I can't take advantage of the ship sale

boachev

Not going to lie, I'm a little miffed right now. I'd planned to go ahead and grab some ships for my new Romulan out of the C-store to have when he hit higher levels, but guess what? If you're not already AT those levels you simply can't buy the ships (you're simply informed "your character can't use this".) Yeah, he can't yet, but in another week or so he WILL!

Seriously, why? It's an account wide unlock, it shouldn't matter. Instead it looks like I'll either have to wait for whenever we have another sale or I'll have to throw even more money at it.

EDIT: It WILL, however, allow me to buy the Legacy of Romulus pack which contains everything... if I had the ZEN.

jaguarskx

I can't tell you why you are not able to purchase a ship that you cannot use yet due to your captain's level. Probably to prevent players from accidentally purchasing a ship they cannot fly yet?

However, all is not lost if you are patient.... On Black Friday (Nov. 25th) there should be a 20% off everything in the C-Store so you can purchase the ship, just make sure you are level 50 (which should not be too difficult). That also gives you time to grind Dil to Zen to help offset the price you pay using real money. When you get to level 50, it is pretty easy to get 8,000 raw dilitihum per day, assuming you have the time to do so. It probably takes about 2 hours to do so; if not less.

Assuming you reach level 50 on Monday, Oct 17th and you refine 8,000 raw dilitihum per day, by the time Nov. 24th rolls around (38 days later) you would have 304,000 refined dilitihum. If the exchange rate more or less remains stable at 400:1, then you should be able to convert that to 760 Zen. Note that on Black Friday (or the day of any C-Store sale) the exchange rate will increase since most players seem to wait for the last moment to exchange refined Dil for Zen. Therefore, you should start to exchanging Dil for Zen no later than Nov. 24th, but I would do so a few days in advance.

So... assuming you do the "grind" instead of paying 2,400 (or $24 USD) for a T6 starship on Black Friday, you can shave off 760 Zen ($7.60 USD) to bring down the final price to 1,640 Zen or $16.40 USD.

blastercat

That's a fantastic reply jaguarskx. I too just started playing with a ship sale event going on. During that whole time, I did a lot of switches in my head as to what ship to settle on. And as you said, I refined dil to the max, 8000 a day, even going to the fleet dilithium mine for that extra 500 you can get there.
So yes, it will pay off waiting for the next ship sale. And 401 dil rate is far better than 414. Don't let the dil rate upward slide catch you off guard during big sale events.

lordsteve1

jaguarskx wrote: »

So... assuming you do the "grind" instead of paying 2,400 (or $24 USD) for a T6 starship on Black Friday, you can shave off 760 Zen ($7.60 USD) to bring down the final price to 16,40 Zen or $16.40 USD.

I think you added an extra zero in there!

But dfefinitely a good idea to grind out some dilithium to cut the cost down in the long run. If you search Google you can actually find a calendar off all previous events which shows ships sales. So you can plan you grinding as you have a rough date to aim for. There's normally 3-4 sales a year.

chastity1337

jaguarskx wrote: »

I can't tell you why you are not able to purchase a ship that you cannot use yet due to your captain's level. Probably to prevent players from accidentally purchasing a ship they cannot fly yet?

However, all is not lost if you are patient.... On Black Friday (Nov. 25th) there should be a 20% off everything in the C-Store so you can purchase the ship, just make sure you are level 50 (which should not be too difficult). That also gives you time to grind Dil to Zen to help offset the price you pay using real money. When you get to level 50, it is pretty easy to get 8,000 raw dilitihum per day, assuming you have the time to do so. It probably takes about 2 hours to do so; if not less.

Assuming you reach level on Monday, Oct 17th and you refine 8,000 raw dilitihum per day, by the time Nov. 24th rolls around (38 days later) you would have 304,000 refined dilitihum. If the exchange rate more or less remains stable at 400:1, then you should be able to convert that to 760 Zen. Note that on Black Friday (or the day of any C-Store sale) the exchange rate will increase since most players seem to wait for the last moment to exchange refined Dil for Zen. Therefore, you should start to exchanging Dil for Zen no later than Nov. 24th, but I would do so a few days in advance.

So... assuming you do the "grind" instead of paying 2,400 (or $24 USD) for a T6 starship on Black Friday, you can shave off 760 Zen ($7.60 USD) to bring down the final price to 16,400 Zen or $16.40 USD.

Hey, Jaguar. I just wanted to commend you for an outstandingly helpful and reasonable reply to the OP. In a community where asshattery often seems to be the default norm, you rose above that, and I salute you.

nixie50

a very well thought rely. and OP, there is a 20% sale 3-4 times a year if not more often.

jaguarskx

lordsteve1 wrote: »

jaguarskx wrote: »

So... assuming you do the "grind" instead of paying 2,400 (or $24 USD) for a T6 starship on Black Friday, you can shave off 760 Zen ($7.60 USD) to bring down the final price to 16,40 Zen or $16.40 USD.

I think you added an extra zero in there!

Fixed.

Thx.

boachev

Thanks for the replies, folks. Knowing me, it'll be hard to resist just buying one of the ships I was looking at while it's NOT on sale and I'm still not particularly happy about it. I mean, if I wanted a specific ship for a Federation character I was currently leveling I'd be golden, and it's kind of saddening this isn't the case with my Rom. Thought I'd be able to both take advantage of the sale and continue to enjoy my awesome newish character how I wanted, but I guess them's the breaks. I did support a ticket, I'll be honest, though I don't expect Cryptic to actually help me circumvent the restrictions (nor should they be obligated to).

I'll survive. I'll grumble a lot every time I look at my ZEN supply and the C-Store, but I'll survive. I see the Mirror Mogai Refit is available on the Exchange for under 4million credits (and I haven't even looked yet at the prices of the other T5 mirror variants. Can the Mirror T'Varo be customized to look like the T'Liss?), which is a number I can probably scrap together before my Romulan hits 50, which will give me both a nifty skin and at least a Romulan T5 ship for "free" that I like. Which is part of the problem: I'm really uninspired by the default T5 ships available to Romulans, and being the lifelong Romulan fanboy I am I've been getting all giddy at the idea of spending my days flying around in a D'deridex and/or Valdore.

As for Dilithium grinding, I already catch too much girlfriend aggro for playing too much STO from time to time, though I have been hoarding it since I started playing again and exchanging most of it for Zen seems like a fine idea to me. Right now? Gonna research how to get rich quick so I can at least have a T5 I personally enjoy.