R&D and upgrades.

talsinaar

ok i am not new to the game by a long shot but i am also not a person who does number crunching.

i currently am having some minor issue to the R&D upgrade system. one being that well the ammount of dilithium required to properly upgrade one item is more then i can refine in a weeks time. so math wise in one weeks time or at least 50k refined dilithium takes awhile to refine, but sad thing is i upgraded my one shield using some upgrade tokens and alot to almostall of my dilithium just to take my solenae ship shields to mkxiii. now for me who still can only refine up to 8k a day even though i am a lifetime member i also wonder for those who are silver or free players on how much they can make per week refining. i am mainly stating that upgrading an item should cost a titch less espcially since dilithium isnt easy to refine. i mean on one of the weekends one can make anywheres to 50k- 80k raw dilithium, or more. now it wil take a few days to refine at 8k per day limit. so i ask the devs to really look at the costs. i think it would be fair if your spending your own dilithium it automatically binds that item to you to kinda apease whomever does the decision making, as to not allow a person whos accumulated so much dilithium they can rob the exchange blind. but i think less dilithium costs when upgrading one would allow people to feel good about upgrading more, and not taking days to upgerade 1 item per day or 1 item per 3 days. and to appease let the items bind to the player or the account.

the system is nice and very handy, but the problem lies in you made a system that only a person who has a tone of refined dilithium and the time to gather or grind to make and pop out continuous upgraded items.

so if you or someone finds it in their heart to make a compromise on the situation and somehow make it fair to all who cant glue themselves to the game just to get dilithium in case of real life issues. please i ask find a way to make it both cost efficient, and time efficient.

mightybobcnc

I, on the other hand am a person who does number crunching (see my signature). How much dilithium is "almost all of my dilithium?" Which level of upgrade tech did you use? Using the most efficient upgrade tech it should have used less than 8000 dilithium to get the Solanae shield from XII to XIII; the middle-of-the-road upgrade tech would be a max of 17,100 dilithium.

Also, as a lifer you have access to the veteran refiner at the Academy to get an extra 500 refined per day (1000 every 2 days). Additionally a T3 fleet mine has a refinement project for yet another 500 which brings up your total to 9000 per day per character.

huntingdon1701

You get much better value if you wait until you can craft the superior upgrades. I wasted 100k before realising that.

of course, if you're not crafting then you're going to have to pay through the nose.

gaevsman

I upgraded my plasma quad's with no more than 4000 Dil, and a few accelerators... So... It's not that much, unless you used green tech upgrades..

cmdrscarlet

In other words, there are ways around it all and patience is a virtue.

1) You don't have to use the R&D system.
2) Please break up the wall of text with paragraphs :P
3) The refinement cap is fine as is: a- otherwise projects would cost more D, b- it's Cryptic's way to keep you invested in the game.
4) Remove the expectation that anything high-end should be easy to get, or quick to get unless substantial investment with in-game resources are used. The only real investment you should be using is "time".