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Jem'Hadar Ship Drop Rate (Newly Measured)

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
Greetings Captains,

This thread is intended to address the spread of Jem'Hadar vessels amongst the fleet. The mechanics for obtaining the vessels are not completely known to us, but we can make some guesses as to how it works.

My last thread got us a good idea for what was happening with the Jem'Hadar ship drop rate. A lot of people posted their experiences to help the community arrive at an educated purchase decision. Unfortunately all the data had to be collected from people's own recollections of their experiences and trusting their honesty. Some posters were confused by what types of boxes they opened and others about how many they opened. It is even possible that some reported false numbers, though I would not accuse anyone specifically. It's just likely that happens on both ends of the data spectrum.

Known Facts:
  • Jem'Hadar ships only come from Red Boxes during the holiday event.
  • Each Red Box has a chance of dropping the ship.
  • Red Boxes can be bought from the C-Store for 100 CP.
  • Red Boxes can be won from the racing event.

Unknown:
  • The drop rate of the Jem'Hadar ship from the Red Boxes.
  • The drop rate of the Red Box from the races.
  • The quantity of Jem'Hadar ships available (unlimited vs. limited).
  • Drop rate distribution type (plain geometric, influenced by other factors?).
  • Random number generation system.

Assumptions:
  • The drop rates follow a geometric distribution.
  • No other factors influence the chance of the Jem'Hadar ship dropping from a Red Box.
  • The drop rate on Tribble is the same as Holodeck.


Experiment:

With some help from the community, I was able to assemble 1,000 Red Boxes on the Tribble Test Server. These boxes were opened over the course of about 6 hours (as fast as the data could be recorded and the boxes opened) on December 30th. The contents of each box were individually recorded to collect the most data possible.


Results:
  • 472 (47.2%) Blue Boxes
  • 117 (11.7%) 1 Hour Skill Boosts
  • 87 (8.7%) Polytronic Acid Hortas
  • 68 (6.8%) Exocomps
  • 61 (6.1%) Gekli
  • 55 (5.5%) Eisilum Crystal Hortas
  • 51 (5.1%) Photonic Tribbles [may have been mixed up with Photonic Science Officer]*
  • 32 (3.2%) 8 Hour Skill Boosts
  • 28 (2.8%) Photonic Science Bridge Officers [may have been mixed up with Photonic Tribbles]*
  • 24 (2.4%) Federation Junior Officer Cadres
  • 5 (0.5%) Jem'Hadar Attack Ships

* It was very late at night and tabbing out of Tribble to record data is not very easy. I know that I accidentally recorded a few Photonic Tribbles instead of Photonic Science Officers. I tried to go back and correct most of them, but may have missed some.

Jem'Hadar Attack Ships were found in box number 248, 494, 609, 699 and 763. The intervals were 248, 246, 115, 90 and 64. I was nearing the end of the first stack of 250 boxes (after close to 2 hours) and started to lose hope that I would find a ship on Tribble. Thankfully Red Box number 248 yielded a ship, proving they drop on Tribble.


Box Value:

I added a C-Point value to each item from the box. The exceptions were the Photonic Tribble, Photonic Science Officer and Federation Junior Officer Cadre. The Photonics were given values of 120 and 160 respectively, since they had similar items in the C-Store. I gave the Junior Officer Cadre a value of 110 C-Points, half the C-Store Duty Officer pack. This is because the Cadres contain fewer officers and are mostly white quality.

Blue Boxes were given no C-Point value. Yes they may technically contain some EC value, but that is far more difficult to assess.

Average C-Points per Box: 109*
Average $ value per Box: $1.37*

*averages may vary slightly based on Photonic Tribble vs. Photonic Science Officer mix-ups. I sorted most of them out, but may have missed a few, throwing the percentages of those two off slightly.

The boxes are technically a winning proposition, which is why many call them "fair". I do have to ask, how many people need 87 Polytronic Acid Hortas? I'm seriously curious, since I have them on Tribble. In reality, the vast majority of the items in the box are things that people had already bought or do not want. Most of them are items you can only use or need one of.


Statistics:

It is most likely that there is a flat, even, chance of getting a Jem'Hadar ship from each box. Think of this like a 6 sided die. Your chance of rolling a 1 specifically is described by a geometric distribution. To get the 1 on the first roll is a 1/6 (16.6%). To get a roll of 1 out of three tries would be 1-[1-(1/6)]^3 or 42.1%. This Cumulative Probability describes the chance of rolling a single 1 in three tries.

The Jem'Hadar ship appears to be a 1 on a 200 sided die. Assuming the drop rate is fixed, you only receive a ship when you "roll" a 1.

The Geometric Distribution is not the same as the Normal Distribution. The Mean (average) and Median of the Geometric Distribution are different from each other. The Median will predict what number of boxes must be opened to have a 50% chance of getting the ship. The Mean will predict how many boxes are opened by the average customer before they find a ship. Since each box has the same chance (0.5%) it is certainly possible to open many boxes and not find a ship. That is why the Mean (average) drags out much higher than the Median.

200 Mean (average) Red Boxes per Jem'Hadar ship.
138.3 Median (50% chance) Red Boxes


$250 Mean cost per Jem'Hadar ship via the C-Store.
$173 Median cost to have a 50% chance at obtaining the ship.


You can see how the average (mean) customer must open up more Red Boxes than is required to have a 50% chance. This is because the boxes have no "memory" and opening an additional box only gives you another individual 0.5% chance, but does not add 0.5% to your previous "total".


Random Number Generation:

The customer does not know how their chance of getting a Jem'Hadar ship is generated. Computers can not generate truly random data as we would by simply rolling a die or spinning a roulette wheel. They must rely on algorithms which pull from a set of seed values and (possibly) the system clock. The seed values are generated ahead of time and referenced when a random number is required. The computer then puts that seed value through the algorithm to obtain the "random" number.

We do not know if the random number is generated on the server side or the client side. This may not make any real difference, but it is still an unknown to us.

Most lotteries are performed by an independent accounting firm or some other unbiased party. They typically rely on some sort of real world randomization, whether it is mixing names in a hat or watching ping pong balls swirl around a jar.

Scratch tickets are designed by people or algorithms. There are typically a fixed number of actual tickets and the printing of each type of ticket is designed to control the actual payouts. What appears random has actually been specifically designed.

What Cryptic relies on is most likely a simple flat percentage chance (0.5%) as if rolling a die. We just do not know how that 0.5% chance is assessed.


Previously Recorded Data:

In the previous thread, helpful customers had stepped forward to share how many boxes they had opened and how many Jem'Hadar ships they had found. The drop rate appeared to fluctuate between 0.5% and 1%. With such a low actual drop rate, every instance of a ship found drastically affected the measured drop rate. I am sure some people have truly found Jem'Hadar ships out of only a few boxes, but that is most likely the exception, not the rule.

It is difficult to assess how those who chose to report data self-selected. Were they a reasonable cross section of the Red Box opening customers? Were they people with a vendetta after being "unlucky"? Were they people who wanted to flaunt low box numbers or skew things in Cryptic's favor? It is too hard to tell. I simply hoped that over time it proved to be a reasonable cross section. Unfortunately it only takes a few "griefers" to throw the data off.

One poster had suggested that PWE uses a rate of 0.65% for their lottery boxes. Based off of the previously recorded data and the 1,000 Red Box experiment, I believe there is still a strong chance that the drop rate might be 0.65%. It is not possible to fully discount that.


Holiday Race:

The Red Boxes are made freely "available" via the holiday racing event. Unfortunately only being able to race once each day makes data collection far more difficult. While some one can simply buy and test 1,000 Red Boxes, to race in 1,000 races takes about 300 characters and one month.

My suspicion is that the drop rate of the Red Boxes from the race is the same as the drop rate from the Jem'Hadar ships from those Red Boxes. I am willing to "spot" Cryptic a full 1% on the Red Boxes from the race. Based on the numbers some people with a lot of characters have been reporting, it is very unlikely that the rate is higher than 1%.

Assessing chances of getting the ship from the race would be governed by the probability of winning a Red Box times the probability of getting a ship from a Red Box. The two events have to happen one after the other. This means you must be very fortunate to win a Red Box, and then you have to be very fortunate again to find a Jem'Hadar ship within that box.

The new probability can be calculated by multiplying the two individual probabilities.

Pr(ship)*Pr(Red Box) = 0.005 * 0.01 = 0.00005 or 0.005%

With a 1% chance of winning the box and a 0.5% chance of finding a Jem'Hadar ship, you would have to run:

20,000 Mean (average) races per Jem'Hadar ship.
13,862 Median races (required to have a 50% chance at the ship)


Even with a full 0.65% Jem'Hadar ship drop rate and a full 1% Red Box rate from the race you would need over 10,000 races to have a 50/50 (coin flip) chance at getting the ship.


Conclusion:

Every box is a chance to obtain the ship. Unfortunately the chance is so small it is nearly impossible to accurately measure from the consumer's end. The chance has not been clearly communicated to the customer. One could easily believe all items in the box had an equal probability or that there were only a certain number of Jem'Hadar ships that would be given out.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Reserved

    My OP was right at the character limit. Any more words or even formatting (color, bold, etc.) would have put it over. I'll keep this space for additional data as they come up.

    Edit: 1/17/2011 Update

    Additional Boxes Opened:

    Some one who has been assisting me with numbers opened up an additional 1,000 boxes on Tribble. The results mirror the first 1,000 boxes that I opened. In this new set of 1,000 boxes, there were only 5 Jem'Hadar ships. Now after a total of 2,000 boxes, we have 10 ships and a drop rate of exactly 0.5%.

    Two thousand boxes have a C-Store value of effectively $2,500. With 10 ships in that group, that leaves the average value of the ship firmly at $250. This is exactly as predicted by the mean of the geometric distribution with a probability of 0.5%.


    Cumulative Probability Chart:

    This chart illustrates the boxes one would have to open to have a given percent chance at obtaining the ship. For example, if you wanted to have a 60% chance to get the ship, find the 60% line on the Y-Axis, and follow that to the colored line for one of the 3 drop rates. While we have a relatively strong certainty in the 0.5% drop rate, I have included the 0.65% and 1% rates as a courtesy to Cryptic.

    http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/3227/cumulativeprobabilitych.jpg *direct image shack link.

    Again, note the nature of a geometric distribution, where double the number of boxes required for a 50% chance (138.98 boxes) do not give you a 100% chance. You can see that the 0.5% drop rate has a particularly long tail, stretching out for nearly 1,000 boxes as you near a 100% chance. This long tail is what drags the average price of the ship so high and really puts this lottery in Cryptic's favor.


    On Differences in Drop Rates:

    At the 99% chance of finding a ship, there is a nearly 500 box difference between the 0.5% drop rate and the 1% drop rate. Improving the drop rate to a full 1% drops the average price of the ship from $250 (at 0.5% drop rate) to $125, cutting the profits per ship in half. there would still be a chance of opening over 400 boxes to find a ship, but that chance would be greatly reduced, improving the pain for some of Cryptic's customers.

    Since thousands and thousands of boxes were opened, Cryptic really does experience things on a very average level. With only a few boxes opened, the results are more or less complete luck. As tens of thousands of boxes are opened, the results will be almost completely average. For each Jem'Hadar ship obtained via C-Store boxes, Cryptic really does see a $250 profit (regardless of what the individual box opener spent). Remember that next time you see a bug.

    I can not say that a full 1% chance would have caused me to buy any boxes (I never bought any at all), but I suspect doing so may have encouraged a few more purchases. If nothing else, raising the drop rate slightly would have come closer to putting a cap on maximum expenditure for each individual and decreased the chances for upsetting a customer. Assuming that everyone kept spending money until they got the ship, Cryptic would only make half as much with a 1% drop rate. I suspect some people (like me) censored how much the spent, based on the drop rate. Unfortunately I have no way to suggest what impact that would have had on profits, but I strongly suspect it would have improved player experience.


    Future Boxes and Grab Bags:

    Do not forget that the current Executive Producer for STO views the holiday boxes as a great success. Their own internal numbers suggest many customers spent some money at all on them (40%). I forget what percent of that 40% spent a significant amount of cash on the boxes. I can't seem to find the post on the issue now. If anyone turns up the post or quote, please pass it along.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Nice work! Hopefully this helps people understand how ridiculous it is to spend insane amounts of cash trying to get one of these.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    I'm afraid it turned out to be much more of a wall of text than I intended. Unfortunately, adding even one more bold text would be over the character limit.

    My goal was to leave my data and methods clearly displayed for critique and input.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    I find it very unethical that Red boxes can contain Blue boxes.
    It should just not be possible.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    wow...

    just WOW.

    #1 WOW at the work you've put into this

    #2 WOW at how low the droprate realy is. 5 in 1000 boxes?... and i have yet to see a single red box drop from the race (which was taken offline today, even though it is supposed to run a few extra days).


    I guess... this event would have gotten a lot less hate if the Items that were offered inside the red boxes, besides the Jem Hadar Ship, would have been NEW items, and not *old things* that everyone interested has already bought.

    So we only have Players who get things they never cared about to begin with, or Players who got things they already had.

    Almost all with the single aim to get their hands on the Ship.



    I guess with 41 boxes to get my hands on the Jem'Hadar ship makes me one of the super lucky ones?
    Yet i still feel robbed, for that money i could have bought a good 3 - 4 Endgame Ships.


    And i bet the chances of any good drops in the Elite STF's aren't any better either.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Z3R0B4NG wrote: »
    wow...

    just WOW.

    #1 WOW at the work you've put into this

    #2 WOW at how low the droprate realy is. 5 in 1000 boxes?... and i have yet to see a single red box drop from the race (which was taken offline today, even though it is supposed to run a few extra days).


    I guess... this event would have gotten a lot less hate if the Items that were offered inside the red boxes, besides the Jem Hadar Ship, would have been NEW items, and not *old things* that everyone interested has already bought.

    So we only have Players who get things they never cared about to begin with, or Players who got things they already had.

    Almost all with the single aim to get their hands on the Ship.



    I guess with 41 boxes to get my hands on the Jem'Hadar ship makes me one of the super lucky ones?
    Yet i still feel robbed, for that money i could have bought a good 3 - 4 Endgame Ships.


    And i bet the chances of any good drops in the Elite STF's aren't any better either.

    Try 15 for me.


    Super super lucky
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    At a Drop Rate of 0.5%:

    45 Red Boxes = 18.6% chance to get a Jem'Hadar ship.

    15 Red Boxes = 7.2% chance to get a ship.

    These odds seem somewhat reasonable on their face until you look at how far the tail of the distribution stretches. Once you see that 300 boxes is only a 77% chance to get the ship, you understand why so many have not gotten one.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Thank you Dunnlang, for your impartial analysis! The results are about what I expected -- I was guessing a 0.65% drop rate of Red Boxes from the race, and 0.65% drop rate of Jem'Hadar ships from Red Boxes.

    I think the thing that I find distressing about this whole situation is not how "fair" the drop rates are, or the mechanics of this system. It's the fact that Cryptic (or more likely Perfect World) seems to consider this a huge success, while the players are extremely upset.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Its only Jan 3rd but I'm going to go ahead and name this the "thread of the year". The amount of time and effort you put into gathering this data is staggering. I hope this thread can be linked to in the first couple of posts of any announcements of any future grab bags.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Don't forget Dunnlang, I still have those 80 Red Boxes that are unopened - besides, based on the stats you're giving I'm better off selling them at the exchange at an increase price then actually opening them. I guess I can make several 100 million EC's then take my chances on a 0.5% drop rate.

    and yes I'm with Nagus on this - This Thread deserve the Thread of the Year reward.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Its only Jan 3rd but I'm going to go ahead and name this the "thread of the year". The amount of time and effort you put into gathering this data is staggering. I hope this thread can be linked to in the first couple of posts of any announcements of any future grab bags.

    The real thanks goes to all those who have collected and reported their own numbers in good faith. They have also spent time and money to help us with these data. I also have to thank those who sent me boxes on Tribble to open.

    I appreciate all the help that the community has provided to fill in the data.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    BlackV7 wrote:
    Don't forget Dunnlang, I still have those 80 Red Boxes that are unopened - besides, based on the stats you're giving I'm better off selling them at the exchange at an increase price then actually opening them. I guess I can make several 100 million EC's then take my chances on a 0.5% drop rate.

    and yes I'm with Nagus on this - This Thread deserve the Thread of the Year reward.

    I'll PM you a price break down for the ship in EC based on the exchange price of the Red Boxes. This is more difficult to pin down.

    I think your offer is plain and fair enough though. Hopefully you get a taker. I quit trying to earn EC after 22 Million on my main. That puts me clearly out of the running for new content.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    wrote:
    Its only Jan 3rd but I'm going to go ahead and name this the "thread of the year". The amount of time and effort you put into gathering this data is staggering. I hope this thread can be linked to in the first couple of posts of any announcements of any future grab bags.
    while I do agree with this sentiment, there is competition :) I have a Dilithilum guide in my signature, which is still a work-in-progress. check it out yourself, i think everyone deserves a look at it

    and on topic, i'm glad I have no interest in the Jem'Hadar Bug
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Lol i dont know what makes people think that people knowing they have no/poor chances = they wont buy the object. lotteries exist should be enough of a reason. Do people really think most the people who play lotteries check their chances of winning?

    when i dropped a hundred bucks on the lottery years a go i know i didnt care about the chances. All i cared about was "if" i won.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    bigduckie wrote:
    Lol i dont know what makes people think that people knowing they have no/poor chances = they wont buy the object. lotteries exist should be enough of a reason. Do people really think most the people who play lotteries check their chances of winning?

    when i dropped a hundred bucks on the lottery years a go i know i didnt care about the chances. All i cared about was "if" i won.

    Some people, like me, want to know what we will get for our money. Now those people can know that spending $500 will net you an 87% chance to get the ship. They can decide if that is worth $500 on their own.

    There are people that enjoy the game of chance purely on its own, without caring about any prize. In that case, for about $200/hour they can enjoy this game of chance. It took me about 6 hours to open and record the data for 1,000 boxes.

    What choices people make is not the point of this thread. The point is to allow the consumers to make an educated choice if they would like to.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    This was a very well researched and I’m very grateful to the OP and all the people that help them compile this data.

    I can’t say that I’m shocked by the percentages that the OP has found.

    Cryptic and Perfect world calling this grab bag scheme a huge success is just appalling.

    I hope that this post gets linked to each and every future grab bag attempt the Cryptic makes going forward.

    I’d suggest the people do a copy and paste of the OP just in case this thread disappears.

    Once again thanks OP for all the time and effort the you and your supporters put in on this project.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    wrote:
    Cryptic and Perfect world calling this grab bag scheme a huge success is just appalling
    look at it from their point of view:

    huge amount of money poured in
    people throw money on games of change, despite the odds, sometimes doing it even when knowing it
    people upset, which they handle anyway

    so from their point-of-view, it is a success :) from ours, those who did this game of chance anyway, it's never a success. it's a statistical impossiblity
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Thank you for all the work put into exposing how these grab bags work. Cryptic specifically said they would not tell us the odds. Now we know why. And now we can all make informed decisions on whether to participate in these types of "events" in the future.
    BlackV7 wrote:
    Don't forget Dunnlang, I still have those 80 Red Boxes that are unopened - besides, based on the stats you're giving I'm better off selling them at the exchange at an increase price then actually opening them. I guess I can make several 100 million EC's then take my chances on a 0.5% drop rate.

    You are indeed better off selling red boxes rather than opening them. Supposedly the Jem'Hadar ship will be available again via similar event this December. It will be wise to save up enough EC to buy one from the Exchange once box opening madness begins again. (Let's just hope the world doesn't end on Dec 21 so we can get another shot at it hehe).
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Excellent analysis. Supports position of giving up after just a small handful. They really need to be open about chances for these kinds of things. That includes drops from STF's and other. It doesn't change any behavior, aside from a few of us super rational people.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Trek17 wrote:
    look at it from their point of view:

    huge amount of money poured in
    people throw money on games of change, despite the odds, sometimes doing it even when knowing it
    people upset, which they handle anyway

    so from their point-of-view, it is a success :) from ours, those who did this game of chance anyway, it's never a success. it's a statistical impossiblity

    I know that from a business stand point this game of chance was a huge success for Cryptic.

    From a moral stand point by Cryptic not publicly revealing the odds to obtain the Bug up front I find it appalling.

    Does anyone here think that they would have wasted any of their currency real or in-game if they knew that the drop of obtaining the grand prize was less than 1%?

    I hope that player base demands to know the actual drop rates of any future grab bag or game of chance deals that Cryptic throws our way in the future and refuses to buy any of them till the actual odds are revealed.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Its only Jan 3rd but I'm going to go ahead and name this the "thread of the year". The amount of time and effort you put into gathering this data is staggering. I hope this thread can be linked to in the first couple of posts of any announcements of any future grab bags.

    Wholeheartedly agreed.

    Reported this thread for a Sticky. It demonstrates impartial analysis of controversial game mechanics, and provides immense benefit to the community.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Wholeheartedly agreed.

    Reported this thread for a Sticky. It demonstrates impartial analysis of controversial game mechanics, and provides immense benefit to the community.

    Sticking this thread would be unofficially acknowledging these numbers as correct, which Cryptic has already told us they refused to do. So a sticky will never happen. However we can keep this link handy and copy/paste it whenever any mention of a grab bag is made in the future.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    I appreciate the thoughts, but a sticky is playing with fire. In reality, the odds can be anywhere between 0.5% and almost 1%. The 0.65% is a likely figure.

    If you want to keep the thread handy and up to date on what is going on, I suggest you subscribe to the thread. You can do so by clicking "Thread Tools" on the Dark Blue bar at the top of the thread, then click "Subscribe to this Thread".

    Unfortunately it will be difficult to gather more data and improve on what the OP contains. The self-reported data in the threads are too questionable and I would never ask some one to spend $1,250 on another 1,000 boxes to test this again.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Dunnlang wrote:
    I appreciate the thoughts, but a sticky is playing with fire. In reality, the odds can be anywhere between 0.5% and almost 1%. The 0.65% is a likely figure.

    If you want to keep the thread handy and up to date on what is going on, I suggest you subscribe to the thread. You can do so by clicking "Thread Tools" on the Dark Blue bar at the top of the thread, then click "Subscribe to this Thread".

    Unfortunately it will be difficult to gather more data and improve on what the OP contains. The self-reported data in the threads are too questionable and I would never ask some one to spend $1,250 on another 1,000 boxes to test this again.

    If i were still in school I'd volunteer.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Dunnlang wrote:
    Unfortunately it will be difficult to gather more data and improve on what the OP contains. The self-reported data in the threads are too questionable and I would never ask some one to spend $1,250 on another 1,000 boxes to test this again.

    Did someone really spend that much on boxes, or were a handful repeatedly transferred to Tribble via Character Copy?

    Which makes me wonder why a kind soul who won the ship didn't just transfer the crate over to Tribble again and again so others could at least get the chance to test drive it.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    With my luck, I could spend $1000 of real money and NEVER get one...

    Makes me sad too, cause I'm tired of using this Fleet Escort and the Jem'Hadar bug is the ONLY other way to fly an Escort with 3x Engineering BO skills :(

    (Meanwhile, the Klinks have the BoP's and Siege Destroyers which BOTH get to use 3x Engineering skills or more, not to mention also having access to the Bug)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Dunnlang wrote:

    Results:
    • 472 (47.2%) Blue Boxes
    • 117 (11.7%) 1 Hour Skill Boosts
    • 87 (8.7%) Polytronic Acid Hortas
    • 68 (6.8%) Exocomps
    • 61 (6.1%) Gekli
    • 55 (5.5%) Eisilum Crystal Hortas
    • 51 (5.1%) Photonic Tribbles [may have been mixed up with Photonic Science Officer]*
    • 32 (3.2%) 8 Hour Skill Boosts
    • 28 (2.8%) Photonic Science Bridge Officers [may have been mixed up with Photonic Tribbles]*
    • 24 (2.4%) Federation Junior Officer Cadres
    • 5 (0.5%) Jem'Hadar Attack Ships

    It's interesting that out of the 210 boxes I opened I have a similar distribution of drops. Almost everything I received is within 2 to 5% of your numbers. Some of my drops varied because I was opening packages on both KDF and Fed toons.

    Here's my data from 210 Boxes. Notice the exact match on Photonic Science Officers:
    • 89 (42.38%) - Blue Box
    • 29 (13.80%) - 1 Hour Skill Bonus
    • 19 (9.04%) - Eisilum Crystal Horta
    • 17 (8.09%) - Gekli Pet
    • 14 (6.66%) - Polytrinic Acid Horta
    • 12 (5.71%) - Photonic Tribble
    • 10 (4.76%) - 8 Hour Skill Bonus
    • 10 (4.76%) - Exocomp Pet
    • 6 (2.85%) - Photonic Science Officer (Exact match)
    • 3 (1.42%) - Federation Junior Cadre (Might have had more if all boxes opened on Fed characters)
    • 1 (0.47%) - Targ Pup (Due to opening boxes on KDF characters)
    • 0 (0.00%) - Jem'Hadar Attack Ship
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    Did someone really spend that much on boxes, or were a handful repeatedly transferred to Tribble via Character Copy?

    Which makes me wonder why a kind soul who won the ship didn't just transfer the crate over to Tribble again and again so others could at least get the chance to test drive it.

    This is essentially how the test was conducted. I have a handful of Jem'Hadar ships on Tribble available for testing. There are the 5 I pulled and a couple more some people saved to Tribble from their characters.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    kostamojen wrote: »
    With my luck, I could spend $1000 of real money and NEVER get one...

    Makes me sad too, cause I'm tired of using this Fleet Escort and the Jem'Hadar bug is the ONLY other way to fly an Escort with 3x Engineering BO skills :(

    (Meanwhile, the Klinks have the BoP's and Siege Destroyers which BOTH get to use 3x Engineering skills or more, not to mention also having access to the Bug)

    They engineered the shortage, the holes in the Escort progression tree, that makes the Bug desirable enough to spend hundreds of dollars on. If there were already a Bug equivalent available for a reasonable price and the Bug was merely a cosmetic bonus, then the lottery would not have been such a "success".

    I am truly interested to see how many total dollars per active player were spent on the lottery, vs. how many total dollars per active player were spent on the Excelsior. It would be interesting to see a break down over the first month or two, then over the entire STO service time of the Excelsior. Was the lottery that much more profitable to be worth denying the majority of the player base access to the Bug?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    0Gambit0 wrote: »
    I know that from a business stand point this game of chance was a huge success for Cryptic.

    From a moral stand point by Cryptic not publicly revealing the odds to obtain the Bug up front I find it appalling.

    Does anyone here think that they would have wasted any of their currency real or in-game if they knew that the drop of obtaining the grand prize was less than 1%?

    I hope that player base demands to know the actual drop rates of any future grab bag or game of chance deals that Cryptic throws our way in the future and refuses to buy any of them till the actual odds are revealed.

    I probably would FOR 1%. It's sub 1% returns that make me very dubious.

    I've devoted a lot of effort to 1% drops in games before. But sub-1% is my cutoff.

    I have bought boxes to sell for EC though. Got my Ferengi a trio of Orions that way.
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