I seem to be amassing a large amount of Energy Credits but apart from the Exchange there doesn't seem to be anyone who really sells high value EC goods.
Can I ask, what do you Level 50 Admirals tend to use your EC's for please?
You only think that you're amassing a "large" amount. In truth, what you have is but a puny fraction of what richer people have. You are broke.
I, for one, spend mine on my quest to become richer than Jedinikon, an obscenely rich individual with banks full of Bugships. Remember, wealth is relative: So long as there exists someone with more than you, you have nothing. A great man once said, "It is not enough to succeed: All others must fail."
Duty Officers - So I can do duty missions and get goodies for rewards.
Food/drinks, hypos. So my away team can keep their health up to keep fighting. Plus my Captain enjoys a relaxing drink or food now and then. While being off duty.
Weapons/gear - I don't get them often, but when I find a deal. I will get something. This was while I was gearing up my ship after hitting lv50. Now I just grind Dil and get the stuff. Since most of it is price gouging. Where I can get it far cheaper to grind the Dil.
Rep grind - Nukara and Romulan requires them to gain tiers. You have to buy items to contribute.
Keep on building up the EC, and spend wisely. As later you will eat it up quick.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
One day Cryptic will be free from their Perfect World overlord. Until that day comes, they will continue to pamper the whales of this game, and ignore everyone that isn't a whale.
Mainly lockbox ships and whatever commods need to be put into the starbase. Technically I buy hypos like a maniac for ground combat, but those are so inexpensive I usually don't even count them since I can make the EC back with 1 piece of space gear.
I spend most of mine on batteries/charges/hypos for my ships and Away Teams. The Away Teams in particular seem to use hypos/shield charges whenever and wherever possible. Even if there is a Generator only two pixels away.
The two other things I do with EC are
- spend it on upgrading gear by purchases from the Exchange.
- purchasing craft items to craft lower tier gear which I then sell on the Exchange. As long as one doesn't get stupidly greedy, there is a nice profit to be made from selling gear which is Mk VII or lower at reasonable prices.
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
Right now, the closest ship I have to completion is a Mobius Temporal Destroyer on my Fed main. All that's left to collect for that baby is 4 Fleet Vulnerability Locator Consoles and a Photon Torp Mk XII [CrtD]x3.
As it stands, across 5 different characters, I have over 16 potential builds in mind at this moment, among them outrageously expensive ships such as the JHAS, the Dreadnought Carrier, the Scimitar, the Wells and the Avenger BC. The initial acquisition cost of the ship itself can take over a month of rigorous grinding (Even C-Store ships if you're like me and refuse to spend real money). Then you tack on the gear cost of time and money...its a project, but its my favorite part of the game.
Funny thing about EC is there will always be a situation where you need it. Conceivably, even something that seems as precious as Dilithium at first can completely lose its value once you max your fleet holdings, complete all of your desired ship loadouts for your character and finish your reputation/gear grinds.
But see, every time you create a new character, the more EC you can lend it to build its fortune, the easier it will be to complete the cycle again. The more you start with, the more you can make in less time after all!
I had a ship buying phase which you can see in my sig. Now, I buy obscenely priced uber items to simply inch my way up to having a somewhat competitive PvP build.
Doffs are probably my biggest ec sink. From buying tons of common doffs to fill fleet projects to buying OP PvP doffs.
Working toward that 50+ million Inspirational Leader trait right now.
Right now, the closest ship I have to completion is a Mobius Temporal Destroyer on my Fed main. All that's left to collect for that baby is 4 Fleet Vulnerability Locator Consoles and a Photon Torp Mk XII [CrtD]x3.
As it stands, across 5 different characters, I have over 16 potential builds in mind at this moment, among them outrageously expensive ships such as the JHAS, the Dreadnought Carrier, the Scimitar, the Wells and the Avenger BC. The initial acquisition cost of the ship itself can take over a month of rigorous grinding (Even C-Store ships if you're like me and refuse to spend real money). Then you tack on the gear cost of time and money...its a project, but its my favorite part of the game.
So the ships for sale in the shipyards are just the tip of the iceberg then, you can actually build your own ships as well -wow :eek:
Commodities for fleet projects, mostly. Occasionally some placeholder gear if I'm working on a new build. And bargain-hunting for ships and doffs.
...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
I only spent ec in the rep projects and some fleet resources lol. Im saving EC to buy an Hirogen BC, but thats the only thing i have in mind right now. I only have about 45 mil EC and i need a lot more lol.
Also, when i need an specific doff to cover a special assignment, i always go to the exchange and i buy a blue doff at least.
There are a lot of things to buy on the exchange, but the prices are so insanely high that sometimes its just a waste of time.
Oh wait, i also spent some EC in Dabo, gpl is really useful to do a lot of trade assignments and of course for some special missions.
P.D.: The other day i bought the Aegis deflector from the exchange, was the only piece i had left from my aegis set. But i only bought it cuz i just wanted to have the full set looool, but still didnt use it since ages ago..
Mk XII purple gear to reduce the chances of doing a faceplant in some of the Swarmer/ Voth enemy spam should I suddenly find myself alone because the other person there was just taking a tour of the battlezone map.
Other than that, it gets wasted or used to set up a new toon with all the goodies a Lvl 1 can get.
Atm need 2 more fleet mods, a variety of purple active duty guys, and rep 'cards'. I have also bought a lockbox ship and a few keys for a lobi project (slow going for those).
Maybe a better question would be how can you spend your money to enhance your current goals.
Of course, we'd need to know what your goals are and how much money you got.
Personally, I reinvest most of my money in trading. Yesterday, I got a 2 million console in a face to face trade, and after some thought, I decided I can't afford to use it so I sold it for a little profit.
Also, I have spent few hundred k on fun items, such as pets, universal consoles that give you interesting abilities. Most expensive item I bought for myself is a gambling device.
Added to that, I spend money on stuff needed for fleet projects for my fleet.
What I spend more money on is Duty officers, which I use for missions. Maybe less obvious, but they can get very expensive, I'm sure there are people with a DOFF roster worth like a billion.
If I had more money, I'd buy ships, but they are currently over 100 million, which is beyond my budget.
I seem to be amassing a large amount of Energy Credits but apart from the Exchange there doesn't seem to be anyone who really sells high value EC goods.
It's not that people don't sell stuff outside Xchange, just that most people who have something for sale put it on the X.
However, there's a lot of trading going on the side, in chat channels, zones, etc.
Umm, and you can't usually build ships from scratch, but you can enhance ships with equipment which can often cost a lot more than the ship itself.
Short version is that whatever equipment you currently own, can get 100 times better.
I average around 20MIL per alt and about 100 for my main. I've been geared out for so long I just don't need to buy things often. Every once in a while I'll get a DOff or something...but yeah. Rep projects are all finished and Fleet Projects get boring after 2 MIL+ Lifetime Fleet Credits.
After a while it sucks being max rank.
My Old Blog about things that could and should have been added when I wrote it. Not sure what I want to do with it now. I'll just keep it available now that most of it is outdated.
I've been using my EC to buy slowly antiproton beam array MK XI (the MK XII are excessively expensive; about 5x - 7x more EC). I only buy 'em when I see 'em for 600k or less. I have not equipped any yet so if I change my mind on antiproton weapons, I can put them back on the exchange.
I started to buy Master Keys, but only to keep my balance below the 10 million limit. If I need EC, then I will just put them up for sale on the exchange. It would be nice to make a bit of a profit, but I don't mind selling them for the same price I paid for them.
I will start buying Blue Doffs pretty soon, Purple Doffs are really, really expensive.
I am not part of a fleet so I am not involved in any fleet projects.
If you're in a fleet, donate your extra EC to the fleet bank. That way, the senior fleet leaders can spend it on the commodities, white doffs. etc, that are always needed to finish off a project. You don't get any Fleet Credits, but you do get the satisfaction of knowing that the EC is well spent.
Or be Scrooge McDuck and ski down your piles of EC.
If you're in a fleet, donate your extra EC to the fleet bank. That way, the senior fleet leaders can spend it on the commodities, white doffs. etc, that are always needed to finish off a project. You don't get any Fleet Credits, but you do get the satisfaction of knowing that the EC is well spent.
Or be Scrooge McDuck and ski down your piles of EC.
Or your donated ammount of ec is grabbed by other fleet members. There is no way to know who will grab that ec. Specially if you have a lot of high ranks members on your fleet.
Hmm I guess I need to re-evalute my thoughts on EC -it now sounds a lot more useful than it seems
So the ships for sale in the shipyards are just the tip of the iceberg then, you can actually build your own ships as well -wow :eek:
No, a "build" is simply a combination of gear, doffs, etc. that you use on a ship. Actually building a ship would be amazing, but it seems that only an indie developer/team would ever create a game that would let you do something that awesome.
I usually just spend it on ground weapons, space weapons, shields, and pretty much everything standard. I experiment with builds, even if they look crazy and stupid.
I spend my EC on my star base. My fleet is tiny and of the people in it I am the only one with EC that goes past 7 digits. So whatever the base needs in the way of just about anything I am the one that provides.
But as other have said, reputation tracks or fleet bases and the attached holdings are big EC sinks. As are ship builds. I recently dropped about 9 million EC playing around with an AP build.
But EC is cheap. The real currency of STO is dilithium or dil for short. That my dear is quite finite and far more valuable. Why? Because all the best gear in the game requires it for purchase and you are capped at 8000 refined dil per day per toon. I can make millions of EC a day on any given toon, but dil is something hard to refine in large quantities.
PS. If we could build our own ships from scratch I would love that. And be completely broke.
Cheers from Antonio Valerio Cortez III, Half-Celestial Archduke of the Free Marches Confederacy.
Comments
I, for one, spend mine on my quest to become richer than Jedinikon, an obscenely rich individual with banks full of Bugships. Remember, wealth is relative: So long as there exists someone with more than you, you have nothing. A great man once said, "It is not enough to succeed: All others must fail."
Duty Officers - So I can do duty missions and get goodies for rewards.
Food/drinks, hypos. So my away team can keep their health up to keep fighting. Plus my Captain enjoys a relaxing drink or food now and then. While being off duty.
Weapons/gear - I don't get them often, but when I find a deal. I will get something. This was while I was gearing up my ship after hitting lv50. Now I just grind Dil and get the stuff. Since most of it is price gouging. Where I can get it far cheaper to grind the Dil.
Rep grind - Nukara and Romulan requires them to gain tiers. You have to buy items to contribute.
Keep on building up the EC, and spend wisely. As later you will eat it up quick.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
Mine Trap Supporter
Other than that, the exchange.
The two other things I do with EC are
- spend it on upgrading gear by purchases from the Exchange.
- purchasing craft items to craft lower tier gear which I then sell on the Exchange. As long as one doesn't get stupidly greedy, there is a nice profit to be made from selling gear which is Mk VII or lower at reasonable prices.
Right now, the closest ship I have to completion is a Mobius Temporal Destroyer on my Fed main. All that's left to collect for that baby is 4 Fleet Vulnerability Locator Consoles and a Photon Torp Mk XII [CrtD]x3.
As it stands, across 5 different characters, I have over 16 potential builds in mind at this moment, among them outrageously expensive ships such as the JHAS, the Dreadnought Carrier, the Scimitar, the Wells and the Avenger BC. The initial acquisition cost of the ship itself can take over a month of rigorous grinding (Even C-Store ships if you're like me and refuse to spend real money). Then you tack on the gear cost of time and money...its a project, but its my favorite part of the game.
Funny thing about EC is there will always be a situation where you need it. Conceivably, even something that seems as precious as Dilithium at first can completely lose its value once you max your fleet holdings, complete all of your desired ship loadouts for your character and finish your reputation/gear grinds.
But see, every time you create a new character, the more EC you can lend it to build its fortune, the easier it will be to complete the cycle again. The more you start with, the more you can make in less time after all!
Doffs are probably my biggest ec sink. From buying tons of common doffs to fill fleet projects to buying OP PvP doffs.
Working toward that 50+ million Inspirational Leader trait right now.
So the ships for sale in the shipyards are just the tip of the iceberg then, you can actually build your own ships as well -wow :eek:
...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
Also, when i need an specific doff to cover a special assignment, i always go to the exchange and i buy a blue doff at least.
There are a lot of things to buy on the exchange, but the prices are so insanely high that sometimes its just a waste of time.
Oh wait, i also spent some EC in Dabo, gpl is really useful to do a lot of trade assignments and of course for some special missions.
P.D.: The other day i bought the Aegis deflector from the exchange, was the only piece i had left from my aegis set. But i only bought it cuz i just wanted to have the full set looool, but still didnt use it since ages ago..
Other than that, it gets wasted or used to set up a new toon with all the goodies a Lvl 1 can get.
Of course, we'd need to know what your goals are and how much money you got.
Personally, I reinvest most of my money in trading. Yesterday, I got a 2 million console in a face to face trade, and after some thought, I decided I can't afford to use it so I sold it for a little profit.
Also, I have spent few hundred k on fun items, such as pets, universal consoles that give you interesting abilities. Most expensive item I bought for myself is a gambling device.
Added to that, I spend money on stuff needed for fleet projects for my fleet.
What I spend more money on is Duty officers, which I use for missions. Maybe less obvious, but they can get very expensive, I'm sure there are people with a DOFF roster worth like a billion.
If I had more money, I'd buy ships, but they are currently over 100 million, which is beyond my budget.
It's not that people don't sell stuff outside Xchange, just that most people who have something for sale put it on the X.
However, there's a lot of trading going on the side, in chat channels, zones, etc.
Umm, and you can't usually build ships from scratch, but you can enhance ships with equipment which can often cost a lot more than the ship itself.
Short version is that whatever equipment you currently own, can get 100 times better.
After a while it sucks being max rank.
i have almost every lockbox ship in the game (and lobi) just need the time ships.
I started to buy Master Keys, but only to keep my balance below the 10 million limit. If I need EC, then I will just put them up for sale on the exchange. It would be nice to make a bit of a profit, but I don't mind selling them for the same price I paid for them.
I will start buying Blue Doffs pretty soon, Purple Doffs are really, really expensive.
I am not part of a fleet so I am not involved in any fleet projects.
Or be Scrooge McDuck and ski down your piles of EC.
Or your donated ammount of ec is grabbed by other fleet members. There is no way to know who will grab that ec. Specially if you have a lot of high ranks members on your fleet.
No, a "build" is simply a combination of gear, doffs, etc. that you use on a ship. Actually building a ship would be amazing, but it seems that only an indie developer/team would ever create a game that would let you do something that awesome.
I usually just spend it on ground weapons, space weapons, shields, and pretty much everything standard. I experiment with builds, even if they look crazy and stupid.
But as other have said, reputation tracks or fleet bases and the attached holdings are big EC sinks. As are ship builds. I recently dropped about 9 million EC playing around with an AP build.
But EC is cheap. The real currency of STO is dilithium or dil for short. That my dear is quite finite and far more valuable. Why? Because all the best gear in the game requires it for purchase and you are capped at 8000 refined dil per day per toon. I can make millions of EC a day on any given toon, but dil is something hard to refine in large quantities.
PS. If we could build our own ships from scratch I would love that. And be completely broke.