I Earned Star Contributor In FFXIV's Cosmic Exploration

Sometimes I decide to do something that doesn't make a lot of sense. I took this week off of work and one of my objectives was to get all crafting and gathering classes up to 50,000 cosmic class points. But then a pop-up appeared about a server shutdown from 10:00 p.m. Monday to Nov. 11, 2025 2:00 a.m. (PST) Tuesday to install Dawntrail patch 7.38. If the evaluation period for becoming a Star Contributor was being shortened by 3 hours, why not try to obtain the title?

Standing in front of the hologram of Star Contributors

The benefits of becoming one of the seven current Star Contributors aren't permanent, or even very impactful. According to the wiki:

Star Contributors will be honored for fourteen real-life days in the following ways:

• A hologram of the player will be displayed in Phaenna (X:27.9, Y:12.7).
• The player's name will be displayed on the starward standings stela on Phaenna (X:28.0, Y:12.6).
• A visual effect will be applied to them when they are in a Cosmic Exploration zone. They can click off this buff if they do not want it displayed.

Players who receive Star Contributor will be ineligible to receive it again for 14 days.

In contrast to the limited-time ranking titles in Ishgardian Restoration, Star Contributor is a permanent competitive feature to prevent "fear of missing out". There are no achievements, titles, or item rewards tied to Star Contributor.

So why chase becoming a Star Contributor? Because I could. Also, the evaluation period would end at midnight meaning I wouldn't have to screw up my sleep schedule too much. I'd just need to wake up a few hours early Monday morning. 

The only preparation I did was go out and make 60 All i Pebre. The food based on Goldentail eel is a superior version of the Rroneek Steak, which would matter because the crafting classes I intended to play were not specialists and need all the stats I could give them. I went out and fished for 30 minutes and caught 25 Goldentail (pro-tip - use red maggots and double-hook/triple-hook). I wound up only needing 24, but running out of food was something I didn't want to do.

I should add I was also using Squadron Rationing Manuals. As part of the leveling I've done for my personal squadron I run a mission that provides 10 of the manuals. Perhaps I should take up PvP to get them also.

I actually logged in at 3am local, the start of the evaluation time. I was in for the long run so I did a few things and began the crafting grind at 3:20am. The strategy was simple: do sequential missions and abandon missions that don't lead to the three sequential missions that gave 1100-1200 points for crafting four items. 

These missions will become available after completing certain stellar missions with a gold star rank. Sequential missions are created from a variety of missions, and completing them with the highest score possible will cause more to appear. Failing or abandoning a sequential mission will require the player to complete the prerequisite mission again for another attempt.

I also wound up making a small macro to do missions during Red Alerts. While I have no evidence besides vague hints, I think missions done for Red Alerts get a bonus when the Star Contributor points. 

My first problem occurred shortly before 5am when Steam gave me a message saying my auto-pay didn't work. I figured out I had failed to delete something the last time the issue occurred. Getting everything back to normal took 30 minutes.

But then something happened that should have told me I had Star Contributor in the bag. Despite the payment issue knocking me out of the game, I went from being in the top 30% of players to top 20% of players. Getting up early was paying off.

I went on a roll from 5:30am to 7:15am and got into the top 10%, the highest category. Then I got a headache. A video game grind is not worth pain, so I took some aspirin and laid down for a half-hour until I felt better. I really started feeling good when I checked the math. I was averaging 6100 points per hour and in the top 10%. If I stepped up my efforts I could definitely come close.

But I was still looking to take care of myself. I didn't hesitate to go brew tea or eat lunch when the time came. I also would walk around for a few minutes each hour whether I needed to stretch or not. Over the next 10 hours I averaged 8400 points per hour.

I also learned something about my server. Players didn't start rolling into the zone until 1:30pm my time (11:30am PST). Basically I had an 8 hour head start on any potential competitor. So when I started getting sleepy I felt okay about taking a nap. 

After my nap I wound up finishing strong, managing to get all my crafting classes to at least 50,000 class points.

Final class points at the end of the night

Each of the bronze cups in the picture above represents an achievement earned for getting 50,000 points in a class. During the grind I completed the achievements for Alchemist, Armouer, Blacksmith, Carpenter, and Goldsmith. Perhaps more importantly I racked up 155,662 overall class points, running my total up to 602,000 points. For those who want some more metrics, I averaged 7400 points per hour with a maximum of 11, 988 points in an hour after I took the nap. In the two hours after I took my nap I averaged 11,100 points per hour.

And perhaps that's the point. Long play sessions grinding out cosmic exploration content isn't the optimum use of a player's time. Shorter sessions spread out over a longer time is a more efficient way of doing things. Based on yesterday I'm going to try to spend two hours a day grinding out class points. Because while the point total sounds impressive, my 600,000 overall class points means I'm only 11% of the way to getting the High Mobility Vacuum Suit.