A guide to getting UFE

This is a guide for all players, not just free players that want to get to UFE status as quickly as possible. It will be in a form of a guide / story which will be aimed to help new players understand all aspects of the game in order achieve that goal.

First off, it is possible to get to UFE status without paying any money.

Secondly, spending some money is ok too and will just speed up the process a little.

People always say that it takes hard work to get to UFE but they do not say to exactly what to focus on. I formed this guide in hopes that it would encourage people along the path to get to UFE status

I haven’t reached UFE status yet but I know what to do and what not to do as a (semi) free player to get there.


Acknowledgements
I’ll like to thank my clan, VIO, for supporting me throughout my path through Darkorbit. I would also like to thank many other people on this forum whose posts and answers helped me refine the technique to getting Ultra Full Elite in the cheapest and quickest possible time.

I hope you guys don’t mind if I post links to your thread about the various elements to the solution of getting Ultra Full Elite.


[Index]
A little bit of me + proof
Budget spending guide on what to spend money on (if you can)
What I’ve spent my money on (hence the semi-free player title)
Skylab
Hangars
How to Palladium in 5-3
What Gates to focus on
The most efficient way to get the Apis Drone
The most efficient way to get the Zeus Drone
The cheapest way to get lf4
Which pet gears and protocols to buy
When boxing plays more than one role
The best way to farm uridium
The first few drone formations that you should buy and why
Upgrading drones, bo2 and lf4
What events you should do (and those that you shouldn't) and why <under construction

 

A little bit of me + proof
My ship name at the moment is Harb
I have been playing since the 4th of February 2014
I’ve put in 1799 hrs into this game
I have 9 drones, going to get a Zeus soon. My drones are level 11
I have 23 lf4s
2 Havocs
1 Herc
And a bunch of other stuff which I will go through later that would help you on the quest to UFE status


Proof

Profile Pic


Lf4

 

Budget spending guide on what to spend money on (if you can)

• Rebate (for big uridium purchases e.g. Apis, Zeus, Upgrades)

• Premium (for uridium farming and completing gates quicker)

• Doubler (for boxing)

 

What I’ve spent my money on (hence the semi-free player title)

• Aegis ship purchase
• 1 month premium
• 8 week boxing doubler
• 600 log-disks deal
• 120 Booty keys XL deal
• 1 week boxing doubler (for the carnival event now on)

I’ve never purchased any uridium whatsoever.

I’ll breakdown my spending (as you can see what I bought was not necessary and I purchased certain things for different goals):

• The Aegis and premium purchase was made solely to for farming the old Battleray in 5-3. Where you can get a large amount of uridium in a relatively short period of time. I wasn't able to farm much uridium as Bigpoint reworked the Battleray shortly after.
  
• The boxing doubler was purchased to farm uridium over the holidays to buy booty keys for lf4. I farmed around 900,000 uridium and bought 600 keys. Those 200 keys were used on Helix day to get 0 lf4s. The remaining 400 keys were used on a normal day, not an lf4 day, to get 6 lf4.
  
• The log-disks deal was just me being impatient and wanting to complete my fat lasers on bio quicker.
  
• The booty keys deal was just me trying out the chances of getting items.

There you have it, most purchases were not game changers except maybe the doubler which is really useful in getting uridium quickly.

 

Finish upgrading your Skylab

Finish leveling up all your resource collectors. I would start upgrading the left side first before upgrading the right side, leaving Seprom to last. Seprom is not just really good for PvP but also for PvE. Think about it as a resource that lets you net more uridium per shot.

I would suggest leaving Seprom at level 19 so that you could sell Promerium for credits.


Example of my skylab


As you can see I have Seprom at level 18 only.

 

Hangars

Purchase as least 2 other hangars in addition to the beginning hangar which you start off with.
I would locate one hangar in on whichever of the 3 lower b-maps where you should be boxing and before going to 5-3 locate another hangar in 5-2 by warping a ship at the port where you sell your collected palladium. The one in the centre of the map. This would save time when selling collected palladium.

As you continue with the game, I would suggest locating a 4th hangar and 5th hangar on both the lower and upper home company maps.

Here’s an example of my own hangars (taking into account that I’m EIC)



I have 6 hangars, but the 6 is just an extra one which doesn’t see much use.


Example of where I put my hangars, what ships I put in them and why

Hangar 1 (Location: 2-8)– Citadel: Used when selling and sending cargo due to its enormous cargo space
Hangar 2 (Location: 2-1)– Aegis: Used as a placeholder for when I want to go to the lowers for quests or warping to when I want to do gates.
Hangar 3 (Location: 4-2)– Spearhead: Fast, slippery ship that I use for boxing
Hangar 4 (Location: Changes)– Goliath: My main ship that I fly around with, location changes depending on what I want to do.
Hangar 5 (Location: 5-2)– Leonov: A low hp ship which has a full nano-hull that I use when I’m spinning gates.
Hangar 6 (Location: 5-2)– Vengeance: Does nothing


Extended note about a low hp ship used when spinning gates:
One hangar should have a small ship which you use when you’re spending galaxy gate spins to store nano-hull. Once it is filled up continue to use the same ship for further spins as you’ll stop getting more nano-hull and you’ll get more chance of getting other items including galaxy gate parts.


By locating various ships if various areas you could save time if you want to change and do a different task. For example if I'm bored of flying my Goliath around and popping aliens, I could easily log off and change to my 4th hangar and start boxing in my Spearhead instead.

 

Buying Ships

Buy your ships from the auction house
For a spearhead you might get away with buying it straight using the uri you saved. Its only 45k.
For the citadel, don’t buy it with uridium, buy it from the auction.

 

How to Palladium in 5-3

Palladium is really important for a free player. It arguably the most important thing apart from uridium. It allows you to farm for spins which will help you receive gate parts and a whole lot of other resources which you’ll need in the game.

More palladium usually spawns faster when more people are on the map picking up palladium. Hence try to pick palladium when most people are on the server. Another advantage of picking palladium when there’s more people is that the pirates will be more spread out and you’ll only encounter a couple of pirates during your farming.
Picking up palladium may not be advisable when your clan has a lot of wars, obviously so you might want to try boxing or farming uridium instead.

As you would not be too strong just run and don’t bother to try and kill a person who is obviously stronger than yourself. There’s no point in wasting your hard earned ammunition.

It also pays to be in a clan that has stable diplomacy with as many clans as possible so you don't get popped.

 

What Gates to focus on

As you will know there are 11 galaxy gates but you only need to focus on 2 of them on your quest to become UFE

Zeta & Kappa
And maybe 1 Epsilon (for that first lf4)

I am not a fan of using uridium to make gates as you might not get rewarded with Havocs or Hercules drone designs but it’s up to you.
When spinning gates I usually use the x5 charge but if you really want to build them as low a number of spins as possible then use the x1.

Hit the multiplier as soon as you get it as it is the best option to build the gate the quickest.

Proof:
https://board-en.darkorbit.com//thr...application-for-math.61129/page-5#post-539444

When doing gates always use moth formation. NPC’s in gates die quicker when you use it, hence speeding up your gate completion times and saving ammunition.

 

The most efficient way to get the Apis Drone

Collect Apis parts not on Apis day but on Zeus day.

According to experience you’ll get more Apis parts on Zeus day compared to Zeus parts.
Keep using booty keys you got from galaxy gates or from uridium farming on Zeus day only
Keep collecting until you get around 20 parts, don’t bother collecting further as the decrease is not worth the amount of uridium you spend on keys to get the further parts.

Wait until Apis day where you’ll get a 25% discount and build your Apis with uridium.

You’ll also get some Zeus parts.

 

The most efficient way to get the Zeus Drone

Continue to use booty keys on Zeus day until you get around 20+ parts then build it with uridium.

 

The cheapest way to get lf4

Booty boxes!
What
Yes booty boxes
NOT Epsilon gate

Proof (my clarification with El_Burro):
Dark Orbit - finally a "real world" application for math

Obviously the more keys you use, the more chance of getting lf4.

Pick booty on Helix lf4 day to get the best chances. I normally pick booty when I’m boxing so ill only pick booty which are in the battle maps.

It doesn't matter which map you pick your booty.

 

What pet gears and protocols to buy

Gears

• Resource Collector level 3 – Essential for Palladium farming
• Auto looter level 3 – Essential for boxing
• Alien Locator level 3 – Essential when doing quests as most time is taken up by finding where specific npcs are. Also great for locating Ice Meteoroids when they are on.
• Kami level 3 – Not really important but even without premium you can farm uridium during the Crazy Cube event. Just need to time it right so that the uridium reward goes to you and not the other guy

Protocols

• Level 2 or level 3 radar protocols – These are really useful for the first three gears. They do make a difference even the level 2 ones. For example I have 4 level 2 protocols at the moment and my pet could pick up palladium from quite a far distance from my ship.

 

When boxing plays more than one role

Boxing for a free playing is not as efficient as farming for galaxy gate spins as palladium farming is faster nor is boxing as efficient for getting uridium as cubing is faster.

This is obvious as you get a whole range of items from ammo to uridium to galaxy gate spins when you box.

However boxing plays does have hidden advantages which make it competitive.

• You can for example save a store of Seprom which will be useful for farming uridum and defending yourself.
• If you are in a completely different time zone than your server. Say if you log in at a time where most people are not online. It is much better to box than to palladium. Why? You’ll get swarmed by a lot of pirates while you’re trying to palladium wasting your ammo and possibly your ship too (if you get the dreaded combo of saboteur & annihilator at the same time).

If you have doubler, its better to box than to palladium.

 

The best way to farm uridium

• Cubikons – a steady source of uridium, not much rewards if many people are shooting the cubes
• Ice Meteoroids – really great uridium rewards, much better than cubes, however you need an alien locator and at least 4 level 2 radars to locate them quickly.
• Crazy cubes – another really great source of uridium, however especially if you’re not premium you must time your kamikaze around 15-20 seconds after someone has kamied. Or kami right before someone kamis to get the uridium rewards.

 

The first few drone formations that you should buy and why

Uridium costing formations

• Diamond - A really solid first purchase as it really speeds up your npc farming. Beware of high damage dealing moth formation invaders as you would be particularly weak to them in this formation due to the low hp it causes.
• Moth - An excellent choice for gates as it drastically reduces the time needed to do them and at the same time reduces ammo consumption.
• Heart - An all round strong formation. I won't recommend it as a first purchase as it doesn't really help with farming.
• Drill - 20% extra damage is amazing for both PvE and PvP. I hesitate to include this as my first choice as even though you would deal more damage as a FE or semi UFE, the drastic decrease in shields and the slow might get you trapped when out farming.
• Wheel - Great just for its utility in providing extra speed. Not just good for escaping attackers but could also be changed to in short bursts to get to objectives quicker e.g. chasing down the location of an Ice Meteoroid.

 

Upgrading drones, bo2 and lf4

When upgrading, upgrade drones first as they provide the best benefit to cost.

I would recommend upgrading using the 100% chance as yes even though there is a "best" way of upgrading (by using a mix of chances) it is still chance and could backfire horribly, wasting uridium.

I would also recommend doing upgrades on upgrade hour which to my knowledge usually happens after MHH.

Once you finish upgrading drones start upgrading bo2s and lf4.

Upgrading is possibly the most uridium consuming especially in upgrade levels 10+.

Hence I personally would leave lf4 upgrades till last and get more lf4s from booty imstead because of the reason stated above.

 

id have to disagree with this as from my experience leveling each item lf4,bo2,drones is best done in sets ie... lvl 2 drones then lvl 2 lf4 then lvl 2 bo2s......lvl3 drones,lvl3 lf4's, lvl 3 bo2's
balanced and easier going

as for upgrade chance i do 85% to save 15% uri overall you do save
upgrade hour 5 or 7pm every friday

 

small note palli isnt the best way to get uri/spins boxing out ways 5-3 any day...... spins/ammo uri while + kills while boxing

you only need 4 hangers max , goli,pusat,sear,aegis anything more is a waist

 

You can pick around 100+ spins per hourr from palladium in 5-3 and only around 50 gg spins per hour while boxing in the battle maps.

Now that the hangars have changed having even 6 hangars cost very little uridium (1.6k). Having 6 hangars gives total access to lowers uppers, battle maps (boxing), palladium.