The Grand Experiment, 2023: Earning Enough Zen for a Mudd Choice Pack

Good day, Joe and STOers! With all the talk of the Dilithium Exchange being effectively broken, I decided to take on a large-scale task for 2023.

I’m looking to pick up a Mudd Choice Pack at no additional cost.

YOU CAN’T DO THIS FOR FREE!

Oh, no. I didn’t say this was intended for Free to Play (“F2P”) players. I’ve put in a ton of real cash and ground out quite a bit of Dilithium for Zen to get what I have. To not use those resources would be setting me back about a decade!…Plus, it’d be hard to filter my Admiralty roster by when I got what ships and how. :p

No, this will be a “no additional cost” project. The only basic rule is I can’t use Dilithium (“Dil”), Energy Credit (“EC”), or Zen balances prior to December 31st, 2022, to get to my intended target. Other than that, everything is fair game!

EVERYTHING!? EVEN BOTS?

Oh…well, that’s against the Terms of Service for one, but no, this needs to be all manual inputs. No automation will be used aside from the game’s Lifetime Subscription’s auto-refinement for Dilithium and its 500 Zen monthly stipend.

OKAY, SO WHAT’S YOUR PLAN?

Okay, here we go.

I’m looking to grab up 14,750 Zen without any additional spending involved.

Here are the rules (may be broken here or there as forgetfulness happens):

1) Project will run for 300 days (to ensure enough time on the DilEx to get Zen from Dil) over at least 10 characters. More characters may turn their Marks into Dilithium, or the below-mentioned new Recruit may be in addition to my 10 regulars.

2) I can’t use previous Zen (1920 Zen) or Dil (~1,050,000) unless it’s estimated to be the final Dil offer I can list before end-of-year sales and I wouldn’t make it otherwise. Lifetime Zen is fair game (already have a Lifetime Sub, so it’s no additional cost. Plus, it’s auto-generated.).

3) No using bots or automatic action scripts/apps; all actions are done manually.

4) Only EC earned from in-game activities (e.g.: vendoring junk, opening Endeavor boxes, selling Summer and Winter Event items) is allowed for Contraband purchasing. This prevents use of Lock Box item selling to accelerate EC earnings.

5) No transfers of EC or items from my alt account into my main for the purposes of this project.

6) Any current free-to-acquire built-up resources are fair game (e.g.: Leftover Marks boxes; few slivers of Contraband; Summer & Winter Events’ currencies; Marks in Reps from which I don’t plan to buy anything more). This is “no additional cost,” not, “from 0.” 7) Each character only gets checked once per day. I’m doing 10 characters here and 5-7 on PlayStation, so I likely won’t have time to check either twice a day like I’d prefer to do.

There will be a few things I’ll intentionally try to do to get the most Dilithium in this 300-day span.

1) Contraband turn-ins on at least 3-4 characters per day (once enough Contraband from Marauding DOFF missions is earned and EC comes in from other sources).

2) Will run all Events for main prizes and their extra days for the bonus Dilithium.

3) Any characters not at Tier 6 Reputation will work toward Tier 6 in that Reputation(s).

4) Marks earned or already acquired in Tier 6 Reps will be converted to Dil at the end of each month.

5) Ferengi Tour of Duty will run constantly on all characters (50% bonus to Dil earnings up to 30,000 bonus Dil on the character). Characters not at Level 10 in an Admiralty track(s) will work on those, as well.

6) Universal and “Hard” Endeavors as often as is possible, limit 1 Reroll per day on Hard Endeavors.

7) I’ll make a new Delta Recruit (once available) I’d planned for since November – Federation, using a 2409 Fed Level Boost from the Legendary Vesta Bundle (which I’d already purchased and have no other use for, so this is more a time skip of a few days).

8) Contraband farming on 5 KDF-aligned characters, as I’m unsure what kind of EC income I can pull for buying Contraband.

There will be a few things I feel I can’t directly control over a practically full year of this experiment that would individually be minor amounts of currencies but ultimately be a decent fraction of all income:

1) Extra TFOs/Battlezone runs (to test a build or complete an Endeavor).

2) Dil earnings from Admiralty missions (can range from 0 to 2,000).

3) Leftover Zen from other purchase(s) through the year.

4) “Easy” and “Medium” Endeavor rewards.

5) Pre-January unclaimed Rep projects.

6) Pre-January unclaimed Endeavor reward boxes found on alts.

7) Dil earned from the actual TFOs of any Event.

8) Dil earned from Admiralty level-up rewards.

9) Dil earned from Episode completions.

NUMBER CRUNCH: CAN I MAKE IT IN 300 DAYS (as of 1/1/2023)?

So, I’m going to employ about 10 characters on my main PC account to do this.

I wouldn’t bore you with the calculations, but I’m kind of light on pictures to share, so here you are!

Assuming I don’t use my current Zen or Dilithium hoards, with 10 characters going, I’d need about 1,500 Dilithium per character per day to keep things humming along for 300 days.

If I use up my Dil reserves (~2,000 Zen worth), here are the calculations:

The numbers don’t change too much, down ~350 Dilithium per day. I’m not factoring in my current Zen balance as I’ll be using that to hopefully bring down the real cost of the anticipated 13th Anniversary Bundle.

WHY YOU SHOULD CARE

With the Dilithium Exchange the way it is (last known to take ~32 days to clear a sale of Dilithium for Zen), I wanted to see if I could get to a 14,750 balance without needing to put in additional cash if I plan my final exchange correctly (for IMSA or F1 fans, it’s like back-calculating a race from the end of the race to when the first pit stop should be, all depending on when the last pit stop is).

If I can pull it off, this series can help your basic strategies, too! So I’ll be chronicling what it takes to get there. Once every week or two, I’ll post an update on how my Dilithium earnings seem to be going and how I’ve mostly gotten there (like, “Contraband farming was solid, but Admiralty income was kind of low,” not an earnings-by-earnings play-by-play of the whole week or two), if I seem to be on track, can take it easy or need to ramp up production, etc.

I’m hoping to have a good idea of how feasible this is by March. I’ve tried projects like this before and burnt myself out, but seeing metrics and if I’m making progress helps keep me motivated, so who knows? If I’m able to make anything good out of this for you, then it’s been a helpful series.

UP NEXT: Testing a 2-hangar ship that’s not a 3/3.

Next up on my plans for posting is testing at least one carrier-style ship that’s not a 3/3 weapons setup to see how much difference an extra two weapons makes. Now that we know the Seneca/Hiawatha can perform adequately, I feel it’s a foregone conclusion that anything more (4/3, 4/4, etc.) will definitely perform better. But how much in my hands (which yes, doesn’t mean a lot, but I’m also not a high-end DPS player, which is who this is meant for)? Find out later this week (with any luck)!

Until then, enjoy STO and have a great New Year!