(OUTDATED) STO and the Epic Games Store: An Epic Deal?

Good day, and welcome back to Joe and STO!

This week, we saw STO become available on the Epic Games Store. With it seemed to come potential new players as a log-in queue existed for a few hours during the day Tuesday.

Something else, though, seemed to be a great find for those who play via Epic’s UI…

A new Starter Pack!

Except…it’s not really a “starter” in the traditional sense.

It’s not a single undesirable T6 ship (I didn’t say “unusable,” I said “undesirable.” A T6 Miranda, to me, is undesirable but it’s usable toward the higher end of getting to higher DPS levels).

It’s not just a bunch of bank and inventory slots (though that’s part of it).

No…this one is a bit more flexible.

EPIC STARTER PACK CONTENTS

Here’s what all you get after linking your Epic launcher to your Arc account (or one of them, if you’re crazy enough to have multiple accounts):

COST

Here’s the interesting thing…it’s not that expensive. Not really.

• The C-Store ship coupon is a 3,000 Zen value.
• The Epic Phoenix Prize Token drops so rarely…I opened 1.2 million Dilithium worth of Phoenix Boxes last night (across 2 accounts) and didn’t even get an Ultra Rare token, which now would have been good for 2 of the new Experimental Ship Upgrade Tokens. At current Dil-to-Zen exchange rates, that was about 2,700 Zen worth of Dilithium I burned up (though I needed the Phoenix upgrades so it was ultimately still worth it).
• An Elite Services Starter Pack is 1,000 Zen (one-time claim, goes to the character who claims the Starter).
• The Combat Tardigrade is 400 Zen (one-time claim?).
• Intelligence Uniform (for the account) is 550 Zen.
  • If you’re new to STO, uniforms are cosmetic only; they provide no combat enhancements.
• Mk II gear…one character that’s got a number of R&D schools done could do this for free by transferring gear to another character via in-game E-mail, so this is practically 0 Zen (though it save you time, but only in the first 10-20 levels).

This means the pack as-is should cost a minimum 4,950 Zen, or roughly $50 worth of Zen.

WHOOPS! I forgot to tell you the selling price!

The Epic Games Store sells this Starter Pack (limited 1 per account) for $34.99 plus tax…let’s call that $40 since we’re adding tax to it (Plus, I like eliminating the need for change. Work smarter, not harder!).

There’s already $40 worth of value in this pack:

• C-Store Ship Coupon ($30)
• Elite Services Starter ($10)

This effectively means you get a free Epic Phoenix Prize Token, a free Combat Tardigrade, and some free low-level gear. Not too shabby! Remember, from just above, I spent around 2,700 Zen worth of Dilithium and didn’t get a single Ultra Rare, let alone Epic. To put percentages to it (without an estimate on the Epic Phoenix token), this is roughly a 20% discount.

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL!

Right now, there’s a 20% off sale! Until New Year’s Eve, you can get that Starter for $27.99…let’s call that just under $31 after tax. That’s about what you’d spend on a C-Store T6 ship and you get a number of usable items at a savings of around $15-$20 (depending on how you value the uniform, as everything else has use to whoever purchased it), or around 33%-39%.

• This doesn’t count the Epic Phoenix Token since you could get 1 off your first Phoenix Prize Pack or it may take you 1,000 to get a single Epic token.

BUT…EVEN THAT…IS NOT ALL!

Until October 31st, if you install Rocket League on your PC via the Epic Games Store (it’s free, btw!), you’ll get a $10 off coupon for any purchase $14.99 or higher in the Epic Games Store. This brings your pre-tax price down to $17.99! Let’s call it $18 and figure tax at ~$2…you’re getting all these things for under $20! I don’t think I need to tell you any percent discounts as this means you’re buying a T6 C-Store ship at around $10 under its normal price and $4 under its biggest on-sale price. BUT…because you might be wondering anyway, this is a savings of 55%-60%!

• This doesn’t count the Epic Phoenix Token since you could get 1 off your first Phoenix Prize Pack or it may take you 1,000 to get a single Epic token.

FACTION STARTER PACK COMPARISON

Let’s compare this Epic Starter Pack to the Faction-based Starter Packs in the game.

These cost 2,000 Zen and get you:

• 1 specific T6 ship (account-unlocked and faction appropriate, with the Romulan Scimitar variant the Romulan version has being flyable on all characters).
• 1 faction-appropriate uniform.
• 12 Bank Slots (one-time claim)
• 12 Inventory Slots (one-time claim)
• 2 Bridge Officer slots (one-time claim)
• 14 pieces of Mk II Very Rare space gear
• 7 pieces of Mk II Very Rare ground gear
• [FACTION] Liberated Borg Officer (one-time claim?)

How does the Epic Starter Pack compare to this?

• Choice of T6 C-Store ship.
  • NOTE: Ships in the “New Items” tab may be off-limits. They should rotate out eventually. Currently, this is just the Support Carriers.
• 3x the Bank Slots.
• 3x the Inventory Slots.
• +1 ship via the Epic Phoenix Prize Token (one-time use and single-character use)
  • This assumes you use the Epic Phoenix Prize Token on a ship. You can downgrade it to lower rarities for those rarities’ prizes, which may or may not be another ship(s). View the prize store’s listings before choosing what to do.
• +1 combat pet
• -1 Bridge Officer
• +3 Skill Retrain Tokens

Unless I’ve missed something (and I’m sure I did, I’m semi-rushing this), the Epic Starter Pack seems to be the superior value. The choice of T6 ship is great if you’ve got advice on what to get, you get many more Bank and Inventory slots compared to a traditional faction-based Starter Pack, and you get a Combat Pet that’s decent enough to hold its own in ground combat.

Those 3 Skill Retrains are a very nice addition; although you can get them for free from your Tier 6-level Reputations (one-time purchase per Rep for 100 of that kind of Mark), it’s nice to set up your Skill Tree to get through the leveling process, then be able to swap around and experiment a little until either you settle on a Skill Tree setup you like or until you can get your first Reputations up to Tier 6 to buy those free ones.

TRULY EPIC

This is value done right for a beginner. Two T6 ships (if the Epic Phoenix token is used on a ship), tons of Inventory and Bank space, a decent combat pet, and Skill Tree do-overs to avoid the pain of selecting skills wrong for Level 50+ combat is a great way to start a player in the right direction toward end-game success. That a lot of the pack is freebies even at full price helps justify buying it.

Even veteran players can take advantage. We’re willing to install Rocket League to get $10 off the pack (that “pays” for the Elite Services Starter Pack), and we’d die if we could buy Epic-level Phoenix Prize Tokens for around $15-$20 (I think…you may need to ask some players.). That we can spend less than a Tier 6 ship’s price and get all the Starter comes with is an amazing steal. Here’s one example of a veteran player who saw value even though it’s a “Starter Pack.”

https://twitter.com/DrLightning94st/status/1314586925458747393

600,000 Diltihium would buy 150 Phoenix Prize Boxes. Above, I said I’d opened twice that many and didn’t even get an Ultra Rare (rarity below Epic), so that’s Dilithium he’s now saved for Re-Engineering, Upgrading, buying Reputation gear, or turning into Zen toward buying Master Keys for that niiiiiiiiiiiii….*catches breath*….iiiiiiiice Mirror Warship.

NEXT WEEK’S BAD NEWS

As you probably saw above, I’m taking the week off my regular math tutoring job to take a mental break for the run from here to Thanksgiving Break. During that week, I’ll finish up the bad side of STO’s monetization practices, which will now include a quote AmbassadorKael gave on why the Inquiry-class Battlecruiser went to the Promo Box instead of the C-Store (which, from what I understand, was more an answer as to why they could do it, not why they chose to do it).

Until next week, have a lovely weekend and a great week!