Any "smart" way to spend your real money?

[OldMemes.biz]

I know general consensus is there's no real need to spend real money on this game, and having played a while off and on over a year I tend to agree.

However, were I to actually plop down a few bucks, how best to spend it?

There are some areas my toons are deficient in. None of my toons have any sort of "cool" ship, that is, once a toon hits 60 they are still running one of the final freebie token ships*. That's been fine and I've made do, but it does leave me being the weak link in many PvE teams (not that I really give a crap but still...). Also I find making EC to be slow; I typically hit close to 2mil and then just fluctuate around there. Dil is slow to. This is mostly due to limited playtime (I'm away from home 12 hours a day 5 days a week) and because my account is still stuck on the starting freebie player caps for everything.

Buying Zen with dil isn't a practical option for me. I just... don't have the sort of time to devote to be able to accumulate any functional amount of Zen with the prices such as they are.

Maybe a sub? Not lifetime of course, lifetime just seems like a dumb and expensive waste (no offense to any lifetime subbers...).

Something tells me just buying Zen after Zen to buy keys for all those lockboxes ends up being a big waste. Or no?

*Yes I realize there are some Fleet Credit ships, but I've looked at those and they don't really excite me. Their stats don't seem enough to really get me excited.

[OldMemes.biz]

Opprinnelig skrevet av VoodooMike:

Opprinnelig skrevet av MS-DOS 6.22:

So IF I were to make any sort of purchase... What's the most convenient way: Steam, ingame stores, website? What?

I think I read somewhere that depending on which way you buy, you either get all your crap right away or you have to wait. I'd rather not wait. Assuming if I do this.

Using paypal to pay them directly seems to be instantaneous. It takes you to the website where you login with the same account you do for the game.

going through the site with my credit card worked fine

[ImperatorPavel]

Having the sub automatically refines dilithium for you (up to the 8k limit), and will refine up to some day's worth of dilithium automatically if you don't login (not sure how many days, exactly, but it's a thing).

[Ghost]

Opprinnelig skrevet av MS-DOS 6.22:

Opprinnelig skrevet av g.ghost.w:

U should have more inv and shard bank as well. U can transfer stuff from toon to toon. As long as its not bound to a toon.

shard bank?

and I already transfer from toon to toon with the ingame mail. maybe I don't get what you mean? I haven't bought the account bank, if that's what you're talking about (it's not included in monthly sub)

Go to the bank lol. Ull see a new option there.

[OldMemes.biz]

Ah ok there it is. Just like my 500 Zen, it took about half an hour to show up, but yes now it's there, and yes it's the account bank. Previously I couldn't access it.

[Red Tyrian]

On another game :P

[Sandormen]

Well. Ask yourself what do You, with underscore on, 'need'.
Inventory/banking-slots? (These are my first choice)
Doff/Boff/Ship-slots? (Doffslots not neccesary with more than 200, max 300, MAX).
I'd say other than those, You'd be better off playing the game 'slowly', and convert dil into zen, and buy the rest gradually over time.
If You, for instance, are constantly only flying escorts, then avoid spending zen on cruisers and other types. -You'll probably never fly them more than once anyways.

[The Arkady]

I think one key question is: what is your play style? If you play a lot of different toons a bit, the Delta Operations pack is a pretty good deal. You get a couple of nice ships, some very good boffs and doffs, all claimable on every character.

The Temporal Special Agent pack is fairly nice, too, though only if you play Starfleet/TOS characters frequently; KDF and Romulan only get three ships out of it, which is underwhelming.

If big packs like that are too rich for you, I'd say doff slots (up to a total of 200, imo) and inventory slots (however many you feel you need) are the best things to get. Personally, I'm not a big fan of bank slots, other than maybe some account bank for easier moving of account bound stuff between characters, but YMMV.

[Mothvibe]

Opprinnelig skrevet av =pG=™ Pavel:

Having the sub automatically refines dilithium for you (up to the 8k limit), and will refine up to some day's worth of dilithium automatically if you don't login (not sure how many days, exactly, but it's a thing).

I think you mean 'is supposed to, but you need to trigger it manually'. If we have to change from ground/space to have it trigger, then that's just dumb. If that's not supposed to happen, then my game doesn't work properly.

That second part is spot on though."

OP - spending money on this game is like using sandpaper to wipe your bottom. It CAN be done, but SHOULDN'T.

Cryptic simply do not deserve your money, and are either unwilling or unable to provide consistently appropriate support.

For instance, you cannot buy certain bridges unless you DON'T own certain ships. If you already own even one of those ships, you CANNOT - UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES - get that particular bridge (the Voyager/Pathfinder bridge).

And if you ask support the reason for this, they wil not tell you the actual reason, which leads me to believe it's 'because CBS said so'. Well, if true, I see no reason that they can't share that with us.

But whatever, it's your money, if you want to financially support those that don't deserve it like some sort of cashbitch, well that's your lookout.

[VoodooMike]

Opprinnelig skrevet av "Strontium Dingo":

Cryptic simply do not deserve your money, and are either unwilling or unable to provide consistently appropriate support.

While I agree they do not deserve it - they are a repulsively and shamelessly mercenary company - there's a line each person needs to draw between buying things they want, and denying themselves those things to push moral principle.

Buy things if you want those things... don't buy things because you imagine you're supporting the developers. Likewise, don't buy things unless you want them, but be realistic about what sort of impact you'll have, as an individual, by denying yourself things you want just to hurt someone who won't notice.

[ImperatorPavel]

Random question: Why'd you quote the same post twice?

[ImperatorPavel]

Eh, usually people just make a single post. Meh. Was curious so thought I'd ask.

[Hope]

Account bank and credit cap if you don't already have them. After that, the upgrade thingies for any ships that you own which can utilize them but only if you feel sentimental towards them, and after that any z-store ships which you really like the design of, you can switch these two around if you're looking at a t5 z-store ship that can be upgraded.

Frankly, if you're not going to drop a fair amount of tosh on on the z-store and buy something big then it just isn't worth it as dil is easy enough to come by in this game to make the small purchases pretty pointless, I only suggest account bank and credit cap straight off because those are things that'll make your life much nicer the sooner you get them, same with the upgrades.

Unless you're the sort to live and breathe damage parsing and stress intensely over getting every little point of damage you can do I suggest generally just getting things you like the look of or you're tired of waiting for, but, in the end, still also suggest spending no less than 30 bucks unless, you are very impatient and want a small item immediately or really don't like dil farming.

Of course, there's also buying keys/upgrades then selling them to get the EC to buy any lockbox/lobi ship. I generally suggest a Z-store ship because it's an account unlock, yet the allure of those super exotic lockbox/lobi ships is hard for some to deny. Yet, of course, that is, again, only if you don't like grinding EC/dil to get them through in game or you want the ship(s) immediately, or you're already set on dropping some cash on a game you really enjoy anyway.

As for a sub? Not really worth it, imo, as the biggest thing you get from that is an extra 500 dil refining a day.

Of course, I say all the EC/Dil grinding fully aware that you don't play much, but at the same time if you don't play much then the slow grind probably shouldn't be as much of an issue for you. You do some admirality stuff and you'll start making dil and EC pretty easily with, at most, 15 minutes devoted to choosing missions and that's only if you're indecisive like me. Rep is another pretty darn easy way to get dil and you get to generally play like a normal person to do it, a couple of "dungeon queues" and you'll have marks enough for a daily and an hourly or two if you really want to do those.

Generally playing a little bit over a long time makes stockpiling a lot of stuff easier on you even if it isn't particularly time-efficient.

That's my two cents, anyway.