VALUE SERIES: My First Strike at the Legendary First Strike Bundle 

Hello, Joe and STOers! Today’s blog is an attempt to save you some money…or convince you to buy something…or make you not care and just see how numbers work. If one of those things applies to you, this is a success! 

As of [today/yesterday/this past Wednesday], we have the Legendary First Strike Bundle available in the Z-Store. This bundle delivers on the much-anticipated Legendary Akira (in The Motion Picture style) and, relatively unexpectedly but not really, a Legendary version of the Mogai/Valdore (in Lower Decks style). Yes, there’s more to it, but those are the new noteworthy additions. 

While I’m not one to properly judge ship stats and uses (I’ll leave that up to the likes of content creators like CasualSAB or Stu1701 or for PvP Bret’s Gaming Channel), I feel I can provide some insight to Zen prices and general costs so you can determine if the Bundle may at least fit within your budget. 

(NOTE: You’ll have to forgive the lack of links beyond a certain point. I wanted to be sure to get this out on the last day of the initial sales window. I’ll edit to get links to gear, ships, and any other content later).

THE BUNDLE CONTENTS 

Before we get into the cost, you’d probably want to see what’s in this that’s Bundle-exclusive versus what’s just “can get it anywhere” “fluff.” 

Bundle Exclusives 

Ships 

  • Legendary Akira Multi-Mission Command Cruiser 
  • Including a Tier 6 account-unlocked Starship Trait and a ship skin/visual based on The Motion Picture aesthetic. 
  • Legendary Valdore Temoporal Ops Warbird 
  • Including a Tier 6 account-unlocked Starship Trait and a ship skin/visual based on Lower Decks’ season 3 episode “Crisis Point 2: Paradoxus”, seen below (and used as the preview image for this post. I know, super lazy!): 

Items 

  • Visual for the Maelstrom Quantum Torpedo (inspired by The Motion Picture scene of the newly refit Enterprise firing a blue Photon Torpedo at an asteroid). 
  • New hangar pets. 
  • Kodai Fighter Squadron, based on the Imperial “Wraith” from Starfleet Command II (credit for that information goes to Stu1701). 
  • Command (spec) Kodai Fighter Squadrons. 
  • Temporal Ops (spec) Scorpion Fighter Squadrons. 
    • NOTE: The “Command” and “Temporal Ops” pets are new. They trade off some overall damage (thus, DPS) to do a thing their Spec can do. For example, the Kodai Command pets will activate Torpedo: Spread 1 any time a “Command inspiration aura” is activated. I assume that’s one of the 3 innate Command powers you can use once you’ve activated enough Bridge Officer abilities on a Command-spec’d ship. 

Bundle Stuff Available Elsewhere 

  • Tier 6 Ship Coupon (player trades; most Legendary/Anniversary Bundles; possibly during November/December in Mudd’s Market as a 3-for-4,500 Zen offering). 
  • 2 each of “Promotion!”-level Gamma Quadrant and Romulan Survivor DOFF packs (we had a sale for these and the other DOFF and R&D Promo Packs within the past few weeks.) 
  • 23rd Century Vulcan Ambassador Costume (Z-Store, Uniforms section). 
  • Mercenary Set (Z-Store, Uniforms section). 
  • Species unlock – Cardassian (Z-Store, “Personnel” tab, “Species” sub-tab) 

THE PRICING OPTIONS 

Because we have various sales and Zen discounts, I figured I’d add a section of various Zen prices and their equivalent cash values (in US Dollars; feel free to use an online currency converter to get an idea of the price in your currency). I’ll discuss after all the information’s posted. 

No Zen Charge Bonus/Discounts

20% Zen Charge Bonus (PC via Arc)

20% Zen Discount (PlayStation; XBox; Some PC avenues of buying Zen)

The problem with these discounts is they’re not really the advertised discounts in a sense. True, 35% off 12,000 Zen will be a static 7,800 Zen…but what about discounts on your cash costs? 

The Actual Discounts 

A lot of us see discounts in the sense of, “How much cash do I end up not needing?” So I’m adding a section here for actual cash discounts on the amount you’d need to get at least the amount of Zen needed at each Zen pricing amount. 

I do note that I don’t take into account if someone has what would have been the leftover Zen in order to cut their price a bit further (usually by a $10 charge). I also don’t take into account Consoles’ $5 Zen Charge option as that’s not widely available to everyone, so Console players can modify these calculations a bit for their needs. 

Cash Discounts on Full Zen Charge Pricing (compared to full cash price)

Effective Cash Discounts at 20% Zen Charge Bonus

20% Zen Discount vs. Full Price

If I had to TL;DR this, I’d put it this way: If you’re looking for the largest cash discounts percent-wise, always wait for 30%-35% off, and try to time it with a Zen Charge Bonus/Discount event OR pre-buy your Zen during a Charge Bonus/Discount and then wait on a 30%-35% sale. You’d then be looking at effective cash discounts of 36.36% to 41.82% and prices as low as $64-$70. In my opinion, considering the prices of T6 ships in this game, that’s not a bad deal considering you’re effectively getting 3 ships (2 fixed + 1 coupon). This all could put the per-ship average at anywhere from $21.33-$35.00 each ($21.33 counting the coupon as a 3rd ship and using the lowest cash price on a Zen Discount; $35.00 counting only the Legendary ships and a 30%-35% discount combined with a 20% Zen Charge Bonus). 

So we’ve seen which contents are bundle-exclusive (if that’s what matters most to you), and you’ve seen the various Zen & cash pricing options with various discount perspectives. But that all means nothing if you feel you’re not getting value for your cash. While I can’t judge releases and Bundles from a meta perspective (I let other, way more qualified content creators do that), I can at least give you pricing perspectives to let you judge if you’re getting your money’s worth from as objective a viewpoint as possible. 

THE VALUE PERSPECTIVES 

I will address one point of possible contention: the lack of a new Universal Console for each ship. This may bring down the value of the ship to some people (we like our new clickies!), but in this case we get a few new pieces of gear ((Maelstrom Quantum Torpedo and 2 specialist-based Fighter Squadrons), and the Chronogami Displacer views the Temporal Ops Scorpions as if they’re a Console, so I’ll treat that as if we’re getting new Consoles. They’ll be listed at the full 3,000 Zen price we’d expect other new T6 ships to be at. 

Because these are Legendary Bundles, they come with a few things that aren’t standard to other T6 releases. 

  • All consoles and Starship Traits of previous releases (plus any special gear, like special beam arrays or hangar pets). 
  • All skins of all previously-released versions. 
  • No new Universal Console. 

I believe this Bundle is unique in that there is new equipment, just not Consoles, but the overall point is that one pricing perspective needs to include previously-released versions of the ship. Why? Buying a Legendary effectively outdates its previous versions unless you want a specific ship layout, so you’re better off just getting a highly-customizable Legendary versus a T6 version that has relatively limited options. 

So with that said, let’s look at the first value perspective: Counting the Legendary ships as if you’d bought all the previous versions of the ships. 

As you can see, at the highest-priced valuation, we see 9,000 Zen’s worth of value per ship (with the Tier 3s assuming their pre-Dilithium Store Zen price) and 7,800 Zen in extras, resulting in a valuation of 16,800 Zen on a 12,000 Zen Bundle, a direct savings of ~28.57% over buying everything that can be bought individually. 

Once we start looking at regular sales (20%-25%) and higher non-Bundle sales (30%), we do end up with 1 valuation that’s not even worth 12,000 Zen. At 30% off, everything would be worth 11,760 Zen, resulting in overpaying by ~1.43%. 
 
BUT…but…you’re most likely to buy this Bundle at 30%-35% off, anyway. In that case, based on the Zen prices, you do see a discount at all other theoretical discounted prices versus most any Zen price at which you could get this Bundle. 

Now, let’s say you have all of the ships from the Akira and Valdore lines. What does that do to your valuation perspectives? 

We see here that the valuation changes drastically. Now, you’re looking at a highest valuation of 10,800 Zen and a lowest valuation of 7,560 Zen. At the lowest realistic discounts and the Bundle being 35% off, you’re looking at overpaying by ~1.43%. You don’t really see any discounts over what you’d normally spend unless you’re looking at 30%-35% off, and that’s mostly comparing to 20% and 25% off valuation prices. 

META CONSIDERATIONS 

I’m so glad I waited on this post, because Spencer just put out a meta overview of this Bundle. While he doesn’t touch on the hangar pets (need testing, especially for the Temporal Ops Scorpion Fighters Squadrons + the First Contact Day event’s Chronogami Displacer), he does talk about the old Consoles and the Maelstrom Quantum (Photon?) Torpedoes. If your performance in meta builds is important to your subjective valuation perspective, give his video a watch/listen (and like, subscribe, etc., etc.).

OVERALL CONCLUSION 

So…is the Legendary First Strike Bundle a worthwhile purchase? As always…it depends on you! 

  • Have you wanted the full line of Akiras? Get this Bundle, you’ll only have 1 ship but you’ll only need one ship. This version is likely an upgrade over the Alita unless you don’t like Cruisers (which this is just a step up from Escorts/Strike Wing Escorts, so without looking at exact stats I’d expect slower flight speed and turn rate out of the Legendary Akira). This alone would account for half the Bundle’s value before considering the Legendary Akira is a ship on its own. 
  • Did you not yet have Emergency Weapon Cycle and Shield Absorptive Energy Refrequencer? This is a good start. That’s about a third of the value for you. 
  • Are you a meta player? If Spencer’s conclusions hold up over time and upcoming patches, it’s a no brainer, you buy it. 
  • Did you have none of the Akira and Valdore lines? Grab it. The ships you don’t need to buy add up to the value of the Bundle, so all the other items are truly free. 

Ultimately, you know what you need or don’t need, but I’m not seeing any egregious overvaluation here. The worst-case scenario is really for longer-time players who may already have the older Akiras and Valdores. In their cases, this is really more like getting 2 new ships (6,000 Zen) and a T6 Coupon (1,500 Zen), a 7,500 Zen total for 12,000 Zen (assuming all other inclusions are deemed not worth buying normally and/or the player already has some/most of the unlockable items). 

I hope that, at the very least, you got to see some possible cash prices and ways to value items so you can make a determination of if this Bundle is right for you. 

GETTING (TERRAN) SIRIUS NEXT TIME 

I’m way behind on my 13th Anniversary Bundle review series. Sorry, all! The next build going up will be the Terran Sirius as a budget tank build (and yes, using the now-unrestricted Shield Absorptive Energy Refrequencer!). I hope it holds up well, considering I’ve only just now started getting used to more proper DPS’ing (I didn’t say full proper!). 

Until next time, continue to enjoy STO the way you enjoy it! 

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