Hello, all, and welcome back to Joe and STO! Just a few days ago, we saw what the ships of the new Mudd’s Fighter Pilot Choice Pack/MEGA Bundle could do. Now, we’ll see what they’re worth.
Some caveats to this part of the series:
- Prices on the Exchange and in private trades can and will change over time. This valuation looks at prices as they were on November 19th, 2022.
- Prices here are from the PC version of Star Trek Online. PlayStation and/or XBox may see much higher or much lower Exchange- or player-based prices.
- All “best” and “worst” case scenarios only assume discounts on Keys and Promo Boxes. They do not reflect the addition of buying Zen during a Zen Charge Bonus or Zen discount (which, themselves, could drive additional supply of Keys and Promo Packs, lowering those in-game Exchange prices and offsetting any gains you’d see from the lower Zen prices or higher Zen amounts). When doing your valuations, consider those Zen-to-Cash conversions for yourself. I don’t count Zen Charge Bonuses because those offers are much less frequent than traditional Z-Store sales.
- Finally, what’s “worth it” or valued specifically to me may not be “worth it” or have a specific value to you. If La Sirena is of no interest to you, you may as well consider its cash-equivalent value to be $0. This may hit you more with Ultimate Tech Upgrades, as upgrading to Mk XV Epic is doable for free, but we don’t get enough free Ultimate Tech Upgrades in a year to “Epic out” all gear on a ship or character. I do put a cash value on them; you may disagree with that valuation, and that’s fine.
Now then, onto the math! (I hear those groans! Just bear with me!)
To make a Choice Pack worth the purchase price, we need to be able to squeeze about $140 (Purchase price is 14,750 Zen, which takes $100 + $20 + $20 = $140 to get 11,000 + 2,000 + 2,000 = 15,000 Zen) in any 3 picks or $270 for the MEGA Bundle (Purchase price of 30,000 Zen, which takes $200 + $50 + $20 = $270 to get 23,000 + 5,300 + 2,000 = 30,300 Zen) in all 6 to make purchasing either worth the price. (While we could look at full prices of 29,500 Zen for the Choice Pack and 60,000 Zen for the MEGA Bundle, unless you’re just really desperate during off-sale timing, I’d highly advise to not pay those prices on any Bundle/Choice Pack currently in the game.)
PROMO BOXES BEAT OUT KEYS
You’ll also see a large difference between the worst-case scenarios and the best-case scenarios. Why? Look at the EC-per-Zen break-downs of Master Keys versus Promo Packs.
At the current market rates as of 11/19/2022, we’re seeing ~11,900,000 EC per Key and ~38,000,000 EC per “Promotion!” box at their lowest levels. Of note, I take off 100,000 EC of each to ensure a quick sale. It may cost me 1-2 more Keys or an extra Promo box, but I’ll be the lowest seller, at least in the short-term.
Anyway, look at those last two rows.
Look at the Energy Credits generated per 1 Zen spent (“EC per Zen”), assuming you buy a Key or Promo Box and sell it. A Key costs 11,900,000 EC on the Exchange. Let’s just call that 125 Zen’s worth of EC. A Promo Box would generate about 15,833,333 Zen on the same 125 Zen spent. That’s nearly 4 million extra EC per 125 Zen spent. By the time you’d hit 375 Zen, 3 Keys would be roughly equivalent to 1.25 Promo Boxes (35.7 million EC from 3 Keys compared to 47.5 million EC from selling 2 Promo Boxes and excluding 3/4 of the 2nd box).
Keys are a bit resilient to extra supply. Key Sales don’t tend to plunge the Key market off a cliff. Promo Boxes, when sales happen, will tend to lower prices on boxes fairly dramatically, best I can recall. Your best bet, then, would be to buy Promo Boxes while they’re on sale in the Z-Store (you’ll notice, the description will say they can open to 10 Lobi or a ship box), then sit on them for a month or so after the sale to list on the Exchange. If you can do that, you’ll be doing fine for EC toward any ship(s) or item(s) you’d want and potentially at a fraction of the cost compared to Key selling.
But enough about the differences in using Keys vs. Promo Boxes to get what you want. You’re looking for value! You’re questioning if you really need that pixelated starship for your collection! (…okay, really, you never neeeeed ships, but let’s assume you have the disposable income and really want to!)
THE SHIPS
These are never in any particular order, so I’ll just go with the first thing in my list. (Also, forgive the re-use of screenshots. I’m quite busy and wanted this out ASAP without doing new DemoRecords!)
Here’s where we get our widest divergence in potential prices.
If you bought Keys at regular Z-Store prices, and you paid regular cash prices for the Zen to buy all those Keys, La Sirena would run you $140! Sheesh!
However…if you bought Promo Boxes at 30% off, waited a while for supply to dry up, then posted them for the now-current ~38,000,000 EC each, you’d bring the price all the way down to $70.
So we have:
- Best Case: $70
- Worst Case: $140
Not as wide a variation here, tying with the Cheirax below. It’d take $110 in Keys at the worst to get a Deimos, but careful planning and purchasing could put you as low as $60.
- Best Case: $60
- Worst Case: $110
“Wait…wait…this is one of those meta consoles. You use Immolating Phaser Lance practically wherever you can. Devs have been known to nerf overpowered items shortly after their (re)release lately. Why should I get this?”
I feel ya! And I asked Ambassador Kael, the Community Manager for Star Trek Online, about this potential.
Spencer (“CasualSAB” on YouTube) clarified why it’s a potential concern.
Honestly, I didn’t expect a response one way or the other.
We got one.
Now, I don’t take this as a definitive, “We’ll never change it,” statement, but I think it’s safe to say that in the short term, it’s not a target for potential nerfing/rebalancing. Purchase securely!…at least for a while.
The next-highest gap is the Kweijan Pilot Frigate. Under a full-price, no-discount model, you’re looking at $120! Buy your Promo boxes at the right time and sell after a Z-Store Promo Box sale, and you could be as low as $60.
- Best Case: $60
- Worst Case: $120
I made a note on this part of the sheet that there were zero Cheirax ships on the Exchange. I’ve seen offers for T6 Lock Box choice boxes for 1.0 – 1.2 billion EC, so I went with 1.1 as a market estimate. Use the other prices above to get an idea of what much higher than 1.1 billion may look like price-wise.
A single $50 charge is the best-case scenario for 29 Promo Boxes at 30% off to afford this. You’re looking at $100 flat with just Keys on any normal day.
- Best Case: $50
- Worst Case: $100
THE OTHER ITEMS
Let’s say 1 or 2 of these ships aren’t your thing. What else can you get?
(NOTE: Z-Store pricing is used for as many items as possible.)
(NOTE 2: Pictures are taken from previous Mudd Choice Pack announcements but all and are property of Cryptic Studios.)
(WARNING: No items from this section are sellable on the Exchange or tradeable with other players. They’ll all be Bound to Account. In the case of Lobi, you can buy ships and some uniforms/pets and sell those on the Exchange. Check their binding rules in their individual tooltips. In the case of Master Keys, items you open will follow their traditional binding rules. For Ultimate Tech Upgrades, you can sell the item(s) you’re upgrading so long as they’re not already Bound in some way.)
The nice thing about this section is…I can usually just use previous parts’ valuations and copy-and-paste them in here! So I’ll do that for the Master Keys and Ultimate Tech Upgrades.
5. Master Keys (x50)
Seeing as a 30% sale rarely happens on Keys, I’ll leave it out.
You’re looking mostly at $50 worth of Keys, but at full price it’d take $60 of Zen charge to buy those same 50 Keys. I don’t recall many 30% discounts, so I went with 25% being the highest discount. That still takes a $50 charge ($45 if buying in some stores other than the Arc website).
6. Elite Bridge Officer Training Tokens (x16)
At full price, we’re looking at $50 to afford 16 tokens. I’d say the safe bet for a sale would be 25% off for $40, but we’ll be extra generous and assume they’ll go on sale for 30% off at least once for a $30 best case scenario.
- Best Case: $30
- Worst Case: $50
7. Epic Prize Token – Phoenix Prize Pack (x1)
CasualSAB in a recent video covering this Choice Pack/MEGA Bundle stated the odds of grabbing an Epic Phoenix Upgrade Token to be found as 1-in-900 Phoenix Prize Packs. That’s equivalent to 7,200 Zen, requiring a $70 charge ($50 + $20 = $70 for 5,300 + 2,000 = 7,300 Zen).
So I won’t put a best or worst with this as randomness could drop this after 1 pack or 1,000 packs (or more). We’ll just assume that 900 boxes will get you a token and fix the cash cost to $70.
- Best and Worst Case (assuming it takes right on 900 boxes): $70
8. Ultimate Tech Upgrade (x10)
Here’s the controversial point. You see…you normally need a roughly $20 purchase to get 1 Ultimate Tech Upgrade.
* Key Ring Bundle: 2,250, but these usually are on sale at least at 15% off, so a bit north of 1,900 Zen, taking $20 to buy.
* Most Mudd non-Bundle items: 2,000 Zen on 75% discount, which is right on $20 worth of Zen.
However, one could argue that Galactic Red Alerts run often enough that the effective price is $10 each (as the one-week version of the Event has a $10 Buyout).
So no spreadsheet math needed here!
- Best Case: $100
- Worst Case: $200
Again, you could argue that, since they’re available for free fairly often through the year, they’re effectively $0. So here is where I’d leave judgment up to you: if you feel they’re worth $0, count this as fluff, but if you feel worth = purchasing price, consider $100-$200.
WILL THE SHIPS MAKE THE CHOICE PACK AND/OR MEGA BUNDLE?
If you’re like me and you’re mostly in these for the ships, here’s the breakdown of the various choices along with their best-case and worst-case scenarios.
All best-case scenarios are over $140 in value to obtain one copy of each ship you could choose. And under an absolute worst-case scenario, the math says you’re fine buying the MEGA Bundle (at the $270 = 30,000 Zen price point) for all 4 ships.
WILL ANY SELECTION NOT MAKE THE CHOICE PACK AND/OR MEGA BUNDLE?
CHOICE PACK (Selection of 3 items out of the 8 on offer)
We’ve seen just the ships, now let’s add in everything else. I’ll use both the best possible price and worst possible price.
These numbers used the lowest “Best Case” numbers. I just added the lowest 3 costs together to get the “LOWEST” numbers, then kept the lowest 2 costs and went to the next highest cost for the third Choice Pack selection to get the “SECOND LOWEST” number.
Seeing as how all other Pick-3 choices would start adding in $70+ items in place of the 3rd-lowest item, it’s safe to say the following on the Choice Pack:
- To “lose money” (not get your base cost’s worth) on this Choice Pack, you’d have to go Elite BOFF Tokens + Master Keys + Cheirax.
- Any other 3-choice option will net you back your $140 purchase price assuming you buy at the 50%-off price and that you value the Ultimate Tech Upgrades at a $70 minimum.
MEGA Bundle (all 8 options)
The MEGA Bundle gets a bit tricky where the Ultimate Tech Upgrades are concerned. The Upgrades on their own can bring in $100-$200 of value, but upgrading to Mk XV Epic just takes resources and time, no other purchases required.
For the numbers below, I included the Ultimate Tech Upgrades. If you feel they’re worth $0 (as they’re more a convenience item than a necessity), take $100 off the “Best Case” number and $200 off the “Worst Case” number.
Under a “Best Case” Scenario, you get $330-$430 in value off a $270 purchase (depending on how you count the Ultimate Tech Upgrades). That’s technically worth it, but I feel your valuation will depend entirely on the Phoenix Prize Token (do you even need a ship in that prize tier if you’re a longer-term player? Would you want a ship from that tier if you don’t have every ship from it?) and the Ultimate Tech Upgrades.
Under the “Worst Case” scenario, this is technically worth over $500+, but if you count the Ultimate Tech Upgrades at $0 that brings the value down to $550. Take another $70-$100 off if you didn’t want (or don’t agree with) the Elite BOFF Token and Epic Prize Token pricing, and you quickly start going toward $400-$430, definitely not worth a full-price purchase.
FINAL VERDICT ON COST VS CONTENTS
So what does all this tell us? For $140…
- If you went with just ships for your Choice Pack, you’re good. We’re looking at a range of $170 – $190 of value for any 3-ship combo on a $140 (+ tax) purchase.
- Unless you count the Ultimate Tech Upgrades as $0, there’s only one bad 3-pick choice for $140: the Elite BOFF Tokens, the Master Keys, and the Undine Cheirax Bio-Warship ($130 in current Best Case valuation).
- For the MEGA Bundle, using best-case pricing, discounts, etc., you get $330-$430 worth of value from getting everything once over for a $270 (+ tax) buy-in.
IS IT WORTH IT?
You’re the only one who can ultimately decide that.
If you’re after the Deimos for multiple characters, that’s 2-3 characters’ worth of use to make $140 be quite the small cost for the power-up Immolating Phaser Lance gives lower-end ships and builds.
You like Pilot ships? La Sirena, the Deimos, and Book’s ship won’t disappoint. (I have no experience with the Cheirax to say for sure how fun a ship it is.)
Does nothing appeal to you? Then don’t buy it. Easiest $140 I can save you!
Do you not have $140 (+ tax) to spend on this? Don’t force yourself! Don’t borrow money, don’t add another charge to your credit card, don’t overdraft your bank account. None of that! This is a game. Food, rent, clothing, your significant other, all matter more.
PERSONAL DECISION
I’ll grab it. A chunk of it is about the Deimos (which on its own wouldn’t quite be enough), one’s a personal pick, and I’m lacking direction on the final pick.
- Book’s ship: I had one, but I sold it to help afford the Janeway Command Science Vessel. I’d wanted to get one back, but I didn’t want to pay 1+ billion EC for it for a single character.
- Deimos: I have two, but leveling characters and lesser-built max-level characters can all benefit from the Console.
- I’m not sure what to do with the 3rd choice. I have a La Sirena, but I’m unsure that I want it available on all characters. I do have the Undine Kiwavi Bio-Cruiser from a previous Choice Pack, and I tend to prefer Set Bonuses and themes when I can, so I may go with the Cheirax. But I like the Experimental Weapon on La Sirena and it’s a fun ship to fly. ARGH!!!
BE KIND
When you approach other players about why they went a certain way with their choice on this Choice Pack/MEGA Bundle, just remember that everyone has their reasons for or against it. Respect their opinions, let everyone enjoy the game the way they feel is best. Be constructive in any criticism you deliver to anyone or any business, but remember to be kind to the players. After all, it’s just a game, a game I feel most readers enjoy for one reason or another. 🙂
Until next time, and that should be soon with the start of a series about building out a certain recent ship’s loadout for both Free-to-Play and experienced players, take care and continue enjoying Star Trek Online!
Joe and STO 