The Admiral’s Log: My Journey Through ‘Star Trek Online’ – Part LXVI

Written by John Edward Betancourt

The Grind 3: The Search for More Rocket Parts  

Well hello again my fellow captain and admirals, and welcome to another edition of The Admiral’s Log. And if you’re like me, and you’ve been playing an unhealthy amount of Star Trek Online during the quarantine; then you’re likely counting your bounty after this year’s First Contact Day Event. Which I don’t recall being this in-depth last year, but that’s okay. Because I’m making it a point in 2020 to pay closer attention to the events the game is sending our way, simply because the two that I’ve taken part in this year have yielded some wonderful rewards.
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After all, I now have a brand-new fancy ship that I guess more or less serves as my weekend ship, or my online therapist. Because bad traffic is still a thing in the midst of a pandemic, and a quantum torpedo or two helps to relieve that stress. But I digress. Because we’re here to discuss the wonder of the past event and when we last settled to discuss STO, I had made mention of the fact that this event might put my patience to the test. Because this time around, there were only two options to advance the stats toward this year’s rewards, and sometimes you just don’t have a lot of time to take part in a long away mission and that meant… the time had come to build a lot of rockets. Like… so many rockets.

Because assembling your own launchable replica of the Phoenix takes about ten minutes, plus you get some Steppenwolf at the end and that sounds appealing from a time standpoint. But I won’t lie, I think I did this mission twenty of the twenty-four days that it was available, with the only breaks in between coming from any Endeavor mission that needed Borg drones to die, and that made this event the toughest grind that I’ve been through to date. Because it really is the same old, same old every single time. You collect your parts. You look for better parts, you enhance those parts and you launch those rockets and possibly dance to ‘Magic Carpet Ride’ while they take to the skies. 

So, there were definitely moments, where I wondered if the Temporal Vortex Console and a toy Phoenix were worth the effort, and in the end they are. Because the console does some cool stuff in combat and that rocket goes on forever. But while they have their own merits, this particular event made me realize the true value of dedicating my time to such endeavors. Because holy cow, once you’ve earned the grand prize, you basically load up dilithium, and I’m not talking a thousand units here or there like you get when you complete an Endeavor Mission. We are talking metric tons of this valuable little crystal, to the point where my savings from this event and the last one has me swimming in it for a change.

Which means, I’m all on board for future events if it means I can load up on the stuff, like I did here. Because my standard patrol route only nets me 3k in dilithium and here I am now, sitting on a stockpile of 60k. So, in the end, it’s clear now that events are worth one’s while for the long term, and that makes the grind supremely palatable and made this particular one a lot of fun when all is said and done. Because every little hunt for hull plating, and every unexpected arrival of the running man, has my crew ready for all kinds of future upgrades and that’s a solid way to wrap up this event. And now that First Contact Day is in the books, this blog will likely go silent again. For there is little to discuss outside of my usual day in Starfleet. But if something else pops up, I’ll be right back to discuss it with all of you. Until next time, Galactica out.

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