These training manuals... (Financial content)

cbrjwrr

Ok, brief aside first; I recently came back to STO, and you know how it is, you look around to see what is different. And the training manual system I actually like; it means you no longer have to keep tonnes of boffs with different ability set ups for flexibility, you just click in and out which ability you need at any given moment. Ok, it was doable before, but it is a lot easier now.

But I was looking at the exchange, and I saw people were trying to flog the abilities that used to be buyable from the relevant NPCs for very little being sold for stupid EC - EPTW1 for instance sits at 50k EC or so. So I checked the NPC, and sure enough you can still buy them; that 50k EPTW1 is only 250 EC.

So I wondered if anyone would be daft enough to actually buy at the inflated prices, and bought a bunch of A2B1 manuals and stuck them on the exchange for 50 times the price I bought them for, as a joke.

And I sold out...

---

Have people just forgotten the bridge officer trainer NPCs exist?

Abilities which are only trainable from a player* I can understand; since I've started with EPTW1, I'll continue with EPTW3, that is 150-180k EC, which is understandable - the PADDs have a Dil and material cost, which puts them into the tens of thousands of EC equivalent just to break even.

But an ability being sold for 50-200 times its value from the bridge trainer? Why would you willingly pay that much when for a tiny bit more effort you could pick it up at a fraction of the cost?


* As opposed to being found on boffs who you just get for the manual.

plaztikman64

Some people are too lazy, don't have enough time and way too much EC. Or let's put it this way, when I am sitting somewhere, my transearp is still on cooldown and I am actually a 10 min or more flight away to the next trainer, I just call the freighter and waste a few EC on one of those manuals instead. I do have my limits though, but 50k or whatever is nothing compared to the time I would have to waste in order to get to the next trainer. Some People understand this and make a profit, nothing wrong with that. Some people on the other hand don't even know that such a trainer even exist...

cbrjwrr

Yeah, ok that is fair enough - it isn't an attitude I'd agree with, but I can understand that.

bobbydazlers

like anything on the exchange things sell for what players are willing to pay for them and its only natural for sellers to try and get the best possible price for an item, so if players are willing to pay these inflated prices they will sell, if at some point players decide the price is too high they will not buy them and eventually the sellers will get the message and lower their prices in an attempt to sell items and they will either keep lowering the price until the item sells or decide not to bother and keep them for themselves or just give them away or maybe try to exchange them in private swaps for other gear.
that's just the way a player driven economy works in a nutshell.

anonymous

> @plaztikman64 said:
> Some people are too lazy, don't have enough time and way too much EC. Or let's put it this way, when I am sitting somewhere, my transearp is still on cooldown and I am actually a 10 min or more flight away to the next trainer, I just call the freighter and waste a few EC on one of those manuals instead. I do have my limits though, but 50k or whatever is nothing compared to the time I would have to waste in order to get to the next trainer. Some People understand this and make a profit, nothing wrong with that. Some people on the other hand don't even know that such a trainer even exist...

I'll have to keep that in mind.

burstorion

I did it a few times too, making a nice lump of ec from trainer ability flipping...but I stopped as it felt like I was kicking a basket full of puppies down a flight of stairs​​

rooster707

This is why I don't use the Exchange.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

starswordc

cbrjwrr wrote: »

Ok, brief aside first; I recently came back to STO, and you know how it is, you look around to see what is different. And the training manual system I actually like; it means you no longer have to keep tonnes of boffs with different ability set ups for flexibility, you just click in and out which ability you need at any given moment. Ok, it was doable before, but it is a lot easier now.

But I was looking at the exchange, and I saw people were trying to flog the abilities that used to be buyable from the relevant NPCs for very little being sold for stupid EC - EPTW1 for instance sits at 50k EC or so. So I checked the NPC, and sure enough you can still buy them; that 50k EPTW1 is only 250 EC.

So I wondered if anyone would be daft enough to actually buy at the inflated prices, and bought a bunch of A2B1 manuals and stuck them on the exchange for 50 times the price I bought them for, as a joke.

And I sold out...

---

Have people just forgotten the bridge officer trainer NPCs exist?

Abilities which are only trainable from a player* I can understand; since I've started with EPTW1, I'll continue with EPTW3, that is 150-180k EC, which is understandable - the PADDs have a Dil and material cost, which puts them into the tens of thousands of EC equivalent just to break even.

But an ability being sold for 50-200 times its value from the bridge trainer? Why would you willingly pay that much when for a tiny bit more effort you could pick it up at a fraction of the cost?


* As opposed to being found on boffs who you just get for the manual.

If "Stuff is worth what you can sell it for" isn't a Rule of Acquisition, it should be.

cbrjwrr

starswordc wrote: »

If "Stuff is worth what you can sell it for" isn't a Rule of Acquisition, it should be.

It probably is, written differently.

repetitiveepic wrote: »

I've bought the vendor ones from the exchange before several times, to save a trip to the vendor. If a clever player wants to make a space dime by providing the service of convenience, good for him he's earned his keep.

Also it's not like anyone needs 600 of those training manuals, so the cost is negligible whether you get one for 50k on the ex or 250ec from the vendor. The difference between 250ec and 50k ec is almost equal to zero.

Plotted on a line that went from one ec to one billion ec, it would be difficult to spot any difference at all.


If I'm on drozana and want to fly to kerrat I always use the mission transwarp to get from droz to sector space outside droz instead of beaming to ahip and then warping out. It costs 20k ec I think, but it's worth it as a quality of life thing.

Will also mission transwarp from kerrat to sector space outside droz the same way.

20k ec is almost equal to zero ec.

TBF, you do RP a Ferengi a bit too well; other people are not as rich as you, and would notice the difference that to you is non-existent.

burstorion wrote: »

I did it a few times too, making a nice lump of ec from trainer ability flipping...but I stopped as it felt like I was kicking a basket full of puppies down a flight of stairs​​

Evidently it isn't, even if it does feel like it.

---

This is another example of me expecting people to think like me it seems...

davefenestrator

Think of it as like paying the transwarp cost to get to an episode. I'm cheap enough that I'll go get a drink or something instead, but I've been tempted a few times.

xyquarze

I remember back in the 80s/90s (last century), there were two major record stores in my area. They probably knew about each other's prices somehow, because if you knew one of them, you knew the other. One was always cheaper, almost always by the same amount. But the more expensive one was easier to get to, it was directly at the train station while the other was a 10 minute walk downtown.

So where to buy? Well, it depended. First it depended on who you asked. If you asked me, it depended on a lot: on my mood that day, on the weather conditions, whether I had time to spare and so on.

And many things are not rational in this. I know people who will take an half-hour drive because butter is cheaper in another supermarket. Never mind that petrol costs more. Personally, I am too cheap to ever use the mission transwarp, but I happily buy my stuff from the replicator, even if I am around DS9 where I can get it cheaper. Heck, even if I am visiting DS9 for the trader missions. On the other hand, I only sell loot to the 50% vendors. Even the 20EC food, which would lose me all of 2EC when recycling it. If I don't get to one, my inventory fills up. Which isn't much of a problem, since I spent a few real world bucks on increasing it. And at the same time, I happily discard blue boffs from assignments instead of putting them on the exchange.

That being said, paying 50k for a normal BOff ability, even a 10k one, would seem excessive to me.