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lock boxes

commanderefficommandereffi Member Posts: 33 Arc User
edited August 2014 in The Academy
Havent played in awhile and started receiving Xindi and other races lockboxes...What are they used for and how do I open them up? Cheers


Edit:

I looked up master keys and they are 125 Zen each.

Where can I get a Master Key?
A: Master Keys are for sale in the C-Store. You can purchase them for 125 Zen each, or buy a ten pack of keys for 1,125 Zen.

But looking up ZEN to purchase, it doesnt tell me how much money=how much ZEN you get...
Post edited by commandereffi on

Comments

  • jarodroto123jarodroto123 Member Posts: 1,337 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    commandereffi wrote: »
    Havent played in awhile and started receiving Xindi and other races lockboxes...What are they used for and how do I open them up? Cheers

    random rewards boxes with ~.044% chance of a epic alien ship and tons of other prizes
    to open a box purchase a master key for 125 zen or about 2.6mil ec on the exchange, 1 per box
  • commanderefficommandereffi Member Posts: 33 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    Thanks for the help. I found out on the C store in game what the exchange rate is. 50 bux for 5000 zen plus a bonus of 300. Time to start saving up.
  • malkarrismalkarris Member Posts: 797 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    If you really want to play the lockbox game, you can buy keys off the exchange for EC, they are usually around 2.8 million ec per key.

    Or, most of the stuff in lock boxes are also found on the exchange, for various amounts of EC. Usually most of it is only a couple million EC, only the grand prize ships are more, they can go from anything from 75 million to 400 million depending.

    Or, you can earn dilithium in game and use the exchange to trade it for zen, and then use zen to get the keys. Right now, the trade rate is a bit high, 170 dilithium per zen, usually its around 157 or so, so you might want to wait on this and see.
    Joined September 2011
    Nouveau riche LTS member
  • jaguarskxjaguarskx Member Posts: 5,945 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    The only way to open a lockbox is by using a master key. Be aware that valuable prizes like ships have extremely low drop rates; 0.5% or even less than that.

    There are basically 3 ways to obtain keys:

    1. Use real money to purchase Zen. I recommend you wait for "bonus Zen" sales if you can. It might occur once every 3 months where you get an extra 15% Zen when you make a purchase. I only purchase Zen with cash when there is such a sale. In US currency, $0.01 = 1 Zen so $20 = 2,000 Zen. You get 2,300 Zen when there is a 15% bonus. This bonus does not get pre-announced. It happens when it happens.

    2. Purchase master key with EC from the Exchange. Prices have actual fallen a bit. Master keys can now be purchased for around 2.6 million ECs vs. 2.8 million ECs not very long ago.

    3. Use dilithium crystals (refined dilithium ore) to exchange for Zen, to then buy master keys from the C-Store.

    As of yesterday, I believe the exchange rate between refined dilithium and Zen is about 169 dil for 1 Zen.
  • policestate76policestate76 Member Posts: 1,424 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    This is my advise. Dont you EVER play the lockbox game trying to get a ship. Because the rate drop is ridiculous low. The best you can do (as i guess a lot of people) is just having a few alts and trade dilithium for zen. If you do that, every 3 characters you will have enough zen to buy a master key. Of course, im talking about opening lockboxes for something else, not for a ship. The only way to get a lobi ship opening lockboxes is to waste A LOT of zen in master keys, something that of course, i will not recommend you because it will not be worthy the ammount of money you will waste to gathering any ship.
  • ovinspaceovinspace Member Posts: 310
    edited August 2014
    If you want to throw money at it, you can buy cstore stuff like keys or R&D modules, sell them and then buy the ship on the exchange, to be honest no ship is so uniquely good in terms of either fun or effectiveness that it really justifies the expense. For example is this:

    http://sto.gamepedia.com/Jem%27Hadar_Attack_Ship seriously these can go for 500m

    five times as good to play as

    http://sto.gamepedia.com/Xindi-Reptilian_Contortrix_Escort about 110m on exchange

    1000 zen can generate 30m ec. 10 mins play in the right section can give a reliable 500k.
    With all the numbers above subject to change.
  • policestate76policestate76 Member Posts: 1,424 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    I dont see the point to throwing money when you can save zen for free... unless he is out of patience of course. But this game requires a lot of patience for everything, so the best thing to do is to take things slowly, enjoy the game and just open 1 lockbox every day to try luck just using the traded dilithium in your assests. I honestly will never charge money to play this game, and i am really fine. Actually i have right now more than 9000 zen just saved trading dilithium for zen. I ONLY buy 1 key every day, and my zen keep growing.

    So unless you love gambling and you are rich, dont even think on waste real money on keys.. thats a really bad move.
  • pwstolemynamepwstolemyname Member Posts: 1,417 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    As others have stated NEVER open a lockbox for any reason other then to get lobi for the few bind on acquire items that you can obtain in the lobi store. This mostly amounts to a few space sets.

    Even opening boxes for this reason is often not an effective use of your resources as you will average 5 lobi per box. A full space set takes 600 lobi. That's 120 keys.

    The EC value of a key on the exchange changes a fair bit but if we take a rough figure of 2,500,000 per key that means a lobi space set is worth 300,000,000 EC which certainly is not representative of the value of its stats.

    A lobi store ship is even worse, they take 800 lobi so they have a value of 400,000,000 EC in keys, but by selling keys instead of opening boxes for lobi you could have bought one on the exchange for 1/4th of the keys; 100,000,000 EC

    If there is something you want from a lockbox don't open them to get it. The chance of getting anything that is worth more then the key is small, and even the lobi are not good value for money.

    If you save EC for keys don't, save it for the thing you want from the box instead, if you save and convert dill to zen for keys sell them for EC rather then opening the boxes, the same goes if you buy them with real world money.

    Lockboxes are a way to make people who are bad at math pay for us to keep playing STO, nothing more.
  • jaguarskxjaguarskx Member Posts: 5,945 Arc User
    edited August 2014
    pwstolemyname wrote: »
    Even opening boxes for this reason is often not an effective use of your resources as you will average 5 lobi per box. A full space set takes 600 lobi. That's 120 keys.

    Actually, it's an average of 4 Lobi crystals per lock box. I opened around 10 - 12 lock boxes for fun just to experience the novelty about it and I have always received 4 Lobi crystals. I recall reading a comment about someone who received 5 Lobi crystals. He stated he felt so rich that he took his girlfriend out to celebrate.

    The most valuable item I received from those lock boxes as a very rare Jem'hadar duty officer which was probably worth 1.5 million ECs on the Exchange at that time. All the other "prizes" from the other 9 - 11 lock boxes were not worth any more than 200k ECs on the Exchange; one was a low as 10k ECs.

    Open lock boxes for fun if you want, but don't expect anything of valuable.
  • kapla1755kapla1755 Member Posts: 1,249
    edited August 2014
    The very BEST advice I can offer new players and F2P only players is to purchase the EC cap raise [500zen] as soon as you can if you enjoy the game. Without it you CANNOT make purchases over 10mil EC which may seem like alot, but not when you start thinking about that fancy Lockbox ship on the exchange someone got lucky enough to win and post for sale usually no cheaper than 50mil for the exclusive freighters, the price only increases from there.

    Enjoy the Game, Good Hunting to all. :D


    .
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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