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| The beginning |
First I want to address a complaint I heard when Cosmic Exploration was first launched. A lot of people wanted to be present every time an upgrade to the moon base happened. So far I think I managed to be present for one of the nine upgrades. Indeed, three upgrades happened while I was in Iceland attending EVE Fanfest. Would I like to have seen all the upgrades while they happened? Sure. But I'm satisfied with the option to go back and see what the moon looked like at the beginning of each phase.
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| The development timeline so far |
Perhaps I'm just old school. Maybe playing EVE for so long warped my outlook. But Final Fantasy XIV is an online world that runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Sometimes a player just misses out on an event. I missed plenty of events in EVE over the years. I'm used to listening to the stories of those who can claim, "I was there."
Next, are the tools really worth the effort? I think so. The base stats on the Cosmic Hatchet and Cosmic Pickaxe are the same as those on the high quality Everseeker's Hatchet and Everseeker' Pickaxe. The difference comes with the ability to meld. The stats on the Everseeker's tools are greater (with the exeption of gathering points) than on the Cosmic tools after melding. The Cosmic tools make up for the lack of melding by granting an increased chance to trigger Collector's Intuition by 20% when gathering collectables. Oh, and grants a lunar credit bonus of 35%.
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| The Cosmic Pickaxe |
Is the bonus worthwhile? I think so. Before patch 7.2 dropped I was still using the old Lodestar tools from Endwalker when farming for orange gathering scrips. I can't wait to see how much more effective my orange scrip farming is when using the updated tools. As for the lunar credit bonus, the bonus really came in handy when doing red alerts. When I started running out of lunar credits the bonus on the tools helped a lot even with lower levels of the tools.
Speaking of gear and melding, I wound up pentamelding my gathering gear and tools. I was using the 7.2 Mid Tier set from TeamCraft which left a lot of over-melding slots unused. When doing the gathering missions a big concern is running out of gathering points. So I wound up buying enough Gathering Grasp IX materia as I could and then filled out the rest of the slots with Gathering Guile IX materia. Not only did the extra GP help but materia is generated faster if all equipment is pentamelded.
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| Preparing to board a mech |
Playing through the grind I grew to appreciate the Mech Ops and Red Alert content. One of those events occurs every 20 minutes and participating allowed my GP to regenerate. After the initial few days I could usually find an instance with under 25 players making winning a spot piloting a mech much more sure. I still haven't won anything but a Big Bang ticket for the roulette game but I'm still trying.
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| I won a cosmo suit in the roulette |
The Red Alert content was really good for generating lunar credits useful for buying opportunities to pilot mechs. Also, for levelling the last level of research to upgrade to a Cosmic tool.
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| The research bonus really helps |
Another feature I really like is the research bonus for acquiring cosmic tools. I've seen some conflicting information about the bonus, but the one I think holds is:
- 1-2 cosmic tools - 50% research bonus
- 3-4 cosmic tools - 100% research bonus
- 5+ cosmic tools - 150% research bonus
Acquiring 11 tools is quite a grind so I appreciate any bonus I can get. I'll update everyone when I finish the research on my frying pan.
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| Current development |
Yes, I'm going to switch to crafting and save getting my fishing pole until I get the 150% research bonus. I hear the RNG is pretty bad for the fishing missions so I figure I'll wait until I can make the fishing grind as painless as possible. Besides, I'm doing the Cosmic tool grind for the benefits outside the content. I do a lot more gathering than I do fishing.
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