STO Helpdesk With Jo4play, Episode 8: Z-Store
Z-Store
If children like cookie stores, than any trek fans love the Z-Store, all the iconic ships are there with their iconic ablilities as consoles, but watch out, you can sugarcoat just about anything, doesn't mean it is good. Your money is important, that is one of those things you learn fairly early on, i hope :P .
All the new stuff is here, not the best but usually everything that is useful or on sale is here. This tab you usually ignore, if you are looking for good deals they usually aren't here.
Splitting by the different tabs
These are the starter packs, very nice in their own right, especially the newer packs, older ones are a bit dated, usually the best deal is the newest one. Gamma vanguard pack is really good pack to have, also discovery is neat if you like the ship that comes with it.
This is where the money is, these are the big packs, expansion packs, if you got the money for em, highly recommend picking one of those, especially the ship packs, you get usually 3 ships for the price of 2. But remember a deal is a deal is a deal but only between ferengi. Any of these packs has it's place and purpose but highly recommend consultation befoe buying, and a sale if able.
Well this is where the fun begins, i will say, i never bought anything in this game, i grinded it all, but if i ever wanted to put money this would be the place to put it at. This is the crazy land, anything goes here (as long as it's t6). Lower tier ships you usually pick up if they are a part of a set or some nice clicky console. T5's are semi playable, depending on the ship you choose, also you can buy upgrade tokens to make those t5's viable. But we are all asking about the T6's, well it all depends on what you looking for, and what faction.
Some useful ships include:
- The multimission sci ships (aka vestas): the best sci ships cause cannons on sci ships, also real nice to look at
- The battlecruisers: the starter of any high dps chaser, versatile and useful, can be adapted to many roles
- Carriers: while good ones are rare, Jem'Hadar Vanguard one is real good imho, jupiter is decent, tho they suffer from the lack of distinct specialization like all carriers
- The escorts: pilot escorts tend to be really fun i hear, but if you want something more iconic that prometheus line is still viable and fun to play around, also intel ships tend to be in this category because they are made for more hit and run
- The cruisers: The big ships, you can't miss much, command cruisers, miracle worker cruisers, anything goes
This tab is so small might as well integrate it into the items and services tabs, buying duty officer slots and packs, not bad on the roster size, i recommend 200 to anyone who can get it, but packs, nah, save the money for lockbox ones.
These are all the important endgame items, they all sell well on the exchange, keys mostly, buy one of those keyrings and keep it so you can sell the keys once the price goes up, fleet mods are devalued with t6 reps, upgrade tokens are cool i guess, rest of it nah
The most important tab, the only tab i recommend everyone to invest money in, get that elite starter pack, get those bank slots, char slots, retrain tokens, wait for a services sale and stock up like everyone.
Boosts, the nice thing to have, especially if you are leveling a new char for the n'th time, otherwise ehhh. This you really shouldn't buy if your intention is to sell em
The unavoidable barbie section, suit yourself, buy em all if you got the zen to do it, or none, usually outfits aren't the focus but if you want to be roleplaying (yeah that exists) or just want to throw in a mish mash of cool (or annoying) combinations, here it is.
Some nice bridge officers with unique passives, relatively useful but not as good as it used to be, more boff slots always welcome, otherwise you should skim away from this tab and keep the creds to yourself
Wasted space mostly, Flavour text, promotions tab is for reclaims and free stuff during the anniversary giveaways
Dilithium Trade
The blood of the Cryptic economy system, just like in Neverwinter, you can trade the dilithium (or whatever crystal equivalent in Neverwinter) between your chars (setting up a very low price for buying zen than canceling and taking the dil on another char). The key is that this trade while like so many other things is ran by the playerbase, is strictly controlled by the market at hand:
Example. We had an upgrade and a Phoenix event at the same time, common sense should tell you that during this time the need for dilithium skyrocketed as everyone wanted to try their luck at the Phoenix Packs (or up their gear like i did), and since it coincided with the finish of the T6 reps for most it had a massive effect on the prices, Dil2Zen fell from the comfort zone of 290-300 to the more realistic 270-280.
Point: any event brought in upsets the balance, so monitoring events is crucial in this trade, if you can predict when will the dil2zen rise or plummet can create insane profit for you.
Conclusion
Welcome to the first part of the true endgame, the game economy, where you follow the trends and the sound of money, if adept at this you can make a lot of bang for your buck
If not, well you will be one of those paying in the middle of a market crash.
That is all from me, probably going to update if you need more explanation
Signing off,
Jo4play o7