What is Doffing?

A long time ago, STO included something called "Exploration Clusters." These areas included procedurally-generated missions of... questionable quality, mostly revolving around giving a random NPC a certain amount of commodities. This system was eventually removed for many reasons--one of them being that the missions it gave felt like something lower-ranking officers should be doing.

To replace it, the Duty Officer system was introduced. It allows players to assign duty officers ("doffs") to missions that are more fitting of a junior officer--auditing diplomatic correspondence, correlating star charts, etc. These missions take place "in the background," so to speak, and happen in real-world time. In essence, they are "fire and forget:" assign your officers, wait some real-world number of hours, and reap the rewards.

And speaking of rewards: through the doffing system, it is possible to earn XP, dilithium, energy credits, rare commodities, equipment, special bridge officers, and even additional doffs. When managed correctly, doffing can be quite lucrative on a number of levels.

What Makes A (Good) Doff

The short answer is that almost every element of a doff in some way influences how useful that doff is. Some elements, however, are more important than others. In this section, I will explain the various traits of a doff and how they impact gameplay.

Faction

Most doffs are aligned to a faction--either FED, KDF, or ROM, with the vast majority being either FED or KDF (and consequently usable by those faction's allies). Cross-faction doffs do also exist, mostly as special rewards or as part of C-Store doff packs. If you are buying doffs from the Exchange, always check to ensure that the doff you are buying is usable by your faction. By default the Exchange lists all doffs, whether your character can use them or not. Caveat emptor.

Rarity

Doffs follow the same rarity scheme as items: Common, Uncommon, Rare, Very Rare, Ultra-Rare, and Epic. The obvious benefit of higher-rarity doffs is that they contribute a higher chance of success to a mission. However, a particularly large benefit when grinding is that they also contribute bonus Commendation XP to a success or crit based on their rarity. Uncommons contribute +5%, Rares +10%, and Very Rare and higher contribute +20%. Thus, in many ways the rarity of a doff is the most important factor when grinding Commendation XP.

R&D School

Some doffs are affiliated with certain R&D schools, allowing them to be used to create certain items. Any more of an in-depth look than that is somewhat outside the scope of this guide; however, do note that R&D doffs are valuable even at lower rarities. Always double-check for this before selling, downgrinding, etc.

Department

Each doff either belongs to one of the six departments (tactical, security, engineering, operations, science and medical) or is a civilian. This is one of the factors that determines which doffs can go on which missions. There is little to say here beyond that civilians are generally worse than the other types, as they qualify for fewer missions.

Specialization

This is the other major sorting mechanism for which doffs can go on what missions. It also determines the doff's ability when added to your active roster. Note that many specializations have more than one ability; usually, the alternate abilities can only be obtained from sources such as lockboxes.

Ability

The ability is what sets the price for doffs, generally speaking. Some abilities are borderline useless; some have created the most famous builds in the game. For example, the Technician variant that boosts Auxiliary Power to the Battery is the entire focal point of A2B builds--and, therefore, Technicians command a very high price. Also of note are Aegis doffs, which function similarly to R&D school doffs. Do note, however, that for the purposes of the doffing mission system abilities do not matter at all.

Traits

Traits give you bonuses to the chances of various outcomes on certain missions. For example, a Peaceful doff may get a bonus on a Diplomacy mission. Do note that when farming Commendation XP, one should try to have as many Critical Success traits as possible but as few Success traits as possible. This is because Success chance cuts into Critical Success chance.

In general, be on the lookout for doffs with the Telekinetic, Shroud, and Resolve traits, as these are required for some very rewarding missions. Efficient is also almost always helpful when it appears. Conversely, Stubborn and Unscrupulous are almost always negative; for any departments other than Tactical or Security, Aggressive is as well.

Bound/Unbound

Like items, doffs can be bound to your character. This will ONLY happen if they are put on active duty. The major disadvantage of binding doffs, aside from not being able to trade them, is that most bound doffs cannot be downground into multiple doffs of lower rarity.

Race, Name, Quote, Etc.

The other descriptive attributes of your doffs are pure flavor and do not matter. Do note, however, that doffs with odd, offensive, or funny names can command a slightly higher price on the exchange.

Doffing Builds

Faction

If you are building a character solely for the purposes of doffing, the KDF has many advantages over the Federation in terms of assignment access. You should be a KDF-aligned Romulan, however, as Romulans have access to a third set of doffs the other two factions cannot use. (If you have purchased the Legacy of Romulus Pack, they also have access to four bonus doffs.)

Race

Race only matters for the Federation; Ferengi offer a marginal benefit in reducing the cost of purchased commodities that may be required for missions. This is not generally enough to outweigh the advantages a race might offer other aspects of the character's playstyle. Play whatever race you would like to play.

Ships

• Suliban Cell Ship: One of three (technically four) contenders for the best possible doffing ship, the cell ship interior provides both a Trader contact to receive additional Trade assignments and a Suliban contact to run Tau Dewa Aid chain assignments. Frequently, those who own these will offer bridge invites to players who do not in order to allow them access to these assignments. In addition, it is able to transwarp to any exploration cluster. Unfortunately difficult to obtain in the modern game.

• Tuffli Freighter: The second prime competitor for the best doffing ship in the game, the Tuffli trades the cell ship's unique recruitment assignments for the ability to call a transport ship that can offer Transfer Prisoners and Turn Over Confiscated Contraband. All other features, including the transwarp, remain the same.

• Kobayashi Maru / Tong'Duj: The last two options for the best doffing ship in the game, though they are functionally identical to each other--and the Tuffli. These were a reward from the No Win Scenarios Event in Event Campaign II, and are currently unobtainable. If you have them, use them; if you don't, look on the Exchange for one of the other options.

• D'Kora / Quark / Nandi: These ships come with a trader contact, but also have additional benefits when equipping the Ferengi Marauder set. (I am aware that the Nagus technically works as well. I do not like to think about the Nagus.) The D'Kora is notable for being able to be had fairly inexpensively on the Exchange, and the Nandi for being available for an Epic token from the Phoenix Store.

• Amarie Smuggler's Heavy Escort: This ship also has a bridge with a trader contact.

• Excelsior-class ships: the T5 and T6 ones come with ten transwarp locations. The T3 only comes with three, but has a console that cuts transwarp cooldown in half (and can be had with nothing but dilithium). If you do not have access to any of the above ships (or only have access to the D'Kora but not the Ferengi Marauder set), this line is probably your best bet for a doffing-focused character.

Other Bonuses

• Assimilated Subtranswarp Engine / Gamma Synergistic Overcharged Core: These two do not stack, alas, but both are very useful for improving the speed of your assignment-gathering expeditions. Extensively-Modified Warp Core can also work instead, if you have access to it.

• Ferengi Marauder Set: Expensive in terms of Lobi, but a 10% bonus to all CXP earned is no laughing matter. Using it on a Ferengi ship also provides access to yet another assignment contact. The set itself can work in a torpboat setup.

• Transwarp Computer: Obtained with the T3 Excelsior but usable by any ship, this console drastically reduces transwarp cooldown time. That is useful for assignment-gathering.

• Astrometrics Scientist: Putting one of these on active duty will allow you to use transwarp more frequently, which is useful for assignment-gathering.

• Well Traveled: This trait, obtainable by doing well in Tour the Galaxy, cuts transwarp cooldown by 20%.

• Obviously, if you are grinding Commendation XP you should buy as many CXP boosts as you can afford.

• You will likely need a sizable stack of Gamma Quadrant commodities to grind certain Medical and Science missions. Other, more common commodities can be found in assignments themselves, replicated, or bought from a variety of specialized vendors.

The Uses of Doffs

Of course, what doffs are and how to get them is in service to for what you actually want to use them. Generally speaking (and not counting a few odd exceptions, such as the assignment in the Wasteland arc), there are four uses for doffs:

1. Commendation XP: Accruing Commendation XP, or CXP, allows for a variety of rewards. All ranks unlock titles, a free doff, the ability to purchase more doffs with dilithium (or EC, in three cases), and in two cases transwarp points and an enemy-faction boff. For Feds, there is also a uniform option unlocked by doffing. At higher CXP ranks, this is also a method for passively farming Fleet Marks.

2. Dilithium farming: While other, more profitable methods of dil farming (such as admiralty) have taken some of the luster out of dil doffing, there are still rewards to be had for building dil-focused doffs. If nothing else, it is a fairly passive source of dil that can also complement your admiralty efforts in the same arena.

3. Active duty: The most common modern use of doffs, putting doffs on active duty can radically improve the efficacy of your build--or may even be required to make your build work at all. Much of the build-focused subject matter is beyond the scope of this guide

4. Fleet projects: A still-important facet of doffing is turning in common doffs for fleet project progress. While there is not much to

Commendation XP (CXP) Grinding

Why Do This?

Recruits, free doffs, transwarp, passive flark grinding, a nifty uniform (FED)

Guide to Grinding The Top Six

Particle Traces and other bridge missions, colonial chains, analyzing Gamma commodity properties, Undine BZ, Dyson allied/contested when available, one at K-13, one at the Research Lab, and two at the Dilithium Mine. Tour the Galaxy also gives exploration.

Guide to Grinding Diplomacy (FED Only)

Orias T-junction

Guide to Grinding Marauding (KDF Only)

Follow route, keeping in mind Beta borders

Dilithium (Dil) Farming

Colonial Transportation

Relocate to Borders plus Colonial chains--look for crit traits

Marauding (KDF)

Follow route, keeping in mind Beta borders

Get Contraband

Give to Security Officer

Active Duty Roster Optimization

Why Doffing?

Technicians are incredibly expensive

Where to Find Desirable Doffs

1. Support B'Tran (Technician)

2. Support Khazan (Projectile Weapons Officer)

Fleet Project Resources

Convert all doffs possible to unbound via OXP

Downgrind to white

Turn in to Fleet projects (Coordinate Colonization can take any white, even Refugees or Prisoners)

The Free Way: Recruitment

Academy Recruitment Missions

The personnel officer on the Academy offers several recruitment missions that grant common duty officers. A few of the missions found here are free and essential to run if you need officers:

• Tactical Officer Cadre: Obtain 2-3 random tactical officers.

• Engineering Officer Cadre: Obtain 2-3 random engineering officers.

• Science Officer Cader: Obtain 2-3 random science officers.

• Civil Corps Recruitment: Obtain 2-3 random civilians- importantly, this can include refugees.

• Vulcan Cultural Exchange: Obtain a single Vulcan officer, or more on a critical success.

• Tellarite Cultural Exchange: Obtain a single Tellarite officer, or more on a critical success.

• Andorian Cultural Exchange: Obtain a single Andorian officer, or more on a critical success.

The personnel officer also offers some costly missions that you might decide to run:

• General Recruitment: At a cost of 1000 dilithium, obtain a tradeable [Federation Junior Officer Cadre].

• Request R&D Assistance: This costs 1000 dilithium, but rewards R&D materials, and usually not duty officers.

Several cultural exchange missions that grant free doffs of their species might be found elsewhere- as an example, you can obtain Trill in the Beta Ursae sector, or Betazoids in Sirius. Check your Operations Department Head in sector space to find these missions if they are available.

Colonization Clusters

Colonization Clusters are the various nebulas you can interact with in sector space. Each of them, from Delta Volanis to the B'tran Nebula, has a colonization mission chain you can use to earn doffs. For each cluster, you'll burn through 12 colonists, 105 provisions, 30 shield generators, 15 medical supplies, 8 self-sealing stem bolts, 3 industrial energy cells, 2 astrometric probes, 2 communication arrays, and 2 warp coils.

• Once you have the goods you need, fly to a colonization cluster and start the numbered mission, if one is available. It's not always guaranteed. The chain missions are Colony Site Survey, Establish Forward Base, Establish First-In Colony, Fortify Colonies, Transport Settlers, Establish Military Base, and Renown.

• Support Cluster Colonization Efforts is the big ticket mission you unlock at the end. Fly around and check for it at all the clusters you've finished because it basically prints purple doffs. Pick your duty officers for this based only on the crit chance they give you- officers with success traits might make the failure and disaster slices of the pie smaller, but they make the crit success slice smaller, too.

• Resettle Colonists is an essential mission that creates colonists, detailed below.

Tau Dewa Aid

The Suliban Cell Ship bridge has a console that grants these unique missions. They take several days to run but grant a free officer based on your success rating and with one of the rare Romulan Survivor abilities. If you don't have a cell ship yourself- as most of us don't- you can often find invites in big channels, like RedditChat or NoP Public Service.

Resettle Colonists

Obtaining colonists is essential for colonization missions and beneficial in general. Most come from the Resettle Colonists mission, which has a cooldown, but will otherwise often appear with your Operations Department Head in many sectors. The colonists obtained can be fed directly into the fleet starbase and purchased or sold for energy credits on the Exchange- but keep in mind that you can only hold 20 passengers at a time.

Asylum Missions

Asylum missions turn a refugee doff into another, rarer doff. These can be found throughout sector space- particularly in Sirius, Alpha Centauri, Iota Pavonis, Beta Ursae, and the systems Andoria, Vulcan, and Sol. If none are showing up under Current Map, get cozy with your Operations Department Head before moving on to the next center. You can get refugees in most of the same ways you get other civilian doffs. If your normal grind doesn't grant any, you can often buy them cheaply on the Exchange. Because blue and purple refugees can be used effectively in the mission Recover Repressed Memories from Refugee, and because you'll often get a lower quality doff even with their better success chance, I keep or sell these and use common or uncommon refugees in missions.

Prisoner Exchange

There are a few Prisoner Exchange missions in the game.

• Negotiate Prisoner Exchange is found in Eta Eridani, Omega Leonis, Beta Ursae, and Orellius, sometimes through your First Officer contact. This is one of the best uses of Klingon prisoners.

• Dominion Prisoner Exchange is found in Beta Ursae or Zeta Andromedae, sometimes through your Operations Department Head. It only shows up after the Facility 4028 Fugitives chain and requires blue or purple prisoners (who have the Dominion Fugitive trait).

• Blue and Purple prisoners can be used in either mission, but purple Vorta prisoners have the best crit success chance for the espionage Debrief Prisoner mission, so they can also be useful kept or sold.

Instigate Defection

This mission nets you a rare or very rare Klingon officer on success or crit success. It can be found under your Tactical or Security Department Head in many sectors.

Officer Exchange

The orange sector blocks have several Consular Authority mission chains that are very quick and easy to finish. Once finished, the Officer Exchange mission shows up in different variations under your Operations Department Head in Beta Ursae, Alpha Trianguli, and Zeta Andromedae. It allows you to permanently send away any of your officers and obtain a random officer in return. This is best run with R&D holograms or other common or green officers you really want to get rid of- sending away a purple like the mission suggests can't result in any increase in quality.

Reclaim Assimilated Borg Drones

This assignment sometimes shows up under your Medical Department Head in Sirius, Omega Leonis, Regulus and Eta Eridani sector blocks, so be sure to check it once in a while. On a crit success, you get a random green or blue Liberated Borg officer.

Other Chain Missions

• Caitian Diaspora is a long mission chain. Look for numbered missions with "Caitian" in the name to start. Once you finish the chain, you earn a Flight Deck Officer, and unlock "Caitian Field Flight Training Program" as a repeatable mission to create new flight deck officer doffs at the cost of expertise. If you run missions enough to be able to spare the expertise, run it whenever you can.

• Ghosts of the Jem'Hadar is an even longer chain, mostly found in the orange-colored sectors. Run the numbered missions starting with "Investigate Unmanned Jem'Hadar Warship" and you can eventually earn a Projectile Weapons Officer. It gives a repeatable mission at the end, but you only get a doff from the initial chain completion.

• Project Chrysalis is a shorter chain starting with "Supply Classified Project" in the orange-colored sector blocks. It rewards a purple doff at completion.

• Facility 4028 Fugitives is an essential chain, starting in blue sector blocks other than Sirius, and relatively easy to finish. Finishing it grants a repeatable called Strike Against Fugitive Support Network which is a great source of blue and purple prisoners. Once you have those prisoners, you unlock several missions will consume them, but most don't reward anything of value, so keep or sell the prisoners or use them in a prisoner exchange.

• While not an assignment chain, the Investigate Temporal Anomaly mission can only be done once and will reward a tradeable purple bartender. Run it if you see it.

• Special Deal on Entertainment Provisions has several different rarities based on your Trade rank. A critical success at any rank will reward an Entertainment Hologram of the same rarity.

The Easy Way: Packs

Once you have a decent stash of fleet or energy credits, you can boost your roster with purple doffs from various packs. These all show up under the Reward Packs category of the exchange.

Purple Packs

If you just need more purple in your roster and have the FC/EC for it, pick the cheapest of these.

• [Fleet Personnel - Very Rare Quality Duty Officer]: These are one of the easiest ways to fill a roster with purple doffs. They can be bought on the starbase for 25000 fledits each- if you're getting started with fleet marks, that's a purple for every 500 marks (or for every 1000 marks in the special project made to burn them.) They are typically bound. If you're seeking Technicians or Conn Officers (or other doffs) for their active powers, it might also be worthwhile to opt for the more expensive Tactical or Engineering packs.

• [Dominion Duty Officer]: Moderately priced packs from the Dominion lockbox that can give Dominion officers with useful active abilities, as well as Research Lab Scientists for crafting or an Advisor with crit traits for support missions.

• [Gamma Quadrant Elite Duty Officer]: Expensive and rare packs from the Cardassian lockbox. They're where Zemoks are born.

• [Tholian Warfare Specialists]: From the Tholian lockbox or Exchange, these somewhat expensive packs only drop Warfare Specialists.

• [Temporal Duty Officer]: These (and the temporal beacon doff missions) can grant purple doffs, including the valuable Dulmur, but often fall flat with a blue.

• [Elachi Survivor Officers]: Twice as expensive as the cheaper packs, these grant two guaranteed purple doffs. They have a typical pool of abilities to choose from but all have a secondary effect.

• [Hirogen Predator Duty Officer Requisition]: Moderately priced packs from the Hirogen lockbox that grant one of a small selection of doffs with useful active abilities.

• [Voth Separatist Duty Officer Requisition]: Moderately priced packs from the Voth lockbox that grant one of a small selection of doffs with useful active abilities.

Other Packs

The fully-sized Duty Officer Packs are somewhat expensive packs that guarantee a rare or better and may grant additional rewards on the size.

• [Federation Duty Officer Pack]: Found on the C-store or on the Exchange, this pack grants doffs from the standard pool with no special abilities, but does have a slim chance of an ultra-rare.

• [Reinforcements Duty Officer Pack]: Found on the Exchange or C-store. Has a pool of doffs with unique powers and a slim chance of dropping a Tuffli Freighter pack.

• [Fleet Support Duty Officer Pack]: A discontinued C-store item now found in the Xindi Lockbox or on the Exchange. Has a pool of doffs with unique powers.

• [Romulan Survivor Duty Officer Pack]: Another discontinued pack found on the exchange, which has a slim chance of dropping a Cell Ship pack. Has a pool of doffs with unique powers, shared with the Tau Dewa Aid missions.

Cadres make less guarantees as to the rarity of the doffs within and don't grant the additional rewards of fully-sized packs. They're a fairly cheap way to obtain doffs to downgrind or feed to the starbase.

• [Federation Junior Officer Cadre]: Recruited for 1000 dilithium, these packs tend to be some of the cheaper ones on the Exchange. They give standard doffs, with a slim chance at very rare or even ultra rare doffs.

• [Gamma Quadrant Duty Officer Cadre]: Originally from the C-store and later dropped from Hirogen lockboxes, these somewhat expensive packs grant several Gamma Quadrant duty officers.

• [Ferengi Privateer Cadre]: More expensive cadres that grant Ferengi doffs. Has a chance at purples not found elsewhere, but not really special.

The cheapest packs on the Exchange, Mini-Packs grant a small handful of doffs from the same pool as the their normal pack. Most doffs that come out of them will be common or green, but they are a great way to flood your roster and feed the starbase.

• [Standard Duty Officer Mini-Pack]

• [Fleet Support Duty Officer Mini-Pack]

• [Gamma Quadrant Duty Officer Mini-Pack]

• [Reinforcements Duty Officer Mini-Pack]

I'd like to give an honorable mention to the Xindi lockbox here. It doesn't guarantee doffs, but it rewards a decent number of Fleet Support packs and mini-packs, and has a chance to directly grant you an ultra-rare Xindi doff with a rare specialization. Since they're earned directly (and randomly) instead of in packs, the only reliable way to get them is from the exchange.

Other Ways To Get Doffs

Mission Doffs

• Run "A Fistful of Gorn" for the first time to earn "Law", a purple Projectile Weapons Officer.

• Run "Facility 4028" for the first time to earn a purple Biochemist and two blue Jem'Hadar.

• "Mine Enemy" has an NPC who can join your roster as a blue biochemist if you talk to her. There are no additional requirements for Romulans, but other captains need to have maxed out Diplomacy or Marauding.

• Running the academy missions added during Junior Officer Appreciation Events reward random doffs. You can also claim an Exocomp or Reman maintenance engineer from your faction's personnel contact.

• Kobali Prime Spoilers

• Delta Arc Spoilers

Bundled Doffs

• The DS9 pack rewards a purple Armory Officer and two blues, including a Technician with the Eng Team CD ability normally only found on Maintenance Engineers.

• The Legacy pack rewards Romulan Republic characters with four Reman blues. They have standard abilities and aren't a reason to buy the pack, just a side benefit if you have it.

• Star Trek convention veterans can claim a blue quality Holo-Leeta from the C-Store.

Commendation Doffs

As you level up in commendation rank, the duty officer contact will give you a choice of a free doff appropriate to the commendation. You can buy the ones you don't pick later- very rares at rank 4 in each category will cost you 10200 Dilithium. In addition, Engineering, Military, and Medical commendation ranks unlock Emergency Hologram duty officers. They have very useful traits like Resilient and Photonic and are always worth the EC it costs to print them.

Reputation Doffs

Tier 1 of Task Force Omega reputation unlocks a store for blue security and projectile weapons officers, and Tier 3 unlocks very rare officers of the same specializations. At 15000 dilithium for a purple, they’re expensive, but can be a useful for torpedo ships or security missions.

Fleet Holding Doffs

At 125000 fleet credits each for purples, doffs from fleet holdings are expensive but useful.

• A console in Embassy Operations sells Romulan officers with good traits and active powers.

• A contact in the Dilithium Mine sells Miners with crit traits for mining missions.

• A contact near the Tailor on the Spire sells self-loathing Voth officers with a damage bonus against Voth.

Event Doffs

Several doffs are earned from special, limited-time events. You can repeatably get a blue officer by playing the Hearts and Minds mission every Friday the 13th, so be sure to mark your calendar. Other than that, most of these doffs are limited-time.

Commodities

Various assignments need commodities to be run. These include many of the higher-xp assignments as well as several chain missions. You can run missions with commodities stored in your bank instead of your inventory, so you can often run missions with less effort later if you plan ahead and keep everything you need in the bank.

Energy Credit Commodities

Most assignments only require common commodities that you can replicate or purchase with energy credits. While you can often replicate these on the fly if you have the EC, this ends out being more costly than preparing in advance and buying from another source. These are found most cheaply from freighters flying around in Sector Space, or onboard a SCS or Tuffli bridge. Ferengi captains can get a slight discount for their purchases, and captains with the ferengi 3pc set can get them at an even bigger discount, but since commodities are so cheap to begin with it's not a huge amount saved.

Below are some of the most common uses of commodities:

• As mentioned above, each colonization chain consists of missions that will require a total of 105 provisions, 30 shield generators, 15 medical supplies, 8 self-sealing stem bolts, 3 industrial energy cells, 2 astrometric probes, 2 communication arrays, and 2 warp coils.

• Several exploration and espionage missions use astrometric probes as inputs.

• Medical missions often take medical supplies or antigens as inputs.

• Chain missions often require a variety of commodities.

I usually prefer to have large stacks of the cheaper or commonly used commodities in my bank, and a small number of other ones. If you choose to do so, tailor these numbers to your available bank space and the types of missions you prefer to run the most- and storing them at all is completely optional. If you decide not to use them on missions, they can also be given to certain Starbase projects.

• 500 [Provisions]

• 250 [Shield Generators]

• 250 [Medical Supplies]

• 100 [Antigens]

• 100 [Astrometric Probes]

• 100 [Communication Arrays]

• 100 [Industrial Energy Cells]

• 100 [Self Sealing Stem Bolts]

• 50 [Industrial Replicators]

• 50 [Entertainment Provisions]

• 25 [Water Purification Systems]

• 25 [Weather Control Systems]

• 25 [Seismic Stabilizers]

• 25 [Terraforming Systems]

• 25 [Warp Coils]

Contraband

Contraband is an incredibly valuable commodity. The starfleet security officer contact, colloquially known as "The Kitty", will let you turn in a stack of 5 contraband in exchange for 2000 unrefined dilithium. This is generally considered the only worthwhile use of contraband outside of completing chain missions that require it, like the Facility 4028 Fugitives chain. The federation kitty can be found by the window in the Operations wing of Earth Spacedock, as well as on other starbases, or can be summoned in sector space by a captain in a Tuffli Freighter.

In addition to the dilithium utility, Contraband can consistently be bought or sold between players at a high price. Many people run Klingon alts for the express purpose of farming it in huge quantities. Federation characters who want in on this scheme can generally get Contraband from the following sources:

• Confiscate Contraband From Crew

• Inspect Civilian Freighter

• Investigate Reports of Trafficking in Contraband

• Strike Against Fugitive Support Network (after the Facility 4028 Chain)

• Many Espionage missions reward Contraband on a critical success.

• From a Klingon alt, because many, many Klingon Marauder missions reward Contraband.

• Klingons even have a hangar pet, the Advanced Slavers, who poop Contraband.

Gamma Quadrant Commodities

The orange-colored sector blocks that make up Cardassian and Bajoran space, as well as Deep Space Nine itself, often have missions that reward rare-quality commodities. There are Trade missions to earn small amounts of each, or they can be found as side rewards in various lockboxes and doff packs. The blue rarity doesn't mean much, since to players they are significantly less valuable than the green Contraband. Even so, there are many high-cxp doff missions that are only possible through the use of these commodities.

• Biochemical Investigations are high-reward Science and Medical missions available from those respective department heads for each type of gamma quadrant commodity. These eventually unlock a repeatable assignment to craft a useful consumable item, like Prototype Ablative Jevonite Hardpoints, which drastically increase your hull health for ten minutes.

• Diplomatic Aid of Bateret Incense is a high-cxp Diplomacy mission that requires an input of Bataret Incense.

• Jevonite can be used in missions for Engineering cxp and Shapeshifting Lockets can be used in missions for Espionage XP. Each commodity is used in one or more high-cxp missions.

Call Freighter

If you have a mission to run in sector space and lack the commodities, with only minutes left on the clock, have no fear- this is exactly why you have that Azura Personal Comm Code from "Stranded in Space". A last-resort Exchange, Mail, and Bank contact, these summonable freighters are second only to a Tuffli or SCS in on-the-go utility.

The Tuffli can also summon a Security transport, and the D'kora with the Ferengi 3pc can summon a Ferengi Privateer. If you happen to be near one of these ships when they're called, you can get the missions from them as well.

Raising Your Limits

Doff Cap

You can increase your total roster size as high as 500 by buying incremental upgrades from the C-store. It helps to upgrade once you have enough doffs that you bump into your current limit when opening packs or grinding doffs to feed to the starbase.

Assignment Cap

You can increase your maximum number of assignments to 23 by buying cap upgrades at the Fleet Embassy. These extra slots cost 50000, 75000, and 100000 fleet credits, and are bought in order of price. Weirdly enough, they're sold at the Consumables console in the shuttle bay.

Active Roster Cap

You can increase your active roster limit and therefore the number of doffs you can benefit from in ground and space. The doff contact at the Fleet Spire sells these upgrades for 150000 fleet credits each.

Alts

You can mail doffs to yourself by dragging them into the items window and transfer them to your other characters. If one character isn't enough, you can offload your surplus onto alts or kit out a new character for doffing of their own.

The Eternal Fleet Credits Grind

How do you turn all these green and blue doffs that you've outgrown into fleet credits or nice, shiny purple doffs? The Personnel Officer can help!

Commons

By this point, you don't really need your common officers anymore, right? You've probably got or can get at least enough blues for everything you need. This is handy, because the starbase is very, very hungry for common doffs, and rewards those who provide these sacrifices with 300 fleet credits per soul. It's the most consistent way to get fleet credits in a large fleet like ours, because no matter how fast the fleet marks and expertise fill up, not even dedicated grinders will be able to completely fill a mission's doff requirement very often. If you're hurting for fleet credits, open mini-packs and spam recruitment missions everywhere you find them to get a whole pile of junk commons, greens, and even spare blues and purples. You can downgrind anything better than common doffs to produce more common doffs and therefore more fleet credits- instead of having to hope you get to snipe the fleet mark requirement out of a project instead of someone else, you can simply sign in after the projects have rolled over and fill the empty requirements.

Buying and Selling

If you have the EC, you can straight-up buy mini-packs on the exchange. They turn into at least 1500 fleet credits worth of doff each. If you don't have the EC, and don't feel up to earning it in other ways, just continue the free doff grind until you get lucky- eventually, one of the refugees or officer exchanges is gonna net you something expensive like a technician, and when you sell it, you can use the EC to buy a whole bunch of mini-packs.

Downgrinding

This is the time-consuming clicky bit where you turn unwanted uncommons into common doffs, now suitable sacrifices for starbase projects. Once you can fill all your missions with blues and purples, Run the "Exchange Officers" mission from the Personnel Officer on any greens you're willing to spare for three common doffs each. If you have blues or purples you don't need, you can repeat the process on them, too.

Upgrinding

Once you've run out of doffy things to spend dilithium on and have a nice cushion of purple doffs, you might think about turning those almost-useful blues into purples. At a somewhat harsh cost of 5000 dilithium, you can run the "Reassign Underperforming Officers" assignment, and magically duct tape 5 duty officers into a single, purple mega-officer. This even has a small chance of creating an ultra-rare from the standard pool. I do this myself, sometimes, but between the doff cost and the dil cost, most people don't consider it worthwhile.