Dilithium 101
By PWE_BranFlakes @ November 27, 2012 at 12:00pm
This monthly article features useful information about Dilithium, including what it is, how to earn it, and how to use it in-game. We’ll be featuring this article monthly, and adding to it as more questions about Dilithium arise. If you have any questions about Dilithium, ask them by commenting below and we’ll answer them in the next issue.
What is Dilithium?
Beginning with the launch of Season 5: Call to Arms, Dilithium has become the major form of currency in Star Trek Online – it is primarily used to purchase in-game items, including ground and ship gear, starships, select Duty Officers and crafting materials, and is used to begin some Duty Officer Assignments. With the recent launch of Season 6 and 7, Dilithium is also used in select Starbase and Embassy Fleet Projects.
How is Dilithium earned?
Dilithium is primarily earned by completing in-game missions (PvP and PvE dailies, events, STFs, Duty Officer Assignments etc.), and is awarded as Dilithium Ore. Players can also go mining for Dilithium Ore once per day on the Vlugta Asteroid Field, near Deep Space Nine, in the Beta Ursae Sector Block.
Before this Ore can be spent, it must be refined. Players are able to refine up to 8,000 Dilithium Ore per day – 800 Day Veteran subscribers also have access to a special Duty Officer Assignment on Starfleet Academy (Fed) and Klingon Academy (KDF) that allows for extra Dilithium refining (1,000 extra for a 48 hour assignment). Gold members also have a special perk that allows them to refine Dilithium automatically upon logging in, up to one previous week’s worth.
STOWiki.org has done a fantastic job creating a Dilithium information page that provides a full list of missions that award Dilithium, including amounts. You can check it out here.
Refined Dilithium is also available via the in-game Dilithium Exchange, which can be accessed via the downward arrow on the mini-map. Here, you can exchange ZEN you’ve transferred into STO for Refined Dilithium, and vice-versa. It’s important to note that the Dilithium Exchange is a live marketplace – exchange rates are driven by the playerbase, depending on how much of one currency they are willing to trade for another, and such rates may fluctuate from moment to moment.
How do I use Dilithium in-game?
As mentioned, once Dilithium Ore is refined, it becomes a spendable currency.
Many ships in-game require Dilithium to be purchased. Federation players can find Starship Requisitions at Earth Spacedock, Deep Space 9, Deep Space K-7 and Starbase 39-Sierra. Klingon players can find Starship Requisitions in the orbiting shipyard of Qo’noS.
Players can also buy many different types of ground and space gear from various vendors across the galaxy. Federation players will find that Earth Spacedock is home to vendors who take Dilithium, and Klingon players will want to visit Qo’noS to spend their Dilithium. Gear can also be purchased directly from the Dilithium Store on the minimap.
If you are looking at crafting higher tier items at Memory Alpha, most recipes call for Common and Uncommon Unreplicateable Materials. These are purchased with Dilithium and can be obtained from a vendor on Memory Alpha (Fed) or Qo’noS (KDF), or through the Dilithium Store on the minimap.
Select Duty Officers can be purchased with Dilithium from Lt. Ferra at Starfleet Academy (Fed) and Lt. S’stas at Klingon Academy (KDF) – these Duty Officers are of Uncommon/ green and higher quality. As you participate in various Duty Officer Assignments, you will notice that some of them will require Dilithium. Similarly, Season 6: Under Siege introduced the new Fleet Advancement System. While some of the Starbase Fleet Projects your Fleet Officers decide to undertake may require large amounts of Dilithium, you can choose how much you would like to donate at a given time – this allows for multiple fleetmates to donate smaller amounts at a time if they wish.
For those players that would like to “thank” the author of a Foundry mission you’ve recently enjoyed, at the end of the mission, along with your review, you can choose to leave a “tip” of refined Dilithium. Among other things, this helps authors fund the purchase of additional Foundry project slots, which means more Foundry missions for you to play!
How do I use the Dilithium Exchange in-game?
To access the Dilithium Exchange, click on the downward arrow on the mini-map and select “Dilithium Exchange” – this can also be accessed while browsing the Dilithium Store for items and clicking on “Buy Dilithium”, and through the button on the “Assets” tab of your inventory.
Again, it’s important to note that the Dilithium Exchange is a live marketplace – exchange rates are driven by the playerbase, depending on how much of one currency they are willing to trade for another, and such rates may fluctuate from moment to moment.
The following images provide more information on how to use the Exchange:
A: This is the “Buy ZEN” tab.
B: This section displays the top offers to sell ZEN.
- Example: row 1 tells us that there is 2,899 ZEN available for 205 Refined Dilithium per ZEN.
C: This section displays any outstanding offers you have on the exchange. If you wish to cancel an offer, click on the offer to highlight it and then click the “Cancel Offer” button. Canceling an offer will put the Refined Dilithium you put onto the exchange into your “Exchange Balance” (F).
D: This section is where you can decide how much Refined Dilithium you would like to offer to buy ZEN. All 3 fields may have values entered in them, and the “Total Dilithium to sell” field is automatically updated as you adjust the values above it*.
- Example: if you would like to submit an offer to buy 100 ZEN, you would put “100” in the “ZEN to buy” field, and then the amount of Refined Dilithium you would be willing to pay per ZEN acquired – the “Total Dilithium to sell” field would then update with the total Refined Dilithium you need in order to purchase 100 ZEN at that “Dilithium per ZEN” price.
E: Once you have entered the information in the fields above (D), click the “Submit Offer To Buy” button to confirm and submit your offer to buy ZEN. When you enter a buy ZEN offer, all the dilithium for it is taken from you immediately. If you get the ZEN for a cheaper price, or you withdraw your offer before it is completely fulfilled, you get that dilithium back. NOTE: ZEN purchased via the Exchange are bound to Star Trek Online.
- If there are not existing sell offers that match your quantity and price, you might get part or none of your order, and it will be fulfilled later when there is a matching sell order.
F: This section shows your current Exchange Balance. Canceling an offer will put the Refined Dilithium you put onto the exchange into this balance. Future offers will first pull from these balances and you can withdraw available Refined Dilithium or ZEN from your Exchange Balance at any time.
G: This section shows your current character’s Refined Dilithium balance, and your account’s ZEN balance.
A: This is the “Sell ZEN” tab.
B: This section displays the top offers to buy ZEN.
- Example: row 1 tells us that there is 12,856 ZEN available for 204 Refined Dilithium per ZEN.
C: This section displays any outstanding offers you have on the exchange. If you wish to cancel an offer, click on the offer to highlight it and then click the “Cancel Offer” button. Canceling an offer will put the ZEN you put onto the exchange into your “Exchange Balance” (F).
D: This section is where you can decide how much ZEN you would like to offer to buy Refined Dilithium. All 3 fields may have values entered in them, and the “Total Dilithium to buy” field is automatically updated as you adjust the values above it*.
- Example: if you would like to submit an offer to sell 100 ZEN, you would put “100” in the “ZEN to sell” field, and then the amount of Refined Dilithium you are wanting to get per ZEN sold – the “Total Dilithium to buy” field would then update with the total Refined Dilithium you would get if your offer matched or beat an outstanding offer on the exchange.
E: Once you have entered the information in the fields above (D), click the “Submit Offer To Sell” button to confirm and submit your offer to sell ZEN. When you enter a sell ZEN offer, all the ZEN for it is taken from you immediately. If you get the Dilithium for a cheaper price, or you withdraw your offer before it is completely fulfilled, you get that ZEN back. NOTE: ZEN placed in the Exchange will permanently bind them to Star Trek Online.
F: This section shows your current Exchange Balance. Canceling an offer will put the ZEN you put onto the exchange into this balance. You can withdraw available Refined Dilithium or ZEN from your Exchange Balance at any time, but you need to manually withdraw the ZEN in order to use it in a new sell offer.
G: This section shows your current character’s Refined Dilithium balance, and your account’s ZEN balance.
*If buying ZEN, the Refined Dilithium price must be set between 25 and 500 Refined Dilithium and offers must be set to at least 1 ZEN and no more than 5,000 ZEN. If selling ZEN, offers must be set to at least 1 ZEN and no more than 5,000 ZEN and the Refined Dilithium price must be set between 25 and 500 Refined Dilithium.
markharmon01 @ Mar 26th, 2013 11:07AM
I agree with the fact that STO no longer feels like a game, it feels like a committed relationship, or a job that you have to report to every day. HOWEVER, I also have a question.. what happens with the dilithium that people tip you when they completed a foundry mission that you created? I never recieved any mail that someone had tipped me, and I know 5 people in particular that said they played my mission, and tipped. where did it all go?
marowen666 @ Feb 24th, 2013 6:13AM
I say if you don't like what is going on, either talk to cryptic or quit. I for one love STO. I think people forget why they play a game at all. You play to have fun with it. Yeah I want all the top level stuff too, but if it were easy to get all this stuff, soon enough you would run out of stuff to do, and there would be NO point to playing anymore, and STO would fall apart. Nobody wants that. Cryptic needs their money to pay their people to keep this game running, and to keep their server up. If you are doing F2p like me, buy a PWE card once in a while and buy some stuff. Why should they not get what they have earned? If you were developing all this stuff, wouldn't you?
marowen666
I'd like to add, I am biased, I do 3D art, and i like being paid for it.
spaceace07 @ Jan 31st, 2013 6:10PM
Before I never got enough dilithium to refine, now I got too much dilithium to refine thanks to reputation system. Why is everyone complaining?
brackynews @ Nov 30th, 2012 2:04AM
Hey folks December 1st is the 1 year anniversary of our lovely unreplicatables! Raise a glass of Nogatch hemlock in toasting our pretty purple pennies.
paulfirmin @ Nov 29th, 2012 6:57PM
I'm no money grabber but the lowering of dil to zen is stupid for their buisness model. I was going to buy zen with real money so that I could then change it for dil in game but now there is no point, im just going to get as much zen as i can for free and use it to buy the next ship!
bridgern @ Nov 29th, 2012 1:05PM
Cryptic's plan is working, the exchange rate has dropped to 112.
nierion @ Nov 29th, 2012 9:25AM
The problem isn't earning the dilithium to the cap. The issue I find is earning enough dilithium and not having the cap increased to deal with the insane cost increases or additional dilithium costs for most content in this game. Fleet Projects Dilithium requirement is way too high unless your like a 400 man fleet. The requirements for Tier V Rep gear seems off this planet and the increase of dilithium costs for DoFF upgrades is unnecessary. Cryptic needs to either scale down the costs and some things back to how they were like the price of DoFF upgrades or increase the cap and give us more content that rewards dilithium or increase the amount dilithium certain aspects of the game reward. Some people seem to think 8K is the norm. Well I suppose it is, but that doesn't make it a viable option either. You got to look at the whole picture, not everyone is going to be playing 5-10 characters to earn their dilithium to work on one piece of armor from the rep system and at the same time we don't want things to be a walk through the park. At the moment Cryptic seem to come up with these great ideas before they get released, and then at some point between the planning stage and implementing the changes they screw up. I like the Rep system, I like New Romulus and I enjoy the content in the game but the costs are stupidly high. Cryptic needs to find that balance and learn how to implement them properly. Sometimes I wonder if dilithium was even a good idea, I suppose if it had been done better, then maybe..... guess we can only wait and hope that someone at Cryptic realises that if you put service first, the income will come.
jboschock
That's their whole point. Make it hard to get the dilithium in game thus encouraging people to purchase zen rather than play everything for free. Don't be cheap and throw some money at the game you're playing for free.
pardusian141 @ Nov 29th, 2012 12:18AM
I did dilithium mining....once. Got 141 dilithium after about ten minutes, I vowed I would never do dilithium mining again! I've kept that vow.
misoratkovac
Then u do not know what to do there. U Need to earn over 735 points to get top dil reward and particle trace. For 735 u'll get just top dil reward. TIP: use keyboard arrows. not mouse. it is easy and faster. :)
skaldra @ Nov 28th, 2012 6:33PM
Wow now only if I had a way to actually get more dilithum then this would be helpful.
ncckiller @ Nov 28th, 2012 3:37PM
STO is getting more like a job then a game :(
misoratkovac
Look, this game is too big for anyone and u cant do all things every day, even if u r playing 20h. U must decide what part of game u'll play each day. No way u can do doffing, stf's, romulus, dilithium asteroid, defera, nukara,... but u can enjoy one part of it or littlebit of more of them. There is no need to get disapointed or angry. Sorry for spelling. Cheers.
markharmon01
I LIke this comment. It feels what all of us feel, and I believe that is why people are LEAVING this game to go play other games. Epic Cryptic FAIL, or PW, or whoever owns it now!
ncckiller @ Nov 28th, 2012 3:14PM
I would rather pull my own nails out one by one then mine for dilithium.
rmackie @ Nov 28th, 2012 5:44AM
I am tired of this whining of how long it takes to get Dilithium....it is completely false, 1) It does not take 4 hours per character unless all you are doing is STFs/PVE events. It will take you maybe 1 hour and half if you hit all the dilithium sites, in deferi, dilithium mining, eta eradani, strange new worlds, and a couple pvps/stfs. I have been consistently hitting my 8k with all my characters in 1.5 hours max. So i know this won't discourage the nay sayers and complainers/whiners from posting, but make sure you have all the facts before you post!
darramouss1
I've been maxing out my multiple toons, too. I'm confused why others aren't.
badgerpants999 @ Nov 28th, 2012 5:09AM
"Hey Guy's, We want you to start farming Dilithium again. By the way we made it harder to get so you'll only need about 4 hours per character to get the 8000 raw dilithium you can refine per day. Don't wory about working or eating, those things are over rated! Just logon to STO and farm for us, prove to us that we made the right decision in totaly screwing over the economy, PLEASE!" The Dev's (in my head!)
silverfaustx @ Nov 28th, 2012 5:03AM
the ingame economy is dead, because of the last update
misoratkovac
it is not. Have 9 toons and allways refine 8k dil daily per char. every day. Ok I play alot, but even in the days when I do not play at all, just login and refine my ore. can earn minimum 10-12k raw ore per toon playing in total just 3 hours. And economy is good for f2p. They can buy anything they want from c store now in metter of days. Only change is that we do not get so many Blue/Purple drops anymore and no reward at the end of STF (Mean, weapon, def, imp, shields). So, this game is ok. Especialy for F2P. REAL F2P game. I am F2P and in 6 months I will buy Lifetime just for game support. They r doing great job. All they do is ok, and when they make mistake, they correct it in few days. Like with No Dil in Borg STF. :) This situation with Investigate officer reports is cool. I was using exploit :) but that was an exploit and Cryptic have a point. Only thing I dislike so far is New Romulus, actualy, Missions on NR because they are boring and like for little children. But that is my opinion. Sorry for grammar. Cheers.
leoll2 @ Nov 28th, 2012 4:06AM
How can you earn Dilithium? The answer is easy: surrender!
erei1 @ Nov 28th, 2012 3:20AM
You should add that ingame somewhere in the tutorial. Few "noob" will check the website, and those who do that will usually be smart enough to find the info by themselves, usually on the wiki. The people who need it are the one who don't use the internet for more info, but rely on the ressources ingame. I mean honestly, if you already search on the internet for infos about the game, you probably already checked on the wiki for it, right ? That's what I did when I wanted to know about dilithium, before the 101.
stardestroier1 @ Nov 28th, 2012 2:19AM
whats the best zen or Dilithium
leighandrew12 @ Nov 28th, 2012 1:37AM
What they should do instead of posting this same article all the time is to do multiple articles on different areas of the game and just post the links inside that one article that way when they repost it every so often like they do with this one its all there. Whats the point in doing a '101' section when all they do is post the same one?
ryanev @ Nov 27th, 2012 11:21PM
They are once again missing the most important question: "How do I get dilithium in the game?" It's nice that they introduced all these new mission that reward NO DILITHIUM WHATSOEVER. On top of that they removed some of the old sources of dilithium and nerfed the others.
dracounguis @ Nov 27th, 2012 7:43PM
deja vu-vu? (deja vu)^2? In any case... I remember earning Dilithium... it was that pink crystal stuff that we used to earn before Season 7
alexsanderita @ Nov 27th, 2012 3:39PM
New players DO need the same information we already got at our time, so it is obvious same of the most important will be spotlighted on time to time. I concur they should make an official, always up-to-date resource, and not rely on player's run content, the reasons being obvious.
oewefreestar @ Nov 27th, 2012 1:57PM
204 D/Z? that's an old pic to be sure...
comrademoco
This is because it was taken before Season 6, when its used to be 205 D per ZEN... But know at season 7 it has been reduced to 130 - 140 D per ZEN! :)
darthpostal
There was no Zen before S6, comrademoco, only C-Points. This was probably taken during first weeks of S6 while people still were figuring out C-points--->Z-points conversion.
unknownmgx @ Nov 27th, 2012 1:53PM
Ty, that clears a few things up
rgrgeom @ Nov 27th, 2012 1:27PM
how many times are they going to repeat this crap
reilyra
However many times they wish to. You are aware new people join the game on a regular basis. Just because you have read something, doesn't mean it should never be shown again.
zerobang
every month.... why dont they just explain this stuff in the TUTORIAL !? you know like... IN the game...
darthpostal
Also, there is Wiki.
admiralandy @ Nov 27th, 2012 12:20PM
Its not a bad thing to rerun for new players but perhaps it maight be released on the same day as some new news for those who are familiar with htis already.
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