS9) in the main room over to Reputation Dil Vouchers. That would offset the dil cost for the new stuff.

[@jasonbrosseau1056]

@@CasualSAB Ok thanks

[@greglasseigne9493]

So could I craft my own class 2 weapons and use the same upgrade strategy or would it not be worth it?

[@CasualSAB]

Aye, that's what many do.

[@greglasseigne9493]

@@CasualSAB Thanks I'll give it a try

[@MrZevv]

sry but what you update first is the weapon modifiers. Cause... as you said, they are cheap to upgrade and bring the most dps BEFORE you upgrade your weapons. RLY... i dont have to calculate this to say it. cause its absolute clear.

[@emti29]

When do you think is the right time to mid max? Im new to sto just recently reached level 65. Im at iconian war episodes.

[@jerrymclellan4711]

How do you get a Lieutenant (2) level character that has access to your account bank, let alone to the planetary station? I just started a new character, and am already well past that, with no access to either.

[@CasualSAB]

I had made a new Fed character, skipped the tutorial, and beamed right up to ESD.

[@peterheinzman7022]

what level should be before I think about buying a ship from the store , I am 29

[@CasualSAB]

If you like the game, then you could consider a T6 ship now, as it should scale with you as you level. Something like the Hydra would be a great starter ship.

[@ryansanderson23]

I wish I had the time and money to spend on this game, I dont like the boxes because i cant afford the keys to open them. Must be nice to have money.

[@beezienkirsten]

Just starting game for 1st time n man I feel so lost looking at this vid don't understand 1%. Prob jumping in games so late. N f2p see where this goes. Hate being new don't understand anything knowing gona make tons of inefficient choices

[@giantdutchviking]

Yeah, I've been wasting so many resources by forcing mk XII to epic mk XV

[@Sardaukaru]

tutorial for VERY VERY RICH people!

[@mdredheadguy1979]

Question: I thought the chance to get a rarity upgrade re-set every time an item’s mark level is upgraded? It that is true, wouldn’t you be better off maxing out the items level first, then worrying about the rarity? Note: I had taken time off from STO for well over a year and only started playing again about a month ago. So perhaps the upgrade system has been changed and I didn’t know.

[@CasualSAB]

Yes, the rarity chance does reset at each new Mk for a weapon. The exception is for cases like the Mk II upgrade route due to the Tech Point requirements being so little per level that one upgrade covers several MK upgrades. So whatever bonuses were applied to that upgrade at Mk II will carry over until the the Tech Points from that upgrade have been used up. And yeah, if you don't get the item up to UR/ Epic at a low Mk, then best to just take it to 15 and try to increase rarity at that point.

[@Zeithri]

I'm such a fool for just spamming Phoenix Upgrades...

[@Zeithri]

I've returned to this now later and I gotta say: This *NEVER WORKS* for me. This is absolutely rubbish for me. It costs more, than it's worth it. I recon I've lost 200m doing this by now as they never ever reach nowhere near Epic and in the end I'm stuck spamming Phoenix Upgrades regardless. So here's my tip: Just use phoenix upgrades and maybe tech upgrades, but you're likely just better using only phoenix upgrades. All it costs is Dilitihum after all.

[@needparalegal]

I am a cheap bastard waiting for tech weekend. I am never giving another dime to Cryptic after they suspended me for using ship name "Lets Go Brandon"

[@WTP17762]

maybe they should be more concerned about the dilithium bots instead of ship names, stupid libtards!

[@WalterDWormack214]

All of this Star Trek Online 'upgrade' stuff you're talking about, is a strictly a White Guys only thing isn't it? I mean, a whole lot of the 'stuff' you are talking about, is going TOTALLY OVER MY HEAD. You must've been 'beta-testing' Star Trek Online (STO), to be this 'knowledgeable' about the 'intricacies' of how to perform various 'gear' upgrades.

[@jameshaney8468]

The Phoenix lock boxes give you a pretty decent Tech upgrade be able to upgrade your and they require you not to use any dilithium

[@CasualSAB]

Phoenix still requires dil, it's just that you pay it up front when you buy the packs rather than paying when applying the upgrade.

[@Dweller84]

I just spamed the hell out of the "Phonix-Upgrades" on the double Event... Worked for me every time.