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tier 6 ships/free to play
kronin
Member Posts: 325 Arc User
in The Academy
Hi all. I just got my first character up to level 50. Yay! I had done my homework, and I knew ahead of time that I wouldn't be unlocking a free ship at this tier. So, how do you get a tier 6 ship? Here's what I found. You can buy one with zen, get a fleet ship, buy one off the exchange, find one in a lock box (or similar promotion), get one with lobi crystals, or get one from an event. Did I miss anything?
Now, you're going to think I am Daemon Ebenezer, but let's look at the methods of getting tier 6 ships from a free to play perspective. You can't just buy one with zen, because it costs cash. Thus, it's not free. You can trade dil for zen, but this nets you about 25 zen per day, if you are getting maximum dil (8,000) per day, which I have yet to do. (Yes, I am a noob.) Fleet ships require modules which cost zen, again, zen = cash = not free. You can't buy one off the exchange, because a free player can only have up to 10 million EC, and no one is selling anything tier 6 for anything close to that. Finding one in a lock box is like winning the lottery. You have a 2% chance. Even then, the keys cost zen, thus cash and not free. Tier 6 lobi ships cost about 900 lobi. Lobi can be found in lock boxes (see previous statement), or from special events. Even then, those events give tiny amounts of lobi, and the events are rare. So, lobi ships are out for the free player. The most realistic way for a free player to get a free ship is to get one from an event. But the next one is about three months away. I just started playing this game while the latest event was under way. While you were all getting your free ships, I was figuring out which button to hit.
So, now that I've made myself look like a stingy, ungrateful complainer, (this is an awesome free game, and I'm glad I get to play it) how do I get a tier 6 ship for my tier 6 character? I can wait three months and get one from the next event, or I can farm dil with an underpowered ship. Any help here would be awesome. I would be disappointed if this game were free to play, pay to win. I know a free player shouldn't expect to be able to get the best ship, but something usable would be cool.
Now, you're going to think I am Daemon Ebenezer, but let's look at the methods of getting tier 6 ships from a free to play perspective. You can't just buy one with zen, because it costs cash. Thus, it's not free. You can trade dil for zen, but this nets you about 25 zen per day, if you are getting maximum dil (8,000) per day, which I have yet to do. (Yes, I am a noob.) Fleet ships require modules which cost zen, again, zen = cash = not free. You can't buy one off the exchange, because a free player can only have up to 10 million EC, and no one is selling anything tier 6 for anything close to that. Finding one in a lock box is like winning the lottery. You have a 2% chance. Even then, the keys cost zen, thus cash and not free. Tier 6 lobi ships cost about 900 lobi. Lobi can be found in lock boxes (see previous statement), or from special events. Even then, those events give tiny amounts of lobi, and the events are rare. So, lobi ships are out for the free player. The most realistic way for a free player to get a free ship is to get one from an event. But the next one is about three months away. I just started playing this game while the latest event was under way. While you were all getting your free ships, I was figuring out which button to hit.
So, now that I've made myself look like a stingy, ungrateful complainer, (this is an awesome free game, and I'm glad I get to play it) how do I get a tier 6 ship for my tier 6 character? I can wait three months and get one from the next event, or I can farm dil with an underpowered ship. Any help here would be awesome. I would be disappointed if this game were free to play, pay to win. I know a free player shouldn't expect to be able to get the best ship, but something usable would be cool.
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Otherwise, yes if you pay nothing to support the game then you will have to wait until the Summer event to get your first free T6 ship.
T-5U ships are more than capable of handling every piece of PvE content produced so far. Heck, I have many T6 ships, and some of my favorite toys are still T-5U.
Additionally, I would mention that while the Fleet Ship Modules are Zen items, they're reasonably achievable on the Exchange. So you could certainly buy FSMs on the Exchange and pick up a T6 Fleet ship if that's what you wanted. You're missing out on a Ship Trait, there, of course. But you get the Fleet level T6 ship at least.
Whatever path you choose, good luck and have fun, sir!
You can earn zen in game slowly, or energy credits (fairly rapidly). I earned a t6 balthim raider in a little over a month of farming.
You don't need a t6 but certain ones are significantly better than most t5U or t5 options.
I would offer the energy credits approch to get a lockbox ship is probably fastest. It might take a while to earn the 300 or so million needed, but its an obtainable goal. Ive earned a number of ships this way ovear the years.
And if you really want to pay in zero cash for keeping the game alive, it's OK for you to have to wait and grind a bit.
he's got the right approach here. Earn enough for the EC cap increase. That way as you earn dil and EC from Doff/admiralty and from regular play you have another avenue for getting a ship. Also, remember that you can turn dil into EC by buying keys with zen and selling them. EC to zen is a bit harder and slower (buying contraband and turning it in for dil).
As stayed by others, you don't need a t6 ship and there are plenty of t5 ships out there. some of them (lockbox from the exchange) get a free t5-u upgrade.
Also, do the rep projects. All the reps reward a chunk of dil for finishing and once done funnel the extra marks into the projects that convert for dil. The thing here, if you are farming for dil, is each mark type gives a daily bonus of 55 marks. This is a per rep mark thing. As well as elite marks (Borg neural procs, and such from advanced and elite content) can be turned in for dil. This alone can add thousands of dil per week.
Don't feel bad about being f2p. F2p guys are good for the game. Pay players want dil without time invested, F2p trade time for the very resource that is being paid for. It is a give and take type of system they have and it is reliant on both types of players. Hopefully this helps keep your f2p experience free and fun.
Regarding FSMs, they seem to be pretty expensive. At the time of this post, the least expensive one costs 13.5m ECs. You will need to purchase the EC Cap remover to accumulate more than 10m ECs per toon on your account.
This summer will also mark the 50th Anniversary of the Star Trek franchise, and it wouldn't be crazy to think that could also yield a ship of some type. If you have a T5 right now, that should be enough to last you until an event comes along that can get you a free ship.
If you want a T6 ship without paying money and without a hard core grind, your best course of action is simply patience.
You can also trawl the net for legitimate giveaways from other sites (Alienwarearena, Razer, MMORPG.com, mmo-play.com and many more such "magazine" sites have giveaways/free game keys). Doing this has earned me uniforms, IDIC tribbles, tabby cats, peregrine fighters, NX class T1 ships, XP boosts and much more besides.
In the end, T6 is nice but you can do every bit of content at Admiral and above with the the highest level of free ship you get so don't sweat it and just be patient for the summer event or random giveaway.
You can also join a fleet and hope one of them has a giveaway/event which rewards a better ship. My Fed fleet, for example, gives each new player a mirror universe ship for variety and the admiralty card.
Jo Cox 22.6.1974 - 16.6.2016
Getting some alts to allow you to refine more Dilithium is probably a decent way, provided you can easily earn that much Dilithium - that depends heavily on how much time you can spend on the game.
The other thing to do is: Wait for the Ship Events like Summer, Winter and Anniversary, or hope for some giveaways.
In the meantime you can pick up ships on the exchange that can be upgraded to T5U. Check the list of playable starships http://sto.gamepedia.com/Playable_starship. Don't be sniffy about them they can pack a hell of a whallop and it means you can save all that dilithium for upgrading your systems awaiting your T6.
You should have been awarded with an upgrade token already. I played with the APU Cruiser for a while and it was a hoot.
There are free t5u upgrades here and there in the give aways.
valdore is a low level rom ship. Vandal is a low level kdf ship. The first has a console that turns shooting into healing, keeping rom ships alive forever once they reach a certain dps rating, and the second has plasma leech, a megamillions value console fed side for free for all your alts on the kdf side
I think both are tier 2 or 3, the 1000 zen priced stuff. Neither is "necessary". Ive not run a valdore in years, and leech is going away between nerfs to it and plethora of power from other sources. You can manage without them, but they are nice. Depends on your ship and all .. but consoles are the most limited resource in space gear. You are down 1 already for flying a t5 ship. If your ship has 5 tac consoles, you already spent 7, maybe 8 of your 10 on damage (AP damage console, 5 tac consoles, 10% damage console). That leaves room for both of these, sure, but maybe you wanted something else in there like a crafted RCS? There just isnt as much room as you might like....
Note that a ROM kdf can punch up a cheezy high dps build and run the kdf daily "defense" missions. This + admiralty = 8k cap daily in just a few min of combat if you can do drive-by vapes of the trash.
Of course, some Dlithium sources dry up - for example, finishing reputations grants a large sum of Dilithium. But others are always there (all the usual Dilthium granting content). And others return occasionally (Events like Mirror Invasion, Crystaline Entity and now probably also The Breach).
STO is certainly a game that tries to provide maximum incentives to play the game regularly, and to keep a good eye on the website to not miss any special promotions.
The Plasmonic Leech is not getting a the nerf bat.
Yes, people did notice that in the Tribble Test Server (where Cryptic developers are testing the new skill system) the Leech did loose some of it's effectiveness. But you have to keep in mind that it is a "test server" where there could be problems that needs to be fixed when implementing, testing and updating game changes.
TRIBBLE MAINTENANCE AND RELEASE NOTES - March 2, 2016
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/1212699/tribble-maintenance-and-release-notes-march-2-2016/p1
Anyone want to give me a Temporal Heavy Dreadnought pack? I'll be your friend
The account bank can be used to transfer gear that is bound to an account. You cannot use the mail system to sent these items to yourself. It is set up that way to prevent you from "accidentally" giving your "used" gear to someone else.
For example, you have some Mk XII disruptor beam arrays and tactical consoles which you have been using for a while. You want to give to one of your alts because you want to try antiproton weapons and consoles. Without the account bank you cannot transfer that gear to your other toon.
Also, there is no need to worry about using up all your dilithium because Cryptic has made it very easy for you to get more dil. This is one of the reason why the exchange rate for dil to Zen is so high right now; 311:1. When I started playing STO back in Jan 2014, the exchange rate was 125:1 because dil was not as easy to get as it is now and there were a lot of fleets using dil to improve their starbases through projects. Well... a lot of fleets have finished the available projects by now so there is not a huge demand of dil anymore. More dil sitting around doing nothing means the exchange rate goes up because more people have more dil laying around doing nothing. Well... there is the upgrade system which does use dil, unless you are using the Omega Upgrade Kits.
The EC Cap Unlock from the C-Store applies to the entire account not just a single character. While subscribing does remove the EC Cap restriction, that only applies as long as the subscription is active. Once the subscription ends the EC Cap goes back into effect. So... I recommend using the 500 Zen stipend players get per month of subbing to purchase the EC Cap Unlock once the subscription has ended.
There are basically two scenarios when it comes to ending a subscription without having purchased the EC Cap Remover:
#1 - Characters with less than 10m EC will not be able to have more than a 10m EC balance. Any EC earned above that is lost.
#2 - Characters with more than 10m EC will keep whatever balance they have whether that is 11m EC or 999m EC. The limitation is that those characters will no longer be able to earn anymore EC until the balance falls below 10m EC.
You keep the Account Bank when the subscription ends.
Regarding inventory slots; every time you are promoted until you get to level 50, each character will get 6 additional personal inventory slot and 12 additional bank slots. This is retroactive; meaning if you have captains that is already level 50 or higher, those captains will automatically get the additional inventory slots.
While you are subscribing, every time a captain earns a promotion up to level 50, that toon will receive a Captain Respec token. These tokens are not retroactive; meaning if you have captains that are already level 50 or higher, they will not receive a token.
As for any who think I don't want to support the game, you are mistaken. In the first month I've been here, I've encouraged two former players to start playing again, and introduced one new player. (And at least one of them has potential to spend serious money here.) Arc seems to want free players, so here I am. According to Arc, I am helping just by playing. Now, I never said I wouldn't spend money on this game. The more this game proves itself to me, the more likely I am to spend money. It was advertised as free to play, so free to play it should be. So far, it is passing that test. In a free to play game, spending money should be an enhancement, not a requirement. The t5u garbage scow shows that the game, even end game, can be played for free. But you better believe at some point I will be enhancing my game beyond the garbage scow.
Are you a lifetime subscriber? if so Goto ship yard - claim your free destroyer (Both T5 and T6).
If not, why are you expecting a T6 ship for free?
Except they have given away a half dozen t6s for free... with more on the way for the summer event and who knows what else this year. Its a reasonable question to ask because free ships is a thing in this game.
Your biggest issue right now is simply the time of year. The yearly events do give away quality T6 ships that free players can use with a great deal of success at end game. My recommendation at this point is that you save all your Dilithium, and wait for the next event (Probably the summer event.) During that time, you'll have an incredibly easy little task to do for 5-10 min a day and after you do it a few times you'll get a very nice ship totally free. Just understand that being 'totally free' means you're going to have to wait for things. It means you're going to have to take time to get the things you want, but you will eventually get them. The way the free model works is that you can get what you want/need over time, but money simply allows you to get it faster.
If you're willing to wait you actually can get anything in STO without paying anything. If however, you're able to pay a little bit and you enjoy the game and wish to support it, then buying a little zen really speeds things up. Also remember, you can buy some Zen with money and some with dilithium, it doesn't have to be all money. The last time I bought a T6 ship, I used 2k Zen worth of Dilithium and bought 1k with actual money so the ship cost me $10 instead of $30. Or you can wait for summer and pay $0, choice is yours.