As for ships, I've been after an Annorax (and others), there have been plenty of times it's not been on the Exchange, and when it is, then it's 1.5 Billion, but I will not part with $300 dollars just for that ship,
As of this post there are 6 on the exchange, and the lowest is 1.125. My point in asking that question is the ships ARE on there. That you don't want to spend a chunk of money on a video game ship is perfectly understandable, though.
Can’t I just sink $30 like every other non-box T6 and be done with it?
Oh right, gambling. Forgot.
Nope. Gamble boxes are a major funding source for most MMOs including STO. Cryptic makes a lot less on ships in the C-Store. Taking your suggestion would at best mean less new content, possibly a zombie MMO like SWTOR will be for 2018, and at worst a dead MMO like City of Heroes.
Can’t I just sink $30 like every other non-box T6 and be done with it?
Oh right, gambling. Forgot.
Sure, we can get rid of the gambling. The lost revenue will mean higher c-store ship costs however...and the removal of account unlocks. To account for this, you will lose all c-store ship purchase...getting the zen back of course and have to pay PER character the new c-store prices of 12000 zen for a T6 ship with corrisponding costs for lower tier ships. You good with that? Or you want to let the gamblers pay for the game? Because I like option B quite a bit. Option A...yeah...not so much. Than again, I can do math and don't gamble when I can avoid it.
If they have to charge prices like that to keep this game running. PWE definitely needs to take a look at the team developing STO because something isn't right.
Instead of lock boxes to pay for on-screen talent to lend their voices to this game. I would rather there just be a giant in-game poll we can all choose to contribute to or not with ZEN. List the actors and in ZEN, how much it would cost to have them bring their talents to this game, and let the players decide how much or how little they want to contribute. That would also put who lends their talents to the game more in the hands of the players as we would literally be voting and supporting the actors we want with ZEN.
That guy would have been better off taking his kid somewhere for his birthday with the money he spent on keys. Pizza, Mechwarrior pod arcade, anything really. That was just sad to read.
In my experience, these threads are aimed at trying to manipulate the market in the direction of cheaper keys and more expensive ships to increase the poster's own profits.
My theory is, if we set aside any advice on the forums as if the STO forums didn't exist, the market would self-regulate regardless of anyone's desires: ship supply and competition versus those of key pricing would reach a tipping point where it might actually become more worthwhile to gamble away for the grand prizes instead of grind EC to buy ships directly because the risks of the gamble would become profitable and a worthwhile investment in a way you cannot lose except if the market crashes or you run out of EC during a 'run' before the profits flow in.
I don't believe we're there yet, but with fewer players around to open boxes of all types to keep that one in 250 or 100 from building up by population scale, supply will go down and unless Cryptic increases the odds, but they've chosen to pool rewards into choice packs with a significant time delay, so it's only getting worse.
Anyone who actually believes the forums will have any significant influence on the in game economy, when 90% of the playerbase doesn't even read the forums, is borderline insane.
This reminds me of the humor video a favorite youtuber of mine posted about Final Fantasy 14, how to get the Ravana bird every time- just have enough tokens to buy it from the shop anyway minus one!
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
Can’t I just sink $30 like every other non-box T6 and be done with it?
Oh right, gambling. Forgot.
Sure, we can get rid of the gambling. The lost revenue will mean higher c-store ship costs however...and the removal of account unlocks. To account for this, you will lose all c-store ship purchase...getting the zen back of course and have to pay PER character the new c-store prices of 12000 zen for a T6 ship with corrisponding costs for lower tier ships. You good with that? Or you want to let the gamblers pay for the game? Because I like option B quite a bit. Option A...yeah...not so much. Than again, I can do math and don't gamble when I can avoid it.
If they have to charge prices like that to keep this game running. PWE definitely needs to take a look at the team developing STO because something isn't right.
Instead of lock boxes to pay for on-screen talent to lend their voices to this game. I would rather there just be a giant in-game poll we can all choose to contribute to or not with ZEN. List the actors and in ZEN, how much it would cost to have them bring their talents to this game, and let the players decide how much or how little they want to contribute. That would also put who lends their talents to the game more in the hands of the players as we would literally be voting and supporting the actors we want with ZEN.
I'm sorry, but 99% of the playerbase won't donate dil or EC to fleet projects and you want them to donate to content for EVERYONE? Yeah wishful thinking there. That would be a great way to make sure we get no more content and the game shuts down.
And yes the lockboxes brings in that much more than c-store ships. In fact, the estimate I gave is on a lowish side even. SOMEBODY has to pay for all the "free" content we get in this game. And we need realistic methods other than people will do it because it is the right thing to do...which we all know doesn't work.
Right and wrong had nothing to do with my thought. We all have things we would like to see in this game. Voting with ZEN seems like a fair way to put up or shut up. I would gladly throw down ZEN regularly to support voice acting by William Shatner and for Nicole deBoer to lend their talents to this game. Much more so than I would ever spend on any or all of the lock boxes combined.
Call me lucky, but I’m glad I bought keys this time around. Only 16 boxes and voila, a ship. Might sell some keys for some lockbox weapons though.
Congrats! Some people would claim you had an 6.4% chance of getting that then....lol.
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
Update: Crossfields are down to 475mil, master keys at 4.1mil.
475 / 4.1 = 115.8
So currently for selling approximately 116 keys you have a 100% chance to get the ship.
As stated, the price will continue to get cheaper as time goes on, especially once it hits the infinity box. As an example, the Kelvin timeline Konnie is now down to 290mil, so you could pick that up for selling approx 71 keys.
Of course selling keys to get the ec to buy the ship you want is the way to go but the infinity boxes are worth opening in my opinion because of the pool of items you can get.
Walk into Cryptic HQ while brandishing an organically grown cucumber ( Remember, these are computer geeks, and only survive on take-outs, Redbull and sugar/salty snacks, so fresh produce will let them know your serious about trying to make them eat something healthy ) and demand a winning lockbox and a free key or you'll open a window and gas them with fresh air and burn them with natural light.
Just keep away from the ones with Pocket Protectors, their the attack drones and have really mean slapping from a safe distance, Snorting laughing at you and hysterical screaming ability's.
Heehee! Well spoken, Crashy-Baby. I'll bring the veges ~grabs some organic romaine from her larder~ I'll also bring some clean, distilled water....that's like hemlock to them.
Increasing the EC value was a real smart way by Cryptic. Too many players started buying them with EC.
Gambling is part of my gaming experience, if i like the box i spent some keys on it.
This time i saw very little ship reviews in the first days, i guess many streamers did not want to pay 500 mio.
Increasing the EC value was a real smart way by Cryptic. Too many players started buying them with EC.
Gambling is part of my gaming experience, if i like the box i spent some keys on it.
This time i saw very little ship reviews in the first days, i guess many streamers did not want to pay 500 mio.
No. This was just buyer demand for a new ship the first days it was offered, Cryptic did not use their weather control machine to bring hurricane prices to the Exchange.
Buyers set the price, AKA "what the market will bear", just like on eBay. People pay crazy prices for the hot kids toy on eBay in December when they could get the same toy for half that price or less in January. Impatience costs you money.
The 500+ million sucker price dropped quickly, as posted earlier in this thread.
I'll be clear on this however. Someone opening 10,000 boxes on Tribble proves nothing. Observed odds only give a base indicator. I know the odds of drawing a T6 ship are not 0.25% as claimed. A Dev a couple of years back confirmed on a stream that the chance of drawing a T6 was 1%. Again, opening boxes on Tribble or Holodeck can't prove or disprove it and in a post a couple of months ago I addressed how RNG works with computers. You can draw 10 ships from 10 boxes or none from a million. The odds do not change!
I haven't opened 10k boxes on Tribble, so I have to take the word of those who claim they did and got the results.
I haven't been part of any conversations or streams, so I have to take your word that it happened as you say.
I do know maths somewhat however, and I am pretty certain one of the statements ("opened 10k boxes with 25 successes equalling .25% drop rate" or "the odds are 1%") has to be false. Because, while your last statement is technically true, both of these would be very unlikely indeed. As would the event "got 25 out of 10k with 1% success rate".
To get a bit technical: expected value with 1% drop rate would be 100, standard deviation would be roughly 10 (square root of 99 to be exact). That's 7.5 sigma off. With a one sided test, this (or a worse) result would happen with a probability of about 0.000000000003%. That's eleven zeroes after the decimal point (or at least it should be, otherwise my mistake). Even if every person on earth would do this test, the odds of one getting this (or a worse) result are almost non existent.
Yes, the only thing really "proven" is that there are some odds for getting a ship, and some odds for not getting a ship, which are both non zero. However, 10,000 tries is good enough for a rough indication even at odds this far removed from 50% (the closer odds are to 50% the less experiments you need to pin them somewhat). Yes, it is not enough to say "it is .25%" and not ".23%" or ".28%" or even ".33%". But already .4% would be very unlikely and 1% is just right out for every practical purpose. Especially if other experiments with other lockboxes seem to support this result.
(Looking it up on the Wiki, the actual claim is .4%, not .25% - the odds of getting 40 out of 10k when the real probability would be 1% rises significantly to 0.0000001%. My argument still holds, though)
If I were a gambling man (which I am not, thus I am not opening boxes), and since I have no reason to not believe your statement or those of the people opening the boxes, I'd wager on "the dev talking was misinformed".
Call me lucky, but I’m glad I bought keys this time around. Only 16 boxes and voila, a ship. Might sell some keys for some lockbox weapons though.
Congrats! Some people would claim you had an 6.4% chance of getting that then....lol.
While we're at it, that is not how it works. Assuming a .4% drop rate:
Odds of getting a ship in the 16th box (but not before): 0.377%
Odds of getting at least one ship from 16 boxes: 6.212%
Odds of getting exactly one ship from 16 boxes: 6.027%
So while improbable, things like this will easily happen, especially when enough people play the game.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
- Buying from the Exchange IS SUPPORTING THE GAME. Those ships did not appear by magic. Someone gave Cryptic the money for 250 keys (on average) for each lock box ship on the Exchange. Just like when you use the Dil exchange to turn Dil into Zen, someone gave Cryptic money to get that magic Zen.
This cannot be stated clearly enough. I have no idea how often I read in chat or the forums or outside forums how people "are not giving Cryptic any money" or "gaming the system" or whatever. Less frequently, but every now and then, also regrets that "I cannot afford to support Cryptic, so I have to take this other route".
If you get yourself a nice Lock Box ship, it doesn't matter whether you opened the box yourself or bought it off the exchange. Somebody opened the box, what happens afterwards doesn't matter to Cryptic.
Whoever opened the box did so with a key. It doesn't matter whether he got that key off the exchange or bought it himself, somebody spent Zen for that key, and that's all Cryptic cares about.
As for whoever spent the Zen, again it doesn't matter whether he bought it outright or with dilithium on the exchange, somebody spent real world money for the Zen, and again, that's Cryptic's bottom line.
What people buying zen with dil, or keys with ec, or ships with ec, are doing is, they are providing other players with a service, for which said other players are willing to spend real life money. Without dilithium sellers, there would be no incentive to buy zen for those looking for dil. Without people buying ships off other players, there would be less incentive for players in opening hundreds of boxes, so less incentive for players to buy keys, so less incentive for players interested in ec for buying these keys in the first place.
Whoever is partaking in any of these interactions is doing his part to support the game and earn Cryptic some money. Whether they want to or not.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
I am still sitting here wondering how in the world the OP can use the phrase 'without gambling' in the title and then goes on to argue it is not gambling. LOL.
The reason you are 'sitting there wondering' is because you failed to comprehend what you read. Nothing described in the OP is gambling. You have an absolute 100% chance to get the ship if you follow those steps. When you are guaranteed to get your desired outcome it is not a gamble.
I am still sitting here wondering how in the world the OP can use the phrase 'without gambling' in the title and then goes on to argue it is not gambling. LOL.
The reason you are 'sitting there wondering' is because you failed to comprehend what you read. Nothing described in the OP is gambling. You have an absolute 100% chance to get the ship if you follow those steps. When you are guaranteed to get your desired outcome it is not a gamble.
Nope its called work. I get it your generation has a loose grasp on what work means.
And what "generation" do you think I am? Please, enlighten me.
Always found it a little dishonest the way folks say things like "someone paid for those zens" or "someone had to buy those zens" to imply all zens on the dilex represent actual, ongoing zen purchases. Month after month, batches of new zens are produced from nothing, generating no revenue in the process, and deposited into the balance of LTS subscribers.
When called out on this, folks try to reposition their argument with the usual, "well, someone paid for the LTS", which really just makes the whole thing look even more weasel-y.
Either way, zens do appear in a significant amount, out of nowhere, every month, with no additional revenue, and keys and ships spontaneously appearing from nothing doesn't actually mean someone is actively trying to support the game.
Always found it a little dishonest the way folks say things like "someone paid for those zens" or "someone had to buy those zens" to imply all zens on the dilex represent actual, ongoing zen purchases. Month after month, batches of new zens are produced from nothing, generating no revenue in the process, and deposited into the balance of LTS subscribers.
When called out on this, folks try to reposition their argument with the usual, "well, someone paid for the LTS", which really just makes the whole thing look even more weasel-y.
Either way, zens do appear in a significant amount, out of nowhere, every month, with no additional revenue, and keys and ships spontaneously appearing from nothing doesn't actually mean someone is actively trying to support the game.
Let's take me for an example, shall we? I'm a LTS, so I get my $5 monthly stipend. I also use the method described in the OP when I want a ship. So when I want a ship, I check my balance to see how many keys I can buy. Do I ever have enough? Nope, sure don't. So I buy however much zen I need, then do the stuff the OP talked about. So I'm both a LTS, and I'm buying zen as needed. Do you care to tell me more about how I'm not supporting the game?
Always found it a little dishonest the way folks say things like "someone paid for those zens" or "someone had to buy those zens" to imply all zens on the dilex represent actual, ongoing zen purchases. Month after month, batches of new zens are produced from nothing, generating no revenue in the process, and deposited into the balance of LTS subscribers.
When called out on this, folks try to reposition their argument with the usual, "well, someone paid for the LTS", which really just makes the whole thing look even more weasel-y.
Either way, zens do appear in a significant amount, out of nowhere, every month, with no additional revenue, and keys and ships spontaneously appearing from nothing doesn't actually mean someone is actively trying to support the game.
500 Zen only appears monthly AFTER YOU PAY CRYPTIC $200-$300. That covers the 500 zen for the next 40-60 months. So no, that Zen did not appear out of nowhere.
Someone did have to buy all that Zen. The conditions under which such trading occurs is between PWE and it's customers and it's hardly your place to call it "weasel-y."
I'll be clear on this however. Someone opening 10,000 boxes on Tribble proves nothing. Observed odds only give a base indicator. I know the odds of drawing a T6 ship are not 0.25% as claimed. A Dev a couple of years back confirmed on a stream that the chance of drawing a T6 was 1%. Again, opening boxes on Tribble or Holodeck can't prove or disprove it and in a post a couple of months ago I addressed how RNG works with computers. You can draw 10 ships from 10 boxes or none from a million. The odds do not change!
I haven't opened 10k boxes on Tribble, so I have to take the word of those who claim they did and got the results.
I haven't been part of any conversations or streams, so I have to take your word that it happened as you say.
I do know maths somewhat however, and I am pretty certain one of the statements ("opened 10k boxes with 25 successes equalling .25% drop rate" or "the odds are 1%") has to be false. Because, while your last statement is technically true, both of these would be very unlikely indeed. As would the event "got 25 out of 10k with 1% success rate".
To get a bit technical: expected value with 1% drop rate would be 100, standard deviation would be roughly 10 (square root of 99 to be exact). That's 7.5 sigma off. With a one sided test, this (or a worse) result would happen with a probability of about 0.000000000003%. That's eleven zeroes after the decimal point (or at least it should be, otherwise my mistake). Even if every person on earth would do this test, the odds of one getting this (or a worse) result are almost non existent.
Yes, the only thing really "proven" is that there are some odds for getting a ship, and some odds for not getting a ship, which are both non zero. However, 10,000 tries is good enough for a rough indication even at odds this far removed from 50% (the closer odds are to 50% the less experiments you need to pin them somewhat). Yes, it is not enough to say "it is .25%" and not ".23%" or ".28%" or even ".33%". But already .4% would be very unlikely and 1% is just right out for every practical purpose. Especially if other experiments with other lockboxes seem to support this result.
(Looking it up on the Wiki, the actual claim is .4%, not .25% - the odds of getting 40 out of 10k when the real probability would be 1% rises significantly to 0.0000001%. My argument still holds, though)
If I were a gambling man (which I am not, thus I am not opening boxes), and since I have no reason to not believe your statement or those of the people opening the boxes, I'd wager on "the dev talking was misinformed".
Call me lucky, but I’m glad I bought keys this time around. Only 16 boxes and voila, a ship. Might sell some keys for some lockbox weapons though.
Congrats! Some people would claim you had an 6.4% chance of getting that then....lol.
While we're at it, that is not how it works. Assuming a .4% drop rate:
Odds of getting a ship in the 16th box (but not before): 0.377%
Odds of getting at least one ship from 16 boxes: 6.212%
Odds of getting exactly one ship from 16 boxes: 6.027%
So while improbable, things like this will easily happen, especially when enough people play the game.
That's not how odds work. The odds don't change. If's 1% on the first box, it's 1% on the millionth.
I was being sarcastic at people using what they observed to claim a certain % odds. Observed odds and actual odds are different. As the example I stated above, if it was 0.25%, the observed odds could be even less. People just have a lack of understanding when it comes to programing RNG.
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
Comments
As of this post there are 6 on the exchange, and the lowest is 1.125. My point in asking that question is the ships ARE on there. That you don't want to spend a chunk of money on a video game ship is perfectly understandable, though.
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/1237784/help-with-a-birthday-gift-for-my-son
Oh right, gambling. Forgot.
Nope. Gamble boxes are a major funding source for most MMOs including STO. Cryptic makes a lot less on ships in the C-Store. Taking your suggestion would at best mean less new content, possibly a zombie MMO like SWTOR will be for 2018, and at worst a dead MMO like City of Heroes.
So: "Spin the wheel!"
If they have to charge prices like that to keep this game running. PWE definitely needs to take a look at the team developing STO because something isn't right.
Instead of lock boxes to pay for on-screen talent to lend their voices to this game. I would rather there just be a giant in-game poll we can all choose to contribute to or not with ZEN. List the actors and in ZEN, how much it would cost to have them bring their talents to this game, and let the players decide how much or how little they want to contribute. That would also put who lends their talents to the game more in the hands of the players as we would literally be voting and supporting the actors we want with ZEN.
That guy would have been better off taking his kid somewhere for his birthday with the money he spent on keys. Pizza, Mechwarrior pod arcade, anything really. That was just sad to read.
My theory is, if we set aside any advice on the forums as if the STO forums didn't exist, the market would self-regulate regardless of anyone's desires: ship supply and competition versus those of key pricing would reach a tipping point where it might actually become more worthwhile to gamble away for the grand prizes instead of grind EC to buy ships directly because the risks of the gamble would become profitable and a worthwhile investment in a way you cannot lose except if the market crashes or you run out of EC during a 'run' before the profits flow in.
I don't believe we're there yet, but with fewer players around to open boxes of all types to keep that one in 250 or 100 from building up by population scale, supply will go down and unless Cryptic increases the odds, but they've chosen to pool rewards into choice packs with a significant time delay, so it's only getting worse.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
Right and wrong had nothing to do with my thought. We all have things we would like to see in this game. Voting with ZEN seems like a fair way to put up or shut up. I would gladly throw down ZEN regularly to support voice acting by William Shatner and for Nicole deBoer to lend their talents to this game. Much more so than I would ever spend on any or all of the lock boxes combined.
Congrats! Some people would claim you had an 6.4% chance of getting that then....lol.
475 / 4.1 = 115.8
So currently for selling approximately 116 keys you have a 100% chance to get the ship.
As stated, the price will continue to get cheaper as time goes on, especially once it hits the infinity box. As an example, the Kelvin timeline Konnie is now down to 290mil, so you could pick that up for selling approx 71 keys.
Heehee! Well spoken, Crashy-Baby. I'll bring the veges ~grabs some organic romaine from her larder~ I'll also bring some clean, distilled water....that's like hemlock to them.
Gambling is part of my gaming experience, if i like the box i spent some keys on it.
This time i saw very little ship reviews in the first days, i guess many streamers did not want to pay 500 mio.
No. This was just buyer demand for a new ship the first days it was offered, Cryptic did not use their weather control machine to bring hurricane prices to the Exchange.
Buyers set the price, AKA "what the market will bear", just like on eBay. People pay crazy prices for the hot kids toy on eBay in December when they could get the same toy for half that price or less in January. Impatience costs you money.
The 500+ million sucker price dropped quickly, as posted earlier in this thread.
I haven't opened 10k boxes on Tribble, so I have to take the word of those who claim they did and got the results.
I haven't been part of any conversations or streams, so I have to take your word that it happened as you say.
I do know maths somewhat however, and I am pretty certain one of the statements ("opened 10k boxes with 25 successes equalling .25% drop rate" or "the odds are 1%") has to be false. Because, while your last statement is technically true, both of these would be very unlikely indeed. As would the event "got 25 out of 10k with 1% success rate".
To get a bit technical: expected value with 1% drop rate would be 100, standard deviation would be roughly 10 (square root of 99 to be exact). That's 7.5 sigma off. With a one sided test, this (or a worse) result would happen with a probability of about 0.000000000003%. That's eleven zeroes after the decimal point (or at least it should be, otherwise my mistake). Even if every person on earth would do this test, the odds of one getting this (or a worse) result are almost non existent.
Yes, the only thing really "proven" is that there are some odds for getting a ship, and some odds for not getting a ship, which are both non zero. However, 10,000 tries is good enough for a rough indication even at odds this far removed from 50% (the closer odds are to 50% the less experiments you need to pin them somewhat). Yes, it is not enough to say "it is .25%" and not ".23%" or ".28%" or even ".33%". But already .4% would be very unlikely and 1% is just right out for every practical purpose. Especially if other experiments with other lockboxes seem to support this result.
(Looking it up on the Wiki, the actual claim is .4%, not .25% - the odds of getting 40 out of 10k when the real probability would be 1% rises significantly to 0.0000001%. My argument still holds, though)
If I were a gambling man (which I am not, thus I am not opening boxes), and since I have no reason to not believe your statement or those of the people opening the boxes, I'd wager on "the dev talking was misinformed".
While we're at it, that is not how it works. Assuming a .4% drop rate:
Odds of getting a ship in the 16th box (but not before): 0.377%
Odds of getting at least one ship from 16 boxes: 6.212%
Odds of getting exactly one ship from 16 boxes: 6.027%
So while improbable, things like this will easily happen, especially when enough people play the game.
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/1220998/tos-promo-pack-tribble-results-ten-thousand-10000-packs-opened
Another person's test with 2,000 packs:
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/1201321/promo-pack-tribble-test-2000-packs-opened
This cannot be stated clearly enough. I have no idea how often I read in chat or the forums or outside forums how people "are not giving Cryptic any money" or "gaming the system" or whatever. Less frequently, but every now and then, also regrets that "I cannot afford to support Cryptic, so I have to take this other route".
If you get yourself a nice Lock Box ship, it doesn't matter whether you opened the box yourself or bought it off the exchange. Somebody opened the box, what happens afterwards doesn't matter to Cryptic.
Whoever opened the box did so with a key. It doesn't matter whether he got that key off the exchange or bought it himself, somebody spent Zen for that key, and that's all Cryptic cares about.
As for whoever spent the Zen, again it doesn't matter whether he bought it outright or with dilithium on the exchange, somebody spent real world money for the Zen, and again, that's Cryptic's bottom line.
What people buying zen with dil, or keys with ec, or ships with ec, are doing is, they are providing other players with a service, for which said other players are willing to spend real life money. Without dilithium sellers, there would be no incentive to buy zen for those looking for dil. Without people buying ships off other players, there would be less incentive for players in opening hundreds of boxes, so less incentive for players to buy keys, so less incentive for players interested in ec for buying these keys in the first place.
Whoever is partaking in any of these interactions is doing his part to support the game and earn Cryptic some money. Whether they want to or not.
The reason you are 'sitting there wondering' is because you failed to comprehend what you read. Nothing described in the OP is gambling. You have an absolute 100% chance to get the ship if you follow those steps. When you are guaranteed to get your desired outcome it is not a gamble.
And what "generation" do you think I am? Please, enlighten me.
When called out on this, folks try to reposition their argument with the usual, "well, someone paid for the LTS", which really just makes the whole thing look even more weasel-y.
Either way, zens do appear in a significant amount, out of nowhere, every month, with no additional revenue, and keys and ships spontaneously appearing from nothing doesn't actually mean someone is actively trying to support the game.
Let's take me for an example, shall we? I'm a LTS, so I get my $5 monthly stipend. I also use the method described in the OP when I want a ship. So when I want a ship, I check my balance to see how many keys I can buy. Do I ever have enough? Nope, sure don't. So I buy however much zen I need, then do the stuff the OP talked about. So I'm both a LTS, and I'm buying zen as needed. Do you care to tell me more about how I'm not supporting the game?
500 Zen only appears monthly AFTER YOU PAY CRYPTIC $200-$300. That covers the 500 zen for the next 40-60 months. So no, that Zen did not appear out of nowhere.
That's not how odds work. The odds don't change. If's 1% on the first box, it's 1% on the millionth.
I was being sarcastic at people using what they observed to claim a certain % odds. Observed odds and actual odds are different. As the example I stated above, if it was 0.25%, the observed odds could be even less. People just have a lack of understanding when it comes to programing RNG.