Good day, Joe and STOers! Last week, Cryptic released the “Mudd’s ‘Disco Inferno’ Choice Pack/MEGA Bundle,” which put a meta starship trait, a popular Discovery-era Federation starship, a lazy boat staple (prior to the Cnidarian Defender, at least), and the amazing transforming claw into purchasable account-wide status!
Last week, I posted a visual overview. Now, we get into the weeds of the math behind the value of the Choice Pack and MEGA Bundle.
A few notes before I start:
- Prices given are for individual ship purchases. They don’t take into account being able to reclaim ships as many times as you wish among all characters on your account. As I’ll likely also detail later, if you were to want a ship on multiple characters, add the given valuations to your personal list to see if this is worth the 14,750 for the Choice Pack or 30,000 for the MEGA Bundle.
- All ships listed in Mudd Choice Packs/MEGA Bundles are T6, so I’m foregoing the “[T6]” at the end of each ship name. I think we can safely assume they won’t be offering account-wide unlocks of T5 ships in these, and if they ever do, I’ll point those out separately.
- Prices used for calculations were:
- Master Key: 11,750,000 EC
- “Promotion!” Box, lowest price among all types: 26,000,000 EC
- This time, I didn’t use the R&D version of the “Promotion!” box specifically. They’re only 200,000 EC higher per box, which is only a ~0.75% price difference.
Alright, then, let’s jump right into it. Let’s get into the numbers!
THE SHIPS
Normally, I’d set this up into 4 sections, but…well…when I went to check the Exchange on January 10th (the day it released)…I got nothin’…for ANY ships.
SO…in the absence of any pricing information, I made do with a standard price: 1,500,000,000 EC.
Why?
The EC-based Exchange has an upper limit on how much you can ask for an item (or stack of items). That limit is 1.5 billion EC. If a ship goes for a higher price than that, private trade channels exist and/or you’ll rely on your Fleet, Zone Chat, or Local Chat to buy and sell anything of a higher value.
Since zero copies of any of these 4 ships were on the Exchange (which I expected of the D7 and Connie, but not for the Jovian and Ba’ul Sentry Vessel), that made my life a whole lot simpler.
Because of that, I’ll do one section for the D7/Connie (you’ll see why in a moment), then separate but smaller sections for the Jovian Intel Heavy Raider and Ba’ul Sentry Vessel.
1. D7 Miracle Worker Flight Deck Carrier/(Constitution) Miracle Worker Flight Deck Carrier
These two ships get a section of their own for one reason: They’re a combined choice!
Yes, before we get into the actual valuations, I wanted to highlight that you don’t have to choose between the D7 and the Constitution versions of the Miracle Worker Flight Deck Cruiser.
Here’s a video from MartinARG1979 showing all the ship contents. It’ll show you how to get both the Constitution and D7 ships even though the Choice Pack only gives you one Discovery Flight Deck Carrier Ship Pack [T6] box on the initial purchase.
The other ships below…are just to have some extra looks at the ships before I get into the math. Enjoy!
AND NOW…THE MATH!
VALUE PERSPECTIVE
So, we have a base value of 1.5 billion EC to get each ship; 11,750,000 EC per Master Key (since they’re always available, it’s just better if they’re on a discount); and 26,000,000 EC per “Promotion!” box (not always available, but when they are they’re much better than Master Keys on an EC-per-Zen rate).
And remember, these prices are per ship. For example, if I show a Zen price of, say, 10,000 Zen, just multiply 10,000 by 4 (as there are 4 ships here) for 40,000 Zen total.
At Full Price
- Master Keys
- Number of Keys Needed: 128, bought as 12 sets of 10-packs and 8 single Keys.
- Zen Needed: 14,500 Zen (13,500 Zen for the 10-packs + 1,000 Zen for the 8 individual Keys).
- “Promotion!” Packs
- Number of Packs Needed: 58 Packs, bought as 14 sets of 4 boxes and 2 individual boxes.
- Zen Needed: 11,700 Zen (11,200 for the 14 sets of 4 boxes + 500 Zen for the 2 individual boxes, using R&D box pricing)
At Best Discount
- Master Keys – 25% Off
- Number of Keys Needed: 128, bought as 12 sets of 10-packs and 8 single Keys.
- Zen Needed: 10,875 Zen (10,125 Zen for the 10-packs + 750 Zen for the 8 individual Keys).
- “Promotion!” Packs – 30% Off
- Number of Packs Needed: 58 Packs, bought as 14 sets of 4 boxes and 2 individual boxes.
- Zen Needed: 7,605 Zen (7,840 for the sets of 4 boxes + 500 Zen for the 2 individual boxes, using R&D box pricing)
If you go for all ships, the Choice Pack is worth 30,420 Zen at these valuations and using the “Promotion!” packs price with a 30% discount. That’s 4 ships at 7,605 Zen each, with the Discovery Miracle Worker Flight Deck Carrier Ship Pack constituting 15,210 Zen of the value.
“But all I want is the D7, and that’s only 7,605 Zen under ideal circumstances.” True, but recall these are account-wide unlocks. Unlike traditional Z-Store ships which are always account-wide unlocks on purchase, the ships included in Mudd’s Choice Packs/MEGA Bundles were previously only single-character wins/purchases (the “Forged Alliance” one nowithstanding, and I’ll still say that was a bad decision to Mudd Bundle it instead of Z-Store bundling). We have to consider how many times you’d claim the D7 on your account. If you want it even just twice, that’s 7,605 x 2 = 15,210 Zen worth of D7s, one of which you didn’t have to go out and buy a 2nd time. You still come out ahead by getting the Choice Pack (and make up over half the MEGA Bundle price).
THE WARNING – The 10th Anniversary Bundle
It seems I’m doing this with almost every Mudd Choice Pack/MEGA Bundle that has a “Hero Ship” in it. If you own the 10th Anniversary Legendary Starships Bundle, you have a version of the Constitution-class Miracle Worker Flight Deck Carrier: the Legendary Temporal Flight Deck Carrier.
Because of that, you already have the skins (“Constitution” and “Constitution Beta”), Console (Reinforcing Squadrons), and Trait (Polarized Lattice-Optimized Tritanium Armor) as account-wide unlocks (of course, for the Trait you have to level the ship on each character that wants it, but I digress). That’s usually the majority of the reasons for wanting a ship.
However, the original Promo version that’s in this Choice Pack/MEGA Bundle is usually seen as the superior version of the ship (similar to the Temporal Light Cruiser compared to the Legendary Miracle Worker Light Cruiser for the Mudd’s “Cruiserweight” Choice Pack/MEGA Bundle). It’s more maneuverable, has a 5/3 weapons setup (ideal for most every weapon-based setup now), and has the coveted extra Console slot that you can put anything in.
Considering you’re not having to choose between this or the D7 (unlike the Mudd’s “Allied Factions” Choice Pack/MEGA Bundle for the Sarcophagus and original Crossfield Science Spearhead), you could either consider this as 0 value (you never wanted it, or you already have most everything you’d want from it due to the 10th Anniversary Bundle) or as its full price (to get the platform, you’d need the actual ship, so consider that 7,605 – 14,500 Zen you’d need to spend otherwise). Your valuation might go from 30,420 Zen down to 22,815 Zen. Either way, you’re still well over the 14,750 Zen cost of the Choice Pack.
So…if you want the ships, you have your value easily. But how does the rest of the Choice Pack/MEGA Bundle look?
OTHER ITEMS
WARNING: The contents below tend to be “Bound to Account” when you get them from Mudd Choice Packs/MEGA Bundles. Do not expect to sell any of these items; you’d only pick them to use them on your character/account.
Since we’re looking at Zen-equivalent pricing, I’m using the Z-Store’s pricing where available. Here, that’s the Master Keys and the Elite Captain Training Tokens.
1. Master Key (x50)
The easiest thing to do here is use direct Z-Store pricing since…well, they’re one of the bases for Zen-equivalent valuations!
- Full Price: 5,625 Zen
- 15% Price: ~4,781 Zen
- 20% Price: 4,500 Zen
- 25% Price: ~4,219 Zen
2. Epic Phoenix Prize Token (x1)
I’m using data from this Reddit thread by “joshmessenger” about 2 years ago to come up with a Zen-equivalent value.
In the spreadsheet linked there, the drop rate for an Epic Phoenix Prize Token is 0.11%. That means, on average and if I’m doing my math correctly, you should get 11 Epic Phoenix Prize Tokens in every 10,000 Phoenix Prize Boxes, averaging 1 Epic token in every ~909.0909… Phoenix boxes. I’ll round that to 910 boxes.
910 boxes takes 91 sets of 10 boxes at 40,000 Dilithium each, totalling 3,640,000 Dilithium. At PC’s current “500 Dilithium per 1 Zen” backlog, that’s 7,280 Zen, just about $4 shy of the value of each of the above account-unlocked ships.
3. Elite Captain Training Token (x6)
We’ll use straight Z-Store pricing here.
Individually, these are 1,500 Zen each. In a pack of 3, they’re 1,500 Zen. This is the same as 2 packs, so the full price is 3,000 Zen.
- Full Price: 3,000 Zen
- 20% Discount: 2,400 Zen
- 25% Discount: 2,250 Zen
4. Ultimate Tech Upgrade (x10)
I’m going to make this quick: These have 0 Zen of value.
“But…Cryptic wants ~2,000 Zen per Ultimate Tech Upgrade when they do Key Ring Bundles and Mudd non-Ship listings! And it’s 1,000 or 1,500 Zen when a Galactic Red Alert runs!”
Yes, and that’s how I used to look at them, but they’re purely Quality-of-Life items. You can get any of your gear up to Mk XV Epic without an Ultimate Tech Upgrade. It may take time, a lot of Dilithium, and a ton of Phoenix Upgrades or other Upgrade Token types, but you can get there. There’s a failsafe for quality upgrades, so you’re not ever going to not hit Epic on an item with enough time, resources, and bad luck turning good or being 100% guaranteed.
So let’s leave it like this: If you feel these have any value, assign your valuation to these. Otherwise, count them as 0 Zen: they’re nice, they save a lot of time and frustration, but you don’t need them to get anything.
BUNDLE VALUATIONS
Before I get into the Choice Pack/MEGA Bundle valuations, let’s summarize our best- and worst-case scenario pricings for everything, shall we?
- SHIPS
- MOST EXPENSIVE: 14,500 Zen each
- CHEAPEST: 7,605 Zen each
- OTHER ITEMS
- Master Keys
- FULL PRICE: 5,625 Zen
- CHEAPEST: ~4,219 Zen
- Epic Phoenix Prize Token
- AVERAGE: 7,280 Zen
- Elite Captain Training Tokens
- FULL PRICE: 3,000 Zen
- CHEAPEST: 2,250 Zen
- Ultimate Tech Upgrades
- 0 Zen; they’re a Quality-of-Life timesaver.
- Master Keys
And now…the overall valuations.
Route 1: Choice Pack
This will be slightly tougher as we need to break 14,750 Zen (never buy these at the full 29,500 Zen price!) up into 3 pieces. Thus, we need each item to cover at least ~4,917 Zen of value.
Currently, only three items don’t do this: the Elite Captain Training Tokens (highest valuation is 3,000 Zen), Ultimate Tech Upgrades (0 Zen), and Master Keys (if valued at any discount 20% or higher).
Let’s say you wanted the Ultimate Tech Upgrades. At 0 value, you’d now need 7,375 Zen of value from each of the remaining two choices to make back your 14,750 Zen. At that point, you’d need to make 2 ship choices from the account-wide options.
Let’s instead go with the Elite Captain Training Tokens. That means you have 2 more items to make up 12,500 Zen, or an average of 6,250 Zen per remaining item. You could then pick an Epic Phoenix Prize Token (7,280 Zen), bringing your needed total to 5,220 Zen. Any account-wide ship, another Epic Phoenix Prize Token, or the Master Keys (only if you value them near full price) would make up your value and then some.
If you go all account-wide ships, you more than make up your value at a cheapest valuation of 30,420 Zen. In fact, you could pick any 2 of the account-wide ship options (15,210 Zen), then go with whatever 3rd option you’d like.
Route 2: MEGA Bundle
With MEGA Bundles, you get each choice once over (the D7/Connie counts as a single choice as it gives a Ship Pack from which you choose the D7 or the Connie, then reclaim the Ship Pack and get the other).
Adding up the cheapest values, we get a grand total of 44,169 Zen. I’d have to look back at previous valuations, but that may be the highest overall valuation for a MEGA Bundle to date! If it’s not, it’s gotta be close. What helps is that 2 of the ships are guaranteed (as long as you pick them) and are both Promo-level ships. Even if they’re worth a bit more while the Jovian and Ba’ul ships are worth a tad less, we’re probably still looking at over 40,000 Zen of value here.
SHOULD YOU BUY THIS?
Obviously, I don’t know your financial situation, how much you’re willing to grind out Dilithium for the Zen you’d need, etc. I’ll then say that the following assumes you have the means to do so and it won’t break your real life budget.
CHOICE PACK
If you’d wanted any of these 4 ships, I’d get the Choice Pack and only the Choice Pack. The D7 and Constitution are fun ships even if you stripped them of their special gear. If you’re trying for a meta build, you likely need the D7’s Starship Trait. The Ba’ul ship’s Console is the start of a “lazy boat” (like I showed in the Visual Overview I did last week), and its stock Ba’ul Antiproton Beam Arrays are nice for chaining extra damage to untargeted enemies (though you’ll want upgradeable versions for much above Normal difficulty). The Jovian…okay, this one you may want to instead choose the Epic Phoenix Prize Token if you’re still needing the D.O.M.I.N.O. console off the Bajoran Interceptor or to fill a theme from one of the other ships in the list (just keep in mind, Phoenix store purchases are for a single character; they are not account-wide unlocks!).
MEGA Bundle
NOTE: The valuation section below has been modified to reflect a total price of 50,000 Zen rather than 60,000, making the 50% off price 25,000 Zen instead of 30,000.
At the lowest end of pricing, you have 13,749 Zen of extra value beyond the ships. The MEGA Bundle, when on sale, is 10,250 more Zen from the base price of the Choice Pack. You come out ahead on value by 3,499 Zen compared to the extra you pay, or just under the value of the Master Keys themselves.
Is that worth it? That’s a very strong maybe. You see, you only get each choice once over. If you want the 3 ships, an Epic Phoenix Prize Token, and 2 sets of 50x Master Keys, well…a MEGA Bundle won’t do you there. You’d need to do 2 Choice Packs.
So I’d say that, while the value is there if you just want everything once over, you may want to consider is 25,000 Zen for one of everything is better than 29,750 Zen to do the Choice Pack twice but have more control on what you get from the 6 choices.
MY DECISION
So what will I do with this Choice Pack?
Considering I want to do more ship reviews, I need the D7 for The Ruin of Our Enemies. As well, I’d always wanted the Ba’ul Sentry Ship for both looks and its Console but never could bring myself to use an Event Campaign box for it to go onto a single character.
Since the combined total for just those 2 is over 14,750 Zen, I’m getting this Choice Pack. My choices? The ships. The Jovian Intel Heavy Raider isn’t exactly on my list of must-have ships, but as it’s effectively free (my view is I’m buying the D7 and the Ba’ul ship) I’d rather have another ship account-wide unlocked as you never know when/if its equipment/trait will be useful. As well, although I have the 10th Anniversary Bundle, the Miracle Worker version of the Discovery-era Constitution is the superior version, and I’d rather have that as my “starter Constitution” than the Legendary. It’s been 4 years, I’ve gotten my use out of the Legendary Temporal Flight Deck Carrier to say its inclusion in that Bundle was worth it.
WHAT THE NEW YEAR HOLDS FOR “JOE AND STO”
I’ve got a lot I want to do, but for now I’m re-starting the Ko-Fi fundraiser for the expected 14th Anniversary Bundle. It’ll include similar giveaways as last time: the “A Good Day to Die” Personal Space Trait, a couple of Personal Ground Traits of your choice (1 per random donator up to 2 donators), maybe some EC, I’m unsure yet the exact amounts and prizes. Plus, highest donators get to choose which ships get reviewed in which order and what at least their general build idea will be (e.g.: “Ba’ul Antiproton Tank”).
Beyond that, I’m trying to raise money to do Event Buyouts on my main, original STO account so I can focus on my Free-to-Play account’s progress toward the 10th Anniversary Bundle, so I’ll be doing extra goals to try and get that done.
Finally, if I can get the 14th Anniversary Ship reviews out quickly, I may try to do a 2nd round of Ko-Fi donations to do some reviews of any new Bundle(s) they put out later in the year. We’ll see how quickly I can get the 14th Anniversary ones done (I feel I can get them done a lot faster than “March – December”, but we’ll see how real life treats me!).
Aside from ship reviews, I’ll be updating how my F2P account’s going. That’ll likely be in the next week or two, and it’ll include the Zen progress toward that 10th Anniversary Bundle. I’m hoping to do some “Joe’s Short STOs” to describe what I’m doing and how.
But for tonight, that’s it. No fancy exit. I need to get this out while there’s still a couple days left on the original 50% off run of the “Disco Inferno” Choice Pack/MEGA Bundle.
Until likely some time within the next week, continue enjoying Star Trek Online!
Joe and STO 