For reasons known and unknown, the progression in my fleet is going slow.
It is not really an issue, per se. I/We are not in a hurry, but...
...The problem we have, is none other than getting enough fleetmarks.
Grinding for fleetmarks is truly boring in the long run.
A wish:
Make it so that we can get a small amount of fleetmarks 'for free', -much like the fleetmark tribble, (but ofc more than only 1 pr hour.)
We are ahead on all projects, except for finding enough fleetmarks for the projects.
Dil/Doffs/Commodities... ...No problem. I can fill those singlehandedly in a short time.
Fleetmarks... ...I wish people could be a little more generous in contributing those.
I don't think this is a good idea.
It is true that grinding is kinda BORING. The PVE or the PVP is not the best. It can be sticky,.. people being rude or simply out of their league. The maps are Ok, some of them... but it can be better.
I am personally missing the ground PvP.. it used to be full now its an desert. And there should be more things to do than PvP. Not everyone likes space battles.
But back to the question. The reason why I rarely fill in dilithium is because I am one of those that has none or at least very little of the item called dilithium. The costs for get gear via rep is sky high,.. the fleet gear and costumes are also sky high and to be frank.. I prefer to save for the Zen store, if I am able to keep up with the cost of having a fun time with any rare items. I simply cannot keep up,... I keep saving and its gone just like that to get any kind of sets. I don't even have the space sets yet for any of my rep, its very expensive. I rather buy more character slots to level new character since I like leveling up and experience the missions.
I think they need to review Dilithium costs across the board anyway;
For an example...
VR Advanced Scorpions from the Romulan Rep system; 24,000 Dilithium, 20 DOffs, 2 Perigrine or To'Duj hangers, 20 Warp Coils, 20 Romulan Marks - plus everything it took to get up to Tier III Romulan in the first place.
VR Advanced hanger pets from the Dilithium Store, including Adv. Delta Flyers, Adv. To'Duj and Adv. Orion Slavers, just to name a few; 30,250 dilithium.
6,250 Dilithium more, but less costly overall when the addition costs in DOffs, Commodities, Marks and such, as well as time are factored in.
I don't know about anyone else, but I'd just buy the Dilithium Store Advanced carrier pets - and do. With everything else that are required at some point to be able to access Rep System items like ground gear, space gear, hanger pets... I don't know, maybe I'm just weird, but I think maybe the dilithium costs should be a bit lower still..
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross; but it's not for the timid." -- Q, TNG: "Q-Who?"
^Words that every player should keep in mind, especially whenever there's a problem with the game...
Thinking about this a bit further,.. I think the biggest mistake is that this rep system is after level 50. They need to incorporate this rep system into the mission and the leveling up system. It needs to be incorporated with a person for each rep, .. an integrated part of the story rather to have it all open up after level 50. I am not saying you should get XII gear at low level.. but make it more useful.
And they really need to review their prices.. its just to steep or review their ways of getting dilithium and EC.. and .. to many currency.
nerfing ways to get every thing to fill projects adding new holds and so on so its now never ending and the fleet system is nothing more then a black hole for resources again my 2 EC
"Thinking about this a bit further,.. I think the biggest mistake is that this rep system is after level 50. They need to incorporate this rep system into the mission and the leveling up system. It needs to be incorporated with a person for each rep, .. an integrated part of the story rather to have it all open up after level 50. I am not saying you should get XII gear at low level.. but make it more useful.
And they really need to review their prices.. its just to steep or review their ways of getting dilithium and EC.. and .. to many currency."
I've actually thought about that, something like making Tier I open up at Level Ten, Tier II at Twenty, III at thirty, IV at forty, and then Tier V is still saved for end-game at level fifty...
Just don't let them hear you say 'Too many currencies', we might get a repeat of... what was it, season five when they took all the currencies and created Dilithium?
(Which just proves that 'unifying' the currencies of Emblems and Badges and whatnot didn't fix the problem...)
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross; but it's not for the timid." -- Q, TNG: "Q-Who?"
^Words that every player should keep in mind, especially whenever there's a problem with the game...
I 100% concur to the idea of integrating the Tier development of the different reps go hand in hand with the leveling of character(s).
The way it is now is 'fine' -If a player was up to date from day 1 the rep-system was created.
I can see that once into the future, if there will be 7 different reps to build on, that people will go; 'F... this! This takes too long.'
If the player had x number of alts, the original 'fine'-statement would become the opposite.
At this point any new player would propably NOT make alts. If they have enough stamina to continue playing, they would surely NOT spend much money on shinies, since they would be uncertain wether or not they'll start a new character 'soon' enough anyways.
They way my logic is, I'd derive to the conclusion that 1. People are(will be) fleeing the game, 2. People are(will be) spending less money. Which equals to bad business. Bad business equals less profit.
Dilithium is the hardest to give up simply because of the rep grind for omega parts and fleet or rommie weapons.
Doffs well when my character has enough energy credits to replace common ones i give them to my fleet but again it isnt something that can be done asap.
Commodities again are either used for rep grind or crafting (depending on what it is) and is hard to give up.
though people who just random invite un guilded players have only themselves to blame my lvl 10 captain has been invited to about 20 different fleets and i always hit no simply because any dilithium or doffs i need right now, so if these players are inviting any un guilded person they see its obvious why their fleets dont advance.
"It appears we have lost our sex appeal, captain."- Tuvok
Why don't players want to contribute: Dilithium/Doffs/Commodities ?
Don't take this the wrong way but if all the members in your fleet spend as much time on the forums as you do ... , that does becomes a rhetorical question ...
Dilithium is Trek's version to Gold (rare and expensive); add to that, as it's already been mentioned, the fleet credit returns on Dilithium contributions isn't all that great. It's a tough job (for some) to earn that 8k a day, so why are they going to want to contribute it to a project that is high-priced in the first place, but that also doesn't give off very good returns.
I'm in two fleets (one Fed, the other Kdf) and a fair portion of the Dilithium I gained from the CE Event has been wasted in fleet projects because nobody else contributes it. It's a shame, but until you know who does something about it, nothing will change ... so nothing will change.
One thing they need to do pretty quickly to prevent more fleets from dying is to increase fleet credits from dilithum to a 5 to 1 rate. People will more likely contribute dilithium then when fleet marks are filled. Especially with more New rep dilithium sinks coming!
How is any fleet supposed to progress its starbase if people are only willing to part with Fleet marks?
It's seems that most Star Bases have come to a grinding halt or slow crawl - but already I talk to many people in many fleets and no-one except a tiny tiny few want to actually put in anything but fleet marks.
That leaves the bulk of the "real" work to just a few.
Now we have a new holding coming - which will add to the problem again.
So how do you get people to put in the massive amounts of dilithium/ EC /Commodities /doffs that are required when you move past T4 ??
Don't come in this thread with insulting comments like: recruit more people - that in itself is difficult and another full time job that many people don't like. Or: "starbases are long-term projects" sorry most players DON"T think long term and are looking around for right now - and why shouldn't they - this is a game - not a life or a career!!
So what is the solution - or are Starbases just another waste?
With Many fleets offering free access to T5 bases for gear - why build out your own? After a few hundred thousand fleet marks you have enough for any gear a toon could need.
So Solutions? Ideas?
One thing you can do as a fleet is to educate. Many (new) players don't know they can buy doffs, warpcores, etc
The biggest reason I have and and heard from my fleet-mates is how cumbersome it is to go and buy 100 Doffs from the Starbase vendor, then open all the Boxes, then have to single click on each Doff to add them one at a time to a project. As commodities go many want the discount if they have to add large amounts. So they have to get a Tuffie or Cell ship invite. Or travel to the system that sells them at a discount. But when I see a project that is asking for 80 Doffs and I have the resources to buy them, I dont because it would take more than 45 min to purchase and add them one at a time. If they would streamline the menu and add a select all button for adding them and a slider to purchase doffs to be able to buy more than one at a time that would resolve this. But as it goes now when I see a project asking for 160 Doffs I just contribuite what I have until I just happen to make a trip to my starbase, and when I'm there I might add 20 because thats about as much clicking as I can take at one time. Do you know how much it sucks to scroll down a Doffs list clicking on over 100 boxes?
One thing they need to do pretty quickly to prevent more fleets from dying is to increase fleet credits from dilithum to a 5 to 1 rate. People will more likely contribute dilithium then when fleet marks are filled. Especially with more New rep dilithium sinks coming!
I hope you mean 500 to 1....ok 500 to 1 might be a bit too much but 100 to 1 is more than realistic considering fleet marks ( the most useless currency) has a 50 to 1 ratio while dilithium (the most expansive currency) has a wooping 1 to 1 ratio.
I hope you mean 500 to 1....ok 500 to 1 might be a bit too much but 100 to 1 is more than realistic considering fleet marks ( the most useless currency) has a 50 to 1 ratio while dilithium (the most expansive currency) has a wooping 1 to 1 ratio.
I knew it was bad, but I never knew it was THAT bad. :eek:
I hope you mean 500 to 1....ok 500 to 1 might be a bit too much but 100 to 1 is more than realistic considering fleet marks ( the most useless currency) has a 50 to 1 ratio while dilithium (the most expansive currency) has a wooping 1 to 1 ratio.
Anything more than 5 for 1 is too much. They would then have to do something they don't want to do and drastically reduce the cost of the super projects. It's 5 million dilithium to fully upgrade all the T4 components as an example - so at 100 to 1 that would be 500 million fleet credits!!!
No 5 to 1 ratio would be the max and would move the 25 to 75k dilithium avg projects a lot faster.
It's 5 million dilithium to fully upgrade all the T4 components as an example - so at 100 to 1 that would be 500 million fleet credits!!!
So what? then let it be 500 million FC.
1. It's not like a single person would get all those FC
2. you make it sound as if FC where some all powerfull currency in the first place wich it is clearly not, there is only so much you can do with it....and almost all requieres (who would have guessed) MORE dilithium.
No 5 to 1 ratio would be the max and would move the 25 to 75k dilithium avg projects a lot faster.
No it would not because even at 5 to 1 people will still be way better off dumping in free doffs and data samples/traces (if not used for crafting) at a higher rate with zero costs for themselves.
Anything more than 5 for 1 is too much. They would then have to do something they don't want to do and drastically reduce the cost of the super projects. It's 5 million dilithium to fully upgrade all the T4 components as an example - so at 100 to 1 that would be 500 million fleet credits!!!
No 5 to 1 ratio would be the max and would move the 25 to 75k dilithium avg projects a lot faster.
5:1 on dilithium would give a potential 40k FC per day for a player dumping in their daily 8k refining limit. Not bad, and probably a lot more competitive with fleet marks. To get the same in fleet marks you would need 800, which equates to around 16 fleet alerts at 50 marks per... However, it still doesn't solve the problem of the miniscule limit on dilithium refining compared to the massive dilithium costs on everything. That problem also needs to be dealt with to make dilithium donations more competitive.
As I was thinking about the issue, one train of thought came up - and that was the idea of making a fleet mark exchange, and allowing other commodities, including Doffs and dilithium, to be traded for marks. This attacks three problems at once:
a) Having the fleet Doffs sold for marks instead of fleet credits gives players in big fleets the ability to sink their unused marks and earn credits instead.
b) Having dilithium and other commodities exchangeable for fleet marks allows small fleets to trade commodities for those elusive marks to complete their projects, and also gives players in large fleets a sink for the fleet marks and the ability to generate other commodities for fleet projects.
The proviso on this is that there would have to be a limit on how much dilithium you can get from fleet marks per day, or else the existing refining limit becomes pointless - which maybe it needs to be.
The other major issue I notice people talking about is the double-dipping. It does suck - not just for fleet items and provisions, but also for rep equipment unlocks - that you have to pay dilithium to unlock it and then more dilithium to buy it. There is no need to double dip. Remove one of the costs or change it to another currency that's not as restrictive to gather.
At the end of the day, the squeeze on dilithium by Cryptic needs to stop, fleet marks need to be reworked to not be such a PITA, and the Doff donation system needs to be streamlined to make donations easier. I would also agree that the provision system needs to be made into an individual commodity that can be earned by players to buy gear - perhaps in place of the dilithium double-dip that's currently in place.
Anyway, just my thoughts.
Somewhere on the wrong side of insanity.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately be explained by stupidity" ~ Robert Heinlein.
Here is my idea for a new approach to the Fleet economy.
I offer this idea freely to the Devs if they find it interesting and/or useful.
The goal is to create a balanced system that is equally fair to all fleet sizes and avoids the massive grinds for specific items that the current system is overloaded with.
1: Throw the current contribution system and all of its requirements out the airlock and forget about it. Project durations will be maintained however.
2: Place a Fleet Resource Coordinator (FRC) on the base.
3: Donate any and all items, DOffs, BOffs and select currencies to the FRC to be converted into Fleet Resources (FR). The amount of FR generated will depend on the quality/rarity of the donated item(s)/currency and the total available is stored numerically in the Fleet Bank in the same manner as ECs. These would likely be a cap on the total FRs banked, but probably high enough to not be a serious issue.
4: Players receive Fleet Credits (FC) for donations to the FRC. The amount of FC generated will depend on the quality/rarity of the donated item(s)/currency.
5: Reset all projects to use FR rather than the specific items currently required.
6: Any fleet member normally able to contribute to fleet projects can allocate FR to a scheduled project.
This system will remove bottlenecks created by specific item requirements.
The broader base of items/currencies available for donation would allow smaller fleets to achieve development goals more quickly and easily.
The retained time-gates on projects will maintain advancement balance regardless of fleet size. Small fleets will still take longer to complete projects simple because they have fewer donations overall in comparison to larger fleets.
This system also makes canceling a project, even a fully funded one, a non-issue. The allocated FR is simply returned to the bank to await reallocation. This is exploit-proof as the players receive FCs when items are donated and converted into FRs, not when items are donated to specific projects.
This would also allow players to gain FCs when there are no projects running, allowing them to purchase items from the fleet stores more easily.
I second this Idea, unfortunately it probably will never get implemented at the current point in the game.
I contribute to my Fleets on both sides regularly giving Dil, Doffs, and even recycling my existing FC's to get the doff's required. However the UI for buying such doff's and even donating them is a giant step backwards. If I have x amount of FC's why I can't I buy x amount of Doff's at once. Click click click gets extremely tedious. However I still contribute because it will be worth it at the end of the day.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
No Drama, No Fuss, Just good old fashioned pew pew!
It's the shared provision system that could use an overhaul. There are a number of problems with the current model.
First of all, I will share some personal experiences, but keep in mind that this is in no way a complaint of any kind. That said, the first fleet I was in I contributed over 100k in dilithium alone, but was never granted full access to the fleet stores. I had plenty of fleet credits, and enough dil to buy the weapons I wanted, but progression was denied due to infighting in the fleet and politics.
Meanwhile those running the fleet were bragging about their shiny new fleet gear, while I was reduced to begging to be allowed to buy only a few items that I was never allowed to buy. So my 'contributions' were wasted as far as I was concerned. Yes, I am aware that 100,000 dilithium in contributions is nothing to be proud of when compared to the contributions of some, but it took me quite a while to gather that much and contribute it, all in good faith that I would one day be allowed to buy a fleet item.
My second fleet allowed me access after a large contribution of energy credits.
My most recent fleet item purchases were negotiated with another fleet offering access for energy credits, as the last fleet I was in also denied me access after substantial contributions.
My experiences are not isolated. In the current fleet I am in, I am hopeful that one day I will be granted access to the fleet stores, but if not, I will do what I did that last time, and leave and negotiate the exchange of EC for store access with another fleet.
But my desire to blindly contribute in hopes of one day being allowed to buy certain items is starting to wane.
So here is what I would propose... Have players responsible for their own provisioning. Set it up under the reputation system currently in place, but include a new faction rep called StarBase. Half of your resources contributed in this system automatically move towards fleet projects (and you must be in a fleet to have access to this reputation), and the other half goes towards your private provisioning.
As you contribute to your own provisions, it benefits the fleet. But it also means that you are no longer restricted to what you can buy from the fleet stores, as your purchases do not deplete the fleet's provisions, but your own. The Fleet Leaders will manage and distribute their half (remember half of your resources go towards the fleet), and they can determine what projects that are going to be advanced.
But as it stands now, having to go on faith or beg for access is not exactly to my liking.
I find this thread interesting as I'm not aware of unwillingness to contribute common-quality DOffs. It's just that I usually don't have more than 20 of those so I cannot contribute 200+ for a project at a time.^^ I I could contribute uncommon-quality-DOffs as well I'd be more than happy to do so, as they usually are not that useful for anything else than selling them on the exchange.
Dilithium on the other hand is a very sensitive topic, as everyone needs dilithium to get the good stuff from fleet-stores and reputation-projects. And especially the latter ones usually eat tons of your dilithium.
I love to contribute, but I also would like to complete a few sets and not everyone has time endless to sit on dilithium-mountain so he can throw it out like nothing. I'm lucky enough to get roughly 1000-2000 dilithium a few days in the week.
Comments
I don't think this is a good idea.
It is true that grinding is kinda BORING. The PVE or the PVP is not the best. It can be sticky,.. people being rude or simply out of their league. The maps are Ok, some of them... but it can be better.
I am personally missing the ground PvP.. it used to be full now its an desert. And there should be more things to do than PvP. Not everyone likes space battles.
But back to the question. The reason why I rarely fill in dilithium is because I am one of those that has none or at least very little of the item called dilithium. The costs for get gear via rep is sky high,.. the fleet gear and costumes are also sky high and to be frank.. I prefer to save for the Zen store, if I am able to keep up with the cost of having a fun time with any rare items. I simply cannot keep up,... I keep saving and its gone just like that to get any kind of sets. I don't even have the space sets yet for any of my rep, its very expensive. I rather buy more character slots to level new character since I like leveling up and experience the missions.
For an example...
VR Advanced Scorpions from the Romulan Rep system; 24,000 Dilithium, 20 DOffs, 2 Perigrine or To'Duj hangers, 20 Warp Coils, 20 Romulan Marks - plus everything it took to get up to Tier III Romulan in the first place.
VR Advanced hanger pets from the Dilithium Store, including Adv. Delta Flyers, Adv. To'Duj and Adv. Orion Slavers, just to name a few; 30,250 dilithium.
6,250 Dilithium more, but less costly overall when the addition costs in DOffs, Commodities, Marks and such, as well as time are factored in.
I don't know about anyone else, but I'd just buy the Dilithium Store Advanced carrier pets - and do. With everything else that are required at some point to be able to access Rep System items like ground gear, space gear, hanger pets... I don't know, maybe I'm just weird, but I think maybe the dilithium costs should be a bit lower still..
^Words that every player should keep in mind, especially whenever there's a problem with the game...
And they really need to review their prices.. its just to steep or review their ways of getting dilithium and EC.. and .. to many currency.
nerfing ways to get every thing to fill projects adding new holds and so on so its now never ending and the fleet system is nothing more then a black hole for resources again my 2 EC
system Lord Baal is dead
And they really need to review their prices.. its just to steep or review their ways of getting dilithium and EC.. and .. to many currency."
I've actually thought about that, something like making Tier I open up at Level Ten, Tier II at Twenty, III at thirty, IV at forty, and then Tier V is still saved for end-game at level fifty...
Just don't let them hear you say 'Too many currencies', we might get a repeat of... what was it, season five when they took all the currencies and created Dilithium?
(Which just proves that 'unifying' the currencies of Emblems and Badges and whatnot didn't fix the problem...)
^Words that every player should keep in mind, especially whenever there's a problem with the game...
The way it is now is 'fine' -If a player was up to date from day 1 the rep-system was created.
I can see that once into the future, if there will be 7 different reps to build on, that people will go; 'F... this! This takes too long.'
If the player had x number of alts, the original 'fine'-statement would become the opposite.
At this point any new player would propably NOT make alts. If they have enough stamina to continue playing, they would surely NOT spend much money on shinies, since they would be uncertain wether or not they'll start a new character 'soon' enough anyways.
They way my logic is, I'd derive to the conclusion that 1. People are(will be) fleeing the game, 2. People are(will be) spending less money. Which equals to bad business. Bad business equals less profit.
Doffs well when my character has enough energy credits to replace common ones i give them to my fleet but again it isnt something that can be done asap.
Commodities again are either used for rep grind or crafting (depending on what it is) and is hard to give up.
though people who just random invite un guilded players have only themselves to blame my lvl 10 captain has been invited to about 20 different fleets and i always hit no simply because any dilithium or doffs i need right now, so if these players are inviting any un guilded person they see its obvious why their fleets dont advance.
"It appears we have lost our sex appeal, captain."- Tuvok
Don't take this the wrong way but if all the members in your fleet spend as much time on the forums as you do ... , that does becomes a rhetorical question ...
I'm in two fleets (one Fed, the other Kdf) and a fair portion of the Dilithium I gained from the CE Event has been wasted in fleet projects because nobody else contributes it. It's a shame, but until you know who does something about it, nothing will change ... so nothing will change.
100% this...
Merry Christmas from all at Clan Hunters: www.clanhuntershq.com
One thing you can do as a fleet is to educate. Many (new) players don't know they can buy doffs, warpcores, etc
I hope you mean 500 to 1....ok 500 to 1 might be a bit too much but 100 to 1 is more than realistic considering fleet marks ( the most useless currency) has a 50 to 1 ratio while dilithium (the most expansive currency) has a wooping 1 to 1 ratio.
Anything more than 5 for 1 is too much. They would then have to do something they don't want to do and drastically reduce the cost of the super projects. It's 5 million dilithium to fully upgrade all the T4 components as an example - so at 100 to 1 that would be 500 million fleet credits!!!
No 5 to 1 ratio would be the max and would move the 25 to 75k dilithium avg projects a lot faster.
Too much? the marks already have a 50 to 1 ratio and have next to zero worth at all.
And why exactly would they have to REDUCE the costs?
So what? then let it be 500 million FC.
1. It's not like a single person would get all those FC
2. you make it sound as if FC where some all powerfull currency in the first place wich it is clearly not, there is only so much you can do with it....and almost all requieres (who would have guessed) MORE dilithium.
No it would not because even at 5 to 1 people will still be way better off dumping in free doffs and data samples/traces (if not used for crafting) at a higher rate with zero costs for themselves.
5:1 on dilithium would give a potential 40k FC per day for a player dumping in their daily 8k refining limit. Not bad, and probably a lot more competitive with fleet marks. To get the same in fleet marks you would need 800, which equates to around 16 fleet alerts at 50 marks per... However, it still doesn't solve the problem of the miniscule limit on dilithium refining compared to the massive dilithium costs on everything. That problem also needs to be dealt with to make dilithium donations more competitive.
As I was thinking about the issue, one train of thought came up - and that was the idea of making a fleet mark exchange, and allowing other commodities, including Doffs and dilithium, to be traded for marks. This attacks three problems at once:
a) Having the fleet Doffs sold for marks instead of fleet credits gives players in big fleets the ability to sink their unused marks and earn credits instead.
b) Having dilithium and other commodities exchangeable for fleet marks allows small fleets to trade commodities for those elusive marks to complete their projects, and also gives players in large fleets a sink for the fleet marks and the ability to generate other commodities for fleet projects.
The proviso on this is that there would have to be a limit on how much dilithium you can get from fleet marks per day, or else the existing refining limit becomes pointless - which maybe it needs to be.
The other major issue I notice people talking about is the double-dipping. It does suck - not just for fleet items and provisions, but also for rep equipment unlocks - that you have to pay dilithium to unlock it and then more dilithium to buy it. There is no need to double dip. Remove one of the costs or change it to another currency that's not as restrictive to gather.
At the end of the day, the squeeze on dilithium by Cryptic needs to stop, fleet marks need to be reworked to not be such a PITA, and the Doff donation system needs to be streamlined to make donations easier. I would also agree that the provision system needs to be made into an individual commodity that can be earned by players to buy gear - perhaps in place of the dilithium double-dip that's currently in place.
Anyway, just my thoughts.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately be explained by stupidity" ~ Robert Heinlein.
I second this Idea, unfortunately it probably will never get implemented at the current point in the game.
I contribute to my Fleets on both sides regularly giving Dil, Doffs, and even recycling my existing FC's to get the doff's required. However the UI for buying such doff's and even donating them is a giant step backwards. If I have x amount of FC's why I can't I buy x amount of Doff's at once. Click click click gets extremely tedious. However I still contribute because it will be worth it at the end of the day.
First of all, I will share some personal experiences, but keep in mind that this is in no way a complaint of any kind. That said, the first fleet I was in I contributed over 100k in dilithium alone, but was never granted full access to the fleet stores. I had plenty of fleet credits, and enough dil to buy the weapons I wanted, but progression was denied due to infighting in the fleet and politics.
Meanwhile those running the fleet were bragging about their shiny new fleet gear, while I was reduced to begging to be allowed to buy only a few items that I was never allowed to buy. So my 'contributions' were wasted as far as I was concerned. Yes, I am aware that 100,000 dilithium in contributions is nothing to be proud of when compared to the contributions of some, but it took me quite a while to gather that much and contribute it, all in good faith that I would one day be allowed to buy a fleet item.
My second fleet allowed me access after a large contribution of energy credits.
My most recent fleet item purchases were negotiated with another fleet offering access for energy credits, as the last fleet I was in also denied me access after substantial contributions.
My experiences are not isolated. In the current fleet I am in, I am hopeful that one day I will be granted access to the fleet stores, but if not, I will do what I did that last time, and leave and negotiate the exchange of EC for store access with another fleet.
But my desire to blindly contribute in hopes of one day being allowed to buy certain items is starting to wane.
So here is what I would propose... Have players responsible for their own provisioning. Set it up under the reputation system currently in place, but include a new faction rep called StarBase. Half of your resources contributed in this system automatically move towards fleet projects (and you must be in a fleet to have access to this reputation), and the other half goes towards your private provisioning.
As you contribute to your own provisions, it benefits the fleet. But it also means that you are no longer restricted to what you can buy from the fleet stores, as your purchases do not deplete the fleet's provisions, but your own. The Fleet Leaders will manage and distribute their half (remember half of your resources go towards the fleet), and they can determine what projects that are going to be advanced.
But as it stands now, having to go on faith or beg for access is not exactly to my liking.
Dilithium on the other hand is a very sensitive topic, as everyone needs dilithium to get the good stuff from fleet-stores and reputation-projects. And especially the latter ones usually eat tons of your dilithium.
I love to contribute, but I also would like to complete a few sets and not everyone has time endless to sit on dilithium-mountain so he can throw it out like nothing. I'm lucky enough to get roughly 1000-2000 dilithium a few days in the week.