Hello, Joe and STOers! In the previous post, I gave you a look at the visuals, default equipment, and combat examples of the ships in Mudd’s Choice Pack of Dread – Through the Ages.
I hope you had fun, because today is the relatively boring part: Financial analysis!
*hears more groans than cheers in the crowd*
Very few people like math, but if you’re going to make wise decisions, it’s gotta be done!
A few notes before we start:
- Prices will fluctuate. That’s how the Free Market System essentially works: An item is only worth as much as people are willing to pay for it, and competition means prices will lower until there’s an equilibrium between the amount of an item available and the demand for it. Prices here, for example, were taken March 22nd, a few hours after the announcement of this Choice Pack/MEGA Bundle. Prices may rise as more value is seen in individual ships/items, or prices may fall due to lack of value as new ships/items release. But as of 3/22/2023, these will be the prices I use.
- There’s no substitute for subjective value. I can give you the numbers, but only you can determine if that’s worth your time and money. Perhaps you had an Enterprise-J reward box ages ago and sold it, always regretting it because buying a single ship for a single character now is too expensive. Even though I can say, “It’s only 1 ship, so it’s probably not worth it,” you may have a sentimental value that far exceeds the financial value of the Bundle. Conversely, I could say every ship is worth the asking price, but if you had no desire for any of them to begin with, or if you only use 1 character in a serious manner, a single copy of the ship for your 1 character may be all you need, and you may be able to grind out the resources for that.
- Never get into any kind of debt or trouble for anything in this game. It’s not worth a spouse/significant other getting upset with you spending so much on a game, and it’s not worth putting more on a credit card on which you already owe near the credit limit. As long as the game’s running, more opportunities to buy this will come up, and if not, your food, rent, water, etc., are way more valuable.
The Zen-to-EC prices I used as bases for ship valuations were:
- Master Keys: 12,000,000 EC each (the lowest price at the time was 12,121,212 EC)
- Cheapest Promo Packs – Research & Development: 22,500,000 EC each (lowest was 22,790,000 EC)
- Delta Alliance Promo Packs*: 28,500,000 EC each (lowest was 28,900,000 EC)
- * Delta Alliance Duty Officer Packs have desirable drops like Critical Chance and Critical Severity DOFFs and Starship Traits like Attack Pattern – Delta Prime and Scramble Fighters. This makes them the more favored Promo-style box, since likely in large numbers a player could recoup a chunk of their investment in DOFFs and Traits.
Having said all that, let’s get into it!
THE SHIPS
We’ll do these in blocks: 1 for the 23rd century ships, 1 for the 26th century ships, and 1 for the Merian on its own.
GROUP 1: 23rd Century Dreadnoughts ([Atlas] Prototype Dreadnought/D9 Dreadnought Battlecruiser/Thrai Dreadnought Warbird)
For the “DPRM block,” we’re looking at between 9,310 – 14,125 Zen each, depending on how you value Keys and R&D/Delta Alliance Promo Packs.
Cash-wise, this is $100 – $140 per ship. If you want a DPRM as cheaply as possible on only 1 character and this is all you’re after, I’d say just get your 1 ship and save yourself over 5,000 Zen.
Relatively more casually, mixing the DPRM with any other console among the D9 or Thrai will help your base Phaser, Disruptor, and/or Plasma damage, so if you’re thinking of making alts as easy to get through space combat as possible, this may be a consideration toward a possible purchase. Plus, the DPRM itself has a boost to just general Directed Energy Damage, so you get a bit more help there, too!
This ship is a 3-ship pack, meaning if you want the Atlas, you’ll pick the 23rd Century Dreadnought Bundle. For further direction on how this Choice Pack/MEGA Bundle works with having a multi-ship option and to get to your desired ship(s), check this blog post I did about a week ago. (This also applies to the next Group, the 26th Century Dreadnoughts.)
As this is a 3-ship option, we can put the value of this option at 27,930 Zen – 42,375 Zen, or very roughly $300 – $420 (give or take a bit for Zen Charges at the $50, $100, and $200 ranges).
However, if you’re only after the DPRM, you could view this as a single-ship option that happens to come with 2 extra ships. If that’s the case, go with the 9,310 Zen – 14,125 Zen ($100 – $140) option, instead.
GROUP 2: 26th Century Dreadnoughts ([Universe] Temporal Heavy Cruiser/Durgath Temporal Heavy Dreadnought Battlecruiser/Valkis Temporal Heavy Dreadnought Warbird)
I’m slightly surprised to see the 26th Century Dreadnoughts so close to the 23rd Centuries’ prices, considering these are from from the Infinity Promotion reward choice box.
The big draw here is likely the Universe-class, AKA the “Enterprise-J.” Perhaps you’ve wanted a single T6 ship of each Enterprise, but you didn’t want to shell out for a single ship on a single character (*raises hand*). Or perhaps you’ve wanted a Universe for a Federation character and a Valkis for a Romulan. That’s going to hurt!
Considering these ships aren’t known for anything meta-related, they’re likely purely fun ships. You may then value these at 0 Zen/$0 value.
However, if you wanted even 1 of these 3 ships, you’re looking at 8,960 Zen – 13,625 Zen, or $90 – $130 in Zen charges. If you just wanted a Universe-class ship for a single character and that’s it out of everything in this Bundle, you treat this like the DPRM-based want above: Treat it like you’re getting the 1 ship, with the other 2 being freebie throw-ins (which is effectively the case, as they have the same Console and Starship Trait, just slightly different flavors of ship skin, equipment, and hangar pets).
Since this is also a 3-in-1 Bundle choice, though, you could go as high as a 26,880 Zen – 40,875 Zen range, roughly a $270 – $390 cash-value range (give or take a bit for Zen Charges at the $50, $100, and $200 ranges).
“GROUP” 3: Merian Command Science Dreadnought
Well…same verse, same as the…uh, well, 2nd in this case. The Merian’s lowest value was the same as any of the 26th Century Dreadnoughts.
You’d likely want this to start or work on completing a 32nd Century Starfleet theme, and/or to have as many unique hangar pets as possible. There’s a slight chance you’d like to try a Sci-Torp build, similar to one I highlighted in the Visual Overview post.
Therefore, we have a low- and high-end range of 8,960 Zen – 13,625 Zen, or $90 – $130.
A Summary of Ship Values
So let’s look at the various ways you could view the values of the ships.
If you wanted a single ship of each Bundle and the Merian, you’re looking at a total of 27,230 Zen, or roughly $250 (Zen total adjusted for normal Zen Charge Bonuses but not for extra Zen Charge Bonuses that happen every so often). Add 9,310 Zen/~$100 for each additional 23rd Century Ship and 8,960/~$90 for each 26th Century Ship above and beyond the 1st, up to 3 each.
I feel what should be obvious is this: If you wanted any 2 ship options, even if just 1 ship in whichever 1-2 Bundle(s) you need for the ship you wanted, you’d be looking at 17,920 Zen – 18,270 Zen or $170 – $180 of value for 14,750 Zen/$140. Any two of the ship-only options “pays” for the Bundle.
THE “FLUFF”
WARNING: The contents below tend to be “Bound to Account” when you get them from Mudd Choice Packs/MEGA Bundles. Do not expect to sell any of these items; you’d only pick them to use them on your character/account.
Now we’ll look at the extras that you could get instead of a ship option(s). Most values will be from the Z-Store as that’s where these items are “officially” sold. Besides, if I’m using Master Keys as the standard for Zen-to-EC conversion, what sense would it make to give Zen-equivalent value to the very standard I’m using? :p
I’ll be copy-and-pasting a lot of stuff here, so if you feel you’ve heard this before…well, you’re probably right! The Phoenix section has update information as there are two Epic Phoenix Prize Tokens in this Choice Pack/MEGA Bundle rather than one.
1. Master Key (x50)
Valuation here is easy since it’s effectively the gold standard by which I’m judging all other valuations. So here are the Z-Store prices for five 10-packs of Master Keys.
- Full Price: 5,625 Zen
- 15% Price: ~4,781 Zen
- 20% Price: 4,500 Zen
- 25% Price: ~4,219 Zen
2. 100% Discount Coupon: Tier 6 Ship (x2)
Z-Store Coupons are an odd bunch to evaluate. They have a secondary market value, but in my experience it tends to put the coupon at about the full 3,000 Zen price of a Z-Store ship, anyway. (Which is great as you can use in-game items rather than cash or Dilithium-to-Zen, but it doesn’t help much with figuring out Zen-equivalent values since it nets out, give or take a few dollars.)
So the easiest way to approach this in a “best case and worst case” scenario is to do this:
- Best Case: They offer 3-coupon packs in the Z-Store around the November/December holiday season (I believe they’ve done so the past couple of years, but it’s not a guarantee).
- Worst Case: Just the base price of a T6 Z-Store ship.
Your best-case valuation, then, is 1,500 Zen per coupon (as they’re sold in 3-packs for 4,500 Zen total when they are listed), so that’s a best-case pricing of 3,000 Zen for the pair of Coupons.
Your worst-case valuation is 3,000 Zen per ship (standard pricing in the Z-Store), so it’s 6,000 Zen for the pair.
3. Epic Prize Token – Phoenix Prize Pack (x2)
I’m using data from this Reddit thread by “joshmessenger” almost 3 years ago to come up with a Zen-equivalent value.
In the spreadsheet linked there, the drop rate for an Epic Phoenix Prize Token is 0.11%. That means, on average and if I’m doing my math correctly, you should get 11 Epic Phoenix Prize Tokens in every 10,000 Phoenix Prize Boxes, averaging 1 Epic token in every ~909.0909… Phoenix boxes. I’ll round that to 910 boxes.
910 boxes takes 91 sets of 10 boxes at 40,000 Dilithium each, totalling 3,640,000 Dilithium. At PC’s current “500 Dilithium per 1 Zen” backlog, that’s 7,280 Zen, just about $4 shy of the value of each of the above account-unlocked ships.
Now, here, you’re getting TWO Epic Phoenix Prize Tokens. That would take, again on average and NOT a guarantee, 1,820 Phoenix Prize Boxes. That’s 182 sets of 10-packs at 40,000 Dilithium each, totally 7,280,000 Dilithium. At a 500-to-1 exchange rate, that’s 14,560 Zen. Considering this Choice Pack is 14,750 Zen while on sale, just 1 choice of the 2 Epic Phoenix Tokens is worth the price of the Choice Pack.
Interestingly, at 25,000 Zen for the MEGA Bundle when it’s on a 50% discount, this only leaves 10,250 Zen in value to make your purchase worth not having to get a bunch of Lockbox/Promo ships individually.
4. Ultimate Tech Upgrade (x10)
I’m going to make this quick: These have 0 Zen of value.
“But…Cryptic wants ~2,000 Zen per Ultimate Tech Upgrade when they do Key Ring Bundles and Mudd non-Ship listings! And it’s 1,000 or 1,500 Zen when a Galactic Red Alert runs!”
Yes, and that’s how I used to look at them, but they’re purely Quality-of-Life items. You can get any of your gear up to Mk XV Epic without an Ultimate Tech Upgrade. It may take time, a lot of Dilithium, and a ton of Phoenix Upgrades or other Upgrade Token types, but you can get there. There’s a failsafe for quality upgrades, so you’re not ever going to not hit Epic on an item with enough time, resources, and bad luck turning good or being 100% guaranteed.
So let’s leave it like this: If you feel these have any value, assign your valuation to these. Otherwise, count them as 0 Zen: they’re nice, they save a lot of time and frustration, but you don’t need them to get anything.
OVERALL VALUATION: Choice Pack
If you’re going for a Choice Pack, we need to get 14,750 Zen of value out of any 3 choices. That means we need an average of ~4,917 Zen per item or higher to make this purchase worthwhile.
Let’s look at a summary of the valuations first.
Currently, only 3 items do not fill the needed ~4,917 Zen per item need at the cheapest prices:
- T6 Z-Store Coupon (x2)
- Master Key (x50)
- Ultimate Tech Upgrades (x10)
What is interesting, though, is that all other options DO have a per-item price that exceed the needed average. Even the “worst” offenders, the 26th Century Dreadnoughts and the Merian, are above by 4,043 Zen, or ~82.24% above our per-item goal.
So what’s the cheapest 3-Choice selection you could pick and get your 14,750 back? It kinda depends on if you count 3-ship packs as 1 ship (because you only needed 1 ship from it) or as all 3 ships.
Let’s pick the two cheapest non-zero options: The Merian (as there’s no valuation subjectiveness: it’s 1 ship, so we can’t pull the, “Well, what if I wanted more than just 1 ship,” card…yet) and 50x Master Keys at lowest possible prices.
We see 12,909 Zen of value so far, needing 1,841 Zen of value to make up the Bundle’s asking price.
This means that, aside from the Ultimate Tech Upgrades option, any 3rd choice will get us our value back, and then some.
So if you wanted 3 ships and the Master Keys (since the next cheapest option is the 2x Z-Store Coupons), here’s your math:
I mean, it’s not the best value, but the 3 cheapest non-Ultimate Tech Upgrade options yields a value of 15,909 Zen, which comes out to a 7.29% discount on the 14,750 Zen asking price.
…Do we want to get crazy? Let’s get crazy!
Let’s say you really wanted all 3 ships from the two Bundles and the 2x Epic Phoenix Tokens.
You’re getting an estimated 68,560 Zen worth of items! Compared to the 14,750 Zen price tag, you’re saving nearly 80% from buying everything once over.
*hears the chants of, “That’s still expensive!”*
I mean…yeah. That’s the point. This will appeal to both “whales” (those who spend a ton of real money in a game) and those who are willing to grind out the Dilithium to convert into Zen (which helps their player engagement numbers). So it’s going to take a bit of cash to grab this without any grind involved, or you could minimize your cash spend by grinding a chunk of the price in Dilithium-to-Zen conversion.
Regardless, all I’m looking at is numerical values. Ultimately, you have to decide if the purchase price is both feasible for you and worth it for your entertainment time from the ship(s)/item(s). I just find it shocking that we’re seeing such a huge discount for the most expensive parts of this Choice Pack/MEGA Bundle.
(In case it flew by anyone, if you count all 3 ships in either of the two Bundle choices, and you choose even 1 of those Bundle choices, you are free to pick whatever you want for the final 2 options as you’re automatically above and beyond the 14,750 asking price.)
OVERALL VALUATION: MEGA Bundle
Mudd MEGA Bundles lately have mostly had a 50,000 Zen base price rather than 60,000 Zen because they’ve come with 7 total options (3 ship options + 4 others) rather than 8 (4 ship options + 4 other). This means MEGA Bundle valuations can be done at a 25,000 Zen asking price during 50% sales rather than 30,000 Zen.
Let’s crudely round the highest 2 single-item values down to the next lowest hundred to get a rough idea of how much Zen is in this MEGA Bundle’s value. Those would be the 2x Epic Phoenix Prize Tokens and the 23rd Century Dreadnoughts Bundle (thank you, DPRM!).
- 2x Epic Phoenix Prize Tokens –> 14,500
- 23rd Century Dreadnoughts (single ship) –> 9,300
14,000 + 9,000 = 23,800 Zen
Already, the MEGA Bundle has a ton of discount potential for you. It’d only take 1,200 Zen of value to hit the 25,000 Zen asking price (again, at 50% discount). Aside from the Ultimate Tech Upgrades, nothing in this Bundle is valued that low.
So what is the total valuation of the 25,000 Zen MEGA Bundle?
Counting the Bundles as 1 ship each:
Counting the Bundles as 3 ships each:
Sooo…this may be one time where going “MEGA” might make sense (again, assuming you wanted everything and have the means to get it).
If you value the Bundle ships for just 1 ship each, we’re seeing 48,469 Zen of value on a 25,000 Zen Bundle.
If you value the Bundle ships as all 3 ships, it changes to a nearly 85,000 Zen valuation on a 25,000 Zen Bundle.
Percentage wise, you’re looking at roughly 48% – 70% discounts, depending on your valuation method.
THE KICKER: Veteran Players and the Epic Phoenix Tokens
NOW…let’s muddy the waters just a bit more before the end. (Get it? Mudd’s? Muddy? 🙂 )
What if…you’re a ~11-12 year veteran player and have every single Event Ship for which you could have spent an Epic Phoenix Token to get as an account-wide unlock because you’re a madman (or madwoman or madperson) about doing all Events that reward account-unlockable items?
Currently, then…there’s no reason for you to have any Epic Phoenix Prize Tokens. You can only downgrade them at 1 Epic token down to 2 Ultra Rare tokens, so 2 Epics can’t even get 1 T6-X upgrade token during the Phoenix Prize Pack events.
SOOO… for a Choice Pack, it’s still the same scenarios, you just value the Epic Phoenix Prize Tokens at 0 Zen. Let’s take the crazy, max-value scenario and pick the next-highest option, the Merian.
So you’re still saving a chunk, but you’re not saving as much. We lose a net of 5,870 Zen, but with the 3-ship Bundles counting as 3 total ships, we don’t see a drastic percentage drop-off.
For the MEGA Bundle, though…
Counting the Bundles as 1 ship each:
Counting the Bundles as 3 ships each:
We see a huge drop-off in value for the 1-ship-each valuation. We go from “well over 30,000 Zen” of value to “just barely over 30,000 Zen.” So the MEGA Bundle would still be worth 25,000 Zen even just counting the Bundles as 1 ship each, but we go from a nearly 50% discount all the way down to just over 25% off. OUCH!
On the “count as 3 ships” option, the 4 additional ships you counted for the Bundles more than outweigh what you lose from the Epic Prize Tokens. Instead of a drastic nearly-cut-in-half valuation, you instead lose ~6% of your discount.
SHOULD I GET THIS CHOICE PACK/MEGA BUNDLE?
Again, assuming you have the means and it won’t cause undue financial hardship or get you in any kind of trouble…
I think if you say “Yes” at least twice to these questions, you get the Choice Pack at least.
- Do you need the DPRM off the Atlas for at least 1 character? (Add a “yes” for each character that needs a DPRM for their build.)
- Do you want at least 1 of the super-large 26th Century Dreadnoughts?
- Do you need Phoenix ships for a build on a single character?
- Are you collecting 32nd Century ships and need the Merian toward that goal?
Why would you want multiple “Yes” votes for the DPRM? Because remember that these are reclaimable ships. You’re not tied to 1 copy for life! If you just want the DPRM, dismiss the Atlas after you grab the console, and later want to fly the Atlas just because, you can do that! That’s 2 uses that potentially would have cost you another ~9,000 Zen in the best-case scenario.
The same’s true across the account. If you have 5 serious characters and they each need the DPRM console for at least 1 build, count the Atlas as 5 ships’ worth of picks. At a roughly 9,000 Zen valuation, just needing the Atlas twice makes back the value and them some!
Now, if you only want the Atlas and only 1, I’d say you’re technically better off just getting a single Atlas rather than this Choice Pack/MEGA Bundle. But I’d ask you this, to…you’re spending ~63.4% of the Choice Pack’s valuation anyway. Could you find the remaining 5,440 in other stuff so you could go account-wide eventually? Two T6 ships are 3,000 – 6,000 of the valuation, so you’re down to 2,440 needed to “make back” the value. You could go for the T6 ships again; you could have some fun with laaaaarrrrrrge Dreadnoughts; you could consider half your 50 Master Keys as freebies and take half-paid/half-free gambles on Infinity Lock Boxes! I’d suggest continuing on to get the Choice Pack, but if it’s a pure numbers thing (budget; in-game EC resources are easier for you than Dil-to-Zen grinding or actual cash), by all means, just get the single Atlas on the Exchange or in trade channels.
NEXT TIME: Gambling Content (hopefully)
Now that things have settled down among real-life things here, I think I can FINALLY get started on 14th Anniversary Ship revi…hears there’s a Dyson Ship bundle coming…OH, COME ON! lol.
Obviously, I’m not doing the Dyson Ships since I haven’t even touched the 14th Anniversary ships, so the other practiced video-medium Content Creators can have their crack at those once they release. Meanwhile, I’ll start scheduling when I can get this 14th Anniversary review series going.
(I like doing them, I really do! But real-life lately has kicked my behind more times than I’d like to count, so it’s become frustrating wanting to get anything done and just…not, either due to weariness or not having the time I want to do it right…well, right by my standards, not by 1 million+ DPS overlords of the DPS charts. lol.)
But my first order of business is Spencer’s requested Gambling Content, so I’m hoping I can have that by late next week or into that weekend.
UNTIL THEN!…keep on enjoying Star Trek Online. 🙂
Joe and STO 