Good day, Joe and STOers! I’m taking a break from the F2P account to bring you some relatively breaking news.
…oh, you already know about the original T6 TOS-era Constitution making its way to the Z-Store via the Mudd’s Cruiserweight Choice Pack/MEGA Bundle?
Pshhh…fine! I didn’t need to be the bearer of good (bad? indifferent?) news, anyway!
Nah, actually, this is the part I think you and I both enjoy: looking at ships!
Just like past versions of the Value Series on Mudd Choice Packs/MEGA Bundles (“Mudd Bundles”), I’ll use this part to show off the ships and give some historical perspective (as best as I’m aware of), while the 2nd part of this will look at the Zen- and cash-equivalent pricing of certain choices in this Bundle.
THE SHIPS
As always, we’ll start with the ships! I’m going to do this one slightly differently. I’ll start off with the individual ships first, then I’ll hit the 3-pack of ships (the first time we’ve had a multiple-ship choice since “Into Darkness and Beyond” in 2021 and only the 3rd overall Bundle to do so, the first being the original “Stealing Time” when it started the Choice Packs in May of 2020).
*NOTE: Technically, all ships here are available for free via the yearly Event Campaigns. However, this will deal with the original and more regular way these ships come around.
ORIGINAL RELEASE METHOD: Deep Space Nine Lock Box chance reward.
ORIGINAL RELEASE DATE: June 5th, 2018
ACCOUNT-WIDE RELEASE DATE: August 24th, 2023
TIME SPAN FROM SINGLE-CHARACTER TO ACCOUNT-WIDE: 5 Years, 2 Months, 20 Days
CLAIM(S) TO FAME: Final canon Jem’Hadar ship to make it to STO (as best I’m aware, anyway); Two Commander-level seats; If you’re picking this up for lack of better options, account-wide Directed Energy Weapon damage boost off its console is pretty nice in the earlier levels.
While the Jem’Hadar Light Battlecruiser never made competitive waves, for Jem’Hadar-themed completionists it’s a decent ship with a fun trait for “Summon All The Things!”-style builds. The console’s stats and abilities never took off, but if you’re leveling alternate characters (“alts”), getting a universal 12.8% Cat1 damage boost to your energy weapons early on can help make up for the shortcomings of a limited, low-level build. It’s not a “full-spec” ship (meaning it has no ship-based special power), and at that it only has a single Lieutenant Commander-level spec seat. It’s an Intelligence seat, so at least it’s a helpful spec for Directed Energy Weapons in this 5-forward weapon setup.
Ri’Shad-Shadowstar has a visual overview and combat example in his review of this ship from June of 2018. (BTW, welcome back to STO content creation, Ri’Shad!)
And here’s WintersGaming with a then-budget build from November 2019. While there’s no parse, his test was a Patrol called “Sentinels,” where Elachi are constantly trying to drop your shields (unlike Borg which just say, “What shields?”). It’s as much about survivability there as it is damage output. (Unfortunately, Winters hasn’t posted an STO video in over a year, and it’s been 6 months since he’s posted anything. 😦 ).
Walker-class Light Battlecruiser
ORIGINAL RELEASE METHOD: Lobi Store for 900 Lobi.
ORIGINAL RELEASE DATE: January 23rd, 2018
ACCOUNT-WIDE RELEASE DATE: August 24th, 2023
TIME SPAN FROM SINGLE-CHARACTER TO ACCOUNT-WIDE: 5 Years, 7 Months, 2 Days
CLAIM(S) TO FAME: First T6 version of the Walker-class in STO; Obfuscation Screen is/was a nice, “Oh, no!”, quick heal button while providing a decent boost to damage afterward.
The Walker-class Light Cruiser gains a bit more damage potential thanks to having 5 Engineering console slots (and essentially a 6th through a T6-X upgrade), so it can take near-full advantage of Isomagnetic Plasma Distribution Manifolds. That combined with 5 forward weapons helps make this a potential forward-facing damage monster. However, it’s not a “full-spec” ship, the specializations it does have are too low (Lieutenant and Ensign), and the higher one is Pilot, still seen as a non-desirable specialization (though updates earlier this year have helped).
I didn’t see a review for the Lobi version of the Walker; any visual and overall reviews are for the Legendary version. I uploaded a very quick combat example involving the Walker included in this Mudd Bundle. It doesn’t complete the patrol I used, but it shows the Walker using its default weapons and the Obfuscation Screen console.
23rd Century Starships
ORIGINAL RELEASE METHOD: Originally a specific “Promotion!”-style pack that would award the [Special Requisition Pack – 23rd Century Tier 6 Ship] specifically. This has since been rolled into the generic “Promotion!” R&D and DOFF promotional sales and is available from the [Special Requisition Choice Pack – Tier 6 Promotional Ship Choice Pack].
ORIGINAL RELEASE DATE: August 25th, 2016
ACCOUNT-WIDE RELEASE DATE: August 24th, 2023
TIME SPAN FROM SINGLE-CHARACTER TO ACCOUNT-WIDE: 7 years exact, counting both the start and end date. If not…6 Years, 11 Months, 30 Days
CLAIM(S) TO FAME: First time getting a Tier 6 version of a Constitution-class ship (really…first time above Tier 2) and a D7 (Which had 2 Tier 5 versions). The T’Liss upgraded the T’Varo to a 5/2 from being a 4/3 (for Energy weapons, you want more forward weapon slots). The Constitution is a versatile platform for both Directed Energy Weapons and Torpedoes (as we’ll see below), while the D7 is a good Beams: Overload build (“Overload”). I’m unsure if the T’Liss from here became/is meta for anything.
While not a new thing for the T’Liss (T’Varo in other variations), the Constitution and D7 marked the first time you could fly a T6 version of each ship. Their setups at the time were fantastic for multiple roles, mostly Overload since they have 5 forward weapon slots.
The Constitution-class is likely the most versatile of all these, as the setup is great for Overload, Fire at Will, and Torpedoes.
As an example of each, here are a few videos to get your attention.
First up, a nearly 7-year-old video from Alt Lexington, showing a Beams: Fire at Will build approaching 100k DPS.
Next, a fun theme build from TriZander for last year’s Star Trek Day, using Overload but on a canon-style build: only 1 Advanced Fleet Twin Phaser Beam Array and 1 Advanced Fleet Photon Torpedo Launcher forward and nothing aft. Why not use a Tier 2 version of the Constitution, then? Simply the number of consoles and BOFF slots, which are a lot fewer in number on a Tier 2 ship than a Tier 6 version. (Plus, I think he says it was his first Constitution in the game? I admit, I’m trying to do this fairly quickly, so I may have caught that wrong. :p )
The Constitution can also take on a Torpedo-style setup thanks to its Lieutenant Commander Command-specialization seat, allowing it to use Concentrate Firepower III (and with some recent-ish changes to that ability, it’s not an issue if pets are also using torpedoes). Stu1701 has a 400k+ DPS parse with this style of setup.
The D7 has a slightly different setup, swapping the Command seat to an Intel seat, making it more ideal for Overload builds than torpedo-based builds.
Spencer (“CasualSAB”) attempted an Overload build on a Livestream in July of last year, hitting 176k DPS with an on-a-whim build. While relatively low compared to some other videos I’ve shown, he admits he wasn’t quite “with it” to do proper runs, so it’s very likely this could go much higher. Also, if you’re just trying to get to the Elite levels, 176k is plenty to do Elite. Obviously, the higher the better, but that’s above the cutoff of ~100k DPS to do Elite without holding back your group. Regardless, it’s one of Spencer’s top Overload platforms in the entire game as of a year ago in June.
I didn’t see many videos around the T’Liss Temporal Warbird, so I uploaded my video that was mostly intended to be a DemoRecord run. It’s only a few minutes long, but it should show off the T’Liss with its stock setup. Its BOFF specialization setup is a Temporal and a Pilot seat (which may be another reason this specific T’Liss never really took off).
THE OTHER ITEMS
As always, Mudd Choice Packs/MEGA Bundles have extra items in them in case at least 1 ship doesn’t suit your fancy.
NOTE: The items below tend to be Bound to Account. Nothing below is usually tradeable or sellable when bought via a Mudd’s Choice Pack/MEGA Bundle.
The primary way of obtaining Lobi is using Master Keys to open various Lock Boxes, minimum 4 per box with a community-calculated average of around 5-6 per box over a long run of openings. That could be anywhere from 200-300 Lobi if you’re needing a piece of Lobi gear.
And who knows? You may open an [Infinity Prize Pack – T6 Ship] and can pick most any other Lock Box ship you’d like.
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Lobi Crystals are what you’ll need for some items and ships from the Lobi Store. Usually, any gear you need will cost 200 Lobi per piece and usually gets down to 160 Lobi with a 20% off sale. This could mean full sets of space gear could cost 480 – 600 Lobi. Ships cost 900 Lobi, though I’d doubt the efficiency of buying a ~$30-$40 (average) ship on a 3x-pick of 300 Lobi Crystals.
Though usually not as good as getting Keys, getting 300 Lobi in one shot still saves quite a bit of clicking through on Lock Boxes and “Promotion!” boxes.
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3. Ultimate Tech Upgrades (x10)
If you’re lazy or extremely conscious of your Dilithium supply and not wanting to use other upgrade types, this may not be a bad option. The ability to go straight to Mk XV Epic with a single upgrade is quite tempting!
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4. Elite Bridge Officer Training Tokens (x16)
These are a relatively recent addition to the game. These will allow a Bridge Officer to upgrade their upgradeable traits to the “Superior” version, the most famous example being the “Romulan Operative” trait available on some Romulan Bridge Officers to be upgraded to “Superior Romulan Operative.”
These also open up a Kit Frame slot and the use of most any Personal Ground Trait as if they were a Captain themselves.
Unlike Starship upgrades, these training tokens are strictly a per-BOFF use, regardless of if you could have reclaimed them via the “Reclaim Rewards” tab of the Events UI or from the C-Store. Who knows why, could be corporate wanting a repeatable purchase, or it could be technical in how BOFFs are generated that doesn’t allow account-wide Elite training, but either way, that’s where we are so that’s the warning if you were looking to use these in that way.
NEXT UP: THE BORING (but necessary) FINANCIAL LOOK
Well, that was a fun look at the ships (and a tad bit of a rundown of the extra items). So you know what that means…next post is MATH TIME! If you’re spending ~$140 on this Bundle, wouldn’t you like to know if the ships/items in it even add up to that?
I’ll be looking at the estimated cash costs of everything there, both as a Choice Pack and as a MEGA Bundle, and I’ll give my final results (and a few warnings) there, as well.
Until then, keep on enjoying Star Trek Online!
Joe and STO 