No, it doesn't. The fleet holdings costs have been well documented, and the only way you could spend even one billion on it is if you were silly enough to buy from the wrong vendors.
Believe me - those people who started from the beginning - the costs are well over $ 1 billion ec
when you used to have to use specific doffs - like security officers - they sold for 150k for months
also when you had to buy sensor doffs for at least a month they topped out at $1.5 million!!! per common doff!
T0 to T3 has been nerfed/reduced 2 times since launch - the current figures don't include the original costs.
If you don't know what daily ec needs are, I take it you haven't ever grinded reputation or werer in charge of a fleet, which btw takes billions to get to T5.
I can't speak for him but I have 14 chars (not subscriber or lifer, just 30 days gold once and never bought any zen with ral money)
I have 6 chars with omega and romulus t5 and 2 chars with tholian t5.
I'm in a small fleet we have t3 base, t3sci, t3tac, t3eng, t3 transwarpgate, all the spcials (except for the exocomps) and I've contributed about 90% of the materials for that base. All with the old material costs like specific doffs and specific drinks for the bar npc.
Our Embassy is just t1 and again about 90% of the materials are from me.
Our mine is in the process of upgradding one of the departments to t2 and I was pretty much alone on this one and so about 98% of the stuff was from me.
I'm the owner of a galor, jem'hadar attack ship, tuffli, temporal ship(box), temporal shuttle, d'kora, thoilan(box), tholian(lobi), tal'shiar(lobi) and several zen store ships.
And in the about 18 month I play now I've done added up about 3 or 4 times the Tour the Universe.
Yes, I'm a freak, but never needed the Tour the Universe to get my stuff.
Believe me - those people who started from the beginning - the costs are well over $ 1 billion ec
when you used to have to use specific doffs - like security officers - they sold for 150k for months
also when you had to buy sensor doffs for at least a month they topped out at $1.5 million!!! per common doff!
T0 to T3 has been nerfed/reduced 2 times since launch - the current figures don't include the original costs.
You don't get to say 'DOFFS cost X' and add that in to the cost, otherwise things become way too complex and you can't draw any conclusions at all.
For example: All the dilithium could be converted into Zen, which is used to buy keys which could theoretically have been sold for EC. Are we to conclude that all the dilithium fleet holdings require has an EC cost?
"Billions" is a pointless exaggeration.
"Participation in PVP-related activities is so low on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis that we could in fact just completely take it out of STO and it would not impact the overall number of people [who] log in to the game and play in any significant way." -Gozer, Cryptic PvP Dev
You don't get to say 'DOFFS cost X' and add that in to the cost, otherwise things become way too complex and you can't draw any conclusions at all.
For example: All the dilithium could be converted into Zen, which is used to buy keys which could theoretically have been sold for EC. Are we to conclude that all the dilithium fleet holdings require has an EC cost?
"Billions" is a pointless exaggeration.
Well the details of the costs are extremely limited - because it does not include "opportunity costs" or the costs of a major component: doffs
I would say that 50% min of the doffs that go into the starbases are bought off the exchange - that would put the cost into MANY billions of EC
Well the details of the costs are extremely limited - because it does not include "opportunity costs" or the costs of a major component: doffs
I would say that 50% min of the doffs that go into the starbases are bought off the exchange - that would put the cost into MANY billions of EC
I would say that 100% of your statistics are fabricated.
"Participation in PVP-related activities is so low on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis that we could in fact just completely take it out of STO and it would not impact the overall number of people [who] log in to the game and play in any significant way." -Gozer, Cryptic PvP Dev
The rich dont want to have to spend 100 million it takes 10 minutes to grind.
The idea that it might take 20 minutes to get 200 million is nonsense.
Growth!
Growth!
There's no profit in that!
You people are the worst of the 1% whiners. Suck it the **** up. Regular players were not farming the tour the universe for ec. YOU were. So you could compete with yourselves. And as a side effect, sponge and exploit off of everyone else who just wanted to play the game.
I'm f2p, and I usually have little problems making EC. I never ran that "Tour the Universe, and typically only run one foundry mission per day/character, and typically that is for the dilithium NOT the EC. And in fact, most of my expenditures are related to ways to make more.
As far as ship equipment goes, I rarely, if ever, buy anything off the exchange for my ships. I usually settle for loot drops, and the occasional item that I can get out of my fleet's bank, that will be useful for one of my ships.
So while while Tour the Universe may have been a way to make EC for some, I don't think it was all that critical, if you're industrious with however much time you decide to spend playing this game, and you can still have fun doing so.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
butcher suspect, "What'd you hit me with?"
Temperance Brennan, "A building"
As I said in the other thread on this subject, removing sources of income never improves an economy.
I never relied on tour reruns to make EC, but it helped.
There are still plenty of other options:
- loot drops from system patrols and deep space encounters. I often fill up my inventory blasting Tholians, Klingons and Tal Shiar running through the Tau Dewa sector patrol daily - an easy way to earn 60-75 rom marks and a cool 250k+ec.
- selling rare particle traces on exchange.
- crafting and selling low-level gear on exchange.
- hoarding items with limited-time availability (summer/winter event costume packs, for example) and selling them a few months after they are no longer available.
- poking around the exchange for undervalued items (like somebody selling disruptor coils without checking what they're really worth, or leaving a zero off the sell price when posting a bugship...) snapping them up, turning around and reselling them at correct market value.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
(like somebody selling disruptor coils without checking what they're really worth, or leaving a zero off the sell price when posting a bugship...) snapping them up, turning around and reselling them at correct market value.
I've played since release, never run the tour once, I only have 1 toon. I never have EC problems because I play the game as intended and spend on Zen occasionally.
FYI players can run a foundry EC farm mission daily to make upwards of 1 million EC a day... that is MORE than enough FREE AND EASY EC.
The STO economy really does need an EC sink. The large amount of EC entering into the economy is the cause of the high inflation on the exchange. There are frequent threads made on these forums complaining about how the prices on the exchange are too high. The cause is more than just supply/demand. Yes supply and demand does influence it, but the overall cost of things (ie the inflation rate) is caused by the ever increasing amounts of EC being created. (Note: buying and selling on the exchange does not 'create' EC. It merely transfers existing EC from the buyer to the seller). EC is 'created' whenever you sell something to an NPC vendor, when you are awarded EC through PVP, doff assignments, missions, etc, AND in events like Tour the Universe. Without a balancing 'sink', the EC economy would be subject to rampant inflation. And indeed, there has been A LOT of inflation in STO. Before starbases and the reputation system were put in, there was essentially, NO sink for ECs. The devs can keep track of how much EC is in the system. Obviously, they feel those sinks aren't enough.
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Lol the biggest thing Cryptic has forgotten about when nerfing EC gains from the tour, how will it effect sales on EC cap increase!!! With no more need of havinf to surpass 10mill, the sales of that alone will plummet.
Lol the biggest thing Cryptic has forgotten about when nerfing EC gains from the tour, how will it effect sales on EC cap increase!!! With no more need of havinf to surpass 10mill, the sales of that alone will plummet.
Yeah, because that's where all the money comes from :rolleyes:
There are better ways to make ec anyway. I'm never a billionaire at any given time, but when I want something like a JHAS its no problem for me to raise tens or hundreds of mil ec in a few days. Farming sb 24, CE, foundry, doffing all on multiple characters to get around cooldowns make it easy. With all the contraband I get from marauding plus the occaisonal pvp dil grinds I usually refine dil cap on 6-10 characters per day, even more dil that gets turned into zen then EC.
That's some great Foundry tips jetwtf, thanks for sharing!
It's important to note that the 2 million ec from very rare foundry drops are indeed very rare. I've been doing foundry for months and never had a drop net that much, not even close. But 400k is better than nothing, and you'll get 300k minimum from Foundry dailies guaranteed.
Well doing the system I do it is an everage of 600k in shopfood alone, yesterday it was 594k. I have made 2 million on multiple occasions with shopfood and exchange items. 1 blue rare tac console, think it was disruptor at the time was selling for 800k and managed to get 2 rare photons @300k each. Thats 2 million EC in 20 minutes on just that 1 character and I had 6 more characters to go to finish my farming. All told If i do all 7 I get around 6 to 7 million ec, some characters make less some more than the average.
As for being afraid Cryptic will nerf the foundry farm missions... they already have nerfed it. There was at one time no cap on drops. They know exactly how much EC is made from the farm missions and find where it is now to be acceptable.
As for being afraid Cryptic is going to nerf all abilities to make EC, well thats just not true. They have keys and FSM's on the exchange that needs to be sold. keys and FSM's that are bought off the C-Store for the purpose of selling for EC. To cripple the ability to make EC would cripple the market for keys and FSM's and Cryptic would lose money!
Doffing is another way to make allot of EC. and not on DOFF assignments. Buy mini packs for around 100k and sell all the white DOFFs for 20% more than the lowest priced. break down all blue and green doffs and sell those as well. Check the echange on blue ones, sometimes those can sell for large amounts, if low amounts break them down to whites. 20-30 minutes to break down 4 packs and put them on the exchange and you could make 600k+ profit.
1.2 million EC in 40 minutes worth of work pretty much guaranteed by doing both the farm missions and the Doff's and could be far more EC. Add that to doing the full tour plus just normal play in zones with good drop rates and getting EC isnt a huge deal.
I bought a fleet ship 2 days ago for 16 million EC. 10 million for the T5 shipyard fleet invite, 5.5 million EC for the single FSM I needed because I had the zen ship already that gives the 1 FSM discount. and 500k for the fourth tac console. I have already made that 16 million EC back without doing the tour, just the foundry farm and breaking down DOFF's. Doff's on all my alts, and the farm on just my 3 main characters. If i can do that then anyone can!
Now yes I have 7 characters. bought the 2 extra slot packs 2 times grinding dilithium, contraband, spotlight foundry and the missions that give 1440 dilithium, plus Doff assignments. Now i can make 32k dilithium per day and farm 1 million+ EC's per character and never have to worry about needing either. So thats another tip! get more characters that will just be farmers. Gear them where they can acomplish the farm mission and not for competitive PvP or tanking cubes in ESTF's. Jem hadr MK XI set with a mirror patrol escort and all polaron cannons is perfect for this because the set gives bonus damage to polaron weapons and the proc helps make the enemies weaker. polaron weapons and consoles are not the most expensive and the free jem hadr ones are good enough for a farmer.
Another tip, every once and a while go to the exchange and check each category and QL until you get tired of it. What to check for is items selling for less than half of what they are marked as worth. Buy them and if the differance between what you bought and the next highest is over 20k then post at that price. not lower or higher but same price. everything else sell to the vendor. can make an easy 100k at times just by selling them to a vendor. Gains are not much but any gains is better than none.
Hit lvl 50 and want to gear up until you get fleet and rep items? use the jem hadr or breen 3 piece set and the jem hadr ground set. check missions for any other gear you might want such as the jem hadr polarons or the retrofit phasers. use those until you can replace with advanced fleet weapons and other rep items. If you use the polarons but want to use disruptors in fleet versions buy the cheap tac consoles. anything else you need to buy just buy the cheaper stuff. you will replace with items you cannot get off the exchange so dont buy expensive items for temp use.
Last tip for now and this was probably mentioned... DO NOT BUY any MK XII very rare console or weapon for 20 million+! Just don't do it! get a rare MK XII instead, the added bonus for very rare is not worth the huge markup and buying them is a complete waste of EC making some greedy player more rich.
Join Date: Nobody cares.
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I dont think they raised the cap on foundry mission but i do think the adjusted the drop rate for batteries and commodities. i used to get 2 rows of those items out of 50 kills with the batteries having around 6 and commodoties either 2 or four. Plus atleast 2 of each of the ship repair things. now i get 1 row of those garbage items usualy. take all those duplicated garbage items and you get more drops that are actualy worth getting and it apears to be a cap increase when in reality it is the same number of items just less duplicates.
*edit
Another tip...
If the exchange is a big part of your EC making scheme then this one is for you. Do not undercut! Do not suggest anyone undercut. Reasons to not undercut is if everyone undercuts then nothing will be worth selling. 1k more than a vendor will buy it for is NOT worth selling! What you do is sell for the same price as the item 2 spots above the lowest if all 3 are a different price or the same as the lowest if all three are the same. What you want is to be on the first page without scrolling down. No you may not sell the item in an hour but it should sell by the next day and you make more EC in the long run. If everyone did this then the items will find a highest price people are willing to pay for it and the prices will stabilize like lockbox keys, mini packs, FSM's, and lockbox ships. Once the prices are stable with a small minor fluctuation and everyone posts for that amount then it becomes first posted is first sold and everyone will sell even if everyone sells for the same exact amount.
I only sell items that go for atleast what the item is worth or more. if it says it is worth 50k but the highest price on page 1 is 26.5k then i shopfood it. I only have 40 slots and need slots for DOFFs too.
Buy undercut items and sell for a slightly higher price, look for items that are 10k+ undercuts and flip them for 5k+ more than the next lowest. Sells within a day unless you bought a garbage item that doesnt ever sell.
Doing those tips will make plenty of EC but it will take longer. do it on sunday night and sell those items during the week when there is less undercutting. DOFF's and big ticket items on the weekend.
Join Date: Nobody cares.
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
The Tour is favor over foundry in farming because ppl can run multiple accnts at the same time since it's easier to use the macro to handle the task which only requires point and click.
Dun look at me lol, I don't really run tour because it bores the hell out of me, and I don't have time to camp for it. I'm making ec from Starbase/eSTF/daily patrols. If you want to grind for ec, just use an escort and run patrol in new rom sector. You can easily make ab 750-1mil in 1hr and more if a good blue/purple item drop. That how I make my ec while having fun blasting stuff instead of running around.
Imo, the ppl who overreact on the Tour nerf are just lifeless farmers. I will refrain from saying exploiters because the Tour has been there since the beginning. If it's an exploit, like many have claimed in the mail system, Cryptic should have nerf it a long time ago.
All the changes from mail to the tour are just a way to increase the game revenue. We shouldn't blame cryptic either because imo the banker is PWE; cryptic is just a studio/devs. All they do is design the game contents. PWE is the one who manages the financial aspect of the game. If you've played PWE's games which are all F2P, you know that their in game financial design is totally different from STO which is built based on a sub concept. Moving from sub based to F2P is a long process that requires analysis/data. Don't be surprise if PWE is using real economists to analyze the in game finance because PWE need to close the financial bleeding in order to make profit.
The tour itself isnt the problem and it very well could have been the dev that made it didnt like the fact that people were doing the 4 sector drop and repeat exploit. he may have been bothered that people were not doing the whole thing. people with pride in there work want people to experiance the whole thing.
Join Date: Nobody cares.
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
I used to make 2.8m per tour, with special attention to warp coil, di/rp and borg engine. It was a grind, no doubt. The simple solution would have been to nerf the short blocks and bump the completion award, but we got the nuclear option. Now you have to run 12-15 toons. No thanks. I'll run my 5 and make it up other ways.
Selling items is definitely a good way to earn some extra EC. You have to keep up with the market on the commonly needed items. These are things that players commonly need but are not always easy to get from vendors. Right now crit regens are hot. Grapok Sauce is pricey too (for chef doff chain). White Mk VII Torps still sell for 2x - when will those SB builders ever learn to visit the shipyard? I hate spending my day running from shipyard to exchange, so I just try to watch the drops and post the valuable drops.
Doffing smart is also useful. Samples and particles are the obvious ones, but there are plenty more that provide other useful items. You can run recruit mission regularly, and any white will sell. You can get doffs, contraband, artifacts, commodities, drinks, gpl, etc.
Don't forget that marks trade for dil, so you can run extra pve or two for extra dil and drops. If you can spare the dil refine capacity, master keys are pretty hot now. Also, those Nakura boxes are still selling for 50k - don't ask me why.
Selling items is definitely a good way to earn some extra EC.
I agree, fleet and rep items especially are goods that will always sell, so long you have ec to purchase them already and know ways of acquisition low enough to be able to make a marginal profit. Marginal is the key word, nothing to get rich with unless you do en masse.
wtf are you people complaining about......
in this game, except what you 1% ers seem to attribute to it by charging bazillions for consoles that dont actually give any benefit over the blue version. Oh, you call it free market.. others call it exploitation........
Well, I guess a bit of your "free market" got regulated. Gonna have to deal with it. Maybe the plebes who dont farm these EC generating events can get a chance to participate in an economy that isnt inflated beyond their reach by the ultra-rich.......
the economy in STO has been for the exploiters and the rich from the start... maybe this is a change in the wind? Doubtful, but who knows.
Where's all this 1% nonsense coming from? - a figure inaccurate in its original protest context and totally irrelevant to the discussion being undertaken here.
If you're going to call out and make insulting insinuations about individuals or groups of players (in violation of both the STO EULA and forum rules I might add) then have the maturity and good grace to forego the rant and put forward a reasoned argument. Please illustrate to us, the correlation between Tour participants and any manipulative exploiters of the exchange system.
I base my counterpoint on first hand evidence not my gut:
- I have personally handed out DI at Wolf 359 to lowly Mirandas
- I have personally observed Capts and Cmdrs waiting in Club 47
(I'm still fleet-less so I often click on chars info out of interest to see what type & lvl of player a given fleet has recruited in the past)
- I have personally run both long/full and short circuits whilst still ranking to lvl 50, in a ship with standard engines & core (i.e. no reputation system gear)
- I now have a few basic upgrades and in doing so pass some of the other ships, indicating that they are doing the same and running with minimum setup.
Are there also sleek arrow-headed, top tier cruisers, decked out to the nines in MACO or Borg kit? - sure! However I just don't see this fantasy of an exclusive VA vets Tour club, that you imply as a precondition to your argument that only the rich layers use it, to get richer & take advantage of others.
I agree, fleet and rep items especially are goods that will always sell, so long you have ec to purchase them already and know ways of acquisition low enough to be able to make a marginal profit. Marginal is the key word, nothing to get rich with unless you do en masse.
Making money back by more trading is why I think some of the anti-Tour people, rubbing their hands with glee and anticipating a DROP in prices, may be disappointed. It all depends which way people lean but prices could just as easily go UP for the majority of players.
I can't claim to be representative but I (and some friends I've discussed this with) will often dump gear at far below market rates, just to clear out inventory space and avoid the sales cap limit by selling quickly. You can do that, confident that you can meet your needs and maintain a healthy balance, only if you know you have a steady stream of income. Which for some players includes but my not be limited to doing the Tour. After all if you're making a couple of million later in the day, why quibble on a 5k, 10k or even 15k loss?
With one stream gone, some players may not be unduly bothered, due to having other irons in other fires; however some players with less available game time (real life commitments can be such a drag!) may be more circumspect with their future pricing. Add to that, that other players may compensate for the loss of earnings from the Tour, by spending the same hour doing more trading. Such trading might involve: buying cheap & selling high or buying items that have been posted at below 50% value and selling to NPC brokers. The former strategy at least returns kit to other players, albeit at higher prices; whilst the latter recycles kit back into the system's blackhole and only the seller benefits.
The combination of more stripping of existing cheap items from exchange and new supply being more cautious in pricing, may cause short or long term increases in price for the kit most applicable to lower tier players. I'd expect the anticipated decreases to initially only affect the most expensive of top flight gear, as players may be put off from impulse buys (e.g. 5m+ ec doffs!) if it will take a longer grind to replenish funds.
... The last 2 Tours I participated in were like this, with me waiting 45 mins+ on the esd loading screen while the tour time ticked by. Come to think of it, this may have been deliberately planned..
Are you saying you waited 45mins for a single map load? The server should have disconnected you way way before that.
4) Tour was an exploit. This is going to be hard for some to understand. I believe I speak for the majority of Tour runners when I say we never considered doing multiple runs an expoit
Multiple full runs aren't an expoit. Multiple partial runs are, as it goes against the intent of the designed.
I would have liked to see a cool down of 4 hours if a partial run was handed in, and no cool down if a complete run was handed in. But that would have been a unique mission hand in and I can see why they wouldn't want to mess with that mechanic or Tour the Galaxy.
What I find amusing is this actually makes me play less/ slower.
If it takes me longer to save up for something, rather than grinding up for it which I find unpleasant, I return the favor to Cryptic and play another game while my DOff missions cook.
SWTOR has the Gree event back again so it works out well, for me anyway.
Comments
Believe me - those people who started from the beginning - the costs are well over $ 1 billion ec
when you used to have to use specific doffs - like security officers - they sold for 150k for months
also when you had to buy sensor doffs for at least a month they topped out at $1.5 million!!! per common doff!
T0 to T3 has been nerfed/reduced 2 times since launch - the current figures don't include the original costs.
I can't speak for him but I have 14 chars (not subscriber or lifer, just 30 days gold once and never bought any zen with ral money)
I have 6 chars with omega and romulus t5 and 2 chars with tholian t5.
I'm in a small fleet we have t3 base, t3sci, t3tac, t3eng, t3 transwarpgate, all the spcials (except for the exocomps) and I've contributed about 90% of the materials for that base. All with the old material costs like specific doffs and specific drinks for the bar npc.
Our Embassy is just t1 and again about 90% of the materials are from me.
Our mine is in the process of upgradding one of the departments to t2 and I was pretty much alone on this one and so about 98% of the stuff was from me.
I'm the owner of a galor, jem'hadar attack ship, tuffli, temporal ship(box), temporal shuttle, d'kora, thoilan(box), tholian(lobi), tal'shiar(lobi) and several zen store ships.
And in the about 18 month I play now I've done added up about 3 or 4 times the Tour the Universe.
Yes, I'm a freak, but never needed the Tour the Universe to get my stuff.
You don't get to say 'DOFFS cost X' and add that in to the cost, otherwise things become way too complex and you can't draw any conclusions at all.
For example: All the dilithium could be converted into Zen, which is used to buy keys which could theoretically have been sold for EC. Are we to conclude that all the dilithium fleet holdings require has an EC cost?
"Billions" is a pointless exaggeration.
Well the details of the costs are extremely limited - because it does not include "opportunity costs" or the costs of a major component: doffs
I would say that 50% min of the doffs that go into the starbases are bought off the exchange - that would put the cost into MANY billions of EC
I would say that 100% of your statistics are fabricated.
The rich dont want to have to spend 100 million it takes 10 minutes to grind.
The idea that it might take 20 minutes to get 200 million is nonsense.
Growth!
Growth!
There's no profit in that!
You people are the worst of the 1% whiners. Suck it the **** up. Regular players were not farming the tour the universe for ec. YOU were. So you could compete with yourselves. And as a side effect, sponge and exploit off of everyone else who just wanted to play the game.
His eyes wide!
The doors, Mister Scott!
Military holding was season 10 back when season 8 was called season 9, so really it means its season 9, so another holding will be for season 8.
That does not make sense as the only major one missing now is Tactical consoles.
Ships/pets - check
weapons - check
shields/defector/engines - check
science - check
Engineering - check
Military - No
As far as ship equipment goes, I rarely, if ever, buy anything off the exchange for my ships. I usually settle for loot drops, and the occasional item that I can get out of my fleet's bank, that will be useful for one of my ships.
So while while Tour the Universe may have been a way to make EC for some, I don't think it was all that critical, if you're industrious with however much time you decide to spend playing this game, and you can still have fun doing so.
butcher suspect, "What'd you hit me with?"
Temperance Brennan, "A building"
I never relied on tour reruns to make EC, but it helped.
There are still plenty of other options:
- loot drops from system patrols and deep space encounters. I often fill up my inventory blasting Tholians, Klingons and Tal Shiar running through the Tau Dewa sector patrol daily - an easy way to earn 60-75 rom marks and a cool 250k+ec.
- selling rare particle traces on exchange.
- crafting and selling low-level gear on exchange.
- hoarding items with limited-time availability (summer/winter event costume packs, for example) and selling them a few months after they are no longer available.
- poking around the exchange for undervalued items (like somebody selling disruptor coils without checking what they're really worth, or leaving a zero off the sell price when posting a bugship...) snapping them up, turning around and reselling them at correct market value.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Please.....
FYI players can run a foundry EC farm mission daily to make upwards of 1 million EC a day... that is MORE than enough FREE AND EASY EC.
Come join the 44th Fleet.
startrek.44thfleet.com[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Yeah, because that's where all the money comes from :rolleyes:
Well doing the system I do it is an everage of 600k in shopfood alone, yesterday it was 594k. I have made 2 million on multiple occasions with shopfood and exchange items. 1 blue rare tac console, think it was disruptor at the time was selling for 800k and managed to get 2 rare photons @300k each. Thats 2 million EC in 20 minutes on just that 1 character and I had 6 more characters to go to finish my farming. All told If i do all 7 I get around 6 to 7 million ec, some characters make less some more than the average.
As for being afraid Cryptic will nerf the foundry farm missions... they already have nerfed it. There was at one time no cap on drops. They know exactly how much EC is made from the farm missions and find where it is now to be acceptable.
As for being afraid Cryptic is going to nerf all abilities to make EC, well thats just not true. They have keys and FSM's on the exchange that needs to be sold. keys and FSM's that are bought off the C-Store for the purpose of selling for EC. To cripple the ability to make EC would cripple the market for keys and FSM's and Cryptic would lose money!
Doffing is another way to make allot of EC. and not on DOFF assignments. Buy mini packs for around 100k and sell all the white DOFFs for 20% more than the lowest priced. break down all blue and green doffs and sell those as well. Check the echange on blue ones, sometimes those can sell for large amounts, if low amounts break them down to whites. 20-30 minutes to break down 4 packs and put them on the exchange and you could make 600k+ profit.
1.2 million EC in 40 minutes worth of work pretty much guaranteed by doing both the farm missions and the Doff's and could be far more EC. Add that to doing the full tour plus just normal play in zones with good drop rates and getting EC isnt a huge deal.
I bought a fleet ship 2 days ago for 16 million EC. 10 million for the T5 shipyard fleet invite, 5.5 million EC for the single FSM I needed because I had the zen ship already that gives the 1 FSM discount. and 500k for the fourth tac console. I have already made that 16 million EC back without doing the tour, just the foundry farm and breaking down DOFF's. Doff's on all my alts, and the farm on just my 3 main characters. If i can do that then anyone can!
Now yes I have 7 characters. bought the 2 extra slot packs 2 times grinding dilithium, contraband, spotlight foundry and the missions that give 1440 dilithium, plus Doff assignments. Now i can make 32k dilithium per day and farm 1 million+ EC's per character and never have to worry about needing either. So thats another tip! get more characters that will just be farmers. Gear them where they can acomplish the farm mission and not for competitive PvP or tanking cubes in ESTF's. Jem hadr MK XI set with a mirror patrol escort and all polaron cannons is perfect for this because the set gives bonus damage to polaron weapons and the proc helps make the enemies weaker. polaron weapons and consoles are not the most expensive and the free jem hadr ones are good enough for a farmer.
Another tip, every once and a while go to the exchange and check each category and QL until you get tired of it. What to check for is items selling for less than half of what they are marked as worth. Buy them and if the differance between what you bought and the next highest is over 20k then post at that price. not lower or higher but same price. everything else sell to the vendor. can make an easy 100k at times just by selling them to a vendor. Gains are not much but any gains is better than none.
Hit lvl 50 and want to gear up until you get fleet and rep items? use the jem hadr or breen 3 piece set and the jem hadr ground set. check missions for any other gear you might want such as the jem hadr polarons or the retrofit phasers. use those until you can replace with advanced fleet weapons and other rep items. If you use the polarons but want to use disruptors in fleet versions buy the cheap tac consoles. anything else you need to buy just buy the cheaper stuff. you will replace with items you cannot get off the exchange so dont buy expensive items for temp use.
Last tip for now and this was probably mentioned... DO NOT BUY any MK XII very rare console or weapon for 20 million+! Just don't do it! get a rare MK XII instead, the added bonus for very rare is not worth the huge markup and buying them is a complete waste of EC making some greedy player more rich.
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
I heard today a rumor Foundry limits were raised slightly, but haven't confirmed it. it is likely not true, but worth checking out perhaps.
*edit
Another tip...
If the exchange is a big part of your EC making scheme then this one is for you. Do not undercut! Do not suggest anyone undercut. Reasons to not undercut is if everyone undercuts then nothing will be worth selling. 1k more than a vendor will buy it for is NOT worth selling! What you do is sell for the same price as the item 2 spots above the lowest if all 3 are a different price or the same as the lowest if all three are the same. What you want is to be on the first page without scrolling down. No you may not sell the item in an hour but it should sell by the next day and you make more EC in the long run. If everyone did this then the items will find a highest price people are willing to pay for it and the prices will stabilize like lockbox keys, mini packs, FSM's, and lockbox ships. Once the prices are stable with a small minor fluctuation and everyone posts for that amount then it becomes first posted is first sold and everyone will sell even if everyone sells for the same exact amount.
I only sell items that go for atleast what the item is worth or more. if it says it is worth 50k but the highest price on page 1 is 26.5k then i shopfood it. I only have 40 slots and need slots for DOFFs too.
Buy undercut items and sell for a slightly higher price, look for items that are 10k+ undercuts and flip them for 5k+ more than the next lowest. Sells within a day unless you bought a garbage item that doesnt ever sell.
Doing those tips will make plenty of EC but it will take longer. do it on sunday night and sell those items during the week when there is less undercutting. DOFF's and big ticket items on the weekend.
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
Dun look at me lol, I don't really run tour because it bores the hell out of me, and I don't have time to camp for it. I'm making ec from Starbase/eSTF/daily patrols. If you want to grind for ec, just use an escort and run patrol in new rom sector. You can easily make ab 750-1mil in 1hr and more if a good blue/purple item drop. That how I make my ec while having fun blasting stuff instead of running around.
Imo, the ppl who overreact on the Tour nerf are just lifeless farmers. I will refrain from saying exploiters because the Tour has been there since the beginning. If it's an exploit, like many have claimed in the mail system, Cryptic should have nerf it a long time ago.
All the changes from mail to the tour are just a way to increase the game revenue. We shouldn't blame cryptic either because imo the banker is PWE; cryptic is just a studio/devs. All they do is design the game contents. PWE is the one who manages the financial aspect of the game. If you've played PWE's games which are all F2P, you know that their in game financial design is totally different from STO which is built based on a sub concept. Moving from sub based to F2P is a long process that requires analysis/data. Don't be surprise if PWE is using real economists to analyze the in game finance because PWE need to close the financial bleeding in order to make profit.
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
Selling items is definitely a good way to earn some extra EC. You have to keep up with the market on the commonly needed items. These are things that players commonly need but are not always easy to get from vendors. Right now crit regens are hot. Grapok Sauce is pricey too (for chef doff chain). White Mk VII Torps still sell for 2x - when will those SB builders ever learn to visit the shipyard? I hate spending my day running from shipyard to exchange, so I just try to watch the drops and post the valuable drops.
Doffing smart is also useful. Samples and particles are the obvious ones, but there are plenty more that provide other useful items. You can run recruit mission regularly, and any white will sell. You can get doffs, contraband, artifacts, commodities, drinks, gpl, etc.
Don't forget that marks trade for dil, so you can run extra pve or two for extra dil and drops. If you can spare the dil refine capacity, master keys are pretty hot now. Also, those Nakura boxes are still selling for 50k - don't ask me why.
I agree, fleet and rep items especially are goods that will always sell, so long you have ec to purchase them already and know ways of acquisition low enough to be able to make a marginal profit. Marginal is the key word, nothing to get rich with unless you do en masse.
Where's all this 1% nonsense coming from? - a figure inaccurate in its original protest context and totally irrelevant to the discussion being undertaken here.
If you're going to call out and make insulting insinuations about individuals or groups of players (in violation of both the STO EULA and forum rules I might add) then have the maturity and good grace to forego the rant and put forward a reasoned argument. Please illustrate to us, the correlation between Tour participants and any manipulative exploiters of the exchange system.
I base my counterpoint on first hand evidence not my gut:
- I have personally handed out DI at Wolf 359 to lowly Mirandas
- I have personally observed Capts and Cmdrs waiting in Club 47
(I'm still fleet-less so I often click on chars info out of interest to see what type & lvl of player a given fleet has recruited in the past)
- I have personally run both long/full and short circuits whilst still ranking to lvl 50, in a ship with standard engines & core (i.e. no reputation system gear)
- I now have a few basic upgrades and in doing so pass some of the other ships, indicating that they are doing the same and running with minimum setup.
Are there also sleek arrow-headed, top tier cruisers, decked out to the nines in MACO or Borg kit? - sure! However I just don't see this fantasy of an exclusive VA vets Tour club, that you imply as a precondition to your argument that only the rich layers use it, to get richer & take advantage of others.
Making money back by more trading is why I think some of the anti-Tour people, rubbing their hands with glee and anticipating a DROP in prices, may be disappointed. It all depends which way people lean but prices could just as easily go UP for the majority of players.
I can't claim to be representative but I (and some friends I've discussed this with) will often dump gear at far below market rates, just to clear out inventory space and avoid the sales cap limit by selling quickly. You can do that, confident that you can meet your needs and maintain a healthy balance, only if you know you have a steady stream of income. Which for some players includes but my not be limited to doing the Tour. After all if you're making a couple of million later in the day, why quibble on a 5k, 10k or even 15k loss?
With one stream gone, some players may not be unduly bothered, due to having other irons in other fires; however some players with less available game time (real life commitments can be such a drag!) may be more circumspect with their future pricing. Add to that, that other players may compensate for the loss of earnings from the Tour, by spending the same hour doing more trading. Such trading might involve: buying cheap & selling high or buying items that have been posted at below 50% value and selling to NPC brokers. The former strategy at least returns kit to other players, albeit at higher prices; whilst the latter recycles kit back into the system's blackhole and only the seller benefits.
The combination of more stripping of existing cheap items from exchange and new supply being more cautious in pricing, may cause short or long term increases in price for the kit most applicable to lower tier players. I'd expect the anticipated decreases to initially only affect the most expensive of top flight gear, as players may be put off from impulse buys (e.g. 5m+ ec doffs!) if it will take a longer grind to replenish funds.
Are you saying you waited 45mins for a single map load? The server should have disconnected you way way before that.
Multiple full runs aren't an expoit. Multiple partial runs are, as it goes against the intent of the designed.
I would have liked to see a cool down of 4 hours if a partial run was handed in, and no cool down if a complete run was handed in. But that would have been a unique mission hand in and I can see why they wouldn't want to mess with that mechanic or Tour the Galaxy.
Not just once, but several times. I asked players I met and they said it's normal.
If it takes me longer to save up for something, rather than grinding up for it which I find unpleasant, I return the favor to Cryptic and play another game while my DOff missions cook.
SWTOR has the Gree event back again so it works out well, for me anyway.
Hopefully they will get a clue, but unlikely.