Stella

Getting the Stella:

Getting the stella is a slog, once you achieve Rogue status and open up the Faction store you will need a ship powerful enough to hit Exchange Transports. These start at 1.1m strength and you will need to kill quite a few in order to earn the credits required to buy blueprints(bp). This will be a slog, a long slog to the initial 100 bp required, but worth the pain. Rogue space is the Purple section on the Map and to the left of that everything around and North of Exchange central.

Summary

  • Get the stella its a slog but worth it.
  • Early on Stella, recycle at tier 4/5 for stella particles
  • M30ish recycle later tier 6-9 for more particles per recycle
  • Alternative to above is recycle more often at tier 5/6
  • Defence track with First Beta Particle, as Highway Robbery Research helps with returns
  • Early on spend credits on Stella Blueprints(bp)
  • Later you will need Research Credits, Plutonium, Exchange Heist Loot (credits/faction points)
  • Be aware every faction level costs increase 100% while return is only about 20% on goods (stock up on plutonium)
  • Get 3-4 outlaw tokens while cheap for events or missions, not worth it as a mining option lucrative is better.

Once you have the Stella:

The stella mechanics work differently from other ships in some ways. In addition to levelling and tiering the ship you will need to recycle the ship in order to gain materials for research. The upside of the stella is that you will get a decent credit bonus for kills of exchange targets and Armada’s.

Kill exchange targets and Armada’s in order to be able to buy uranium for tiering, save up and buy multiple crates in one go, as there is a 2-3 day refresh on being able to buy more. Initial stages I would advice buying 3 chests at a time. You also want a surplus of uranium before recycling the Stella so you can re-tier straight back up to tier 4.

Here’s the catch with the Stella you can’t tier past 4 without rare uranium, which you can’t get until you do Rare Armada’s, that you can’t do in one hit unless you have done the Stella research to strengthen the ship. Armada’s at Rare require a good number of Stella in the mix and strength, other ships can be thrown in the mix of the Armada but they need to be strong to be successful (circa1.5m). Strength wise you need to be looking to get 4-5 Stella on the Armada and get a strength rating of circa 1.8m to be successful, other ships in the mix will require it to be higher. Rough strengths required Level 31 uncommon ( 1.8m strength), 31 Rare (2.2m.2.5m strength), 33 Epic (2.5m+ ideally 2.8+ to be sure) 35 (3.5+) figures do depend on M(level) of stellas involved and the crews on the vessels for mitigation.

Getting a decent Stella and past the tier 4 mark:

To achieve this I would recommend tiering the stella to tier 4, have excess common uranium in stock for re-tiering and level the ship back to level 20 before recycling. Level 27 Worms in Piya with officers that give Ship XP bonuses is generally the quickest way to achieve this or load up with Pike/Training officers and auto-farm the levels in either an enemy faction space or Aug space.

Once you have everything in place recycle the Stella takes about 21 hours. Once complete you can re-aquire the blueprints in the Rogue faction store as the previous blueprint icon is replaced by a scan that you can aquire with 1 Stella blueprint that you receive as part of the recycling. Rebuild the Stella and then re-level and tier using the spare common Uranium you have in stock. You will need to repeat this multiple times, in the early stages I was trying to recycle it a couple of times a week.

RESEARCH TRACK

Choose to do the Defence track with your first beta particle. the Highway Robbery research will increase returns and make the whole thing less painful. Also do the events when they appear for getting the stella skin (ferrari) as this will also increase returns by 250% when obtained. Events aren’t too often and require a ranking from doing exchange armadas so some co-ordination with alliance is necessary if you plan on all getting some returns from the event.

RECYCLING

Use the recycling rewards to complete research in the Outlaw branch for the Stella. Once you have these all to level 3-5 and others on the Alliance have done the same Rare Exchange Armada’s should be a lot easier to do and getting the Stella past tier 4 will be easier. Once achieved do the same with recycling but you will need to get both uncommon and rare uranium in stock for tiering. Also recycle at tier 5 as this is kind of the optimum place for rewards on recycling, Once you have done enough research to get to the M30ish mark it is worth going higher to Tier6+ to recycle, and as you go further along in terms of research then the later the better in order to get more particles per recycle as you will need more as you progress to M160. The alternative is recycle more often at tier 5 as this is pretty easy to obtain, and if doing often enough works out as lower particle yield but more often.

As you will get more for higher tiers, but then they will cost in re-tiering will be higher also and ultimately the faster the research is done the faster you will be able to hit larger targets and Epic Armada’s. This is true until later levels where it is more economical to recycle later for more particles, it will depend on where you are in the stella research, but later tiers get more particles which is more research.

Don’t buy other items (lower level)

On the early stages of Rogue it is not really worth buying anything else other than the uranium. This is to create a stockpile for the quick recycle and tier back, as well as there shouldn’t be a hurry to level the faction. Basically every time the faction level increases the cost of the Uranium and other items basically doubles. You can use uncommon credit when you have an excess to buy Faction credits and faction points these are useful, particularly if you took the offense research track as you will need the next faction level in order to obtain the beta particle to start the defense track. To gain more for stella kills you want to get to the highway robbery research to increase take home.

Transwarp Directives

These might seem worth it and you should when credits allow buy some as they do get used in some missions. However you are better off hunting Ferengi traders and getting Lucrative 3* directives for mining as the Rogue space Transwarp areas are short on mines, generally full constantly and are only 25K mines so lots of refreshes in order to mine a full survey load, at 1m depending on how often you remember to change can take days to fill a 1m+ survey.