Sam on Maui

Ho-ho-ho, Merry Christma... er... Happy Boxi... er... Hey, New Year’s is coming up! Well, the boring Western one. Chinese New Year won’t be here for a while yet. Anyhow, here are the charts for this week. We’re still seeing a pretty low Z:D rate, with the Zen and Dilithium buying rates having their ups and downs.

I play Star Trek Online with friends of mine on Maui. Sometimes we're just chatting online, sometimes we're running fleet actions, sometimes we're doing our own thing. Anyhow, I was pleasantly surprised with a $20 Perfect World gift card! What did I do with it? I bought two 10-packs of Master Keys, of course! Upon opening them? I received: 1 Very Rare Gamma Quadrant Elite Duty Officer 1 2,000 CXP Bonus Pool 2 10,000 CXP Bonus Pools 3 Rare Shield Packs 3 Standard Duty Officer Mini-Packs 4 1,000 Skill Bonus Pools 6 Gamma Quadrant Duty Officer Mini-Packs 151 Lobi Crystals So, now, I am over 3/4 of the way to my last Ferengi Marauder component. I'm utterly thrilled by this, to say the least. Moreover, looking at the rest of what I got? I've got a nice assortment of marketable items, plus things to help my fleet long. Merry Christmas, folks!

Another week, and there seems to be a significant increase in offers being made.  Its certainly been rising. However, the Z:D Exchange rate is still very low. Will it get better as time goes on? Hopefully. Maybe its different where you’re at, but as of last Friday, the K-12 students here have gotten on winter/Christmas break. I think college students have been off a bit longer. Myself? Between moving, attempting to try EVE Online and Playdom’s Marvel: Avenger’s Alliance (silly Facebook game), I’ve been having fun. Haven’t done much in the way of fleet events, STFs, etc., simply because I prefer to do those on my desktop computer which is currently boxed away. Of course, when I’m set back up on there, I’ll be installing The Secret World, check out Guild Wars 2’s winter event, etc. Anyhow, more charts! As always, make of it what you will!

I've already gone over how to buy Master Keys without spending a dime . But, because there are so many uses for Dilithium and Zen, suppose you don't want to use such a precious resource for buying Master Keys? This is perfectly understandable. So, how else can you buy them? Energy Credits! Many players are more adept at earning Energy Credits than they are anything else. If anything, once you become a Vice Admiral, the need for Energy Credits goes down. You can get most anything you want through enough play and a bit of luck. Moreover, as you go through the end-game content, you will continue to earn drops and other rewards. You will need to make use of the Exchange in order to really earn credits, however. Keeping track of changes in the game will also help you find needs other players may have. This is important, as the more necessary the item is, and the more inconvenient it is to get, the more its potentially worth. Additionally, if things fluctuate in value, k...

Onward and upward? And downward? And up again? We’ve had some ups and downs since last week, when Q’s Winter Wonderland began. Zen:Dilithium prices reached the lowest I’ve ever seen, and the volume on the market has been going back up. It’s a little odd there is so much volume buying Dilithium at current pricing, though. At least, right now and at these prices. I would’ve imagined heavy Dilithium buyers would prefer to try and force the price back to being more pro-Zen (right now its very pro-Dilithium)! Now, that said, I’ve heard at least one person claim there are groups of people/players trying to lower the exchange rate of Zen to Dilithium. Which is an interesting though, and really something I would more associate with EVE Online than anything else. But, it is plausible, I guess. I’m not sure what the mechanics of currency manipulation would be in this case, but if you are good at farming Dilithium, a low Z:D rate really is in your favor.

I believe it’s a little too soon to figure much out, however, its still interesting to look at. I’m really looking forward to seeing how things chart out for the rest of the quarter. After the holidays, and things have had time to settle down. That said? The November 30th changes brought about the ability open your OMEGA box regardless of OMEGA Reputation level (normally you’d have to wait until Tier III), Also, the ability to take on Dilithium-earning Reputation projects at any level rather than waiting for Tier V. Right now the overall amount being traded is higher than its been in a while, but at the same time the Z:D rate is also lower than I’ve ever seen it. It took a while for prices to come down, so I guess it’ll take a while for them to go back up as well. Certainly the people buying Zen like the current rate, but I’m a little surprised that the volume of people buying Dilithium is so high while at such a unfavorable rate.But, it is the weekend, so that could change on Mo...

Its the holidays! In MMO terms, its a generic winter celebration encompassing the same general span of time as Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Year's, and Consumermas in general. For Star Trek Online players, that means it is time once more for Q's Winter Wonderland . There's a lot of great prizes this go round, ranging from costume parts to a Breen ship! Seriously, check them out . But, at the same time? The event went live yesterday. The Z:D rate from 1:110 when I first checked it to 1:107 last night (Hawai'i Standard Time), and down to 1:101 during my lunch break. Coincidence? Perhaps. It is a weekend, after all, and we all know that weekends bring a drop in the price of Zen as more players log in and try to buy Dilithium. But I'm wondering if a not insignificant portion of the players are currently playing the Winter Wonderland rather than earning Dilithium for themselves and their fleets, nevermind actually selling Dilithium. And that Breen Ship looks pr...

Another week, another update! November 30th saw another update to increase Dilithium earning . Did it work? Too soon to tell. Prices are still incredibly low, and my sampling method only shows pools of offers, not actual transactions. Here’s hoping, though. By the way, you can follow me on Twitter for updates. I typically use #STOnomics as the hashtag for these. More charts after the break.

On today's radio show, Jonathan asked me to come on for a bit to talk about the closing of City of Heroes. I was there up to the end last night, and watched the Paragon Twitch.TV until they shut off the feed. I'm not a long time player; only started playing in 2005 (around i4 and i5). I played on Guardian before moving to Freedom a few years later to join a RP group. Eventually a new SG started called the Liberty Alliance, and that was my home group for most of the time. Great, wonderful people! Stopped playing last year January due to a pinched nerve, and actually stopped playing games for several months. When I recovered, I didn't go back to playing, sadly. However, I did manage to get back to say my goodbyes, provide some closure in plot threads, etc. Anyhow; here's a video of that part of the radio show. Enjoy! If you want to hear the full show, you can get it from http://alertinternetsurfer.com/, plus they do live-stream on Saturdays at noon, Hawai...

You received 1,500 Omega Marks You received 1,000 Dilithium Ore Items acquired: Borg Neural Processor x 8 Thank you for your dedication! Additionally, with today's patch, anyone working the OMEGA Reputation System can now access the Ongoing War Efforts assignment. For 50 Omega Marks, you will receive 500 Dilithium and 5 OMEGA Reputation points. So, that alone will earn me 15,000 Dilithium!

First off, its amazing what a few hours can do. I checked back in for lunch, and the Z:D was at 1:115, even touching 1:114 for a few moments. WOW! I'm very curious to see the impact of tomorrow's patch on the game economy as a result. The two notables? Reputation XP projects now reward a small amount of Dilithium upon completion . 340 for the 2000 XP projects 140 for the 800 XP projects Removed Tier requirements on Mark-to-Dilithium conversion projects.  These projects can now be slotted immediately upon reaching level 50 and unlocking the Reputation system. Which is fine by me. I'm enjoying the Romulan content, so chances are I'll be earning a lot of Dilithium off it via XP projects. The Omega stuff? Not so much, so all my marks from that will likely be converted to Dilithium, period. We'll see. Additionally, I managed to get enough Zen for yet another Master Key. As such, I'm now at 104 Lobi, so 1/4 of the way to my goal of 400 Lobi. This is a...

EDIT: I got the date wrong. How did I think it was 11/21 when it was 11/29? *sigh* Its almost the end of the month! Practically the end of the month, really. And, what a month its been! Without further ado… Now, this is two graphs in one. The Blue area is the Zen|Dilithium Exchange as normal. The other lines are just a snapshot of the volumes of Zen being offered/traded on the Exchange, using the Buying and Selling pools. While this does not measure total amount of traffic throughout the day, nor does it show successful transactions, hopefully it’ll still be able to offer us some insight. Important dates include: November 13th (Season 7 launched), and November 23th (first set of adjustments to increase Dilithium availability). Next week, we’ll want to keep an eye on how November 30th as there’ll be another adjustment. Now, for the rest.

Update: Chart revised! Took out period where I wasn’t tracking everything, and managed to add the Z:D price chart into it. Its showing the trends/movement of the price, and is there for reference. Season 7 has been out for a while now, and I felt it was a good idea to bring out another chart. What is it this time? The overall volume of the market! What is this? When I get the daily Z:D prices, I also record the top 5 buying and selling lots. Now, this does not show the value of the Z:D market, just how much is flowing through it. For instance, Tuesday, October 30th had a tremendous spike in traffic, with prices around 1:158. Thursday, September 27, was a incredibly low volume day when prices were 1:165. The obvious question is, is this due to price?

On Tuesday Dan Stahl said that the devs would be monitoring the Dilithium economy . More to the point: Not everything is sunshine and roses, though. As we mentioned in previous posts, we continue to monitor the Dilithium economy reaction to the changes in Season 7 and as previously stated, we will be making some additional adjustments which we feel will address issues that have been discussed. Some of those changes are going to happen in an update tomorrow (Wednesday Nov 21) and some of them are going to happen in the following week's update on Nov 29. If we feel more changes are necessary after that, we will certainly make them because our goal is to keep the game balanced while ensuring that players are having fun. Even though we've managed to get more Dilithium into more players hands, we agree that STF runs and Dilithium have been a challenging change that needs to be addressed and we are going to continue to do so .  Hopefully the changes for November 29 will have a po...

Contraband is a wonderful item that is a common reward for Marauding Duty Officer assignments with the Klingons Defense Force. When combined with my favorite Duty Officer assignment – Turn Over Confiscated Contraband – it’s a very steady way to earn Dilithium in game, and thus Zen. In turn Zen can be used to buy things in the Zen Store that can be sold for Energy Credits. I’ve got a very small and decently run operation set up with three characters; 1 Federation and 2 Klingon. The two Klingons earn virtually all my Contraband, and all three characters turn it in. But, given the market changes recently, would turning in Contraband for Dilithium then Zen be the best way to buy Energy Credits? Or would it be better to sell the Contraband itself? What offers the better return right now? Excel to the rescue!

More than a few people have been lamenting the General Recruitment Duty Officer assignment now requires 1,000 Dilithium to complete. While a nice pack of DOFFs, its not the only way to get more Duty Officers. What you're paying for is convenience and relative speed to obtain; the two go hand in hand. Buying Duty Officer Packs in the Zen Store is the fastest (practically instant), but most expensive route. General Recruitment costs 1,000 Dilithium, but takes a day to get the reward. Also has a cooldown. Departmental Recruitment and Cultural Exchange Duty Officer assignments take two days, but are free . There is a cooldown for those as well. If you're not in a rush, you can recruit 11 free Duty Officers at Star Fleet Academy. Should you get a critical success on the Cultural Exchanges, you can get two more per critical. For those on a budget, not interested in spending additional money, or whatever, this represents a great means to get Duty Officers for use on your shi...

Ah, Thanksgiving. Since I’ll hopefully be busy cooking, eating and sleeping tomorrow with friends and family, I’m doing the tracking a day early. And, well, its still been a busy week! Yeah, YOWZA. And things aren’t done yet. Dan Stahl posted on the boards there will be more changes coming, and they’ll be increasing Dilithium earnings while decreasing a few Dilithium costs. There’s a lot more to it than just that, so read up!

Overall History With Season 7: New Romulus having launched on Tuesday, looks like we’ve got movement again! Obviously, its too soon to tell if it because of the new update (although that’s definitely a factor), or a return to weekends being a low price period. Just off the top of my head, however, I’m wondering if the relatively flat period represents people taking a break until the new update. Certainly, when I played City of Heroes, there was something called “the mid-issue blues” (or “blahs”). If you haven’t read the patch notes, now would be a great time to do so . One of the changes since test was they removed the Refined Dilithium requirements from the Reputation system. Previously, it would serve as another Dilithium sink, which made it unattractive to casual and alt-heavy players. I’m not sure how they compensated for that, as one of the purposes of that was to slow down the speed at which players could progress through the system. While the Reputation system was made to el...

I had a thought, and drew up another graph in Excel. While things have been relatively flat for the past while, I wondered how much variability was there? Looking back, there were four weeks where the market fluctuated tremendously during the course of a week. Two of those were wild fluctuations, followed by two lesser weeks each before returning to normal. I’m going to have to start doing some research if I’m going to speculate what caused these wild swings, though! Times like this I really wish I had more of a history for the market. It’d be really interesting to see how often this sort of thing happens.

We’re finally seeing some movement again! Really not much to say at this point. Season 7 is coming soon, people are getting ready, and that’s about that.

Not quite the 11th hour, but late, and I do apologize!     FMonday Tuesday Wed Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday 8/27/2012     160 165 161 156 158 9/3/2012 157 157 157 156 153 152 153 9/10/2012 154 153 154 154 154 154 154 9/17/2012 155 156 155 155 155 154 155 9/24/2012 154 155 159 165 163 158 160 10/1/2012 161 159 160 159 156 157 157 10/8/2012 157 157 158 159 158 158 158 10/15/2012 160 159 160 160 159 158 158 10/22/2012 158 158 158 158 158 158 157 10/29/2012 157 158 157 157         Finally! Some more movement!     I shan’t pontificate to much this go ‘round. I’m personally wondering if uncertainties over what changes Season 7 will bring has people less willing to participate in the exchange right now. We’ll see. It could also be Dilithium buyers are not quite as willing to pay the same premiums as before.

Yesterday I went ahead and got Serif's PagePlus X6 desktop publishing software for Windows. Serif's DTP software has come highly recommended to me as a good, competent, low-end program. As such, its direct competition would be the Open-source program Scribus , and the rather reviled Microsoft Publisher . Comparing it to programs like QuarkXpress and InDesign would likely be useless, as their target market has very different needs, desires and workflows. That said, I'm coming from QuarkXpress (even if its several years after the fact), and thus I'm having to make sure I keep my expectations in check. Moreover, I'm coming over to this from OSX to Windows, so that's even more adjustment. What I primarily want is a competent desktop publishing program for my own, personal use. Given how many smaller RPG/game shops use Serif, I think it'll be quite functional for me. Moreover, I really want to start getting into creating ePub eBooks; my old Adobe CS2 coul...

Dan Stahl announced that Fleet Actions were going to see increased rewards , as following: Gold = Purple + 1920 Dilithium Silver = Purple + 960 Dilithium Bronze = Blue + 960 Dilithium All others = Green + 960 Dilithium One of the posters politely pointed out they were concerned that this could be damaging to the social atmosphere of Star Trek Online. Dan acknowledged this , had already spoken to the other developers, and said he was bringing the feedback from the thread to the rest of the team. Today? Dan posted a followup : In addition, we have decided to nix the X2 Dilithium bonus for Gold and instead provide a x2 Purple gear and keep the Dilithium consistent across all players. Its still a good reward, but not nearly as overbearing as the double Dilithium in my opinion. Will it get tweaked further? Its entirely possible. But the economics of double Dilithium was too good; some people immediately quit STFs if the team misses secondary objectives, after all....

If you're active in Star Trek Online's end-game, you owe it to yourself to read up on their changes to Task Force Omega . In addition, its really a great time to use the official forums and the Dev Tracker  or simply dive into the discussion concerning the blog . Go over the Dev Blog on TF Omega first, as that will provide some background for everything else. You might also want to use STOwiki.org to reference current values and rewards.

Well, its been an interesting week in STO land. A lot of it centers around the Task Force Omega Reputation system ; they’re streamlining rewards, expanding them in some cases, lowering them in others, and more. As such, its making me wonder if the current Z:D prices are more from people keeping more Dilithium to themselves, “just in case.” Dan Stahl has been a very busy bee, so its really worth your time to go looking through what he and the other devs have posted . I’ll get some highlights up later, though. Again, knowing what’s coming will help you decide how you want to progress. Overall, I like the changes, but that’s my opinion based on how I play; your mileage may vary.

At the moment, Season 7 has plans to increase the costs associated with Reassigning Under-performing Officers. This is an area of concern for some players. Those who are looking for improved Duty Officers for the DOFF system are understandably upset, as are those who are actively working on starbase projects (higher tier projects sometimes require Uncommon Duty Officers in large quantities). So, are there any other options? Enter the Recruitment Duty Officer Missions.

At the moment, there seems to be a change on Tribble/Public Test Server that Cryptic/PWE is planning for Season 7. In short, there's going to be a Dilithium charge for certain Duty Officer functions . General Recruitment (the basic DOFF pack) - 1,000 Reassign Underperforming Officers (crunch 5 into 1 of the next higher quality) Common - 500 (600 at race specific vendor) Uncommon - 2500 (3000 at race specific vendor) Rare - 5000 (6000 at race specific vendor) Now, one thing I'll have to say is that these numbers are not final. Season 7 is not live yet for one, but on top of that? Its possible they'll be adjusted in the future. Whether it'll be higher or lower, its hard to say, but I'd be surprised if they stay the same. Now, looking at this, I can really sympathize with casual players. As a result, Dilithium-earning activities should become more popular.

Let me present the USS Messing!

  Monday Tuesday Wed Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday 8/27/2012     160 165 161 156 158 9/3/2012 157 157 157 156 153 152 153 9/10/2012 154 153 154 154 154 154 154 9/17/2012 155 156 155 155 155 154 155 9/24/2012 154 155 159 165 163 158 160 10/1/2012 161 159 160 159 156 157 157 10/8/2012 157 157 158 159 158 158 158 10/15/2012 160 159 160 160       Well, it looks like the good times of September are over with, at least for now!

I'm sure you've heard "slow and steady wins the race," right? How about, "don't put all your eggs in one basket?" "Failing to plan is planning to fail." Sure, they're cliches, but that doesn't make them any less sound as advice. And, right now, that's about where I'm at in terms of getting my D'Kora. So, my current game plan is...

Yesterday I started a little experiment to see what I could do with 2 million Energy Credits worth of DOFFs . Nearly a day later? All but three (valued at 108k EC) have sold. From a starting balance of 25k EC, I've gone to 3.692 million EC. Taking away the starting balance and invested amount, I've brought in 1.692 million EC. Now, that did take a while to work through! Biggest obstacles to it being fast were: Exchange limit of 40 transactions. Constant flipping through Buy and Sell tabs for referencing prices. A weird little bug when exchanging higher ranking DOFFs for lower ranking DOFFs (basically, it wouldn't show there be any available on the first try). Time to sell. But, overall, I'd say it was a reasonable use of time. Again, I personally prefer to have multiple avenues to a single goal, so this is just one of many. The best thing is it doesn't deplete my Dilithium Reserves, which I use for buying Crafting Materials as well as buying Zen for...

Jonathan, Ben and L.D. are talking about computer classes and continuing education. Tune in today at noon. Q&A Presents Maui On Line! KAOI AM 11-10 and 96.7 FM! You can listen in online at http://kaoi1110.com/ or download the show later at  http://www.q-a.net/mauionline/ .

Based on the article/post I read yesterday on making Energy Credits , I'll be posting an experiment for myself. I took 2 million EC and bought 15 Duty Officer Mini-Packs, leaving me with 25,000 EC. I'll open them all up, and proceed to post them onto the Exchange. Now, I've got 11 existing, salable Duty Officers already, so this won't be exact, but at the same time those DOFFs were free via the Star Fleet Academy recruitment DOFF assignments.

ertihan on the official Star Trek Online boards has a great post on how to make Energy Credits called The Art of the Deal . The art of making EC in STO can be pretty intimidating at times, but the truth is that it's not as complicated as it sounds. The first million can come pretty quickly if you know what you're doing, but here are some tips to get you going.  Its a relatively quick read, and what I really, really like is how ertihan goes from starting up to reaching high levels of Energy Credits in a sensible fashion. Being upfront about costs and risks is another highlight; high risk and high reward go hand in hand, after all! But, the Big Leagues section has some fun reading, good ideas, and moreover an "advanced" economic game. In theory, this is where the Exchange could turn into indirect PVP. Please note: Silver players will need to buy the Energy Credit Cap Increase from the Cryptic Store. Its 500 Zen ($5USD). If you don't want to spend money, make it...

Its been a fun week for Star Trek! Lifetime Subscriptions are on sale for $199 for a limited time, Lifetime holders get all Veteran’s Rewards without waiting (which is causing more than a little division on the forums), the new 1,000 day VR ships have been released, and a new STF for Season 7 has been announced! But, you can see all that elsewhere; you came here for numbers...

From now until November 12th, you can get a Lifetime Subscription for $199.00! At that price, you'll only need play 14 months to break even versus having a subscription (normally it'd take 20 months). Don't forget you'll also be getting 500 Zen as a monthly stipend; useful for buying all sorts of goodies, including things you can sell on the Exchange like Master Keys and Fleet Modules. And don't forget Dilithium. Buy goodies, save it up, or buy Energy Credits, whatever you like ^_^ Additionally, Lifetime Subscribers get access to all Veteran's Rewards, regardless of how long they've had their Lifetime sub. So, someone buying a new sub today will have access to the 1,000 Veteran Reward ships . These ships look pretty nice (not as nice as my Atrox, but whatever), and might be a lot of fun to play, so we'll see! I think this is a nice move on Cryptic's part. Its a good perk, but not overwhelmingly amazing. Its not "must have" from a prac...

There's a lot of great reasons to use Cloud storage like SkyDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive, etc. I love that I can work on files between my smartphone, laptop, and desktop. But, sometimes I wonder, "How do I back this up?" Thanks to a quick internet search, I've got a simple way to mirror some of those files!

Another big show today as Jon and LD discuss a favorite topic of ours... yup! You guessed it... BACKUP! Tune in today at noon. Q&A Presents Maui On Line! KAOI AM 11-10 and 96.7 FM! You can listen in online at http://kaoi1110.com/ or download the show later at  http://www.q-a.net/mauionline/ .

Steady as she goes! We’re still coming off the high from last week, but prices aren’t sharply dropping like they did last time. Which is better if you’re buying Dilithium, not so great if you’re wanting to buy Zen. That said, it’s a lot better than the “old days” my fleeties were talking about last night! Its sort of hard to imagine 1:200 or even 1:300 exchange rates, at least for me. As such, well, I find this more favorable, clearly.

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?

Logged during lunch for a quick check of my DOFFs, Dilithium, etc. Out of curiosity, I checked the price of Romulan Ale , as I wanted to buy some more for my Fleet. What was 200k EC was now 1 million EC. Whoops! Should've bought sooner! I suspect the price skyrocketed due to the newly announced special project for Starbases . The Conference Room and Hunting Bar look great, have wonderful personality, and are taking up a special projects slot. As such, well, people are clearly trying to burn through their current projects which ought account for the pricing. If you've got it, or have some time to play in Romulan space to get it, right now is looking like a wonderful time to be a seller. After that, I gandered at the Uncommon Unreplicatable Materials pricing. Since I've been keeping my Dilithium rather than selling for Zen right now, I was able to buy a nice batch of it. Reconsidering my pricing, I went with 175k per unit this go around. That's still 25k less than the...

A player I’m happily acquainted with let me know that they got a Korath Temporal Science Vessel! It’s a really cool ship, and one I’d really like to have for my KDF Science character. Best part about it? They didn’t pay a dime. I asked, “how did you do it? What was your strategy?” Their answer?

Specifically, Dosi Rotgut and Romulan Ale . The fleet I’m in is currently advancing its starbase, and the Bartender project is up on the block. We’re done with everything except filling up on the Dosi and Ale, but getting those two items is not fun or easy. Both can be obtained through Confiscate Contraband From Crew and Special Reserve duty officer missions, however this is not exactly reliable. The Rotgut can also be a reward for Experimental Development of Cocktails from Tulaberries , and the Ale can also be a drop in Romulan space. Farming Tulaberries and hoping for that mission takes time, and, well, simply shooting up Romulans has to be the least interesting way for me to get anything. The most reliable way to get either would be to hit up the Exchange, but with prices starting at 200k Energy Credits and rapidly increasing it’s a little unattractive. That said, I've gone through and bought 75 Dosi Rotguts for my fleet, blowing through ~16 million Energy Credits. Now, t...

49,000 Dilithium just went out of my hands! I just bought 49 Uncommon Unreplicatable Materials at 1,000 Dilithium each. Pricing for them seems to be 150k each on the low-ball, and 250k being about normal. Well, I, not being normal, didn't price that way. When I re-evaluated my selling prices for UMs , I decided that 1 Zen to 10k Energy Credits minimum price was agreeable. I would be getting what I felt was a worthwhile price on my time and effort while my buyer was getting a relative deal compared to the rest of the pricing on the market. Even after adding a premium to the price, both of us would be coming out ahead!

Well, its now been 4 weeks tracked! My first month! And, as such, I’m finally getting a view of the “bigger” picture. It was rather nice to get up, log on, and see the 64 Zen I placed for sale at 1:165 had sold, leaving me with a nice sum of over 10,000 Dilithium. Knowing that when rates go back down I’ll be able to make a small profit on that is even better. I know, I know, you want charts, don’t you?

Come this Thursday I'll have hit 4-weeks worth of tracking. On top of that, the price of Zen has gone up from the low to mid 150's to 160. I'm hoping, if not betting a little, that it'll hit 165 before the end of the month. One of the nice things about the Dilithium Exchange is you can place offers and let them sit there. I currently have offers to buy a total of 68 Zen at 1:154. I also have an offer to sell 64 Zen if it should reach 1:165. Right now 1:154 is the highest price I'll buy Zen at, with more than a bit done at 153. This, in turn, should get me a nice little profit when the pendulum swings back the other way (about 704 Dilithium, or 4 Zen at 1:154). Sure, its not a lot, but it is a reasonable amount for not doing anything other than being patient. My stipend hits towards the beginning of next month, so I'm debating whether or not I'll hold onto it or not. We'll see.

Cryptic/PWE just unveiled the latest lockbox for Star Trek Online: the Temporal Lock Box . Its time-travel themed, with all sorts of neat ships, consoles, etc., both to be won on random chance and via Lobi. You should really take a look - they're very cool looking . Now, given that Master Keys cost $1.25 each (well, less if you buy 10-packs), you might be hesitant to go after them. You might also be leery of the whole lockbox scheme. And, that's understandable. Goodness knows Pavlovian responses aren't limited to just dogs! So, how to play without paying...?

Earlier on I posted my excitement over Unreplicatable Materials . It looked like a gold-mine, but I was also wondering if what I saw might be a bit too good to be true. Well, a quick look-over this morning and yes, it was indeed so. The weekend market had been emptied out, leaving only the highest priced posts in the Exchange. Whoops.

In Season 5 of Star Trek Online, Cryptic introduced the Duty Officer system. I love this part of the game; its quick, its easy, and is perfect for lunch breaks. With various categories to focus on, assignments varying by sector, and the timed nature of it, DOFFs are a fascinating way to progress your character (and crew) while offline, to have an alternative means of leveling, and just provide a great flavor to the game. Moreover, its how I've been doing the vast majority of my Dilithium Earning. "But what if I don't like DOFFs?"

Follow-up post! If you've watched the show at all, you know they can do a whole lot with their replicators. Need a meal? A hot drink? Feline food supplement? Go to the replicator, tell it what you want, and off you go! Sure, it can't making living things, and it seems they tone some stuff down (synth-ale doesn't seem to be the "good stuff"), but it seems it can make just about anything. Star Trek Online's crafting system has two unique crafting materials that bear examining: Common and Uncommon Unreplicatable Materials. Costing 10 and 1,000 Dilithium each, they represent something that can't simply be ordered up on demand. As such, they represent an obstacle to crafters because the players must earn Dilithium to buy them, buy Dilithium with Zen to buy them, or have someone else get it for them.

Upon logging in and hitting DS9, I was welcomes by someone standing around, talking in the local channel: Welcome to ***********, Cheap&fast STO Credits 10M only $12.99 with 10% bonus STO Credits, 30mins delivery guaranteed. Really? Oh, that's fantastic. I've been selling Master Keys the past few days between 1.4-1.6 million a piece. Right now, Cryptic is selling the 10-packs of keys for under $10. So, while not as fast: I can buy as much Energy Credits as they're offering for less than their asking price. I can actually buy it with Zen. I can actually buy the Zen with Dilithium. And my account plus credit card is totally safe in the meantime. Moreover, I just got introduced to the fact that Fleet Ship Modules can be bought in the Z-Store and sold on the Exchange. A quick check, and I saw they're selling for 6-9 million EC each. I don't know about you, but that's pretty good, too!

Three weeks of tracking! :D This has been a pretty big week for me, though. The Tholian Lock Boxes are coming to an end, but Cryptic is bringing back the Ferengi and Cardassian Boxes for a limited time. But, what’s even bigger, and better, than that is they’ve put the Master Keys on sale for 15% off! As a result, I’ve managed to buy a few extra keys and sold them on the Exchange. Right now I’ve got over 14 million Energy Credits stashed away, which is nice considering I started with well under 100,000 not that long ago. Tracking chart after the break!

Today, Cryptic/Perfect World announced the return of Ferengi and Cardassian lock boxes . Not only have they improved the box winnings overall, there’s a chance that D’Kora Marauders and Cardassian Galor Cruisers will be cheaper on the exchange should their availability increase. The flip side of this would be that Master Keys are a bit more popular in the Exchange right now! When I took a look, there were a lot of keys being offered for 5 million Energy Credits on the first page alone, with a handful being available under 2 million. The Master Keys I had on the market were practically steals compared to the others. I sold one at 1.6 million, and three at 1.4 million. So, 500 Zen (a subscriber’s or lifetimer’s monthly stipend) got me 5.8 million Energy Credits! But, I didn’t buy those keys with my stipend! I bought them with Zen bought with Dilithium :D ~77,000 Refined Dilithium, converted at 1:154 rate or better, bought 500 Zen which then bought 5.8 million Energy Credits. Yes, i...