Tweet Series: Economic Update for the New Player and the F2P Account

Good day, Joe and STOers! My apologies, I’ve been testing my new Star Trek: Prodigy Season 1 Episodes 11-20 discs to make sure they’re working. So far, so good!

I’d hoped to have the Jem’Hadar Escort post up tonight, but sadly that’s likely not happening.

However, I did provide an update on Twitter…*ahem*…”X”…on how a week of relatively casual EC grinding went.

What All Did You Do?

I didn’t keep track of every little thing, but the majority comes from…

• Vendoring loot (Reputation project reward box equipment I don’t need, loot from Patrols/TFOs)
• Tour the Galaxy on 1-2 characters for 5 of the 7 days.
• Contraband-rewarding Duty Officer missions.
• Admiralty mission rewards that include EC (either in whole or in part).

As well, I offer a Dilithium update, which includes:

• Admiralty Bonus Week.
• Reputation daily missions.
• Admiralty missions themselves.
• Doing one of this Event’s TFOs daily.

How Did It Turn Out?

Not bad for 3 characters, I felt.

As I do with “Tweet Series” posts, this is stuff I’ve posted to “X” but didn’t have time to expand upon for a proper blog post, so I post it here in case you’re not following me there.

Hey, an update’s an update, right?

After 1 week of EC and Contraband grinding, plus some Admiralty Bonus Weekend extra Dilithium, here's how the EC & Contraband turned out, plus my overall Dilithium haul.

CONTRABAND:
Remara'Etan (primary): 83
Grav'ty (alt): 94
Korol (alt): 60
TOTAL: 237

A thread. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/4RSZeva2sD

— Joe and STO (@CardGameNut) September 25, 2023

But let's say you're needing some gear or traits still. These may be more worth the time and effort to sell.

To undercut (and simple math), if we sold this whole stack for 60,000 per Contraband, we'd be looking at 14,200,000 EC. pic.twitter.com/3JNyY6SuSM

— Joe and STO (@CardGameNut) September 25, 2023

IF we sell all the Contraband, we'd have ~23 million EC.

How good is that?

The staple Tactical space trait, "A Good Day to Die," goes for ~30 million EC.

A must-have space trait is possible on a 3-character account in ~1.5 weeks fully F2P. pic.twitter.com/eNWroJAu6w

— Joe and STO (@CardGameNut) September 25, 2023

(I’ll interrupt the re-posting here to point out this is part of why I got the EC cap increase rather than holding that Dilithium for the Gamma Vanguard Starter Pack: If I wanted higher-end gear/traits, 15 million EC wasn’t going to cut it.)

As for our Dilithium goal, I need 1,000,000 Dilithium for the Gamma Vanguard Starter Pack.

Counting all Dilithium, I have 504,361 Dilithium, a hair over *half* of what I need. I could be a bit closer without a Phoenix Prize Pack, the EC cap increase, and some Re-Engineering.

— Joe and STO (@CardGameNut) September 25, 2023

…and with more characters with more ships, the more likely that 5,000 per day on a built-up character turns into closer to 20,000-25,000 Dil per day over many mid-line-developed characters.

— Joe and STO (@CardGameNut) September 25, 2023

And That’s The Whole Dil with the EC Update

That’ll do it for today. I hope this gave you a bit of an idea of what’s possible for a F2P account on limited in-game funds and how quickly fortunes can change if you know what to look for.

….

You don’t know what to look for? Well…seems I have a mid-week blog post for the first week of October!

…hopefully. I hope you all know by know I’m not exactly a “set it in stone” kind of writer. Too much happens to mess up my scheduling.

Here’s hoping! Until then, enjoy Star Trek Online!