All the troubles of the Dilithium Exchange inflation would go away if people would just put aside $0.50 or $1.00 a day to spend on Zen when it goes on sale/charge. And if "some people can't afford to put aside $0.50 or $1.00 a day on a game they're spending hours on," then they have some IRL things to work on. Downsize your drinks, or drink water, drive the speed limit, eat out one day less for the whole month, get a job?
Grinding for Dilithium after your free stuff (reputations, recruitment rewards, etc. that you still had to spend time to get anyway) runs out is a terrible exchange of time. Even if you can somehow do all your Admiralties, DOff assignments, and whatever else in only 5 mintues per character, that's less than $2/hour at 500 Dilithium. Less than $4/hour if you can somehow cycle through all the chores in 2.5 mintues each character. This is assuming Zen is 100 for $1, the time exchange is even worse if the Zen was purchased while on sale.
Playing a video game shouldn't be like working for 3rd-world wages. Just save $0.50 or $1.00 a day, and spend what limited time you have alive playing for fun instead of grinding chores.
All the troubles of the Dilithium Exchange inflation would go away if people would just put aside $0.50 or $1.00 a day to spend on Zen when it goes on sale/charge. And if "some people can't afford to put aside $0.50 or $1.00 a day on a game they're spending hours on," then they have some IRL things to work on. Downsize your drinks, or drink water, drive the speed limit, eat out one day less for the whole month, get a job?
Grinding for Dilithium after your free stuff (reputations, recruitment rewards, etc. that you still had to spend time to get anyway) runs out is a terrible exchange of time. Even if you can somehow do all your Admiralties, DOff assignments, and whatever else in only 5 mintues per character, that's less than $2/hour at 500 Dilithium. Less than $4/hour if you can somehow cycle through all the chores in 2.5 mintues each character. This is assuming Zen is 100 for $1, the time exchange is even worse if the Zen was purchased while on sale.
Playing a video game shouldn't be like working for 3rd-world wages. Just save $0.50 or $1.00 a day, and spend what limited time you have alive playing for fun instead of grinding chores.
Do you mean only people who are currently farming dilithium to exchange, or everyone?
Because if you mean everyone - that assumes that they have a use for the dilithium (or the Zen).
I don't understand what you mean, but I'll try to answer. What I'm getting at is that every time I hop onto the forums, I see new versions of people complaining about the Dilithium Exchange. Or there's another video talking about it on YouTube. It's so easy to just skip the whole Dilithium Exchange thing, and just buy what you want. It takes minimal effort to raise the funds needed to get things in this game, rather than grind/farm.
Now if the people actually enjoy cycling through characters and grinding out Dilithium for third-world wages, then good for them. But I doubt that's the case, because they wouldn't be complaining about the Dilithium Exchange.
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,586Community Moderator
Except we have heard many times that even Cryptic feels that the Dilithium economy is not healthy right now.
I'm frustrated to with how long it takes to fill an order for Zen. But as pointed out it is a supply and demand issue. Based on westmetals' testing it does appear that the situation is improving SLIGHTLY, taking about a week now rather than two weeks. However we still need a sustainable sink. Fleet Holdings have a natural lifespan, and thus only really kick the can down the road, and odds are most of the BIG fleets will have stockpiles just waiting to be dumped into them and thus... no real demand.
They COULD try adding something similar to fleet holdings like a "Surplus Dilithium Exchange" repeatable project like they have for Fleet Marks, where you can spend DL for Fleet Credits, but then the question of how often will it be used comes up. I know from experience that sometimes getting Fleet Credits is a PITA when everything wants DOffs or people leave only the Dilithium open and you got like a billion Fleet Marks.
But the point remains that it has to be something worthwhile to encourage use. Not just "sink for the sake of a sink" or "you MUST participate in this sink or else".
Except we have heard many times that even Cryptic feels that the Dilithium economy is not healthy right now.
I'm frustrated to with how long it takes to fill an order for Zen. But as pointed out it is a supply and demand issue. Based on westmetals' testing it does appear that the situation is improving SLIGHTLY, taking about a week now rather than two weeks. However we still need a sustainable sink. Fleet Holdings have a natural lifespan, and thus only really kick the can down the road, and odds are most of the BIG fleets will have stockpiles just waiting to be dumped into them and thus... no real demand.
They COULD try adding something similar to fleet holdings like a "Surplus Dilithium Exchange" repeatable project like they have for Fleet Marks, where you can spend DL for Fleet Credits, but then the question of how often will it be used comes up. I know from experience that sometimes getting Fleet Credits is a PITA when everything wants DOffs or people leave only the Dilithium open and you got like a billion Fleet Marks.
But the point remains that it has to be something worthwhile to encourage use. Not just "sink for the sake of a sink" or "you MUST participate in this sink or else".
Your point on larger fleets sitting on pools is on the nose. At some point they thought it would be a good idea to nerf Admiralty a bit and turn the KDF projects reward into fleet dill pool. It might have had a short term effect... but long term yes lots of players have stockpiled tons of fleet dill pool. They nerfed their own sink... a new holding now most of the big fleet have plenty of people sitting on multiple tools with pretty large fleet dill pools.
Whatever they come up with to try and build some demand for Dill... I hope they think the change through a bit more then that one. Thinking about it the dill store does sell batteries... perhaps its time the dill store got superior dill store only batteries. Sure its a bit more P2W then most of us like but at this point whatever put some 3 System Dill store only batteries or something. Or at one point one of the lockboxes had single use devices that fired a ship skill.... perhaps putting those in the Dill store could sink some dill. Lots of people have pretty much empty device slots... some single use stuff could probably sink some dill as long as they don't go too crazy on the pricing.
Your point on larger fleets sitting on pools is on the nose. At some point they thought it would be a good idea to nerf Admiralty a bit and turn the KDF projects reward into fleet dill pool.
The Klingon ToD has already been changed from Raw Ore to Fleet Vouchers. And the Ferengi ToD was changed from Raw Ore to bonus pool rather than lump sum.
All the troubles of the Dilithium Exchange inflation would go away if people would just put aside $0.50 or $1.00 a day to spend on Zen when it goes on sale/charge. And if "some people can't afford to put aside $0.50 or $1.00 a day on a game they're spending hours on," then they have some IRL things to work on. Downsize your drinks, or drink water, drive the speed limit, eat out one day less for the whole month, get a job?
I've got a job, thank you very much. I don't eat out. I only buy necessities, and I cannot afford to do what you suggest. Because on top of my regular bills which I can manage okay, I've got over $15k of medical debt because of a hospital stay and surgery I had to deal with when I was between jobs with no health insurance thanks to the pandemic.
What they NEED to do to fix the Dilithium exchange....
You have a job, but can't set aside $0.50 or $1.00 a day, and yet you can spend hours playing video games and/or grinding Dilithium, have a good enough computer/console to run the game, and pay the electrical bill...?
It's mind-boggling how entitle some people are: "I get a decently enjoyable Star Trek video game, don't have to pay to run an online server, don't have to pay for the game itself, and they regularly give me updated content and free ships/gear... but they also have to make it so I don't have to pay for the even more extra stuff I don't need, and can depend on other people to spend the money to keep the game running!"
Reducing the inflow of raw ore is only a miniscule part of the solution. It really does not matter how fast one can get raw ore. The refinement cap ensures that the market cannot be flooded. So, more people are able to hit the daily refinement cap and can post at least 8k RD on the exchange. There needs to be more things that actually take RD out of the game. Until the devs start making that happen, nothing significant is going to change.
Reducing the influx of raw ore is a band-aid treatment of an arterial wound. But hey. I get it. It's easy. It's quick. Just change a few numbers her and there and done. God help them if they actually have to do some real work, like I don't know... DEVELOPING FLEET HOLDING SCALE elements that actually let people accomplish something tangible?
They stopped doing something which has culminated into the problem the DilEx has. Starting back doing something is what will fix it.
Fleet holdings are too much work...
/VOMIT
In four years, they release thirteen playable content drops. FOUR YEARS. Fleet holdings by design take MONTHS to fully complete, and it really only comes down to this group of models being turned on in the environment map. What the hell do they actually spend their at minimum 40 hours a week doing?
If they have to operate with more or less a skeleton crew, then they need to be equipped with the tools that allow a limited staff to accomplish a lot more. But no... All the money from ship sales just goes towards making more ships to sell and the team size remains the same with everyone having to wear so many freaking hats that nobody can get a bloody thing done in an efficient manner.
There's an old saying from my neck of the woods:
"Either Sh-t or get off the pot!"
I am at the point where I feel that Cryptic either needs to develop an MMO or walk away.
What good is it if STO ships are now canon in an official Star Trek show? When the people watching the show come to the game that is so mediocre in so many ways, are they going to stick with it? Are they going to even be here long enough to bother buying anything?
So much is wrong with so many things. The dilEx is just one example. If their marketing paradigm has changed, then fine. If this is the way it has to be going forward with the ratio at 1 Zen to 500 RD, then fine. But come out and SAY so. Make it clear that this is a business decision. Otherwise, FIX THE BLOODY PROBLEM...
This nonchalant "It's not in a healthy pace" response doesn't cut it. THEY put it in this place. THEY can get it out of this place. It means that THEY have to do some actual tangible work on the actual game. And if they are too small a team to do that, then THEY need to staff up. Spread those stupid hats around some.
"Cryptic has always been a small studio."
Then they should never have accepted the Trek license. You take on something that is connected to one of the largest IPs in the world, you need to up your game proportionately. I can give them a pass in the early days under Infogrames. a company that was in bankruptcy and cut back its financial support to the point where they "couldn't even afford paper cups for the break room" and Cryptic lost some key people back then. They did the best they could do as a small team that got smaller. But PWE came in, a company raking in megabucks constantly, yet since PWE took over entire systems have been removed from the game and things like fleet holdings are too much work to do, and they can only release 13 playable content drops in four years.
This game is so far beyond "Let's tweak some numbers" solutions to its problems. Yet that's all Cryptic seems to be capable of doing.
If they are not going to put forth the effort, then they just need to go ahead and put this game on life support official and just let it go on down the drain it's been circling.
See... I don't waste my money on fluff. Getting the next cool-looking ship is not a motivator for me. I look at what the game is and what it could be, and I find it very much wanting. I've already said that if they released mission packs with a Zen price tag, I'll spend my own money on the Zen to unlock them. Because that would mean actually getting something new to do rather than just a new way to look different while doing the same thing. I will pay for gameplay. I will not pay for fluff. Because the profits from fluff just go towards making more fluff when it is GAMEPLAY that needs the most work.
But suggest they charge for gameplay and its "WAAAAHHHHH!!!!!! If they do that, I'll QUIT!!! WAAAAHHHHH!!!!!"
Let them freaking quit. Charge for content. Make money that goes into gameplay development rather than just fluff... And make the game become something that people actually want to play for the experience of playing, not just to grind dilithium to trade for Zen someone else paid for so they can get ships for free.
They should call this game "Ship Collectors Online"
Yes, I digressed. But oh freaking well. It's all connected from my point of view.
I'm done with this thread, so I will shut up now
TL;DR:
"And Saint Etalot raised the hand grenade up on high saying 'O Lord, bless this thy hand grenade, that with it thou mayest blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.' And the Lord did grin. And the people did feast upon the lambs, and sloths, and carp, and anchovies, and orangutans and breakfast cereals, and fruit bats and live---"
I know you said you're done with this thread, but to make your point about Fleet Holdings taking months to complete, you don't realize that a lot of work actually goes INTO creating the holdings in the first place. The entire REASON they stated they stopped doing a holding was that the Colony world was QUITE the investment of man-hours to accomplish.
DZE (DIL ZEN Exchange) is slowly recovering as the backlog two and half months ago was at 4.2 million, then 2-3 weeks ago it was down to 3.1, and now is closer to 2.55 million.
So the Admiralty & Endeavor REROLL costing 2500 DIL each isn't making a drastic reduction, yet it is having an effect just more slow and steady.
While I said I'd welcome a new Fleet Holding like a Gamma Research Station, or a Ferengi Commerce Authority; both those would require far more development time to implement. I'd however welcome the far easier approach to Expand existing Tier III Holdings out to IV, while also slightly expanding some of the options to acquire at them.
Still I think things are slowly improving with the DZE.
I am really starting to think there is no good solution to this problem. Everyone knows a new fleet holding would alleviate the problem. But i know only about half of my fleets have completed the colony--and I speculate Cryptic knows that many fleets haven’t. The problem with the forum is not just that we are vocal—we also tend to represent the players on the top of the resource curve. Another fleet holding could actually kill off a lot of small fleets (if they aren’t already dead)—and terminally increase the grind gap between fleets and players.
Yea and yet in the last two days or so the DZE backlog has actually grown slightly, it was down to about 2.55 million a day or so ago and today is up to almost 2.7 million.
It's why I think if they reconsidered expanding Fleet Tier III Holdings once every year or so out to IV; that could help balance things out for 5-10 years. It also wouldn't start everyone from Scratch like an entirely new Holding would.
Only have to introduce one Holding upgraded at a time, they could do every 1 or 2 years, and be far faster to update than create new maps from a max of 3 to 4...
Your point on larger fleets sitting on pools is on the nose. At some point they thought it would be a good idea to nerf Admiralty a bit and turn the KDF projects reward into fleet dill pool.
The Klingon ToD has already been changed from Raw Ore to Fleet Vouchers. And the Ferengi ToD was changed from Raw Ore to bonus pool rather than lump sum.
That was my point... the fleet pool change was terrible. It did not do what they thought it would do imo. All it did was ensure a lot of players are sitting on a absolute ton of Fleet project only dill. Which means in the future unless they release something as expensive as the colony it will have zero impact on the Dill exchange. Any smaller holding would have 90% of its dillithum requirements met by players with 100s of thousands in Fleet only dill. I play a lot of toons and no I'm not just a farmer... STO has always rewarded making alts even if you just rolled toons for the new recruit events you have a bunch of toons. I probably have 30 toons with 100k+ in fleet only dill and I do pop it into projects all the time... it just adds up.
I hope when they make changes again trying to correct things they think them through a bit more. The KDF Admiralty change basically handicapped their ability to use new fleet holdings to cool the exchange. Unless they really do Colony 2.0.
DZE (DIL ZEN Exchange) is slowly recovering as the backlog two and half months ago was at 4.2 million, then 2-3 weeks ago it was down to 3.1, and now is closer to 2.55 million.
So the Admiralty & Endeavor REROLL costing 2500 DIL each isn't making a drastic reduction, yet it is having an effect just more slow and steady.
While I said I'd welcome a new Fleet Holding like a Gamma Research Station, or a Ferengi Commerce Authority; both those would require far more development time to implement. I'd however welcome the far easier approach to Expand existing Tier III Holdings out to IV, while also slightly expanding some of the options to acquire at them.
Still I think things are slowly improving with the DZE.
Is it actually recovering though or is it actually evidence of players bailing. If it is recovering what exactly is the reason for that ? I am not convinced a bunch of people decided to buy Dilithium all of a sudden. What do I know though.
That was my point... the fleet pool change was terrible. It did not do what they thought it would do imo. All it did was ensure a lot of players are sitting on a absolute ton of Fleet project only dill. Which means in the future unless they release something as expensive as the colony it will have zero impact on the Dill exchange. Any smaller holding would have 90% of its dillithum requirements met by players with 100s of thousands in Fleet only dill. I play a lot of toons and no I'm not just a farmer... STO has always rewarded making alts even if you just rolled toons for the new recruit events you have a bunch of toons. I probably have 30 toons with 100k+ in fleet only dill and I do pop it into projects all the time... it just adds up.
I hope when they make changes again trying to correct things they think them through a bit more. The KDF Admiralty change basically handicapped their ability to use new fleet holdings to cool the exchange. Unless they really do Colony 2.0.
You are also assuming people are running it regularly as well. Odds are if they DON'T need the vouchers, they're not running Klingon Admiralty. They'd most likely run Ferengi instead. Sure its a bonus pool of DL, but that is DL that can be used for things besides Fleet Holdings. If they're in a maxed out fleet they probably only run it to get to lv 10 for the Admiralty Card, then move on to another Admiralty track. As of right now the most lucrative is Ferengi with the DL and ECs. After that its either Romulan for R&D stuff and free tech upgrades with ToD, or Federation for the XP/Spec Points. Klingon used to be the go to for raw DL, but after they duplicated it over with Ferengi, then changed to ToD rewarding Fleet Vouchers, its likely only useful while a fleet is still needing Dilithium, or your kitting out with fleet gear. After that... why stockpile if we're not getting another holding? You can't transfer those vouchers to a character that needs them.
Its really not hard to do the KDF ones as an after thought and end up with tons of fleet dill its what I do.
I get my Ferengi project started... sometimes that fills my slots. Most times it leaves me 3-5 project slots. So why run more ferengi ? I start running KDF the projects reward around the same in Dill other wise. Sure I get the Ferengi one done more often... but I complete the KDF ones as an after thought.
Also Cryptic loves to run Admiralty weekends. where the x/10 missions reward a ton of Dill... so yes you guys might not have tons. I know if I counted I probably have 3 million in fleet dill vouchers. I know the small fleet I'm in... a couple other players that have been doing the same as me. We haven't had to use real dill on anything in ages. And we are a SMALL fleet.
Anyway we can disagree on the scope of the issue... but its pretty obvious to people that play the game that change didn't have the intended outcome. (mostly cause the people that came up with it clearly don't play)
And the biggest difference: They need to drop the fleet membership requirements and just make these holding open to all players regardless of their personal progression through the game. We're building the next hub of activity for future episodic content.
That's not an entirely unreasonable idea, while I don't think it should replace the existing fleet systems, adding some kind of new universal hub/resource drive that everyone playing can contribute too could be interesting both in how it might solve the DilEx and add interesting story content, Elite Dangerous does a similar thing where they have big, galaxy wide drives for resources, which can have effects on the state of the galaxy at large and story, and you get rewards based on the 'tier' overall that you reach, and how much you directly contributed to that drive. or we could do something like how XCOM does "Dark Events".
Comments
Grinding for Dilithium after your free stuff (reputations, recruitment rewards, etc. that you still had to spend time to get anyway) runs out is a terrible exchange of time. Even if you can somehow do all your Admiralties, DOff assignments, and whatever else in only 5 mintues per character, that's less than $2/hour at 500 Dilithium. Less than $4/hour if you can somehow cycle through all the chores in 2.5 mintues each character. This is assuming Zen is 100 for $1, the time exchange is even worse if the Zen was purchased while on sale.
Playing a video game shouldn't be like working for 3rd-world wages. Just save $0.50 or $1.00 a day, and spend what limited time you have alive playing for fun instead of grinding chores.
I don't understand what you mean, but I'll try to answer. What I'm getting at is that every time I hop onto the forums, I see new versions of people complaining about the Dilithium Exchange. Or there's another video talking about it on YouTube. It's so easy to just skip the whole Dilithium Exchange thing, and just buy what you want. It takes minimal effort to raise the funds needed to get things in this game, rather than grind/farm.
Now if the people actually enjoy cycling through characters and grinding out Dilithium for third-world wages, then good for them. But I doubt that's the case, because they wouldn't be complaining about the Dilithium Exchange.
I'm frustrated to with how long it takes to fill an order for Zen. But as pointed out it is a supply and demand issue. Based on westmetals' testing it does appear that the situation is improving SLIGHTLY, taking about a week now rather than two weeks. However we still need a sustainable sink. Fleet Holdings have a natural lifespan, and thus only really kick the can down the road, and odds are most of the BIG fleets will have stockpiles just waiting to be dumped into them and thus... no real demand.
They COULD try adding something similar to fleet holdings like a "Surplus Dilithium Exchange" repeatable project like they have for Fleet Marks, where you can spend DL for Fleet Credits, but then the question of how often will it be used comes up. I know from experience that sometimes getting Fleet Credits is a PITA when everything wants DOffs or people leave only the Dilithium open and you got like a billion Fleet Marks.
But the point remains that it has to be something worthwhile to encourage use. Not just "sink for the sake of a sink" or "you MUST participate in this sink or else".
Your point on larger fleets sitting on pools is on the nose. At some point they thought it would be a good idea to nerf Admiralty a bit and turn the KDF projects reward into fleet dill pool. It might have had a short term effect... but long term yes lots of players have stockpiled tons of fleet dill pool. They nerfed their own sink... a new holding now most of the big fleet have plenty of people sitting on multiple tools with pretty large fleet dill pools.
Whatever they come up with to try and build some demand for Dill... I hope they think the change through a bit more then that one. Thinking about it the dill store does sell batteries... perhaps its time the dill store got superior dill store only batteries. Sure its a bit more P2W then most of us like but at this point whatever put some 3 System Dill store only batteries or something. Or at one point one of the lockboxes had single use devices that fired a ship skill.... perhaps putting those in the Dill store could sink some dill. Lots of people have pretty much empty device slots... some single use stuff could probably sink some dill as long as they don't go too crazy on the pricing.
The Klingon ToD has already been changed from Raw Ore to Fleet Vouchers. And the Ferengi ToD was changed from Raw Ore to bonus pool rather than lump sum.
You have a job, but can't set aside $0.50 or $1.00 a day, and yet you can spend hours playing video games and/or grinding Dilithium, have a good enough computer/console to run the game, and pay the electrical bill...?
It's mind-boggling how entitle some people are: "I get a decently enjoyable Star Trek video game, don't have to pay to run an online server, don't have to pay for the game itself, and they regularly give me updated content and free ships/gear... but they also have to make it so I don't have to pay for the even more extra stuff I don't need, and can depend on other people to spend the money to keep the game running!"
Seriously?
I know you said you're done with this thread, but to make your point about Fleet Holdings taking months to complete, you don't realize that a lot of work actually goes INTO creating the holdings in the first place. The entire REASON they stated they stopped doing a holding was that the Colony world was QUITE the investment of man-hours to accomplish.
So the Admiralty & Endeavor REROLL costing 2500 DIL each isn't making a drastic reduction, yet it is having an effect just more slow and steady.
While I said I'd welcome a new Fleet Holding like a Gamma Research Station, or a Ferengi Commerce Authority; both those would require far more development time to implement. I'd however welcome the far easier approach to Expand existing Tier III Holdings out to IV, while also slightly expanding some of the options to acquire at them.
Still I think things are slowly improving with the DZE.
It's why I think if they reconsidered expanding Fleet Tier III Holdings once every year or so out to IV; that could help balance things out for 5-10 years. It also wouldn't start everyone from Scratch like an entirely new Holding would.
Only have to introduce one Holding upgraded at a time, they could do every 1 or 2 years, and be far faster to update than create new maps from a max of 3 to 4...
That was my point... the fleet pool change was terrible. It did not do what they thought it would do imo. All it did was ensure a lot of players are sitting on a absolute ton of Fleet project only dill. Which means in the future unless they release something as expensive as the colony it will have zero impact on the Dill exchange. Any smaller holding would have 90% of its dillithum requirements met by players with 100s of thousands in Fleet only dill. I play a lot of toons and no I'm not just a farmer... STO has always rewarded making alts even if you just rolled toons for the new recruit events you have a bunch of toons. I probably have 30 toons with 100k+ in fleet only dill and I do pop it into projects all the time... it just adds up.
I hope when they make changes again trying to correct things they think them through a bit more. The KDF Admiralty change basically handicapped their ability to use new fleet holdings to cool the exchange. Unless they really do Colony 2.0.
Is it actually recovering though or is it actually evidence of players bailing. If it is recovering what exactly is the reason for that ? I am not convinced a bunch of people decided to buy Dilithium all of a sudden. What do I know though.
You are also assuming people are running it regularly as well. Odds are if they DON'T need the vouchers, they're not running Klingon Admiralty. They'd most likely run Ferengi instead. Sure its a bonus pool of DL, but that is DL that can be used for things besides Fleet Holdings. If they're in a maxed out fleet they probably only run it to get to lv 10 for the Admiralty Card, then move on to another Admiralty track. As of right now the most lucrative is Ferengi with the DL and ECs. After that its either Romulan for R&D stuff and free tech upgrades with ToD, or Federation for the XP/Spec Points. Klingon used to be the go to for raw DL, but after they duplicated it over with Ferengi, then changed to ToD rewarding Fleet Vouchers, its likely only useful while a fleet is still needing Dilithium, or your kitting out with fleet gear. After that... why stockpile if we're not getting another holding? You can't transfer those vouchers to a character that needs them.
I get my Ferengi project started... sometimes that fills my slots. Most times it leaves me 3-5 project slots. So why run more ferengi ? I start running KDF the projects reward around the same in Dill other wise. Sure I get the Ferengi one done more often... but I complete the KDF ones as an after thought.
Also Cryptic loves to run Admiralty weekends. where the x/10 missions reward a ton of Dill... so yes you guys might not have tons. I know if I counted I probably have 3 million in fleet dill vouchers. I know the small fleet I'm in... a couple other players that have been doing the same as me. We haven't had to use real dill on anything in ages. And we are a SMALL fleet.
Anyway we can disagree on the scope of the issue... but its pretty obvious to people that play the game that change didn't have the intended outcome. (mostly cause the people that came up with it clearly don't play)
That's not an entirely unreasonable idea, while I don't think it should replace the existing fleet systems, adding some kind of new universal hub/resource drive that everyone playing can contribute too could be interesting both in how it might solve the DilEx and add interesting story content, Elite Dangerous does a similar thing where they have big, galaxy wide drives for resources, which can have effects on the state of the galaxy at large and story, and you get rewards based on the 'tier' overall that you reach, and how much you directly contributed to that drive. or we could do something like how XCOM does "Dark Events".