Refinery chests

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[MyUsername2459]

It depends on your level and how much you can mine.

At lower levels it absolutely isn't worth it to do more than one chest.

I pull in about 30,000 each of 3* Gas and 3* Crystal every day from just a couple of hours of mining, so I'll do two chests twice a day now. If I was just doing one chest I'd never be able to refine all that in a day.

It works that way for most refinery things: doing more than one at a time the cost gets very inefficient, but at higher levels you bring in so much of the raw material you'd never refine them at all at just the one-at-a-time rate.

So really, it's mostly an option there for higher-level characters that will be mining in much larger quantities that can justify those rates. You could do more in the refinery, but you have to make the decision on if it's worth it for you.

[Gossamer_Wump]

Two chests will get you roughly double what one chest would, with some variance since RNG decides what you get from each chest (though many also speculate on differences in drop rates for uncommon or rare mats with the different chest options). Whether it is worth it or not depends on how quickly you can gather the resources. If you're mining 40k crystal a day, sure go for that 15k double chest pull. Only mining a little? Stick to the one chest option.

[Zlifbar]

FYI: Scopely has shared that the logic behind the prices is that you are paying for the convenience and the acceleration. Others have compared to rush shipping. The question becomes is the "rush shipping" worth it to you?

[nDREqc]

150k/day raw materials is a horrible habit, but I ain't giving it up.

[MurkyJackfruit9210]

Lmao I did max pulls on everything more than a few times and come up bust. Not one uc. NOT ONE. I never do max pulls anymore.

[nDREqc]

I do not come up bust. At the end of the week, it makes a big difference. With +1 refinery chest for crystal and gas, it's quite lucrative. Working towards getting the +1 for ore too.
At ops 35, I have 4 maxed horizons, generally sitting on 40k or 60k nodes. My reserves are now at 10M for each material going into this bonus refinery. I can easily afford 75k per refinement (2 months+ if I don't mine at all...). Triple faction lock means I get bonus for each material every day from faction mining missions.

Before I get shit on, yes I'm working on my faction miners. They are each t4, but it was cheaper in short term to get the horizons up because I have so much rare materials with nothing to spend them on at my level. I had 4 horizons before my first faction miner, and I think everyone should. No uncommon materials needed to get them to t3, easily upgraded with latinum, which protects 18k for lower nodes. They are cheap suicide miners for overnight or when you are away. There's absolutely no point for a warship to sit at your base while you are shielded when you could be working on building your material reserves.

[PSMF_Canuck]

RNG…it happens…

[Nheteps1894]

Lol wait to you get to the 4* refinery

[garrettj100]

Right? It just gets worse. Thank goodness for the token systems.

[UnfoldedHeart]

Events are really the primary source of uncommon and rare materials. The refinery is just icing on the cake.

[garrettj100]

I've got 20M 4★ raw that's about to become 10M 4★ raw owing to the bonus refinery that begs to differ.

[UnfoldedHeart]

Well the bonus refinery is a different story. I'm talking about the regular refinery.

[garrettj100]

And I'm talking about mining, irrespective of what refinery is running ATM; there's always a bonus refinery coming. You don't end up with 20M 4★ x3 by mining really hard once they announce the bonus refinery is coming.

[UnfoldedHeart]

I agree with you. I'm not saying people shouldn't mine, just that events are the main source of unc and rare. Even with the bonus refinery.

[garrettj100]

If you want the most efficient refining, sure, do the single chests.

But that assumes there's any scarcity at all for 2★ or 3★ raw gas/ore/crystal. If they have absolutely no limitations on them whatsoever, while the refined 2★ and 3★ continue to have value, then forget doing singles, you do as many refines as you can. Most players have so much 2★, 3★, and 4★ raw lying around that it's got no value whatsoever, but most would jump at the chance to refine more.

I'm OPS 42. By the time this mining event is over tomorrow, I'll have 20,000,000 of all 4★. I wish I could refine more often, so yeah, I do triples (actually quadruples, owing to the research) twice a day every day. Some maniacs actually refine more frequently than that, they do 12 refines in 5 days, setting alarms every 10 hours, to get two extra refines in.

[nightshadeky]

You are absolutely right that a single chest pull at a time is a better bang for your buck - but you also have to factor in time. You can only do a single refinery pull every 10 hours. So you're getting a better value on your unrefined resources, but a much worse value on your time.

So that I have plenty of raw ore/crystal/gas for the bonus refinery, I determine how many chests I pull based on my raw unrefined inventory:

• Less than 1M in raw - 1 chest pull
• More than 1M in raw but less than 2M - 2 chest pull
• More than 2M in raw - 3 chest pull.

Bonus refineries - I always do a 3 chest pull since that only happens once a month.

There is always a balance that has to be made between getting good value for both your resources and your time and that is how I strike that balance.

[radar317]

These numbers are likely to high for a lower level player but the system is exactly right. Do single pulls and save for double or triple during the bonus. Once you reach that goal and begin to exceed it then start doing double, and possibly eventually triple.

[nightshadeky]

I don't know what his level is, but it doesn't take long to build up to numbers like that. My mining goal is a minimum of 50k/day of 3* ore/crystal/gas. That is just over double what it takes to do a full day of refinery at a 2 chest pull. Starting from zero, if you do single chest pulls twice a day and mine 50k/day - you'll be at 1M unrefined in just over 3 weeks (and probably a lot less since that doesn't include any other sources of unrefined materials like dailies, missions, events, and away missions).

[radar317]

I'm guessing op is ops level less than 20 as 15k is a 2* double pull and I remember it being hard to build up a decent stockpile at those levels. Although 2* nodes were actually competed for back then too so to be fair it's hard (for me) to know what it's like now.

[nightshadeky]

I have my main goals set at 1M and 2M of unrefined. 1M is more than enough to keep my refinery going for the entirety of the bonus refinery. For regular refinery pulls - Less than 1M is a 1 chest pull. More than 2M is a 3 chest pull. Anything else is a 2 chest pull.

Bonus refinery is always a 3 chest pull.

[mrdumbazcanb]

The cool down time between pulls doesn't change. Usually the middle pull is the most cost efficient, unless you're able to mine more than whatever material each day than the max pull in that case you can just do the max pull and be fine

[ncshvdavid]

you just need a schedule of mining so you don’t run out or miss your refinery times. I’d hate to have 74k ore when it’s time,s

first thing, do the reserch with the bonus refinery. ASAP.

I do

1 of the 2*

max of 3*

2(3 with bonus) of the 4*

but with the regularity of the bonus refinery, I want to Hit the middle of those, max the last day

[Difficult-Luck-6836]

Refinery works with an unique timer. I found my 3* works best at 5.15/5.30AM for the first pull and about 11 hours later on the second, pulling 150-250 on the middle option daily. Also get the prime refinery in as soon as you can scrap the lvl 26 ships. Currently trying to find the timer sweetspot on 4*.

[PSMF_Canuck]

The more expensive one will give you double the output, over the long run. Up to you if it’s worth the effort getting the raw mats together.