Wednesday, October 3, 2012

[STO] Buying Zen with Energy Credits

UPDATE: I was told about the Exchange bug! Yay! That completely threw off the value of A. As such, its probably one of the most attractive options you have.

UPDATE: There's a revisiting of this with more current numbers.

I’ve been going on about buying Energy Credits using Dilithium and Zen for a while now. And, honestly, its great! Those with an abundance of Dilithium or Zen can use their resources to get things they want from the Exchange, contribute to their Fleets, and more. Its very useful, relatively simple, and pretty straight forward.
But, what if you wanted to do the opposite?
Turns out, there is a way! But, so far, I’ve only found a way to do it via Duty Officer missions. Are there others? Possibly, and hopefully we’ll find some more to share.

This hinges on two things: high reward Duty Officer missions, and purchasing/obtaining the required commodities or Duty Officers to complete the missions. We have here:
  • Assignment: Turn Over Confiscated Contraband – A
  • Assignment: Forced Labor Requisition (KDF only) – B
  • Consign Prisoners to Labor Battalion (KDF only) – C

 A   B   C 
Z:D Rate  Contraband   Prisoner   Prisoner 
160                                    40,000                                             12,000                                       12,000
 5 Contra band  10 Prisoners   4 Prisoners 
                                 200,000                                           120,000                                       48,000
 Dilithium   Dilithium   Dilithium 
                                      2,000                                                1,000                                             500
 Zen   Zen   Zen 
                                            12                                                        6                                                  3
 EC cost per Zen   EC cost per Zen   EC cost per Zen 
                                  16,667                                             20,000                                       16,000
 Million EC = Zen   Million EC = Zen   Million EC = Zen 
                                           60                                                      48                                                60

Now, all these numbers are contingent on what I saw tonight as I was writing this up. The key variables are highlighted/bolded above: the price of the items on the Exchange, and Zen:Dilithium exchange rate.
What I went through is first the price per unit, then how much the required batch would be. That’s followed by the Dilithium Reward, and how much Zen its worth when exchanged. The last two things are pretty important for your cost analysis, which is how many credits you’re spending to get a single Zen, and how many Zen a million credits will get you. Now, this is looking at complete batches rather than a pure “per million” view of things, so keep that in mind.

Its worth noting that assignment A is available via Security Officers, whereas B is only available for Klingons via their Security Officer. Assignment C is a DOFF mission you’ll find in various sectors as a Common Military assignment. And while all assignments have a chance to fail, B and C have not only a chance to fail, but also to have a disaster! If that happens, you’ll lose your investment in both Energy Credits and time. I strongly recommend doing these assignments with both the Success and Critical criteria met, and none of the Failure or Disaster criteria. Preferably, use Uncommon or better Duty Officers to help minimize your chances of Failure/Disaster.

One last note is assignments A and B can only be done one at a time per character. Assignment C can have multiple assignments being done per character. This is one of those times when having multiple Klingon characters is very useful.

Now then, if you want to buy Zen with Energy Credits, there’s a way to do it. Its doesn’t work out as well as buying Energy Credits with Zen or Dilithium, but its possible.

2 comments:

  1. This was helpful, is it still accurate?

    Thanks again for your community share,

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    Replies
    1. Numbers always change, so I'd definitely say, "no clue." So far as I know the DOFF risk:reward are the same. As such, the basic concept should still work. If you've got a spreadsheet, that should be useful...

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