I think around the 500k mark is average for me when I'm just playing the game and selling junk to the vendors.
If I kick it up a notch, blow up cubes and repair blocks while waiting for the Ker'rat map to re-load or rarely jump into a foundry farming mission if I'm close to affording something I want for example, I think hitting 1 - 1.5 Mil is easy enough.
Unless of course the loot fairly blesses me with a decent drop to chuck onto the exchange.
500k - 1 million. Mostly from the stuff i sell on my daily runs. Some ec as well from the fleet mining assignment. And more from other doff assignments. There are days that i gather less, or more.
From time to time, i just buy a lock box key and i sell it on the exchange for 1,8-2 million (for those who say they cant gather more than 200k.. this is a really easy and the fastest method... ). I could even buy 2 lock box keys every day and sell em, granting me about 3,5 - 4 million ec every day. But there is no need of that. And more sources that i cant remember. EC is something that i dont pay too much atention, it is a resource that comes by itself..
But the problem is, it doesnt matter how much you gather, since you will need to waste high ammounts of EC in the rep projects and so on. Its mandatory to gather about 300-400k ec every day at least, to have a really back up when you need to drop all that in the reputation projects.
I average a million per week since December of 2013. So mathematically about 142,857 per day.
Before I learned how to make that kind of EC, I used to average 100,000 per week.
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.
I make 100-200K per toon per day just selling event stuff. Just remember if you get a purple Mk XII ANYTHING - check what peeps buy it for on the exchange and sell it.
I kind of wish peeps would stop recommending key selling. Its tedious and everyone is on to it. In the end - you make more profit buying photon torps mk I to VI from vendors on DS9 and then reselling them on the exchange for lazy dupes needing them for fleet projects. I made 5 mil doing this but I wont lie - it was tedeous as well and havent done it in a while because it gets boring.
Hahaha, do you find kerrat any good for getting purples?
No, I don't touch Kerrat -- too much cross-sniping and RNG to obtain high volume purples consistently. The other PVE ranked maps are more reliable sources since getting 1st place purples can be done with minimal effort. You can even solo these maps via private queue to insure 1st place, though your farming speed and drop quality will suffer.
What items move for that much though and get underpriced by that much that often? I mean lockbox ships, traits, SupOp boffs, couple particular doffs, but its a pretty small pool. Do you just sit there, reloading the exchange over and over again, waiting for someone to make a mistake on pricing and picking it up in that split-second opening, or is there just enough stuff simply sitting there every single day?
The problem is, the Exchange usually isn't big enough for an unlimited number of people to be playing the same items. Too much competition will close up any arbitrage opportunities - capitalism does work. Which is why you shouldn't expect to get a detailed guide of precisely what items work for this - if you did, they'd stop working.
Another thing to remember with Exchange play is the adage "the first million is the hardest". If you're making 50% profit on 50k EC items, you're only making 25k EC per trade. If you make 25% profit on a 100 million EC item, you're making 25m EC per trade... and you're likely making fewer trades, keeping less inventory slots busy, etc. The more you have, the easier it is to make even more, and the less mental overhead and clicking you have to execute. For another thing, you are no longer scared of TRIBBLE up and losing 20-50m on a bad trade when you've got 100s of millions worth of stuff in the pipeline. Well, you should be a little concerned, but suffice it to say, you can eat losses that would make a less game wealthy player throw their keyboard in frustration.
I normally only spend 4 minutes or so a day in the Exchange, and rarely consecutively. I just pop in whenever I'm in a hub to check the few things I'm thinking about at the moment (the things in question change depending on customer behavior), looking for mispricing or someone vomiting up supply onto the market.
You can make money on all sorts of things. I've made tens of millions trading lockboxes. Not keys. Not box contents. The actual, unopened lockboxes.
Also, as another poster said, New Lockbox Day is your time to shine as an Exchange player. Because New Lockbox Day creates forced sellers.
I must admit this is part of why I'm annoyed that the latest Doff Pack Promotion doesn't force the actual Doff Pack to be opened. Won't someone think of the Ferengi?? :P
The problem is, the Exchange usually isn't big enough for an unlimited number of people to be playing the same items. Too much competition will close up any arbitrage opportunities - capitalism does work. Which is why you shouldn't expect to get a detailed guide of precisely what items work for this - if you did, they'd stop working.
And yet there is enough for people to sit around rubbing other people's faces in it. "I make in 20 minutes what takes other people a month, but I'm not gonna tell neener neener." Its like a little kid playing the 'I know a seeeeecret' game. If people aren't going to be helpful then why speak at all? A message board is for sharing of the information, not insulting people.
And yet there is enough for people to sit around rubbing other people's faces in it. "I make in 20 minutes what takes other people a month, but I'm not gonna tell neener neener." Its like a little kid playing the 'I know a seeeeecret' game. If people aren't going to be helpful then why speak at all? A message board is for sharing of the information, not insulting people.
I'm sure you feel the same way about Kentucky Fried Chicken refusing to publically release the Colonal's list of 11 herbs and spices, as well.
I play the exchange as well. I spend Tens of millions buying certain items and just holding them. I watch for certain patterns and when I see that certain items are below their normal price I buy them up in bulk and store them. I also buy and flip high priced items as well.
Watch the trends, buy in bulk and be patient. Also invest in high priced items. Be careful though you can easily lose tens of millions as well. I lost a small fortune on Cell Ships.
Generally I net anywhere from 3-15 Million a day with zero grind. Normally this is just selling off matured investments and flipping high priced items.
As for an exact list of items and what exactly to do, it's not going to happen.
You can easily lose tens of millions as well. I lost a small fortune on Cell Ships.
I think my biggest bust was investing in those ultra-rare doffs from the first doff pack, that fetches 120m+ EC a piece.
... and then a month later the Very Rare Dominion Duty Officer lockbox thing came out, saturating the market with Dominion clones of the 120m+ EC ultra-rare doffs for a minor fraction of what they were selling for.
It took me 4 or 5 months to recover from that. It's why I no longer make big, high-risk gambles and all of my liquid EC is funneled into guaranteed high-price merchandise that will appreciate in value. (like bugships, Veteran bridge officers, Galors, etc.)
Part of the market strategy isn't just what you think the trends are with other players, but what Cryptic will do as well.
The Cell Ships are a good example, since we've been waiting for the Romulan Survivor Doff pack to be retired since LoR released.
I find many peeps selling stuff on the exchange for 50% or less of its worth, or even just Disgarding items. People forget that you can get over 50% of the worth if you sell your items back to a vendor. I was suprised how much more EC I was getting over the usual 'Disgard' method I used to use.
And yet there is enough for people to sit around rubbing other people's faces in it. "I make in 20 minutes what takes other people a month, but I'm not gonna tell neener neener." Its like a little kid playing the 'I know a seeeeecret' game. If people aren't going to be helpful then why speak at all? A message board is for sharing of the information, not insulting people.
You misunderstand my point. It's the same thing as someone posting a very high DPS parse without sharing any more details about his build than his ship type. Once you know it's possible you should be able to reproduce what he's doing from publicly available data. (DPS parse is admittedly not a perfect example, since there is no limit to the supply of what you use to achieve it.)
The only things I've needed are the PR posts about event releases, the Exchange search, the forums (information about what people are using and why), and the willingness to construct a plan around the data thus gained. You have access to all of that too.
"Only four minutes a day" admittedly does not take into account the initial investment of time and mental effort to identify patterns in things, only the ongoing maintenance effort. But the only real secret here is that it can be done. And we're sharing that freely!
Watch the trends, buy in bulk and be patient. Also invest in high priced items. Be careful though you can easily lose tens of millions as well. I lost a small fortune on Cell Ships.
Yeah, I was trading a price discrepancy in some Lobi-purchasable items... and along comes a promotion that gives bonus Lobi. :rolleyes: The discrepancy was large enough that I would only take a small loss if I were to sell immediately, but I will probably just sit on the items and wait for the trade to come to me. I might even buy more.
And yet there is enough for people to sit around rubbing other people's faces in it. "I make in 20 minutes what takes other people a month, but I'm not gonna tell neener neener." Its like a little kid playing the 'I know a seeeeecret' game. If people aren't going to be helpful then why speak at all? A message board is for sharing of the information, not insulting people.
I'll give you one example:
During Zen Promotions: BUY KEYS
A Week Later: SELL KEYS
This will always yield profit as lots of zen = cheaper keys. Yes, you'd have to INVEST for a period of time, but it's easy profit. Last zen promo keys were 1.85M.... last night I could sell them for 2.2M. 400k/key. If you did a 10 packs worth that's 4M. And keys will always sell.
This is an easy example and there are 100s if not 1000s of items just like keys....
Last night someone posted keys for 1.9M and I resold IMMEDIATELY for 2.1M all because they were undercutting. That was an easy 2M profit for me as they sold a 10 pack worth.
People who can't do this suffer from one of two issues: a) They cannot afford to put in the time or materials required to start it or b) They are just lazy and want instant gratification.
There is no secret. Just hard work and rewarded effort.
Watch the trends, buy in bulk and be patient. Also invest in high priced items. Be careful though you can easily lose tens of millions as well. I lost a small fortune on Cell Ships.
This is important in the short run. However, like all "limited" release ships (which the cell ship is suppose to be), this loss of fortune will recover with time. So long as Cryptic does discontinue the RDP w/ Cell Ship eventually there will be a shortage of available ships and the price will recover. Short term though, the RDP promotion certainly killed the Cell Ship price (90M -> 60M). I suspect that like the Freighter and D'kora, the ship will recover to actually yield a higher number (150M avg).
Only time will tell. Best wishes to your ferengi side....
I shake my fist at the capitalist TRIBBLE that bought all the tech doffs for 10 mil and listed them all back up for 15-25.
You can get all the tech doffs you need for "free" by doing DOffing Colonization chain in the B'Tran cluster. There is 0 reason to buy them unless you don't want to do the DOffing work.
I do not understand reginamala78
is he really angry because iconians doesn´t tell him his secret in detail ?
he told us more than enough, in my optionion.
Sorry dude, but --> that THIS is how the real world works.
people don´t make money --> money is used to make even more money
Did you saw the Movie "Wolf of Wallstreet"
if guys like "Jorden Bellfort" would have run around and tell everybody it wouldn´t had worked
Go to a Exchange Terminal and open your eyes.
You will notice so many things
- A Group of people already took control over the exchange very long ago
- they can predict what the people want, and they have to guts to wait
- they keep the cheap items off the grid
- many player don´t have patients for the exchange, just put the item in without checking
- some people make mistakes --> accidentally selling items totaly underpriced
(example: selling 10 master keys for 150.000 EC - that was a very very dark day for me ...)
- some Random drops are PURE Gold, but we don´t realize it
- i know i don´t get the most of my exchange sells
("current exchange price" minus "1 EC" - or - sell it at a 50% vendor)
i don´t have the guts to risk my hard earned EC
one day i want to have all three Voth ships
By the way:
there is a BIG unclaimed marked for low level Tier items [Mark II / Mark VI / Mark VIII ]
unbelievable prices, but almost impossible to grind ....
Question to iconians
Iis it possible to attract interest by scratching together all i have and you dripple it for me
for FREE *smile face" ?
I've heard that's very random and unreliable and has large start up costs in doffs so you can land a crit. Doesn't sound free.
What, the B'Tran Cluster support? If you Doff at all you should be able to manage a fairly high crit% in short order. If you want to launch right into it now, this very minute, with a high crit%, starting from an empty Doff roster, yeah, break out the cash. But I've never bought a Doff for anything other than breakdown purposes or Fleet Project contribution, and I can get between 20-32% crit chance on Support missions.
Just use bit.ly/DOFFS so you never waste time going there until you know it's up, and keep rolling the dice. Also hit the Support missions in Delta Volanis (if a Fed) or D'Kel (if KDF). The Doffs you get from crits there are ideal for Support missions (the D'Kel Doff is also useful for Marauding, so she's not going to sit around wasting roster space).
It's the same as anything. If you have to have it now, you will pay for it. If you can exercise patience, you can get the same thing for substantially less.
I've heard that's very random and unreliable and has large start up costs in doffs so you can land a crit. Doesn't sound free.
Nah, it's not that prohibitive. The trick, and I had to learn this from the forums and was shocked I had never noticed it, is to not use ANY Doffs that give you a success chance. Just Doffs that add to the crit chance. The Doff system is weird sometimes.
I'd say the most costly DOFF in the cruiser world these days is still Marion. But Cruiser commands make it ok to not have to have Marion in your setup even if you still run some DEM.
I make anywhere from 20m to 70m EC every day, that's net profit. Some days are better than others.
Fancy chucking me a few 10's of millions ingame?
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though. JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
I would say that I make around 500k per day sometimes a little more. However, I am capped at 10 million ECs. That is basically from selling dropped loot. For a period of about 4 weeks I made some pretty good money on the exchange because people are willing to pay a premium for certain items. At that time I probably had 16 - 20 items listed. However, now it is a different story. At most I might have 7 items listed. The price premium is gone. It seems that the Exchange has been flooded which drives down prices.
I tend not to follow STO's exchange very much though. I prefer to spend my time analyzing the NYSE or NASDAQ than an in-game exchange. Most of the time when I am on the exchange is when I am hunting for refugees to fulfill some mission requirements.
Due to the 10 mill EC cap I have bought master keys to bring down my balance. I don't do it as an investment though. I do it simply because keys tend to hold their values. If I need EC or I decide to pay the 500 Zen to increase the EC cap to 1 billion, then I will slowly put my keys back on the market. If I make a profit, then great, but the goal is just to get back the principal / the amount of EC I paid for the keys which ranges between 1.9 million and 1.95 million.
I generally earn more than 500k on those days I decide to do "Tour the Galaxy" mission. I think I earn 300k - 350k doing that mission so not too bad for 15 minutes of play. However, if I get a Borg Red Alert, then I abort and fight the Borg.
Comments
If I kick it up a notch, blow up cubes and repair blocks while waiting for the Ker'rat map to re-load or rarely jump into a foundry farming mission if I'm close to affording something I want for example, I think hitting 1 - 1.5 Mil is easy enough.
Unless of course the loot fairly blesses me with a decent drop to chuck onto the exchange.
-Spells
| Dues Ex Mechina |
Fleet Leader
Wouldn't that be Tetralithium? Di, Tri, Tetra, Penta,..
Correct
/char
sig
http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/5451/om71.jpg
It is a peculiar phenomenon that we can imagine events that defy the laws of the universe.
I don't know how to farm EC other than loot-o-matic and the nerfed Tour so I don't know how people are making millions upon millions.
The mirror event is giving me a decent income though. I won't have enough to buy a plasmonic leech but it's decent EC.
From time to time, i just buy a lock box key and i sell it on the exchange for 1,8-2 million (for those who say they cant gather more than 200k.. this is a really easy and the fastest method... ). I could even buy 2 lock box keys every day and sell em, granting me about 3,5 - 4 million ec every day. But there is no need of that. And more sources that i cant remember. EC is something that i dont pay too much atention, it is a resource that comes by itself..
But the problem is, it doesnt matter how much you gather, since you will need to waste high ammounts of EC in the rep projects and so on. Its mandatory to gather about 300-400k ec every day at least, to have a really back up when you need to drop all that in the reputation projects.
Before I learned how to make that kind of EC, I used to average 100,000 per week.
I kind of wish peeps would stop recommending key selling. Its tedious and everyone is on to it. In the end - you make more profit buying photon torps mk I to VI from vendors on DS9 and then reselling them on the exchange for lazy dupes needing them for fleet projects. I made 5 mil doing this but I wont lie - it was tedeous as well and havent done it in a while because it gets boring.
No, I don't touch Kerrat -- too much cross-sniping and RNG to obtain high volume purples consistently. The other PVE ranked maps are more reliable sources since getting 1st place purples can be done with minimal effort. You can even solo these maps via private queue to insure 1st place, though your farming speed and drop quality will suffer.
The problem is, the Exchange usually isn't big enough for an unlimited number of people to be playing the same items. Too much competition will close up any arbitrage opportunities - capitalism does work. Which is why you shouldn't expect to get a detailed guide of precisely what items work for this - if you did, they'd stop working.
Another thing to remember with Exchange play is the adage "the first million is the hardest". If you're making 50% profit on 50k EC items, you're only making 25k EC per trade. If you make 25% profit on a 100 million EC item, you're making 25m EC per trade... and you're likely making fewer trades, keeping less inventory slots busy, etc. The more you have, the easier it is to make even more, and the less mental overhead and clicking you have to execute. For another thing, you are no longer scared of TRIBBLE up and losing 20-50m on a bad trade when you've got 100s of millions worth of stuff in the pipeline. Well, you should be a little concerned, but suffice it to say, you can eat losses that would make a less game wealthy player throw their keyboard in frustration.
I normally only spend 4 minutes or so a day in the Exchange, and rarely consecutively. I just pop in whenever I'm in a hub to check the few things I'm thinking about at the moment (the things in question change depending on customer behavior), looking for mispricing or someone vomiting up supply onto the market.
You can make money on all sorts of things. I've made tens of millions trading lockboxes. Not keys. Not box contents. The actual, unopened lockboxes.
Also, as another poster said, New Lockbox Day is your time to shine as an Exchange player. Because New Lockbox Day creates forced sellers.
I must admit this is part of why I'm annoyed that the latest Doff Pack Promotion doesn't force the actual Doff Pack to be opened. Won't someone think of the Ferengi?? :P
And yet there is enough for people to sit around rubbing other people's faces in it. "I make in 20 minutes what takes other people a month, but I'm not gonna tell neener neener." Its like a little kid playing the 'I know a seeeeecret' game. If people aren't going to be helpful then why speak at all? A message board is for sharing of the information, not insulting people.
I'm sure you feel the same way about Kentucky Fried Chicken refusing to publically release the Colonal's list of 11 herbs and spices, as well.
Watch the trends, buy in bulk and be patient. Also invest in high priced items. Be careful though you can easily lose tens of millions as well. I lost a small fortune on Cell Ships.
Generally I net anywhere from 3-15 Million a day with zero grind. Normally this is just selling off matured investments and flipping high priced items.
As for an exact list of items and what exactly to do, it's not going to happen.
I think my biggest bust was investing in those ultra-rare doffs from the first doff pack, that fetches 120m+ EC a piece.
... and then a month later the Very Rare Dominion Duty Officer lockbox thing came out, saturating the market with Dominion clones of the 120m+ EC ultra-rare doffs for a minor fraction of what they were selling for.
It took me 4 or 5 months to recover from that. It's why I no longer make big, high-risk gambles and all of my liquid EC is funneled into guaranteed high-price merchandise that will appreciate in value. (like bugships, Veteran bridge officers, Galors, etc.)
Part of the market strategy isn't just what you think the trends are with other players, but what Cryptic will do as well.
The Cell Ships are a good example, since we've been waiting for the Romulan Survivor Doff pack to be retired since LoR released.
You misunderstand my point. It's the same thing as someone posting a very high DPS parse without sharing any more details about his build than his ship type. Once you know it's possible you should be able to reproduce what he's doing from publicly available data. (DPS parse is admittedly not a perfect example, since there is no limit to the supply of what you use to achieve it.)
The only things I've needed are the PR posts about event releases, the Exchange search, the forums (information about what people are using and why), and the willingness to construct a plan around the data thus gained. You have access to all of that too.
"Only four minutes a day" admittedly does not take into account the initial investment of time and mental effort to identify patterns in things, only the ongoing maintenance effort. But the only real secret here is that it can be done. And we're sharing that freely!
Yeah, I was trading a price discrepancy in some Lobi-purchasable items... and along comes a promotion that gives bonus Lobi. :rolleyes: The discrepancy was large enough that I would only take a small loss if I were to sell immediately, but I will probably just sit on the items and wait for the trade to come to me. I might even buy more.
I'll give you one example:
During Zen Promotions: BUY KEYS
A Week Later: SELL KEYS
This will always yield profit as lots of zen = cheaper keys. Yes, you'd have to INVEST for a period of time, but it's easy profit. Last zen promo keys were 1.85M.... last night I could sell them for 2.2M. 400k/key. If you did a 10 packs worth that's 4M. And keys will always sell.
This is an easy example and there are 100s if not 1000s of items just like keys....
Last night someone posted keys for 1.9M and I resold IMMEDIATELY for 2.1M all because they were undercutting. That was an easy 2M profit for me as they sold a 10 pack worth.
People who can't do this suffer from one of two issues: a) They cannot afford to put in the time or materials required to start it or b) They are just lazy and want instant gratification.
There is no secret. Just hard work and rewarded effort.
This is important in the short run. However, like all "limited" release ships (which the cell ship is suppose to be), this loss of fortune will recover with time. So long as Cryptic does discontinue the RDP w/ Cell Ship eventually there will be a shortage of available ships and the price will recover. Short term though, the RDP promotion certainly killed the Cell Ship price (90M -> 60M). I suspect that like the Freighter and D'kora, the ship will recover to actually yield a higher number (150M avg).
Only time will tell. Best wishes to your ferengi side....
You can get all the tech doffs you need for "free" by doing DOffing Colonization chain in the B'Tran cluster. There is 0 reason to buy them unless you don't want to do the DOffing work.
is he really angry because iconians doesn´t tell him his secret in detail ?
he told us more than enough, in my optionion.
Sorry dude, but --> that THIS is how the real world works.
people don´t make money --> money is used to make even more money
Did you saw the Movie "Wolf of Wallstreet"
if guys like "Jorden Bellfort" would have run around and tell everybody it wouldn´t had worked
Go to a Exchange Terminal and open your eyes.
You will notice so many things
- A Group of people already took control over the exchange very long ago
- they can predict what the people want, and they have to guts to wait
- they keep the cheap items off the grid
- many player don´t have patients for the exchange, just put the item in without checking
- some people make mistakes --> accidentally selling items totaly underpriced
(example: selling 10 master keys for 150.000 EC - that was a very very dark day for me ...)
- some Random drops are PURE Gold, but we don´t realize it
- i know i don´t get the most of my exchange sells
("current exchange price" minus "1 EC" - or - sell it at a 50% vendor)
i don´t have the guts to risk my hard earned EC
one day i want to have all three Voth ships
By the way:
there is a BIG unclaimed marked for low level Tier items [Mark II / Mark VI / Mark VIII ]
unbelievable prices, but almost impossible to grind ....
Question to iconians
Iis it possible to attract interest by scratching together all i have and you dripple it for me
for FREE *smile face" ?
What, the B'Tran Cluster support?
Just use bit.ly/DOFFS so you never waste time going there until you know it's up, and keep rolling the dice. Also hit the Support missions in Delta Volanis (if a Fed) or D'Kel (if KDF). The Doffs you get from crits there are ideal for Support missions (the D'Kel Doff is also useful for Marauding, so she's not going to sit around wasting roster space).
It's the same as anything. If you have to have it now, you will pay for it. If you can exercise patience, you can get the same thing for substantially less.
Nah, it's not that prohibitive. The trick, and I had to learn this from the forums and was shocked I had never noticed it, is to not use ANY Doffs that give you a success chance. Just Doffs that add to the crit chance. The Doff system is weird sometimes.
Assignment: Support Colonization Efforts <Cluster Name> --> repeatable
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Assignment:_Support_Colonization_Efforts
5 Doffs --> Critical Chances over 30%
Fancy chucking me a few 10's of millions ingame?
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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I tend not to follow STO's exchange very much though. I prefer to spend my time analyzing the NYSE or NASDAQ than an in-game exchange. Most of the time when I am on the exchange is when I am hunting for refugees to fulfill some mission requirements.
Due to the 10 mill EC cap I have bought master keys to bring down my balance. I don't do it as an investment though. I do it simply because keys tend to hold their values. If I need EC or I decide to pay the 500 Zen to increase the EC cap to 1 billion, then I will slowly put my keys back on the market. If I make a profit, then great, but the goal is just to get back the principal / the amount of EC I paid for the keys which ranges between 1.9 million and 1.95 million.
I generally earn more than 500k on those days I decide to do "Tour the Galaxy" mission. I think I earn 300k - 350k doing that mission so not too bad for 15 minutes of play. However, if I get a Borg Red Alert, then I abort and fight the Borg.