Hello, all, and welcome back to Joe and STO! It’s been a while since the last update on my F2P account, so I figured I’d provide the half-year update!

This won’t cover every character. Instead, it’ll cover things that affect the entire account like number of characters, Endeavor Perk Point progress, and Z-Store purchases & Event unlocks available to the full account.

Without further ado, let’s get started!

CHARACTERS

So, this is a bit misleading, but not by much.

I have 6 honest characters here; the only 2 that are more temporary in nature are DilEx and Elisha.

If you follow my “Dilithium Exchange Watch” on X, you’ll know the reason for this character. I delay some Dilithium-to-Zen conversions so I have Dilithium available with which to post on the Dilithium Exchange throughout each week. I cover backlogs of desired Zen (to show how the backlog is ebbing and flowing) and how long it takes Dilithium to be bought for your desired Zen. (Currently, “Hours would seem like Days”…errr…rather, days have become hours for Dilithium-to-Zen conversion.)

The bottom character, Elisha, is the practically-illegitimate character. Why? During the 14th Anniversary Event (just finished on PC, coming around March 12th to Consoles), Klingon characters’ Omega Stabilization dailies were only giving 2 of the 3 needed locations. Welllll…this account was (at the time…all of couple days ago. :p) almost all Klingon except for DilEx. So I made a quick 2nd Federation character who, even at Warp 5, could get to the 3 locations (thanks in large part to free Transwarps from story missions). I needed 2 Federation characters since the Omega daily only counts for 1 point of progress. Elisha will be deleted soon, likely when another Recruit Event occurs.

The newest honest character is Re’crew, denoted by the Klingon symbol on its name plate denoting he’s a Klingon Recruit. I’ve written a couple guides on Klingon Recruit character, ranging from the “Pretty Starter T6 Ship” to priorities for the Klingon Recruit if you’re trying to pace your progress.

Side Bar: Klingon Recruit Preparations

After they announced the Klingon Recruit re-run, I did a few things to try and get going a bit more easily.

1) Personal Space Traits – During the later part of the year, I turned a lot of Dilithium into Zen for Master Keys to sell on the Exchange. I got a decent chunk of EC, so I figured I’d pick up a few helpful traits.

These are A Good Day to Die (allowing “Go Down Fighting” to be used more like a Bridge Officer ability than a Captain Ability that usually has a multi-minute cooldown); Intelligence Agent Attaché (weapons hitting for Critical Hits reduce Captain Ability cooldown times…like Attack Pattern: Alpha or even Go Down Fighting); and The Boimler Effect (reducing Bridge Officer cooldown reduction every time you use a BOFF ability).

2) Admiralty Ships – Knowing I’d need to get my Admiralty up and going quick once I hit Level 52, I used some earnings through Admiralty and Endeavor reward boxes to grab 11 older T5 Lockbox ships (that still drop from the Infinity Lock Box). The last ship in that line is the Alliance Rex Pilot Escort, the reward for the 14th Anniversary Event. Combined with a couple sections later, Re’crew should be good to go for getting Admiralty going at a decent pace once he’s able. 🙂

3) Crafted (and Purchased) Mk II Gear

This character will use the Alliance Rex Pilot Escort, and while the Common-level weapons will level with you (increasing their damage as you level), you miss out on nice modifiers like [Dmg] (to increase their base Damage output) or [Rapid] (which activates a Cannon: Rapid Fire effect randomly). So I crafted a few Antiproton Dual Heavy Cannons and Antiproton Turrets until I got modifiers I was okay with (not ideal, just better than stock Common-level items). I also crafted the Antiproton Mag Regulators because any extra damage in the early levels helps a tonnnnnn.

The 2 Engineering consoles are Isomagnetic Plasma Distribution Manifolds, specifically with the [AP] mod. This does two things: Increase my base and maximum Weapon Power (which means more damage output and being able to hold more damage as power decreases compared to not running them), and the [AP] mod gives essentially another copy of the Mag Regulators’ damage boost to Antiproton damage. In other words, it’s like I’m adding 2 more Tactical consoles while getting an extra damage boost on top of even that.

Once I make some Energy Dampening Armor, I’ll take 80,000 Dilithium from my overall 10th Anniversary Bundle goal to buy some Phoenix Prize Boxes to get Phoenix Upgrades for these (and perhaps a few other) items. This way, all I need to do every ~10 levels (or every few after 40) is upgrade each item twice.

Endeavor Perk Point Progress

(Anything else you don’t see has 0 Perk Points added.)

Space energy weapons are now doing a tick over 1/4 more damage than when this account was brand new. To put that into perspective, if you have an Energy Weapon dealing 1,000 damage, it’ll now deal another 260 for 1,260 total damage. While that may not seem like a lot, do that 4 times and you’ve gotten a 5th firing’s worth of damage for no additional cost. 🙂

My Perk choices have partly been based on the luck of the draw (sometimes, I only get Ground perks from which to choose, or there are no good choices and I just have to pick 1 with which to go), but mostly I’ve prioritized raw damage output, Critical Chance, and Critical Severity. Turn Rate and Flight Speed are essentially DPS increases as they’ll help you get to and turn at opposing mobs/bosses more quickly, letting you fire your preferred arc’s weapons easier.

RECRUIT PROGRESS

Though the Klingon Recruit is a bit too new to update, the Gamma Recruit has been around long enough to do an update.

Here’s what’s done (and greyed out means it’s not done) on my lone Gamma Recruit:

The only goals not completed are the Duty Officers (that’ll take a slight bit of focus) and 100 total queues. The queues one will be easy: just run the queues of whatever’s currently running for an Event when you’re able and maybe add in an Infected: The Conduit or Crystalline Catastrophe every so often.

General rewards that the Klingon Recruit can claim (once it hits Level 25) include a total of 960 Reputation Marks (not enough for all the Reputations but can get a decent start on a couple), an Ultimate Tech Upgrade for 1 piece of gear (have to choose what kind, and that makes the item Bound to Character), and an Admiralty Ship and an additional Admiralty mission slot (which helps in the early part of Admiralty).

Events Completed = Unlocks Galore for New Characters

Since this account’s creation in early August, the following Events have come and gone:

So from just Events, we have a space set (helps when your Warp Core can keep up with your level!); a ground set (with a healing fabrication and a nice source of Polaron damage for Polaron Damage [Ground] Endeavors); a ground device (that summons something to help your own damage output and threat management); a torpedo (that’s strictly better than most other torpedoes, especially when used correctly); and 2 T6 ships with usable Starship Traits and Universal Consoles instead of relying on Consoles like Field Emitters or Emitter Arrays.

Here’s what Re’crew looks like with a number of these unlocked items available:

And the Bridge Officers use the 2-piece of the Adaptation Ground Set.

Combined with the crafted Mk II weapons, the ship is practically ready to go!

…

Oh, what ship gets the T6-X treatment? Well…I’m unsure. This ship could stand to use the T6-X to help its early game out a bit (as I’d add a Universal Console Slot, allowing me to use any Console in that spot). I’ll keep thinking about it.

Some of you may have noticed the middle Tactical Console. That’s the Multi-Directional Artillery Barrage, which comes from…

Tier 6 Z-Store Ship Unlocks

As part of the 14th Anniversary Giveaways, Cryptic put up a Tier 6 Z-Store Coupon. I’ll happily take a free $30 ship!

I went ahead and used it, rather than waiting for the 14th Anniversary Wolf 359 Bundle to see if anything there was worthwhile.

Thus…

I present to you, the Terran Lexington Dreadnought Cruiser!

“Why go for a 2-year-old ship? Is it that impressive?”

Well…yes…and no.

It console and trait aren’t meta-defining, but its setup is closer to a ship that was previously available as a Promotional-level starship: the Vaadwaur Miracle Worker Juggernaut.

The comparison, as provided by Fleffle’s sortable Starship list.

That wasn’t the biggest impetus, though. A few other reasons:

1) I’m thinking ahead to future Delta and Temporal Recruits. While the Rex will serve my Klingon recruit well (Wingmen, Cloak [I just need to get out of battle to re-engage it], nice Console and Trait), I like to stay themed as much as I possibly can. For my Starfleet Delta and Temporal Recruits (for when those eventually re-run later this year), I wanted a Starfleet-looking ship with hangar bays and a tough hull.

2) Cyclical Quantum Slipstream Drive – If you need EC but don’t want to get loot and sell it to a vendor, this is your next best option. The drive lasts for 2 minutes, and the cooldown for activating it starts when you activate the drive (so the effective cooldown is shorter than a standard Slipstream, as well). Combined with the Gamma Synergistic Overcharged Warp Core (and anything else that modifies Sector Space Speed), you can knock out the Beta Quadrant, Delta Quadrant, and a chunk of the Alpha Quadrant fairly quickly. At 25,000 EC per system you can hit, it doesn’t take long to add up to a cheap Isomag console or some Tier 5 ships on the Exchange. The Beta Quadrant alone is worth 525,000 EC. Two characters is worth over 1 million EC.

All of this is ultimately geared toward one goal…

Zen Progress on Free-to-Play 10th Anniversary Bundle

So, all of this is an attempt to show a player can get the coveted (if getting outdated) 10th Anniversary Legendary Starship Bundle while on a strictly free-to-play (“F2P”) budget. This doesn’t mean the account doesn’t acquire and spend Zen; it means almost all activities will be with the mindset that the ultimate goal is to turn Dilithium into Zen over a long run (I’m estimating 2 years) to acquire a nearly-$200 Bundle for $0 actual spend.

It’s been a tad over 6 months, with the Dil-to-Zen conversions happening in earnest toward this goal since January 1st.

What then has nearly 8 weeks on 5 characters (+ 2 temporaries) yielded?

*DRUMROLL*

…

*keeps playing*

OKAY, FINE! Here’s our 8-week Zen total!

This account has re-built nearly 3,000 Zen in 8 weeks, with a proper per-week average of 362.125 Zen per week, meaning an average of 181,562 Dilithium per week, or ~36,312 Dilithium per character per week.

Though…there’s a bit of a cheat there.

Before the end of the year, I stockpiled a bit of Dilithium so I could keep doing those “Dilithium Exchange Watch” posts, so a chunk of that Dilithium was technically from the end of 2023. I tried to practically zero it all out, but unless I only focused on Dil-to-Zen conversion from the start and never used any of it, I had to come into January with something left over. It wasn’t near 3,000 Zen worth (maybe a couple hundred at most), but there was some wiggle room at the start of the year.

Regardless, being near 3,000 Zen means this account could, if it wanted, buy a T6 ship from the Z-Store, bringing its total T6 account-wide unlocks to 5 (2 from Events + 3 from the Z-Store).

While I’ll likely use a bit of Zen on a Gamma Recruit and when the Temporal Recruit comes out (they both have Duty Officer-based goals, so they’ll need more Duty Officer room), the majority of this nearly 3,000 Zen will go untouched until the overall goal is finished.

“How Much Longer Must I Read This?”

This post? Not much longer. Rejoice!

Or…did you mean this series?

Okay…I can answer that!

IF I could hold this rate, the remaining 16,595 Zen would take ~46 more weeks, roughly January 10th, 2025 for a 54-week total. But as I said, there will likely be a few points where I’ll divert Zen or Dilithium to Recruits, so that likely won’t hold. But once this account gets to 8-10 usable characters? We’ll see!

Give me a 3! Give me a 5! Give me a 9! What Does It Spell? THE NEXT REVIEW SERIES! Yay!!!! (…spelling was never my thing.)

As I wanted to post the official start of the fundraiser to this blog, Twitter/X was just easier and faster for my fast-paced real-world schedule. My apologies if anyone from here but not on those platforms wanted in on the crowdsourcing for the next Review Series. I may do something similar for a future Bundle, but we’ll see

But thanks to some very generous people, there WILL be a Review Series covering the 14th Anniversary Wolf 359 Bundle‘s T6 ships (yes, including the New Orleans/Lafayette and the Tal’Shiar Adapted Destroyer!). I won’t promise super-quick reviews, but I will promise to stick to the desired build types and to review as best I can when I’m able. One change I’ll make this year is I’ll use the gear and trait each ship comes with, rather than being an attempt at a full-as-can-be meta ship review series. Sometimes, you want to fly the ship as canon as possible, and in STO, that means using the stuff included with it! (WELL…with a few upgrades like going T6-X at least or getting Elite versions of Hangar Pets).

So, while I’ll continue with the F2P account and update here about it every so often (perhaps when Recruit events are about to happen and at day-based milestones?), the focus here for the next while will be the review series.

So, until I start posting about the Review Series (or perhaps a quick valuation post on the 14th Anniversary Bundle), thank you for reading, take care, and continue enjoying Star Trek Online! 🙂

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