Good day, Joe and STOers! Since starting the F2P account a tad over 6 months ago (!!!), one thing I’d “feared” was Event Campaign 6 (coming up on February 15th for PC; Console will start likely in April). I can’t fully decide what to get from it for my main account, so here I am going, “…what do I get for the Event Campaign for my F2P account!? Lockbox/Promo ships are cool, but 2 account-wide T6 ships! And Lobi gear, some of that stuff’s still good! head explodes“

But this year? We won’t have to worry about that, for any account on any platform!

“SHIPS SHIPS SHIPS!”

Let’s start with the prizing. Aside from the very first, test-case multi-Event run (where the prize was a single T6 coupon and no other choices), Event Campaigns 2 – 5 have all involved a choice, from a T6 Coupon or Lobi in Event #2 to the form with which we’re familiar from the past 3 runs:

You had to run 4-5 Events to their 14-day minimum (for each Event’s own prize) or build up enough points over 3-4 of them counting extra days to receive a single Epic-level choice box. For example, this was Event Campaign V’s Events and Reward Box:

For older accounts, this was likely an easy choice: the Premium Ship. You’ve seen enough of my Value Series articles to know that Lockbox and Promo ships aren’t cheap. You might get by on $60-$70 of “Promotion!”-style boxes, but as Master Keys are available 24/7 (well…not counting maintenances and the rare unexpected outtage, anyway), the standard tends to be in Keys, which pumps those prices up closer to $100 – $150 each. You only get the ship on a single character, but if you mostly only play 1 character or if the ship you want is themed to that character’s theme, that tends to be fine.

For newer accounts, this is mostly an easy choice: the two T6 Z-Store Coupons. You’re fairly new or you’re a F2P player, so your ship roster is thin. You don’t have many/any of the meta traits or gear. You can catch up at a rate of 2:1 compared to taking a Premium Ship and maybe look at Years 3 or 4 for the Premium choice.

Lobi is the, “Ehhhh….maybe,” choice. While it takes considerably more cash to get 1,500 Lobi (150 “Promotion!”-level boxes at 4-for-$8, assuming no Promo ship drops; or 300-375 Master Keys at $11.25-per-10 and $1.25 per individual Key), and you could sell some items from the Lobi Store to get EC, it also doesn’t yield enough EC to be worth the pick, and almost everything you buy is a single-character use (if not everything) and usually ends up Bound to Character.

WORRY NO MORE!

So last week, we got this nugget in the announcement of Event Campaign VI (“Event Campaign 2024”) and its first Event, “Peril over Pahvo”:

o.O

…

OH, HAPPY DAY!!!

If you can do the full Event Campaign, your prize selection is no longer a two-step problem of decision paralysis (what main option, then what ship/items from that selection). You now get all three as your Grand Prize!

Financially, think of the value.

  • Premium Ship: $60-$70 (general lowest case of most Lockbox/Promo ships);
  • Z-Store ships: $50 ($22.50 when 25% off x 2 = $45, but PC can’t do $5 Bundles)
  • Lobi: 21,000 Zen (30% off Promo Packs, using R&D packs, takes 150 packs assuming no ship prize) up to 33,800 Zen (42,250 Zen for 37 sets of 10-packs of Master Keys + 5 singular Keys on the minimum 4 Lobi per Key [average is 5, but working with worst-case here], then taking 20% off), so cash-wise and not counting Zen Charge Bonus/Zen Discount periods, so…roughly mathing here…~$200-$300.

So you just went from $60 -$100 for a ship or $200-$300 worth of Lobi…and you’re getting minimum $310-$410 worth of value…for free!

And it’s a performance speed-up, too!

Scenario 1: Get Meta’d Up Faster

Let’s take an Elite-level Plasma-based build and compare timing over…let’s say 3 years under the previous system and this one.

I’m going to use CasualSAB‘s Plasma Meta build from October and plan out 3 years’ worth of Event Campaign choices under the previous system and under this new one (assuming it’s permanent or we don’t get anything removed, at least).

Of course, the “meta” can change from year to year and one ship/Event Reward release to the next. This is an example, not a model for current F2P players to necessarily follow. Also, this build uses Plasma partially because enemy health is high enough in Elite for the Damage-over-Time (“DoT”) damage ticks to add up to a substantial amount of your overall damage and DPS. If you’re running Normal or Advanced, things tend to die too quickly for Plasma’s DoT effects to matter.

Old System, Attempt #1

Year 1: Premium Choice Pack for the Gorn Hunter Pilot Raider (all the equipment and the Starship Trait are Plasma-based and meta for Elite-level Plasma builds).

Year 2: 2 T6 Z-Store Coupons, grab the Arbiter Battlecruiser/Kurak Battlecruiser/Morrigu Heavy Warbird (Emergency Weapons Cycle starship trait) and Narendra Support Cruiser/Vor’ral Support Battlecruiser (Temporal Trajectory Shifter console).

  –> BONUS: “History Will Remember” is a nice budget Tanking and overall survival starship trait. I’m unsure if it’s used in modern Tank builds, but for a while it was one of the go-to Tank traits. It’d likely help your survivability if you’re still not doing too well in the way of DPS.

Year 3: 2 T6 Z-Store Coupons, grab the Cyclone Intel Escort (Sensor Phantom Projector console) and the Cardassian Ghemor Intel Flight Deck Carrier (Calm Before the Storm).

(NOTE: You could swap the order of this around any way you like.)

Under this set of circumstances, you still need a lot of Lockbox/Promo ships.

That’s 3 years for 5 ships and another 5 years for 5 more for a grand total of 8 years. This doesn’t count trying to get the Bajoran Interceptor for the D.O.M.I.N.O. console, which requires an Epic Phoenix Prize Token, or getting traits like The Boimler Effect, A Good Day to Die, or Intelligence Agent Attaché.


Let’s say you grind out the Zen to buy the Z-Store ships. (Again, this is just a sample of choices you could make.)

Old System, Attempt #2

Year 1: Premium Choice Pack for the Gorn Hunter Pilot Raider (all the equipment and the Trait are Plasma-based), maybe buy the Arbiter (et. al.) and Narendra/Vor’ral by getting Dilithium and turning it into Zen.

Year 2: Premium Choice Pack: Mirror Warship (Terran Goodbye), maybe buy the Ghemor and Cyclone.

Year 3: D7 Miracle Worker Flight Deck Carrier (Ruin of our Enemies), maybe there’s another C-Store ship that would be a good fit.

No matter how we slice it, we’re still coming up a little short: the ideal ship platform (Dhailkhina Warbird); Universal Designs (Crossfield Refit); and Immolating Phaser Lance (Deimos Pilot Destroyer) are the three biggest misses, taking 3 more years to get totally free for a total of 6 years. If you weren’t picking up Z-Store ships, that’s 4 ships so you’re seeing 2 additional years for a 6-year catch-up period and a total wait of 8 years. In that time, equipment and traits can easily be “power crept” out of the meta.

Now, let’s look at what this new system potentially offers (again, assuming it stays the same going forward).

New System

How does getting everything change our timing and ability to grab ships?

Year 1:

  • Premium Choice Pack for the Gorn Hunter Pilot Raider.
  • T6 Coupons: Narendra + Arbiter (or their like).
  • Lobi: Wait for a 20% off Lobi sale, but after that: The Boimler Effect (160 Lobi), a Lobi ship to sell (720 Lobi), and the other 620 use as you see fit (options include [but to be replaced later] the Tachyokinetic Converter console and Bioneural Infusion Circuits console) or hold onto it until Year 2.
    • For the sold Lobi ship (hoping for 300 million EC, but I figure there’ll be a fresh wave of sold ships, so let’s say 200 million EC), we’ll accumulate that EC over the years and hope to buy a ship.

Year 2:

  • Premium Choice Pack: Dhailkhina for the ship platform.
  • T6 Coupons: the Cyclone and the Ghemor.
  • Lobi: Again, find what sells, buy it and post it on the Exchange. Hoping for 300 million EC here, as well.

Year 3:

  • Premium Choice Pack: D7 Miracle Worker Dreadnought Carrier for Ruin of our Enemies or the Mirror Warship for Terran Goodbye.
  • T6 Coupons: Perhaps the Terran Hydra Intel Destroyer (synergizes with pet builds, so could get a decent pet build started on the D7) and Bozeman .
  • Lobi: Again, find what sells, buy it and list it. Hoping for another 300 million EC.

You’re still behind on a few ships, but here’s where we’re betting on the Lobi: If Lobi ships keep selling at 300 million EC each, we’ll have 900 million EC. That’s close to a Lockbox ship. If you bought nothing else with your Lobi, you may have another ship or 2 you could sell for more EC. If you could plan to grab one of the remaining ships from this expected EC and other activities in-game to earn/grind EC, you could probably buy a Mirror Warship, Crossfield Science Spearhead Refit, or Deimos Pilot Destroyer straight up.

In 3 years, we’d have gotten 6 C-Store ships, 3 Premium Ships, and used our funds from the Lobi and other activities for a 4th Premium Ship from the Exchange or player-to-player trades.

We’d still be short 2 Lockbox ships, taking another 2 years to achieve.

But consider how far we’ve come! What was an 8-year journey has now been cut to 5 years.

“That’s a long time still!”

Oh, I know. That’s a lot of events and a lot of time. So let’s bring that down a bit.

SCENARIO 2: The Basics

You just want a decent Energy Weapons build and a few good traits.

OLD SYSTEM

Year 1: 2x T6 Z-Store Coupons, pick up the Terran Lexington Dreadnought Cruiser (Platform, “Tour the Galaxy” high performer) and Arbiter, et. al.

Year 2: 2x T6 Z-Store Coupons, pick up the Ghemor (Calm Before the Storm) and Narendra/Vor’ral (console and survivability trait).

Year 3: D7 Miracle Worker Dreadnought Carrier (Ruin of our Enemies), which may also supplant the Lexington as your preferred platform.

So, that hurts. 5 ships in 3 years, but that’s better than you’d have been without the Event Campaign.

Now, let’s speed that up quite a bit and add a bit of support for my thought: a Hangar Bay-based build.

NEW SYSTEM

Year 1:

  • Premium Choice Pack for the Mirror Engle Strike Wing Escort (Superior Area Denial starship trait)
  • T6 Coupons: Terran Lexington Dreadnought Cruiser + Terran Hydra Intel Destroyer (as both the console and trait synergize well with pets of various types)..
  • Lobi: Find what sells well from the Lobi Store and buy it/them. I’d say if you find the right ship, that’s 300 million EC, so let’s use that as a potential EC baseline.
    • Unlike the full meta build, you’ll use your EC to buy Personal Space Traits (or perhaps a T6 Coupon in private trading channels to open up options by Year 3). Refer to Spencer’s video at this mark for the list of Personal Space Traits he uses. Most of them are purchasable on the Exchange. And/or, start getting Isomagnetic Plasma Distribution Manifolds (“Isomags”) and get to at least the [Beams] or [Cannons] mod so you wouldn’t need to worry about what damage type of weapons you’re using.

Year 2:

  • Premium Choice Pack: D7 Miracle Worker Dreadnought Carrier for Ruin of our Enemies
  • T6 Coupons: the Narendra and the Arbiter (or their like).
  • Lobi: Again, find what sells, buy it and post it on the Exchange. Hoping for 300 million EC here, as well.

Year 3:

  • Premium Choice Pack: Mirror Warship for Terran Goodbye.
  • T6 Coupons: The Bozeman Intel Heavy Frigate (decent non-pet platform, but mostly for its Tachyon Net Drones console) and the Ghemor.
  • Lobi: Again, find what sells, buy it and list it. Hoping for another 300 million EC.

Inside of 3 years, you have most of what you need for a decent pet-based build. You got the meta Plasma ship gear, a replacement platform, 4 C-Store ships for their Traits and/or Consoles, and 2 premium ships for their traits. Plus, instead of putting money toward a Dhailkhina proper, you’re now able to spend the EC on Personal Space Traits and Isomags to help the performance a lot earlier.

THE PRICE: More Events

Now, it can’t all come to you for no additional cost!

Along with giving you more prizes, you’re going to likely do a couple weeks to 1-2 more Events than normal.

I say “likely” because they’re going to count 6 Events as part of the Event Campaign instead of 5. At minimum, this means you’ll need 4,200 Progress Points. At most, you may have to do all 6.

Why the ambiguity? This line.

It doesn’t say, “You’ll need 4,200 Progress Points,” it says, “…participate in six events total.”

It’s ambiguous only in the matter of if they mean we’ll just have 6 Events instead of 5 and the Progress Points will increase accordingly (meaning extra progress on each Event beyond their 14-run minimums will help speed up how quickly you can get your Event Campaign prize), or if they’ll cap progress at 14 days’ worth of progress (700 Progress Points per Event: 50 points per day x 14 days) and you’ll have to do all 6 Events that are part of the Campaign.

Regardless, the general idea is the same: You’ll need to spend more time in Event Campaign-eligible Events to get the new, expanded Grand Prize for the Event Campaign.

Let’s look at what it had been and what it could be.

BEFORE

Progress Points Needed: 3,500

Maximum Number of Events Needed: 5 (700 points per Event for any Event’s main reward x 5 Events)

Realistic Minimum Number of Events Needed: 4 (~1,050 available per Event x 3 Events = 3,150 Progress Points, then 7 days into the 4th Event = 350 Progress Points; 3,150 + 350 = 3,500 Progress Points)

 –> Events run for 3 weeks. This assumes the ability to do all 21 days’ worth of runs and doesn’t rely on the 20-hour timer.

Minimum with Buyouts Starting Day 1 of Event 1: 2 (700 Event Progress per Buyout x 2 Events = 1,400; 1,050 Progress Points per Event for running the Event x 2 Events = 2,100; 1,400 + 2,100 = 3,500 Progress Points)

 –> Cost: 5,000 Zen (2,500 Zen per Buyout x 2 Buyouts), $50

THEORETICAL NEW #1: Just Adding Progress Points

Progress Points Needed: 4,200

Maximum Number of Events Needed: 6 (700 per Event x 6 Events)

Realistic Minimum Number of Events Needed: 4 (~1,050 available per Event x 4 Events = 4,200 Events)

 –> Extra time compared to old: 2 Weeks

Minimum with Buyouts Starting Day 1 of Event 1: 3 (700 Progress Points per Buyout x 3 Events = 2,100; 1,050 Progress Points per Event for running the Event x 2 Events = 2,100. 2,100 + 2,100 = 4,200 Progress Points)

 –> Cost: 6,000 – 7,500 Zen (2,000 – 2,500 Zen per Buyout [that’s also unclear; had been 2,500 for the past year but blog says 2,000] x 3 Events = 6,000 – 7,500 Zen); $60 – $80 on PC (since we can’t buy $5 amounts)

THEORETICAL NEW #2: No Additional Progress Points Beyond the 14-day Need for each Event’s Own Prize

Uh…6 Events. Not too difficult. 😉

700 Progress Points per Event x 6 Events = 4,200 Progress Points

Here’s hoping it’s just adding Progress Points or it’ll be a looooong year (but well worth it at the end!).

FORTUNE FAVORS THE GRINDER OR THE BUYER

Overall, I think this will be a fine change for everyone.

For the grinder, you’re hopefully only putting in 2 more weeks worth of effort (4 full Events vs. 3 full and a week of a 4th Event), but even if it takes all 6, you’re getting over $300 worth of value for either $60-$75 and grinding out 2 full Events or for doing 4 full Events or for doing all 6 to their minimum completions.

I don’t know about you, but I think that’s a steal (relative to their total costs) and you can’t go wrong no matter how this is done (assuming Buyouts exist and you can progress after the 700 points is accumulated, which again has been the normal but you never know how they may change things up).

Back To Making My Ko-Fi

As a reminder, I have a Ko-Fi page set up for doing a Review Series of the 14th Anniversary Bundle ships. We may have up to 6 Tier 6 ships to look at (4 new + the Lafayette Recon Destroyer [older but with an updated visual] + the Tal’Shiar Adapted Destroyer), so if that’s the case, the $150 I have listed as the goal will get divided into five sets of $30 mini-goals; full funding is based on the C-Store ships, so if all $150 gets met, I’ll add the Tal’Shiar Adapted Destroyer to my testing roster.

I’m still working out exact prizing, but generally, last year’s prizes will mimic this year’s with some T5 ships and Isomag consoles added in (you’ll have to re-roll them, sorry! I’m not quite made of that much EC!).

But as I was editing this, Spencer (“CasualSAB”) provided the first $5 of the goal! Thank you so much, Spencer!

But…I have to use any included Master Keys to do…*gulp*…gambling content.

*looks deadpan at screen*

Terrible.

:p

(Those of you who watch Spencer’s streams know what I’m referencing.)

So for being the first donator, I’ll use any Master Keys that may be included in the 14th Anniversary Bundle to open Lockboxes. Fine with me, more Lobi for me to use!

How about I put here…if I can get 3 ships funded ($90) and if there are “Promotion!” boxes (R&D or Duty Officer variety), I’ll open those, too, recorded.

Until next time, may you all have a wonderful week and continue enjoying Star Trek Online!

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