NOTE (meant for December 21st, 2022): Vanity Shields are currently available in this way on both PC and, for the first time, Consoles (PlayStation and XBox)!
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Good day, and welcome to another Joe and STO! Earlier this week, we learned that most of the Lockbox-rewarded Vanity Shields will become available to players in the Dilithium Store for 280,000 Dilithium each for a week starting with the launch of the Summer Event.
That seems…weird, right? Why sell bonus gamble items to players when they’re still part of the Lockbox weapon-based bonus items (Weapon Packs for a while have had a low chance of dropping a Vanity Shield themed to the ship release of that Lockbox)?
And then you look at that 280,000 Dilithium price and go, “WHOAH! That’s 35 days of Dilithium refining on a single character. That’s nuts!”
Except…it isn’t nuts…and it’s not without cause.
Right now, you’re probably looking at that statement like this:
(Image from TrekCore.com Screencap gallery, which is from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Rules of Engagement”)
But I’m more like this right now:
(Image from TrekCore.com Screencap gallery, same episode as above)
I’m going to explain:
- What a Vanity Shield is;
- Why Cryptic is offering these vanity shields directly to players;
- Why 280,000 Dilithium is not as crazy as you think.
VANITY SHIELD BASICS
Vanity Shields are basically exactly as described: they’re shields that only change the look of your ship.
Here’s a Vo’Devwl Support Carrier (T6) in its natural state with just the Aegis Deflector visual showing:
If I put the Aegis Shield in my normal Shield slot, it performs much the same use as a Vanity Shield. Notice the red highlights especially on the nacelle.
Now, I’ll go to “Visuals” and put on the Platinum Vanity Shield, given away last year as part of Cryptic’s 25th Anniversary celebration.
Notice that, even though I have the Aegis shield equipped, the Vanity Shield overrode that visual to give me a more silver look to the ship.
This is what a Vanity Shield is: It’s a shield that only affects the ship visually and has no stats. It’ll override your equipped shield’s visual effect.
WHY CRYPTIC IS DOING THIS
So you know how you can trade Dilithium for Zen, effectively trading playing time for premium currency?
…
No? Then go read this article from 2019 and come back when you’re done.
…
Back? Okay, good.
I’ll copy one picture from there. Notice the difference between September 2019 and late last week.
September 2019:
Late last week:
(Image from DuncanIdaho’s Twitter feed, June 24th)
Yes…“THE BURN” HAPPENED! There was no more Zen on the market. No one would sell their Zen for any amount of Dilithium, effectively rendering Dilithium worthless as a player-to-player trade medium as it could no longer be used to buy premium currency.
There are only two ways to fix this, really:
- Generate a big enough demand for Dilithium that players will give up whatever Zen they have to get the Dilithium they need, OR
- Create a need for Dilithium that’ll make players want to get Zen and trade it off immediately for the Dilithium they need.
Vanity items are popular in games. My goodness, ZEFilms makes an entire YouTube channel basically devoted to ships’ looks!
So, it seems Bort (Jeremy Randal, Systems Designer for STO) had a solution…sell Vanity Shields directly to players, but sell it in Dilithium instead of Zen!
But why sell Vanity Shields for Dilithium instead of Zen? It comes back to the #2 way to fix the Dilithium Exchange: Get people to buy Zen so they’d trade it off for Dilithium. If the problem is a supply of Zen, an option is to encourage players to get Zen to put on the Exchange. If there’s something on which to spend the Dilithium, there’s an incentive to sell Zen, which may be create a desire in players to buy Zen to make that exchange happen.
So, I’ll assume going forward that you would have bought the Vanity Shield(s) on offer by buying Zen to buy Master Keys to sell on the Exchange so you can then buy the Vanity Shield(s) from someone else. Then, I’ll turn that Zen-equivalent price into a Dilithium-equivalent price under a few different Dilithium-per-Zen rates to see what the Dilithium-equivalent price of each shield currently is (as of the afternoon of June 29th, 2021), then I’ll show what the effective discount is for each Vanity Shield.
WHY 280,000 DILITHIUM ISN’T INSANE (and could be cheaper yet)
I know players are looking at 280,000 Dilithium and going, “WHAT IN THE WORLD IS CRYPTIC THINKING!?”
Well…they did think about it…a lot.
It was Jeremy Randal (Systems Designer for STO) who came up with the idea internally:
Jeremy provided a bit of insight into how he came up with the Dilithium price:
By then, I’d already started in my valuation for the shields. Tharryn provided me the general prices for the 10 Vanity Shields being offered and the price of Keys on the Exchange. Using that information, I made these assumptions:
- Vanity Shields could readily be available for the lowest price Tharryn provided.
- Master Keys have a highly liquid value of 9,000,000 EC each. In other words, if you post a key for 9,000,000 EC (or a batch with a unit price of 9,000,000 EC each), those keys will go almost instantly.
- 280,000 Dilithium is a fixed price (not subject to Fleet Dilithium Mine discounts).
- The Dilithium-to-Zen rate will be at or close to 500:1 through the sale.
- A decimal number of equivalent keys went 1 key higher due to practical reasons (Example: you can’t sell 8.2 Keys, but 8 Keys won’t get you enough EC [as you’d need two-tenths of another Key] so you’d need 9 Keys.)
And now, we get to the calculations. Let’s see what shields are not worth 280,000 Dilithium in equivalent EC-to-Keys-to-Zen-to-Dilithium value.
Uh…wow. That’s actually kinda shocking. Using numbers current to Monday afternoon, the cheapest shields have an equivalent Dilithium price of 562,000 Dilithium.
I have a feeling that’s not a coincidence. The shields are being offered for almost right at half the cheapest shield?
I’m not complaining, I just feel it’s very coincidental if it wasn’t intentional.
And the savings don’t stop there. That $45 (cash equivalent) Section 31 Vanity Shield? That’s millions of Dilithium reduced to a bit under 300,000! That Tzenkethi or Kelvin Divergence shield? Considering that none were available when Tharryn checked prices Monday, this becomes the only way to get those shields.
The numbers get even better because the 280,000 Dilithium price is affected by your Dilithium Mine’s Dilithium Store discount!
That’s right! That 50% off the cheapest shields got a tad bit better. How much? Well…
The Discovery shield comes in at nearly 90% off! We’re looking at nearly 60% off for the cheapest shield. The average discount? 73.8%.
Now…I was planning on showing the prices at various Dil-to-Zen rates because the intent of the sale is to get more Zen onto the Dilithium Exchange, creating competition among players to get their Dilithium the fastest by offering to sell their Zen for a lower amount of Dilithium for each Zen they’re willing to trade.
But…uh…
As of the time of finishing this part up, there’s still no Zen readily available below 500:1 (500 Dilithium for every 1 Zen).
There’s plenty of demand…
…but the empty “Buy ZEN” window shows there’s no readily available supply of Zen, so any that does get listed sells immediately at the 500:1 price.
That all is to say, I’ll keep the calculations I’m showing the same. Just keep in mind the shields get essentially more expensive as Zen becomes more readily available (since you’ll need to take less Dilithium to trade off your Zen the further below 500:1 the market gets…if it gets there soon).
THE REAL COST OF EACH SHIELD
Now that we’re establishing you’ll more than likely sell any Zen at 500 Dilithium per 1 Zen, let’s see how much each shield costs.
- At the full 280,000 Dilithium
–> 280,000 Dilithium/500 Dilithium per Zen = 560 Zen
At the 15% full Dilithium Mine discount
–> 238,000 Dilithium/500 Dilithium per Zen = 476 Zen
At worst, you’re looking at ~$5.60 equivalent per shield, so a 1,000 Zen order will only fully pay for 1 shield.
At best, you’re looking at ~$4.76 equivalent per shield, so a 1,000 Zen order can pay for 2 shields.
The best you could have done before this sale was 1,125 Zen, or ~$11.25, for a single shield (3 tied at that amount). At worst, you were looking at $45 equivalent for a Section 31 shield. And those values would fluctuate based on supply of the shields and the demand for them.
I think the jury’s in: If you had wanted any of the Lockbox Vanity Shields (only the Discovery Refit Vanity Shield isn’t available, probably because it’s the newest Lockbox Vanity Shield), go ahead, spend some Zen, and get you some nice shields for mostly less than they would have been (and perhaps help the availability of Zen on the Dilithium Exchange in the process).
WHERE TO FIND SOME EXAMPLES
If you’re not entirely sold on vanity shields (or just those specific shields on offer), check out a few of ZEFilms’ videos. While I don’t guarantee he covers each one (as some are fairly new and I’m unsure if he had every shield before the sale), his Visual Review videos tend to cover a good chunk of available vanity shields (and I think he mentions if they’re from Reputations, the Summer Event, etc.).
Here’s one example from February of last year, so it doesn’t have a few of the more recent shields. The link should take you pretty much straight to where he looks at Lockbox vanity shields.
I hope you enjoy getting some great vanity shields at some extremely low prices (perhaps even free if you’d been holding onto your Dilithium)! Enjoy playing “Space Barbie, The True Endgame!” (Not my phrase, but don’t know who originated it.)
Joe and STO 