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Is there a way to 'buy', and 'stockpile' ZEN?

wdwormack214wdwormack214 Member Posts: 131 Arc User
I have a STO account, but I have been "out of action", as it were, for quite some time. I had brought my 'Federation', character's rank up to 'Admiral' I also selected a very impressive starship, but while most of what I did, was due to 'grinding' my way through the program, I didn't know, just what it takes, to spend the necessary REAL-WORLD-CASH-M-O-N-E-Y, to just BUY, the necessary essential items required to give my ship(s), the proper tools to survive, when it finds itself under attack by ships that are infinitely better equipped. That can 'feast', on my vessel.

Just how do I set up a STO account that will allow me to build up a 'treasury' of funds that will allow me to buy ZEN, and dilithium?

Please, forgive my 'cluelessness'. But I, need to improve my ship(s). And I'm hoping that you can show me a way to make this possible.

Thanking you, in advance, for your help(?).....

Respectfully......

Walter D. Wormack

(Aka, 'Machiste', Vice Admiral, USS Galactica)

Comments

  • arionisaarionisa Member Posts: 1,421 Arc User
    ...

    Just how do I set up a STO account that will allow me to build up a 'treasury' of funds that will allow me to buy ZEN, and dilithium?...

    Those are basically mutually exclusive. You use Zen to buy Dilithium. or you use Dilithium to buy Zen, there are no "funds" in STO that you can use to buy both Dilithium and Zen.

    Grind for Dilithium and use it to buy Zen, or spend real money on Zen and use it to buy dilithium.

    Of course, your reasoning is all wrong anyway. "the necessary essential items required to give my ship(s), the proper tools to survive," do not require Zen or Dilithium. The stuff you get for nothing more than completing missions is more than sufficient to the task, if you just plain can not survive using those, no amount of Zen or Dilithium is going to help. What is going to help is (I hate using the term but it really fits here) to Git gud.

    LTS and loving it.
    Ariotex.png
  • seaofsorrowsseaofsorrows Member Posts: 10,918 Arc User
    arionisa wrote: »
    there are no "funds" in STO that you can use to buy both Dilithium and Zen.

    Well, there is one.. cash. :smiley:

    Seriously though, the best way to get something from the C-Store without paying money is to do what you have been advised and stockpile Dilithum to trade for Zen. Dilithium is awarded for almost all content in STO so it's not very hard to get. You are however, limited to refining only 8k Dilithium per day per character, so if you want to do any serious farming, you will need to do this on multiple characters.

    As far as getting your ship competitive, if you tell us what ship you're flying, we could probably get you a pretty solid build using mostly gear that you can get free from mission rewards. Between Mission rewards and the Reputation system, you can build yourself a ship capable of doing anything you want without having to spend money. You just need to know what to get. There are quite a few people here that can help you with that.
    Insert witty signature line here.
  • postagepaidpostagepaid Member Posts: 2,899 Arc User
    The game has a cycle of sorts for when its good to buy zen for dil and vice versa.

    The key is the phoenix event which is when the exchange dips in favour of zen buying, you can stack up the exchange in advance of this and also have the option for selling zen in between. Downside is that it takes a fair bit of guesswork as to when the box event will go live and it does require patience.
  • gothicknight3gothicknight3 Member Posts: 4 Arc User
    You earn dilithium in game for free and use it to buy Zen.. and also to buy some of the good gear that you need to spend dilithium on. Also participate in events (like the summer event going on now.) That can give you free tier 6 ships and "end-game" gear. If you don't really care what ship your flying, this can help alot.. on the other hnad, if you're like me and you want your andorian to fly an andorian ship and still be competitive end-game, then you'll need to spend months earning dilithium to eventually turn into the 3,000 Zen you need for the ship you want. Since each Zen costs 265+ dilithium, you'll need to earn about 795,000 dilithium, but you can only process 8,000 dilithium per character per day, so it would take one character 99+days to earn that Zen.

    Of course, that's assuming that you're even able to earn 8,000 dilithium every single day and you don't skip any days refining. Someone mentioned that you earn dilithium doing just about everything, and you do, but the amount of dilithium you earn is usually rather pathetic. Many Doff missions offer 5 dilithium. Missions offer 192. daily reputation rewards offer 340 each, while hourly rewards are 140 per hour.. most (if not all) rep rewards allow you to turn in some item for 1,000 dilithium though, but remember, at some point you'll have to farm the marks necessary to turn in for rep rewards.

    The point that I'm trying to make is that it IS possible to play the game and get everything you want for free, and I suppose it's technically "easy", but you should understand that it will be time consuming. That's why, even if you have a particular ship you want, it's still probably a good idea to work on getting the free ships and gear just so you have something to use while you're waiting.
  • seaofsorrowsseaofsorrows Member Posts: 10,918 Arc User
    edited July 2018
    You earn dilithium in game for free and use it to buy Zen.. and also to buy some of the good gear that you need to spend dilithium on. Also participate in events (like the summer event going on now.) That can give you free tier 6 ships and "end-game" gear. If you don't really care what ship your flying, this can help alot.. on the other hnad, if you're like me and you want your andorian to fly an andorian ship and still be competitive end-game, then you'll need to spend months earning dilithium to eventually turn into the 3,000 Zen you need for the ship you want. Since each Zen costs 265+ dilithium, you'll need to earn about 795,000 dilithium, but you can only process 8,000 dilithium per character per day, so it would take one character 99+days to earn that Zen.

    Of course, that's assuming that you're even able to earn 8,000 dilithium every single day and you don't skip any days refining. Someone mentioned that you earn dilithium doing just about everything, and you do, but the amount of dilithium you earn is usually rather pathetic. Many Doff missions offer 5 dilithium. Missions offer 192. daily reputation rewards offer 340 each, while hourly rewards are 140 per hour.. most (if not all) rep rewards allow you to turn in some item for 1,000 dilithium though, but remember, at some point you'll have to farm the marks necessary to turn in for rep rewards.

    The point that I'm trying to make is that it IS possible to play the game and get everything you want for free, and I suppose it's technically "easy", but you should understand that it will be time consuming. That's why, even if you have a particular ship you want, it's still probably a good idea to work on getting the free ships and gear just so you have something to use while you're waiting.

    Most people earn their daily dilithium through Admiralty missions. You can get at or pretty close to 8k per day easily and mission 10 of the Klingon as well as the Ferengi Arc each award 30k. If you do admiralty twice a day you can run both chains pretty easily and stockpile enough Dilithium that you don't have to 'grind' for anything. Doing all my admiralty stuff on 7 characters takes about 45 minutes, I could do it faster if I was more careless with ship assignments. It's not bad at all. If you manage to get the daily mission to pop every day, you should get 60k per character every 10 days just from that alone.

    I just queue up Admiralty missions for my Dilithium and then just play the content I feel like playing. It really doesn't have to be that much work, it really is pretty easy.
    Insert witty signature line here.
  • gothicknight3gothicknight3 Member Posts: 4 Arc User
    Right. I realized late last night that I left out admiralty missions. Personally, I have about 9 admiralty ships (4 of which I bought for zen a long time ago) on each character. Before a person spends money on the game, they would only have a shuttle and.. what.. 4 ships? (although this is one reason you should get free ships when you can.) My main has 5 admiralty slots open, but realisticly I rarely use them all. I admit that I forget about admiralty alot, but even so I've been back in the game for about 17 days and I have yet to get to tier 10 admiralty. If I actually want to succede at admiralty missions, I need to send ships that have 12h to 18h maintenance, usually 3 ships per mission, meaning that I can only succede at about 6 missions per day. It's been recomended to just send shuttles on missions that I don't really care about which I've been trying to do lately. I really feel that I can't comment too much on admiralty because I haven't made it work yet.

    I also didn;t mention that, while you can earn dilithium doing just about anything, you also have to spend dilithium on just about everything, and no matter how you earn your dilithium, it's STILL going to take 99 days for one character to get enough dilithium to buy an end-game ship. Like I said, earning dilithium can be technically "easy", but it's going to take far more time and effort than most people are letting on. If you have 10 characters you could this down to 10 days.. but then of course you'd be trying to supply 10 characters instead of 1. (also I think having 10 characters requires you to buy a few extra character slots)
  • arionisaarionisa Member Posts: 1,421 Arc User
    Just a note about what gothic posted, you don't have to supply all of your toons with everything. You can easily start as many toons as you have slots for, play them only until lvl 10 (11?) and then do nothing but log into them and turn in/restart your doffing and R&D. You'll be surprised how relatively quickly they reach lvl 50+. From there, you can add in Admiralty. Granted, they won't have a lot of ships available for Admiralty but still, just a few minutes a day per toon is basically free Dilithium, maybe not in large quantities but for no more effort than it takes it's worth it.

    I have several lvl 60 toons that I haven't actually played other than doffing and admiralty since they hit lvl 10-15.

    One or two main toons that you actually play content with (and spend Zen on) and some alts that you do nothing but doffing and admiralty, and there are a lot of people that can provide info on what doff assignments to focus on to get the best Dil for your time, I'm not one of them.
    LTS and loving it.
    Ariotex.png
  • seaofsorrowsseaofsorrows Member Posts: 10,918 Arc User
    Right. I realized late last night that I left out admiralty missions. Personally, I have about 9 admiralty ships (4 of which I bought for zen a long time ago) on each character. Before a person spends money on the game, they would only have a shuttle and.. what.. 4 ships? (although this is one reason you should get free ships when you can.) My main has 5 admiralty slots open, but realisticly I rarely use them all. I admit that I forget about admiralty alot, but even so I've been back in the game for about 17 days and I have yet to get to tier 10 admiralty. If I actually want to succede at admiralty missions, I need to send ships that have 12h to 18h maintenance, usually 3 ships per mission, meaning that I can only succede at about 6 missions per day. It's been recomended to just send shuttles on missions that I don't really care about which I've been trying to do lately. I really feel that I can't comment too much on admiralty because I haven't made it work yet.

    I also didn;t mention that, while you can earn dilithium doing just about anything, you also have to spend dilithium on just about everything, and no matter how you earn your dilithium, it's STILL going to take 99 days for one character to get enough dilithium to buy an end-game ship. Like I said, earning dilithium can be technically "easy", but it's going to take far more time and effort than most people are letting on. If you have 10 characters you could this down to 10 days.. but then of course you'd be trying to supply 10 characters instead of 1. (also I think having 10 characters requires you to buy a few extra character slots)

    Admiralty is considerably harder if you don't have enough ships to make it profitable. For me, it's easy, but I already had a good number of c-store ships and I have been doing events for the ships for years, so I have all of those as well. It's a little more difficult for a new player to make their daily dilithium with admiralty alone, but you can still use to it get a good chunk of it.

    I only suggest using shuttles to skip missions if you're already level 10 and you're just trying to scroll through to get to the gold daily mission. Otherwise, it's best to try and do them for now because you will need the XP to level up your admiralty school. Over time as you acquire event ships and unlock a couple c-store ships, Admiralty will become more profitable. Admiralty is the only system in the game that really is a somewhat 'pay 2 win' scenario. It's not actually P2W, but you really do need a good stock of ships to make it worth while.
    Insert witty signature line here.
  • seaofsorrowsseaofsorrows Member Posts: 10,918 Arc User
    coldnapalm wrote: »
    I really wish they would make those sellable on the exchange. It would help newer players to the system and make it more enjoyable for them...and it would let people like me who basically never uses them clear out my ship roster of the almost thousand of those one use ships I have built up.

    Man, that would be nice!
    Insert witty signature line here.
  • dracounguisdracounguis Member Posts: 5,358 Arc User
    edited July 2018
    Dil to Zen:
    You can earn dilithium and then turn that to Zen. Each character you have can refine 8000 Dil a day. Let's say the Dil Exchange rate is 250 Dil per Zen; so you can make 32 Zen per day per toon. If you have 1 toon, you can buy a 3000 Zen ship every 94 days if you don't buy during a sale.

    Buying Zen
    Obviously this is what PWE wants you to do, so it's the easiest/fastest way.
    The most efficient thing to do is wait for a sale. You can get 25% more for the same price.
    Buy $200 worth. You get 3000 bonus Zen for a big purchase.
    $200 gets you 20000 Zen
    A Zen sale gets you an extra 25% -> 5000 Zen
    The bonus amount for $200 is 3000 Zen
    So you get 28000 Zen for $200. That's $80 of free Zen (40% extra).

    Then if you only buy stuff while its on sale in the C-store your real cost of said items is even less. A 25% off ship sale makes that $30 ship really cost you $16. And if you get 25% off a 3-ship bundle (which is technically 2/3 the cost of the 3 ships separately) each ship costs you ~$11. Patience waiting for sales is your friend. ;)

    Honestly, if getting Zen is your endgame, it is more efficient to go earn some cash and buy Zen than grinding out Dil. Spending 2 hrs mowing your neighbor's yard for $40 will get you Zen faster, for example. :D
  • misterlozmisterloz Member Posts: 133 Arc User
    > @wdwormack214 said:
    > I have a STO account, but I have been "out of action", as it were, for quite some time. I had brought my 'Federation', character's rank up to 'Admiral' I also selected a very impressive starship, but while most of what I did, was due to 'grinding' my way through the program, I didn't know, just what it takes, to spend the necessary REAL-WORLD-CASH-M-O-N-E-Y, to just BUY, the necessary essential items required to give my ship(s), the proper tools to survive, when it finds itself under attack by ships that are infinitely better equipped. That can 'feast', on my vessel.
    >
    > Just how do I set up a STO account that will allow me to build up a 'treasury' of funds that will allow me to buy ZEN, and dilithium?
    >
    > Please, forgive my 'cluelessness'. But I, need to improve my ship(s). And I'm hoping that you can show me a way to make this possible.
    >
    > Thanking you, in advance, for your help(?).....
    >
    > Respectfully......
    >
    > Walter D. Wormack
    >
    > (Aka, 'Machiste', Vice Admiral, USS Galactica)

    Dilithium is surprisingly easy to grind these days, and the only limitation you have is on the daily refine limit of 8000 per day.

    The easiest way to earn it is, the following:

    1) Admiralty. Individual missions reward a small amount, finishing the KDF and Ferengi dailies will net 30000 when you conplete 10/10
    2) Playing queues or missions.
    3) Converting elite marks (3 elite marks (eg germanium carapaces) transforms into 1000 dilithium)
    4) Converting Marks at the following rates: 50:500, 250:2500 and 500:5000. Running The Swarm advanced (minus daily bonus) gives roughly 105 marks if all objectives are achieved and so five runs a day will net you your 500 marks. Some queues reward more or less depending on which queues they are.
    5) Completing reputations. Can only be done once, but will net you a few hundred thousand in total (each one seems to vary slightly for its final payout).
    6) easiest of all is paying real world money. Heavy on the wallet but overall the path of least resistance

    All this requires patience of course and you won't be a millionaire overnight.


    But running multiple toons, converting daily, and you'll eventually net yourself a huge amount without realising.

    This game rewards commitment, but it's worth it.
  • dracounguisdracounguis Member Posts: 5,358 Arc User
    rojan1987 wrote: »
    or you could become a lifetime member you will be able to get 500 zen a month every month

    Yeah, but discounting the other perks you get in a LTS, it will take you 40-60 months to break even (depending if you hit a LTS sale).
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