Not buying multiples of the same fleet ship across alts keeps the game challenging and fun. I've only acquired them for my 3 'main' mains to cover all factions - granted now I wish my alt-main Sci Rom also had access, or that I had a Reman Sci-KDF, etc. etc. but the costs skyrocket that way and what's the point as long as they're viable enough, support your mains, and things are fun.
If an alt is very new and struggling with certain content (eg. torpedo spam of terrans), it makes owning out of the box fleet grade ships that much more rewarding since they can hop into those - I've done that with my only temporal agent (or whatever they're called) while they slowly leveled beyond 60. Event ships are a super light grind free alternative too for such cases temporarily.
Fleet ships have other hidden costs, primarily as ship or drydock slots since they cannot be dismissed and reclaimed, nevermind the fleet contributions and having the provisions. At the very least the Fed fleet ships come with a unique skin color, and I can think of only one ship atm (the old Avenger) that had the warp nacelles down as an option. I'm not sure if that's true for Rom or KDF, if any other ships had minor visual bonuses, or if that's a thing of the past now.
This isn't to say I'm happy about the extra cost (which I refuse to pay), but in some ways it stays consistent to how individual characters work with all fleet goodies.
Fleet ships aren't required to play that game. Just buy the fleet ships that you actually want and you'll be fine. You don't need 7 of the same fleet ship. But if you really want it, pay up.
When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
Is it just me, or is there a certain sense of entitlement being displayed here? It wouldn't be hard at all to find any number of posts where you eagerly ridicule other posters for such as you've done here. The irony is delicious.
I didn't read all of the above, but for my part, yeah, I shrug my shoulders for 50+ characters.
I'll tell you this though. Except for a Lifetime Membership, and the time it takes to grind, this game has pretty much cost me nothing to play. If I want a Fleet ship, I grind out the price, and since I got the Life membership, I pad my grinding with the stipend when I feel like it.
I have more ships than I can use. The only thing most of them are good for is the Admiralty missions. The only urgency I put to buying new ships is how I feel about a ship, for a captain. My main KDF had to, had to have a Fleet K'tinga! Now he does. My Nausicaan needed a Fleet Destroyer. Now he has one. Etc.
Material things are not a big deal here. What is a big deal is people. We need more of them to stay active in the game. I don't think content pricing is a barrier. I do think how we interact with each other is. Fleets help with promoting interaction, and a Fleet ship can be considered a badge of honor, showing that you put effort into building alongside others.
Each of us has to decide for ourselves what we will invest into the game. For myself, the Fleet ships make sense the way they are.
A poor player with little understanding of this laughably simple game can die just as fast in a Fleet ship as he can in a regular or C Store one. Account unlocking Fleet ships is a really dumb way to make up for a player's incompetence in completing storyline missions successfully. Especially with all the twinking which is allowed in this game. No reason someone with a brand new alt and five or six fully matured characters cannot equip that alt with the best gear available. Notice carefully: I said "gear". Not "Ship". Besides, if the alt is not the correct level, then it cannot use the Account Unlocked Fleet ship.
All of this can be much more easily and cheaply solved by learning to play STO.
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
The number of 11 console ships in the zen store (aka "Fleet Grade") is quite small, the majority of T5 & T6 zen store ships are not Fleet Grade. Frankly I suspect the ships released in the zen store at Fleet Grade to be the result of deadlines running out or lack of ideas on where to put the unlock on the Shipyard Tiers.
My unsupported theory is it's ones they think are less desirable. T6 Defiant, Arbiter = 10 console. T6 command battlecruisers with underwhelming inspiration mechanic = 11 console.
I think it's more: "Is it a three-pack-bundle? Then it's Fleet level".
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Is it just me, or is there a certain sense of entitlement being displayed here? It wouldn't be hard at all to find any number of posts where you eagerly ridicule other posters for such as you've done here. The irony is delicious.
Um, suggesting "hey, I'd rather they stuck with the more advantageous to player pricing schemes they've offered THIRTY TIMES since I came back to the game" I think is pretty low on the entitlement scale. I'm not asking for anything new. I'm not slamming down my toys in a huff. I'm at worst saying, "hey, this deal's not for me." If Cryptic sweetens it a little, it might be for me, but I'm not exactly making dire threats when in the same breath I said "eh, guess I'll get ready to buy some more lockbox ships instead if the zeni-store ones are gonna be a pain in the butt to fully redeem".
Wait, is the irony you're talking about your being desperate to see me spaz out? Because you'll find far better examples of that over in Ten Forward .
I think it's more: "Is it a three-pack-bundle? Then it's Fleet level".
You know there's three of these science ships, right ? I get what you're saying but the 31c ship pack is getting to where you have to slice it pretty fine to make the distinction...
The couple of fleet ships ive gotten were designated specifically for that toon and i wouldnt want it for everyone, so it wasnt an issue.
Same.
I own many C-Store ships, in a lot of cases since DR I bought ships for the trait only. Knowing full well I didn't like their boff layouts or one thing or another.
Of all my C-Store ships, I've only went Fleet on a handful for my 2 mains. And in those cases it was because that fleet ship was my going to be my End Game ship and fit my build perfectly.
I think that should be the only time you consider a Fleet Version IMO.
But I kind of understand Nikeix's point. It's a little odd the way they do things in the C-Store.
Like, if you upgrade a T5U, I believe you get free upgrades on all your alts. Unless I'm misremembering the way upgrade Tokens work. But pretty sure that you pay only once per account for a t5 to t5U token.
So why the discrepancy with C-store to Fleet level. Seems a bit odd.
I'm used to it at this point though, which is why a ship has to be my captain's end game ship to be even considered for a fleet version, otherwise I completely ignore the option.
In most cases I was only after a trait and I don't fly them anyways.
Not buying multiples of the same fleet ship across alts keeps the game challenging and fun.
((shrug)) Some people have their fun by running endgame content with T2 ships or leaving their shield slot empty. My particular brand of fun is building and testing the behavior of high-end ships. Running a deliberately gimped ship - whether it's because I left a piece off or Cryptic deliberately hamstringing it so they could sell fleet modules isn't my thing. For my purposes the less-than-fleet-grade ships are virtual paperweights.
Material things are not a big deal here. What is a big deal is people. We need more of them to stay active in the game. I don't think content pricing is a barrier. I do think how we interact with each other is. Fleets help with promoting interaction, and a Fleet ship can be considered a badge of honor, showing that you put effort into building alongside others.
This is a myth that the industry is finally coming to grips with. There's a shocking consistency between studious that share data that around 60% of all MMO players never join guilds/fleets/[insert cozy name here] or do so under protest for the ridiculous rewards the Devs hang around such bodies like a pork chop around a kid's neck so the dog will play with them.
I know most gregarious people find it hard to believe but there are a LOT of introverts out there, with free time, disposable income and everything. And really, most people that LIKE being around people don't sit in front of a computer to scratch that itch. The balance of MMO gamers leans noticeably AWAY from big fuzzy surrogate tribes.
*shrugs shoulders*
The couple of fleet ships I've gotten were designated specifically for that toon and I wouldn't want it for everyone, so it wasn't an issue.
Same.
I own many C-Store ships, in a lot of cases since DR I bought ships for the trait only. Knowing full well I didn't like their boff layouts or one thing or another.
Of all my C-Store ships, I've only went Fleet on a handful for my 2 mains. And in those cases it was because that fleet ship was my going to be my End Game ship and fit my build perfectly.
I think that should be the only time you consider a Fleet Version IMO.
Seems reasonable to me. Most of my captains fly singular unlocks as their "main" ship. In seven captains and a metric buttload of ships I have exactly ONE fleet ship -- My Fleet Eclipse, on my main Fed, intended to be her endgame ship forever. She did eventually move on, but only because praise be to money and lens flare, they were finally able to cut a deal that brought the Vengeance to STO. Hallelujah, here's your 900 lobi.
But I have and have periodically flown quite a few of the 'fleet ready' ships and don't regret those purchases at all. Honestly I'm surprise there isn't more enthusiasm for that model.
But I kind of understand Nikeix's point. It's a little odd the way they do things in the C-Store.
Like, if you upgrade a T5U, I believe you get free upgrades on all your alts. Unless I'm misremembering the way upgrade Tokens work. But pretty sure that you pay only once per account for a t5 to t5U token.
So why the discrepancy with C-store to Fleet level. Seems a bit odd.
Yup, and in this case where I'm already a bit on the fence after my initial enthusiasm, it's probably gonna tip me over into 'not buy'.
I'm used to it at this point though, which is why a ship has to be my captain's end game ship to be even considered for a fleet version, otherwise I completely ignore the option.
In most cases I was only after a trait and I don't fly them anyways.
Again, same. I was really excited when they announced it. But what I should do is coldly calculate the value of the ship trait and potentially the admiralty card, because I'm just not excited about a per captain surcharge after having grown quite comfortable buying fleet-grade ships. And using a ship trait slot to make meaner tachyon beams probably ain't worth $60 to me.
I have one captain that doesn't have an endgame ship picked out yet. Realistically IF it's gonna be a science ship, it's gonna be the Eternal unless there's something amazingly clever going on with these new ones. I'm quite curious to see the stats for the new batch in the next day or two...
I've never bought a fleet ship module with zen, there's plenty of them on the exchange for usually between 15-20 mil energy credits. 100 mil energy credits and you can get yourself a fleet ship without even spending any zen on the C-store version if it's a ship only that charater is going to use, like I intend to do for the Intel assault cruiser.
I've never bought a fleet ship module with zen, there's plenty of them on the exchange for usually between 15-20 mil energy credits. 100 mil energy credits and you can get yourself a fleet ship without even spending any zen on the C-store version if it's a ship only that charater is going to use, like I intend to do for the Intel assault cruiser.
May I ask, how does one acquire 100 mil energy credits? I was barely able to scrape together the necessary amount to buy a TR-116-B by selling all unnecessary consoles and exotic shields I'd collected... To get that level of ec, I'm guessing takes A Lot of grinding, over a considerable length of time? Or are you also selling stuff on the exchange to bring in extra?
I've never bought a fleet ship module with zen, there's plenty of them on the exchange for usually between 15-20 mil energy credits. 100 mil energy credits and you can get yourself a fleet ship without even spending any zen on the C-store version if it's a ship only that charater is going to use, like I intend to do for the Intel assault cruiser.
May I ask, how does one acquire 100 mil energy credits? I was barely able to scrape together the necessary amount to buy a TR-116-B by selling all unnecessary consoles and exotic shields I'd collected... To get that level of ec, I'm guessing takes A Lot of grinding, over a considerable length of time? Or are you also selling stuff on the exchange to bring in extra?
My money maker is running Doff and admiralty on 6 toons, then sending everything to my main.
I either then make superior tech upgrades or Experimentals. Then sell.
Or I sell all mats and start again.
But the real big money makers are flipping high priced items. Likes ships and traits.
Or buying keys at a lower price (during key sales), then reselling them during a buying frenzy (new lockbox release) for example.
a single key on the exchange can go from 4.8 - 6 mil (approx.) depending on when you sell ! So be cognizant of this and you can reap lots of profits.
If you have a good knowledge of the Dil/Z exchange, you can also speculate there. That's another huge money maker for some.
Same principle as Key speculation. Buy Low, sell high (during a new lockbox or promo release where everyone wants Zen).
Problem with these last 3, you need a bunch of currency to even get started.
I think the most important factor, is knowing "when" to sell an item.
Like, if I craft 100 Superior beam Upgrade Techs...should I sell them right away ? Or store them until its Upgrade weekend ?
A smart player will save them for an upgrade weekend. In doing so, they've upped their profits at least +20% if not more.
Learn some of the items in game that have peaks and valley's on the exchange. Those are your best bet at money making potential.
Keys, R&D materials, Tech Upgrades, Accelerators .... etc.
R&D materials is my favorite market. Specifically the Salvaged Tech market.
You can make a killing on Salvage Tech if you buy during a lull, and re-sell right before or during an upgrade weekend.
I've never bought a fleet ship module with zen, there's plenty of them on the exchange for usually between 15-20 mil energy credits. 100 mil energy credits and you can get yourself a fleet ship without even spending any zen on the C-store version if it's a ship only that charater is going to use, like I intend to do for the Intel assault cruiser.
May I ask, how does one acquire 100 mil energy credits? I was barely able to scrape together the necessary amount to buy a TR-116-B by selling all unnecessary consoles and exotic shields I'd collected... To get that level of ec, I'm guessing takes A Lot of grinding, over a considerable length of time? Or are you also selling stuff on the exchange to bring in extra?
My money maker is running Doff and admiralty on 6 toons, then sending everything to my main.
I either then make superior tech upgrades or Experimentals. Then sell.
Or I sell all mats and start again.
But the real big money makers are flipping high priced items. Likes ships and traits.
Or buying keys at a lower price (during key sales), then reselling them during a buying frenzy (new lockbox release) for example.
a single key on the exchange can go from 4.8 - 6 mil (approx.) depending on when you sell ! So be cognizant of this and you can reap lots of profits.
If you have a good knowledge of the Dil/Z exchange, you can also speculate there. That's another huge money maker for some.
Same principle as Key speculation. Buy Low, sell high (during a new lockbox or promo release where everyone wants Zen).
Problem with these last 3, you need a bunch of currency to even get started.
I think the most important factor, is knowing "when" to sell an item.
Like, if I craft 100 Superior beam Upgrade Techs...should I sell them right away ? Or store them until its Upgrade weekend ?
A smart player will save them for an upgrade weekend. In doing so, they've upped their profits at least +20% if not more.
Learn some of the items in game that have peaks and valley's on the exchange. Those are your best bet at money making potential.
Keys, R&D materials, Tech Upgrades, Accelerators .... etc.
R&D materials is my favorite market. Specifically the Salvaged Tech market.
You can make a killing on Salvage Tech if you buy during a lull, and re-sell right before or during an upgrade weekend.
Thanks, I may have to look into this more seriously Decades ago, there was a 'stock-broker' game for the Amstrad called Drug Wars, where one went from station to station on the subway, and the drug prices and popularities shifted from station to station each time one moved, so one had to try and predict demand, to acquire supply beforehand... For some reason, I was pretty good at it, so I might have to give the exchange a look Something which I really can't seem to work out, is; I buy a lot off BOFFs off the exchange for their traits... I Really enjoy crafting their appearance in the tailor, but I can't seem to see a way to craft a BOFF, and then sell them, which is a bit of a pain,as I think that would be something where I could do quite nicely... :-\
(Damn my Orion BOFF for luring me into the Flesh Trade with her whiles...)
Comments
If an alt is very new and struggling with certain content (eg. torpedo spam of terrans), it makes owning out of the box fleet grade ships that much more rewarding since they can hop into those - I've done that with my only temporal agent (or whatever they're called) while they slowly leveled beyond 60. Event ships are a super light grind free alternative too for such cases temporarily.
Fleet ships have other hidden costs, primarily as ship or drydock slots since they cannot be dismissed and reclaimed, nevermind the fleet contributions and having the provisions. At the very least the Fed fleet ships come with a unique skin color, and I can think of only one ship atm (the old Avenger) that had the warp nacelles down as an option. I'm not sure if that's true for Rom or KDF, if any other ships had minor visual bonuses, or if that's a thing of the past now.
This isn't to say I'm happy about the extra cost (which I refuse to pay), but in some ways it stays consistent to how individual characters work with all fleet goodies.
I'll tell you this though. Except for a Lifetime Membership, and the time it takes to grind, this game has pretty much cost me nothing to play. If I want a Fleet ship, I grind out the price, and since I got the Life membership, I pad my grinding with the stipend when I feel like it.
I have more ships than I can use. The only thing most of them are good for is the Admiralty missions. The only urgency I put to buying new ships is how I feel about a ship, for a captain. My main KDF had to, had to have a Fleet K'tinga! Now he does. My Nausicaan needed a Fleet Destroyer. Now he has one. Etc.
Material things are not a big deal here. What is a big deal is people. We need more of them to stay active in the game. I don't think content pricing is a barrier. I do think how we interact with each other is. Fleets help with promoting interaction, and a Fleet ship can be considered a badge of honor, showing that you put effort into building alongside others.
Each of us has to decide for ourselves what we will invest into the game. For myself, the Fleet ships make sense the way they are.
Qapla!
All of this can be much more easily and cheaply solved by learning to play STO.
I think it's more: "Is it a three-pack-bundle? Then it's Fleet level".
Um, suggesting "hey, I'd rather they stuck with the more advantageous to player pricing schemes they've offered THIRTY TIMES since I came back to the game" I think is pretty low on the entitlement scale. I'm not asking for anything new. I'm not slamming down my toys in a huff. I'm at worst saying, "hey, this deal's not for me." If Cryptic sweetens it a little, it might be for me, but I'm not exactly making dire threats when in the same breath I said "eh, guess I'll get ready to buy some more lockbox ships instead if the zeni-store ones are gonna be a pain in the butt to fully redeem".
Wait, is the irony you're talking about your being desperate to see me spaz out? Because you'll find far better examples of that over in Ten Forward
You know there's three of these science ships, right
Same.
I own many C-Store ships, in a lot of cases since DR I bought ships for the trait only. Knowing full well I didn't like their boff layouts or one thing or another.
Of all my C-Store ships, I've only went Fleet on a handful for my 2 mains. And in those cases it was because that fleet ship was my going to be my End Game ship and fit my build perfectly.
I think that should be the only time you consider a Fleet Version IMO.
But I kind of understand Nikeix's point. It's a little odd the way they do things in the C-Store.
Like, if you upgrade a T5U, I believe you get free upgrades on all your alts. Unless I'm misremembering the way upgrade Tokens work. But pretty sure that you pay only once per account for a t5 to t5U token.
So why the discrepancy with C-store to Fleet level. Seems a bit odd.
I'm used to it at this point though, which is why a ship has to be my captain's end game ship to be even considered for a fleet version, otherwise I completely ignore the option.
In most cases I was only after a trait and I don't fly them anyways.
((shrug)) Some people have their fun by running endgame content with T2 ships or leaving their shield slot empty. My particular brand of fun is building and testing the behavior of high-end ships. Running a deliberately gimped ship - whether it's because I left a piece off or Cryptic deliberately hamstringing it so they could sell fleet modules isn't my thing. For my purposes the less-than-fleet-grade ships are virtual paperweights.
This is a myth that the industry is finally coming to grips with. There's a shocking consistency between studious that share data that around 60% of all MMO players never join guilds/fleets/[insert cozy name here] or do so under protest for the ridiculous rewards the Devs hang around such bodies like a pork chop around a kid's neck so the dog will play with them.
I know most gregarious people find it hard to believe but there are a LOT of introverts out there, with free time, disposable income and everything. And really, most people that LIKE being around people don't sit in front of a computer to scratch that itch. The balance of MMO gamers leans noticeably AWAY from big fuzzy surrogate tribes.
Its an audience this system does not serve well.
Seems reasonable to me. Most of my captains fly singular unlocks as their "main" ship. In seven captains and a metric buttload of ships I have exactly ONE fleet ship -- My Fleet Eclipse, on my main Fed, intended to be her endgame ship forever. She did eventually move on, but only because praise be to money and lens flare, they were finally able to cut a deal that brought the Vengeance to STO. Hallelujah, here's your 900 lobi.
But I have and have periodically flown quite a few of the 'fleet ready' ships and don't regret those purchases at all. Honestly I'm surprise there isn't more enthusiasm for that model.
Yup, and in this case where I'm already a bit on the fence after my initial enthusiasm, it's probably gonna tip me over into 'not buy'.
Again, same. I was really excited when they announced it. But what I should do is coldly calculate the value of the ship trait and potentially the admiralty card, because I'm just not excited about a per captain surcharge after having grown quite comfortable buying fleet-grade ships. And using a ship trait slot to make meaner tachyon beams probably ain't worth $60 to me.
I have one captain that doesn't have an endgame ship picked out yet. Realistically IF it's gonna be a science ship, it's gonna be the Eternal unless there's something amazingly clever going on with these new ones. I'm quite curious to see the stats for the new batch in the next day or two...
My money maker is running Doff and admiralty on 6 toons, then sending everything to my main.
I either then make superior tech upgrades or Experimentals. Then sell.
Or I sell all mats and start again.
But the real big money makers are flipping high priced items. Likes ships and traits.
Or buying keys at a lower price (during key sales), then reselling them during a buying frenzy (new lockbox release) for example.
a single key on the exchange can go from 4.8 - 6 mil (approx.) depending on when you sell ! So be cognizant of this and you can reap lots of profits.
If you have a good knowledge of the Dil/Z exchange, you can also speculate there. That's another huge money maker for some.
Same principle as Key speculation. Buy Low, sell high (during a new lockbox or promo release where everyone wants Zen).
Problem with these last 3, you need a bunch of currency to even get started.
I think the most important factor, is knowing "when" to sell an item.
Like, if I craft 100 Superior beam Upgrade Techs...should I sell them right away ? Or store them until its Upgrade weekend ?
A smart player will save them for an upgrade weekend. In doing so, they've upped their profits at least +20% if not more.
Learn some of the items in game that have peaks and valley's on the exchange. Those are your best bet at money making potential.
Keys, R&D materials, Tech Upgrades, Accelerators .... etc.
R&D materials is my favorite market. Specifically the Salvaged Tech market.
You can make a killing on Salvage Tech if you buy during a lull, and re-sell right before or during an upgrade weekend.
(Damn my Orion BOFF for luring me into the Flesh Trade with her whiles...)