The Farmer/Grinder Strategies

1. Dedicated Mining Ships:

• Acquire and upgrade specialized survey ships: Ships like the Envoy, Meridian, and Horizon are core for early and mid-game mining. Later, faction-specific miners become essential. These ships inherently have higher mining rates and larger protected cargo capacity.

• Focus on Protected Cargo: Upgrading your ship's cargo bay and using officers that boost protected cargo are critical. A larger protected cargo allows you to mine for longer durations without exposing a significant amount of resources to potential raids from other players.

UPC and OPC Examples 

2. Optimal Mining Crews:

• Synergy Crews: Utilize officers whose abilities are specifically designed to boost mining rates or protected cargo. Examples include Officers like Stonn (increases mining rate of Tritanium), Ten of Hearts (increases mining rate of Latinum), or even Pike and Moreau for protected cargo on explorers. Pairing officers with synergy bonuses significantly enhances your yield. 

• Avoid Combat Officers: Placing combat-focused officers on mining ships is inefficient as their abilities do not contribute to mining operations.

3. Strategic Mining Locations:

• Go to less-contested systems: Especially for high-level resources like Dilithium, mining in quieter or deeper faction space systems can drastically reduce the chances of encountering raiders.

• Mine during off-peak hours: If your server has busy times, schedule larger mining runs when fewer players are typically online (e.g., very late at night or early morning in your timezone).

• Join a strong alliance: An active and strong alliance provides a layer of protection. Many alliances have "Not-Aggression Pacts" (NAPs) or "Right-to-Mine" agreements in certain systems, which can provide safer mining environments.

• Use the right ship for the right resource: Each mining ship excels at gathering a specific resource type. For example, the Envoy is best for Tritanium, while the Meridian is for Crystal

1. Target Selection:

• Hostiles you can one-shot or two-shot: Speed is key. Target hostiles that your ship can destroy quickly with minimal damage, reducing repair times and resource costs.

• Hostiles for specific drops: Different hostile types drop various materials, ship blueprints, or officer shards. Prioritize hostiles that yield the specific resources or components you currently need most for upgrades or research.

• Faction Hostiles for Reputation: Farming hostiles of a specific faction (e.g., Federation, Klingon, Romulan) is crucial for gaining reputation with that faction, which unlocks access to powerful faction ships and officers from their respective stores. 

2. Optimized Combat Crews:

• Damage/Mitigation Balance: Equip officers that maximize your ship's damage output while also providing sufficient mitigation (armor, shield, hull health) to survive multiple engagements without needing frequent repairs.

• XP-Boosting Officers: When your primary goal is to level up a ship, utilize officers that boost ship experience (XP) gain.

• Specific Hostile Bonuses: Some officers provide combat bonuses against specific hostile types (e.g., Augment Exiles, Pirates). Employ these when farming those particular enemy types.

3. Ship Configuration:

• Appropriate Ship Type: Always adhere to the combat triangle: Explorers are strong against Interceptors, Interceptors against Battleships, and Battleships against Explorers. Using the correct ship type minimizes damage taken and maximizes damage dealt.

• Maintain Ship Health: Do not push your ship to critical health. Return to base and repair frequently to avoid costly destructions and prolonged repair timers.

4. Daily Hostile Loot Limit:

• Be aware that STFC has a daily PVE battle loot limit (often around 2,000 hostile kills that yield loot). After reaching this limit, you will no longer receive loot from hostiles for the day, though you can still gain ship experience. Plan your farming sessions accordingly.

1. Complete Daily Missions: These missions are a fundamental source of consistent resources, reputation points, and various tokens, often requiring both mining and hostile kills.

2. Participate in Daily Events: Regularly check the daily events tab. Many events offer additional rewards for activities like mining, killing hostiles, or spending resources, providing bonus gains for your efforts.

3. Refinery Management: Consistently process your raw materials in the refinery. This is a vital source of refined resources (like Dilitihum, Crystal, Gas, Ore) and sometimes faction credits, essential for progression.

4. Away Teams: Dispatch your Away Teams on missions that yield resources, officer shards, or other valuable items that you would otherwise need to grind for.

1. Prioritize Research that Boosts Efficiency:

• Combat Research: Focus on research that increases weapon damage, shield health, and armor for your combat ships to make hostile farming more efficient and less costly.

• Mining Research: Prioritize research that boosts mining rates, protected cargo, and cargo capacity, directly enhancing your resource gathering.

• Resource Production Research: Research that increases resource generation at your Starbase can significantly supplement your farmed income.

2. Ship Tiering and Leveling: Continuously tier up and level your ships to improve their base stats and unlock stronger abilities, making all farming activities more effective and faster.

3. Officer Leveling and Promotion: Level up and promote your officers, especially those with passive abilities relevant to farming (e.g., mining speed bonuses, combat efficiency bonuses).

• Be Mindful of Your Protected Cargo Limit: When mining or raiding, only the resources up to your ship's "protected cargo" limit are safe if your ship is destroyed or captured. Any resources over this limit become "unprotected" and can be stolen by other players. 

UPC and OPC Examples 

• Deposit Regularly: For large hauls, return to your Starbase frequently to deposit unprotected resources, thereby minimizing potential losses if you are attacked.

Use Shielding: If you plan to be away from the game (AFK) for an extended period, or if you are carrying a large amount of unprotected cargo and cannot deposit it immediately, consider activating a shield to prevent other players from attacking your base or ship.

While no single page explicitly states "focus on protected cargo for Grinders," its importance is widely understood and integrated into guides for mining ships. See: STFC.space - Surveys Guide (mentions cargo capacity and protected cargo) 

Officer abilities and synergies are detailed in numerous community resources. For example: STFC.space - Officers Database (individual officer pages show abilities and synergies) 

The benefit of alliances for protection and agreements is common knowledge in the STFC community and often discussed in alliance recruitment or strategy guides. While no single public URL lists all agreements, the general concept is fundamental. 

This information is widely known and can be inferred from the stats of each survey ship in the game or on databases like: STFC.space - Ships Database (filter by Survey) 

Gaining faction reputation through hostile farming is a core progression mechanic. See: Player's Guide & Glossary of Star Trek Fleet Command Terminology - PVPTarget.com (mentions "Faction Hostiles" and "Reputation") 

Officer abilities are detailed in the in-game officer screens and community databases. See: STFC.space - Officers Database 

The daily hostile loot limit is a known game mechanic often discussed in community forums and guides regarding efficient farming. While Scopely doesn't always publish specific numbers, players discover them through gameplay. Example of community discussion: Reddit - r/startrekfleetcommand - Daily Loot Limit 

Refinery operation is a fundamental game mechanic for processing raw materials. See: Star Trek Fleet Command - Comprehensive Base Building Guide (mentions Refinery) 

Research trees are explicitly designed to boost various aspects of gameplay, including combat, mining, and resource generation. This can be seen directly in the game's Research tab. 

The concept of protected vs. unprotected cargo is crucial for understanding raiding and loss mechanics. See: Player's Guide & Glossary of Star Trek Fleet Command Terminology - PVPTarget.com (defines "Protected Cargo" and "Over Protected Cargo")