With the Winter Event now live and the new items that accompany it, why oh why was none of it added to the crafting system? I feel this was a HUGE opportunity to introduce more players to the crafting system, and the Devs missed it.
>SNIP<
And this is where the Devs dropped the ball, IMO. If they'd just set up the new items to be craftable a lot of this could have been avoided. Use the ornaments to craft the items. Oh sure, same thing as if they just opened up the store, players with stockpiles yada yada. This is where the Devs could time gate things.
Require the crafting of the items to be unlocked by using ornaments, say 5 of each simply to unlock the ability to craft, but keep it character locked. Meaning that every character that wants some of the new items needs to get their own ornaments, however they get them is besides the point.
Once open, there is only one crafting slot, but allow up to 2 others to be purchased with ornaments, say 10-20 of each to open an extra slot. Whatever the item currently cost to buy would be what they would cost to craft.
Once the event ends, the crafting window for these would close after the last project has finished and is claimed. It would reopen with the event next year exactly how the players left it, with any extra slots already unlocked.
This is just a quick and dirty, 'typing it up as I think of it' method, but looking back on it, it seems halfway decent. Yes, it creates more work for the Devs since they would have to recode some things, but this would have been a decent way to get more folks involved in the crafting process.
Yes, it is quick and dirty and not thought out well. They have had problems dealing with new UI elements (specifically the Duty Officer / R&D dialog) in the past and you want them to create another new UI element? I doubt that would go smoothly. Would you make everything craftable at level 1? If not, then when? Would you make the Cores completely craftable from holiday materials, standard materials or a mix of both (infusing dilithium into the process)? Would you be crafting items using the standard quality metrics (level + DO quality) or just make everything Epic? Would you be able to upgrade any of that equipment if you used standard metrics (a level 1 would make lower Mk / quality)? What kind of tutorial / walkthrough could they do to steer players to the crafting interface to get what they want?
You spent a bit of effort on complaining about the Tides of Ice timegating mechanism and I think that is your primary problem. Making the crafting interface more complicated is not the right solution. Be a bit more patient. Wait for the account wide fix. Try doing ToI on less populated zones so the queen doesn't get auto jibbed.
having done crafting before the revision, I am still dealing with trying to climb to Lvl15 to make anything people might want... I don't play every day. When I finally get there will anyone want to buy what I make, or will the game be glutted by people running 20-50 toons as ec factories to sell.
Would you make everything craftable at level 1? If not, then when? Would you make the Cores completely craftable from holiday materials, standard materials or a mix of both (infusing dilithium into the process)? Would you be crafting items using the standard quality metrics (level + DO quality) or just make everything Epic? Would you be able to upgrade any of that equipment if you used standard metrics (a level 1 would make lower Mk / quality)?
As I said in my post, everything would be crafted using the existing ornaments. There would be no added cost, no needed for DOff's, definitely no Dilithium. Whatever the item currently costs to buy as it is now, is what it would cost to craft the item. The quality and level of the item would remain the same as it is currently. Warp/Sing cores as well as the kit mods would be MK XII, everything else is levelless so that wouldn't matter.
I have a level 13 alt that if I get the store open at some point, I can buy the MK XII warp core for the T6 Sarr Thelnn, even though I can't use the ship or the core until I hit lvl 50.
As for when people could start crafting, it would be as soon as you open it up. You need to be level 5 to even get into Q's WW so let it start there. Yes, it's before 'regular" crafting starts but like I said, quick and dirty.
Would it be perfect how I laid it out? No, but it's also not my job to come up with these systems. Suggesting things on the other hand, is simple enough.
You spent a bit of effort on complaining about the Tides of Ice timegating mechanism and I think that is your primary problem. Making the crafting interface more complicated is not the right solution. Be a bit more patient. Wait for the account wide fix.Try doing ToI on less populated zones so the queen doesn't get auto jibbed.
Neverwinter, another Cryptic game, has seasonal events and a crafting system. Apparently, their seasonal events also include limited time crafting, similar to what I suggested. While the 2 games have different development teams, the game engine is relatively the same. The STO Devs could ask the NW Devs how they do the seasonal crafting and take it from there. Perhaps they DID just that but couldn't get it in and working in time.
As for the rest, I have no problem at all fighting the Queen. She's never been "auto jibbed" in any of the times I've run the event. I get rewards from each of the phases, including the end of event rewards, I simply don't get any credit towards unlocking the store or the apparent accolade. It's a bug, there is a fix on the way, we'll see if it actually works.
What we have now is as good (relatively speaking) as we're going to get this year. If the fixes actually work, then great. Leave the system as is and I agree, no need to over complicate things. I'm not saying that "this is how it should be", just sharing ideas. Maybe not the best ideas which is probably why I'm not in game development.
Make a man a fire and keep him warm for the day.
Set a man on fire and keep him warm for the rest of his life.
I have a level 13 alt that if I get the store open at some point, I can buy the MK XII warp core for the T6 Sarr Thelnn, even though I can't use the ship or the core until I hit lvl 50.
As for when people could start crafting, it would be as soon as you open it up. You need to be level 5 to even get into Q's WW so let it start there. Yes, it's before 'regular" crafting starts but like I said, quick and dirty.
I was referring to crafting level (1-20), not character level (1-60). The crafting interface does not open up until you can get duty officers (level 10 iirc).
The crafting experience is another factor. Crafting things (in general) does not generate much crafting experience. The high end stuff at level 15 generates 12,000 experience. Cryptic would have to figure out if they would want these holiday projects to generate crafting experience as you could potentially power level. Maybe make a separate crafting school so none of it is tied to a core school. But then it looks like a lot of Dev effort to shoehorn event crafting into the R&D system just to make it easier or faster for the user to get the endorphin rush.
There is a potential for an expanded application of the crafting system to do things like uniforms, consumables and special events but it just hasn't happened yet. The current state of the crafting system isn't even feature complete for the framework that has been pushed live.
Oh and the tides issue is random as far as I know. I've never observed anything that actually causes it. Also, IF it bugs, everyone gets nothing. So it's not specific to player actions. One observation is that when it happens the queen despawns instead of dying. But I have no idea why.
But anyways, the [Cold] disruptor thing was apparently an unfinished prototype for an event unlock for an addition to the current crafting schools. Also they gave pretty typical xp. a mk12 was 3k.
Oh and the tides issue is random as far as I know. I've never observed anything that actually causes it. Also, IF it bugs, everyone gets nothing. So it's not specific to player actions. One observation is that when it happens the queen despawns instead of dying. But I have no idea why.
But anyways, the [Cold] disruptor thing was apparently an unfinished prototype for an event unlock for an addition to the current crafting schools. Also they gave pretty typical xp. a mk12 was 3k.
Thanks for the link. Could have been interesting, perhaps we'll see something similar for the Anniversary and/or the Summer events.
Make a man a fire and keep him warm for the day.
Set a man on fire and keep him warm for the rest of his life.
So here we are nearing the end of another R&D weekend. Seems like a decent enough time for a small update.
My last 3 schools are at lvl 13, with one of them hitting lvl 14 tomorrow *if* I log in before the event ends. If not it'll be Tuesday. The last 2 schools are roughly half and two thirds of the way to lvl 14. Earlier in the thread I made a guess as to when my last school would hit 15, Jan. 25th was my guess. Considering we're 3 weeks away from that and I haven't even hit lvl 14 yet, that may be pushing it. We shall see.
Make a man a fire and keep him warm for the day.
Set a man on fire and keep him warm for the rest of his life.
Finally, level 15 in all 7 schools! I guessed I'd be done on the 25th and today is the 27th. Looks like I was a couple days off there but not horridly so.
So, after nearly 6 months of doing almost nothing but the 20 hour projects, I've reached my goal. It could have gone better had I crafted more, of course. But running out of mats and being unable to craft anything that would have netted me more XP over the course of the time I am logged in just wasn't going to happen.
I could craft some lower level (Mk 8) stuff since I have enough mats for that, but considering I'm not logged in long enough to start a project and wait the 2 hours for it to finish and THEN start the 20 hour project, it was a no-brainer to decide to go simply with the 20 hour projects alone.
Now that I'm lvl 15 however, I may decide to craft some of the special items for my alts, like the Aegis set since I still don't have a Gumarre on most of my 'main' crafting alts. Been running that freaking Request R&D Assistance mission since it was introduced and all I seem to recruit anymore are mats and components. This mish DOES still award DOff's from time to time, yes?
Anyway, now that I'm actually lvl 15 in all schools, it'll be interesting to see just what my crafting results will be. When I decide exactly what I want to craft.
Make a man a fire and keep him warm for the day.
Set a man on fire and keep him warm for the rest of his life.
Good thing for the patch and maintenance taking longer than normal today as it gave me time to think about this thread. Almost forgot about it this last month and it's almost at the 30 day limit before it becomes a necro-thread.
Or maybe it's a bad thing, depending on your opinion of this thread.
Either way, I'm posting.
The last month, since hitting lvl 15 in all schools has been eventful. And I suppose that could be a pun if you wish to see it that way. Since we've had the 5th Anniversary running for the last month-ish, that's what has been occupying my time. I haven't crafted anything aside from the Omega stuff. Mostly because the event and the Omega mini-game are the only things I've been doing since the event started, aside from running my alts through Dust to Dust.
For the most part, I haven't been doing any "real" crafting simply because of all the bugs the Anniversary brought with it. It's bad enough that the Omega game has been broken since the very first day, but I also have problems with my BOffs leaving their stations and resetting their abilities to the ones they came with after every single map transition. Well, at least when it comes to space. That not only means I have to reseat them and replace their abilities but also rearrange my ability tray if I ever feel like doing ANYTHING in space.
Every.
Freaking.
Time.
I have never bothered with loadouts since I saw they were bugged on Tribble before the system was released and I saw it was still bugged when it went live. Regardless, I have this bug and it's just sapped all the will I have to actually play content since it takes me a while to get everything back to where it should be. The last thing I want to do is enter a mission or a queue and spend the next 3-5 minutes setting everything back in it's place, only to have it happen again the next time I change maps. Especially considering that in a queue, I could end up getting the AFK penalty while fixing things.
Anyway, I'm getting off track here since this is an R&D topic and not a "Fix the dang bugs" one.
Over the last month, I've basically stopped playing the game. Except of course, as I said earlier, doing the Omega grind and Dust to Dust. Even as buggy as the Omega game is, I can still make progress and feel like I'm at least accomplishing something. I gather as many Omega components as I can in the time I feel like playing and craft them up at the end of my session. Now, where I used to play for 2-3 hours a day, since the event and all the bugs showed up I've been playing for an hour and a half at best. And half that time is spent getting frustrated with the Omega game ending early and only getting a single trace.
I've managed to accumulate a fair number of Omega upgrade kits for myself. I'm happy enough with the results, though I wish it were more. I saw a post a few weeks back that someone used one of the Omega upgrades on a Mk II item and it shot up to Mk VIII (I believe, though it may have been higher) and got a rarity increase as well. That was my motivation for farming the Omega stuff. Making the Mk II stuff is easy enough and getting THAT large a boost might just be what I need. But since I haven't been playing, I haven't been getting any crafting mats and I just haven't felt like buying any off the exchange. I'm hoping that when the Anniversary event ends, the bugs will leave with it. Or at least the BOff AWOL bug.
I guess I'll just wait and see what happens, but for now I just can't get into the game like I was just a month ago. Which means R&D has has taken a back seat, even though that's essentially the only reason I'm even logging into the game these days.
Doesn't make sense, does it?
Make a man a fire and keep him warm for the day.
Set a man on fire and keep him warm for the rest of his life.
Taking almost 3 months to get to a crafting level where you can actually craft something for level 50. Considering it takes about 2-3 WEEKS to get from lvl 1-50 for 'casual' players, it just boggles my mind.
It takes WAY the hell too long to get anywhere in the new system. Just over a month for me to hit 50 and max out rep and I still have around 2 months before I can reliably craft anything for lvl 50. In that time, if I were so inclined, I could easily save up for and buy any rep gear I wanted. Maybe even 2-3 sets.
THIS. This, right here, is the biggest problem with the crafting system, and why in its current form its progression is completely broken. Even playing casually--an hour or two per day on average--it took me less than a month to level up to 50. And this was my first character. This creates an unbridgeable disconnect between the kind of equipment that is worth crafting for the character's current level, and the kind of equipment that you -can- craft.
The root causes:
Minimal XP for crafting items in relation to the XP required to progress
Random crafting outcomes even when consuming multiple rare items
Arbitrary time gating that escalates to impractical numbers with higher-level items
The interaction of these three factors means there is -zero- reason to do anything but run the 20-hour daily research in the crafting system until you get a school to high enough level that rarity is almost guaranteed--not when an undesirable outcome means the loss of millions of EC in multiple rare items for the -chance- of something worse than what you could buy for a fraction of that price.
When running a single level-appropriate Deep Space Encounter or PvE queue mission is certain to provide better drops than anything a player has a nontrivial chance of crafting, the system is broken.
Fleet Admiral L'Yern - Screenshot and doffing addict
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster
I kinda would not mind if they added components or catalysts that could altaer chances and amounts of what crafting, as well as adding another few weapon types to the system as well.
For the first idea i would think having catalysts or compotenents that could increase the exp gained from crafting the item project it is attached to, maybe giving higher chances at certain weapon/shield mod-types to come up on your crafted item, both of which would make it (even making these at lower level) more worthwhile to craft. Also i always loved the concept idea behind the omega and romulan torpedos, in which they work differently when used with a certain type of ability changes their firing habits. Making some component/catalyst that would add this kind of feature to a weapon. Like a torp fired in a high yiield state might cause a arcing attack to emanate from the main target to the close by targets.
The second idea would be to add a non-typical projects line/school for making things like cluster-torbedos of other types than the two that are in game, such as a photon cluster torpedo or a chronoton cluster torpedowould be nice as these could be R&D specific. Maybe even add some other weapons that people would like, for instance for me i would love to see craftable scaled back lance-beam weapons added into the game to round out the ratio of beams to cannons, with the lance-beam emmiter being a single blast weapon compared to the eight shot cycle of the other arrays yet with a longer innate cooldown to compensate
There is also the idea to add a method of crafting weapons with the rep weapon types that do not normally come on them thru a component or catalys, such as using such an item gotten from a project in the rep to make a romulan omni-directional plasma array. This could also go for torps, cluster torps (if they made them craftable in the R&D system), mines, turrents, and even as weird as it sound if they added place able turrents in the R&D too. The issue i see with this though is if they implimented it than why would you buy the rep weapons from their shop instead of crafting them, they would need to keep the disparety close yet noticable to make it worth it.
Another idea i would not mind at all is vanity appeance changes for engineer turrets, drones, motars, and such for more customization of your character look. Though adding afew mods for a weaker yet mobile turret fabricator would be nice, or ones with different attack looks like flamers or rocket/missile luanchers (looks only). THese i could see being more client side enable or disabled for the player, so if you want to not see what vanity looks people have on than you can disable it so they appear as normal on your sceen.
This last one is linked to the above yet I know it would never happen atleast not without a zen cost, which would be vanity looks for armor an ships that are not typical. Such as a clockwork or steam-punk like starship skin that could be applied to a ship or armor appearnce regardless of the shield used on it. Such thigns would have little effect on game play yet for those that like vanity things would enjoy them highly, and if you kept that the appearnce could be disabled on the client side than those that want to keep a traditional star trek feel could disable such vanity appearnces.
Comments
My character Tsin'xing
No, I haven't seen the post, mind giving me a link so I could check it out? Using the forum search I'm not having any luck finding anything specific.
Set a man on fire and keep him warm for the rest of his life.
Yes, it is quick and dirty and not thought out well. They have had problems dealing with new UI elements (specifically the Duty Officer / R&D dialog) in the past and you want them to create another new UI element? I doubt that would go smoothly. Would you make everything craftable at level 1? If not, then when? Would you make the Cores completely craftable from holiday materials, standard materials or a mix of both (infusing dilithium into the process)? Would you be crafting items using the standard quality metrics (level + DO quality) or just make everything Epic? Would you be able to upgrade any of that equipment if you used standard metrics (a level 1 would make lower Mk / quality)? What kind of tutorial / walkthrough could they do to steer players to the crafting interface to get what they want?
You spent a bit of effort on complaining about the Tides of Ice timegating mechanism and I think that is your primary problem. Making the crafting interface more complicated is not the right solution. Be a bit more patient. Wait for the account wide fix. Try doing ToI on less populated zones so the queen doesn't get auto jibbed.
As I said in my post, everything would be crafted using the existing ornaments. There would be no added cost, no needed for DOff's, definitely no Dilithium. Whatever the item currently costs to buy as it is now, is what it would cost to craft the item. The quality and level of the item would remain the same as it is currently. Warp/Sing cores as well as the kit mods would be MK XII, everything else is levelless so that wouldn't matter.
I have a level 13 alt that if I get the store open at some point, I can buy the MK XII warp core for the T6 Sarr Thelnn, even though I can't use the ship or the core until I hit lvl 50.
As for when people could start crafting, it would be as soon as you open it up. You need to be level 5 to even get into Q's WW so let it start there. Yes, it's before 'regular" crafting starts but like I said, quick and dirty.
Would it be perfect how I laid it out? No, but it's also not my job to come up with these systems. Suggesting things on the other hand, is simple enough.
Neverwinter, another Cryptic game, has seasonal events and a crafting system. Apparently, their seasonal events also include limited time crafting, similar to what I suggested. While the 2 games have different development teams, the game engine is relatively the same. The STO Devs could ask the NW Devs how they do the seasonal crafting and take it from there. Perhaps they DID just that but couldn't get it in and working in time.
As for the rest, I have no problem at all fighting the Queen. She's never been "auto jibbed" in any of the times I've run the event. I get rewards from each of the phases, including the end of event rewards, I simply don't get any credit towards unlocking the store or the apparent accolade. It's a bug, there is a fix on the way, we'll see if it actually works.
What we have now is as good (relatively speaking) as we're going to get this year. If the fixes actually work, then great. Leave the system as is and I agree, no need to over complicate things. I'm not saying that "this is how it should be", just sharing ideas. Maybe not the best ideas which is probably why I'm not in game development.
Set a man on fire and keep him warm for the rest of his life.
I was referring to crafting level (1-20), not character level (1-60). The crafting interface does not open up until you can get duty officers (level 10 iirc).
The crafting experience is another factor. Crafting things (in general) does not generate much crafting experience. The high end stuff at level 15 generates 12,000 experience. Cryptic would have to figure out if they would want these holiday projects to generate crafting experience as you could potentially power level. Maybe make a separate crafting school so none of it is tied to a core school. But then it looks like a lot of Dev effort to shoehorn event crafting into the R&D system just to make it easier or faster for the user to get the endorphin rush.
There is a potential for an expanded application of the crafting system to do things like uniforms, consumables and special events but it just hasn't happened yet. The current state of the crafting system isn't even feature complete for the framework that has been pushed live.
Oh and the tides issue is random as far as I know. I've never observed anything that actually causes it. Also, IF it bugs, everyone gets nothing. So it's not specific to player actions. One observation is that when it happens the queen despawns instead of dying. But I have no idea why.
But anyways, the [Cold] disruptor thing was apparently an unfinished prototype for an event unlock for an addition to the current crafting schools. Also they gave pretty typical xp. a mk12 was 3k.
My character Tsin'xing
Thanks for the link. Could have been interesting, perhaps we'll see something similar for the Anniversary and/or the Summer events.
Set a man on fire and keep him warm for the rest of his life.
My last 3 schools are at lvl 13, with one of them hitting lvl 14 tomorrow *if* I log in before the event ends. If not it'll be Tuesday. The last 2 schools are roughly half and two thirds of the way to lvl 14. Earlier in the thread I made a guess as to when my last school would hit 15, Jan. 25th was my guess. Considering we're 3 weeks away from that and I haven't even hit lvl 14 yet, that may be pushing it. We shall see.
Set a man on fire and keep him warm for the rest of his life.
So, after nearly 6 months of doing almost nothing but the 20 hour projects, I've reached my goal. It could have gone better had I crafted more, of course. But running out of mats and being unable to craft anything that would have netted me more XP over the course of the time I am logged in just wasn't going to happen.
I could craft some lower level (Mk 8) stuff since I have enough mats for that, but considering I'm not logged in long enough to start a project and wait the 2 hours for it to finish and THEN start the 20 hour project, it was a no-brainer to decide to go simply with the 20 hour projects alone.
Now that I'm lvl 15 however, I may decide to craft some of the special items for my alts, like the Aegis set since I still don't have a Gumarre on most of my 'main' crafting alts. Been running that freaking Request R&D Assistance mission since it was introduced and all I seem to recruit anymore are mats and components. This mish DOES still award DOff's from time to time, yes?
Anyway, now that I'm actually lvl 15 in all schools, it'll be interesting to see just what my crafting results will be. When I decide exactly what I want to craft.
Set a man on fire and keep him warm for the rest of his life.
Or maybe it's a bad thing, depending on your opinion of this thread.
Either way, I'm posting.
The last month, since hitting lvl 15 in all schools has been eventful. And I suppose that could be a pun if you wish to see it that way. Since we've had the 5th Anniversary running for the last month-ish, that's what has been occupying my time. I haven't crafted anything aside from the Omega stuff. Mostly because the event and the Omega mini-game are the only things I've been doing since the event started, aside from running my alts through Dust to Dust.
For the most part, I haven't been doing any "real" crafting simply because of all the bugs the Anniversary brought with it. It's bad enough that the Omega game has been broken since the very first day, but I also have problems with my BOffs leaving their stations and resetting their abilities to the ones they came with after every single map transition. Well, at least when it comes to space. That not only means I have to reseat them and replace their abilities but also rearrange my ability tray if I ever feel like doing ANYTHING in space.
Every.
Freaking.
Time.
I have never bothered with loadouts since I saw they were bugged on Tribble before the system was released and I saw it was still bugged when it went live. Regardless, I have this bug and it's just sapped all the will I have to actually play content since it takes me a while to get everything back to where it should be. The last thing I want to do is enter a mission or a queue and spend the next 3-5 minutes setting everything back in it's place, only to have it happen again the next time I change maps. Especially considering that in a queue, I could end up getting the AFK penalty while fixing things.
Anyway, I'm getting off track here since this is an R&D topic and not a "Fix the dang bugs" one.
Over the last month, I've basically stopped playing the game. Except of course, as I said earlier, doing the Omega grind and Dust to Dust. Even as buggy as the Omega game is, I can still make progress and feel like I'm at least accomplishing something. I gather as many Omega components as I can in the time I feel like playing and craft them up at the end of my session. Now, where I used to play for 2-3 hours a day, since the event and all the bugs showed up I've been playing for an hour and a half at best. And half that time is spent getting frustrated with the Omega game ending early and only getting a single trace.
I've managed to accumulate a fair number of Omega upgrade kits for myself. I'm happy enough with the results, though I wish it were more. I saw a post a few weeks back that someone used one of the Omega upgrades on a Mk II item and it shot up to Mk VIII (I believe, though it may have been higher) and got a rarity increase as well. That was my motivation for farming the Omega stuff. Making the Mk II stuff is easy enough and getting THAT large a boost might just be what I need. But since I haven't been playing, I haven't been getting any crafting mats and I just haven't felt like buying any off the exchange. I'm hoping that when the Anniversary event ends, the bugs will leave with it. Or at least the BOff AWOL bug.
I guess I'll just wait and see what happens, but for now I just can't get into the game like I was just a month ago. Which means R&D has has taken a back seat, even though that's essentially the only reason I'm even logging into the game these days.
Doesn't make sense, does it?
Set a man on fire and keep him warm for the rest of his life.
The root causes:
The interaction of these three factors means there is -zero- reason to do anything but run the 20-hour daily research in the crafting system until you get a school to high enough level that rarity is almost guaranteed--not when an undesirable outcome means the loss of millions of EC in multiple rare items for the -chance- of something worse than what you could buy for a fraction of that price.
When running a single level-appropriate Deep Space Encounter or PvE queue mission is certain to provide better drops than anything a player has a nontrivial chance of crafting, the system is broken.
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster
Upgrade Kits will not do it, because most people want Superior kits and nothing else.
Maybe it could be part of the "
For the first idea i would think having catalysts or compotenents that could increase the exp gained from crafting the item project it is attached to, maybe giving higher chances at certain weapon/shield mod-types to come up on your crafted item, both of which would make it (even making these at lower level) more worthwhile to craft. Also i always loved the concept idea behind the omega and romulan torpedos, in which they work differently when used with a certain type of ability changes their firing habits. Making some component/catalyst that would add this kind of feature to a weapon. Like a torp fired in a high yiield state might cause a arcing attack to emanate from the main target to the close by targets.
The second idea would be to add a non-typical projects line/school for making things like cluster-torbedos of other types than the two that are in game, such as a photon cluster torpedo or a chronoton cluster torpedowould be nice as these could be R&D specific. Maybe even add some other weapons that people would like, for instance for me i would love to see craftable scaled back lance-beam weapons added into the game to round out the ratio of beams to cannons, with the lance-beam emmiter being a single blast weapon compared to the eight shot cycle of the other arrays yet with a longer innate cooldown to compensate
There is also the idea to add a method of crafting weapons with the rep weapon types that do not normally come on them thru a component or catalys, such as using such an item gotten from a project in the rep to make a romulan omni-directional plasma array. This could also go for torps, cluster torps (if they made them craftable in the R&D system), mines, turrents, and even as weird as it sound if they added place able turrents in the R&D too. The issue i see with this though is if they implimented it than why would you buy the rep weapons from their shop instead of crafting them, they would need to keep the disparety close yet noticable to make it worth it.
Another idea i would not mind at all is vanity appeance changes for engineer turrets, drones, motars, and such for more customization of your character look. Though adding afew mods for a weaker yet mobile turret fabricator would be nice, or ones with different attack looks like flamers or rocket/missile luanchers (looks only). THese i could see being more client side enable or disabled for the player, so if you want to not see what vanity looks people have on than you can disable it so they appear as normal on your sceen.
This last one is linked to the above yet I know it would never happen atleast not without a zen cost, which would be vanity looks for armor an ships that are not typical. Such as a clockwork or steam-punk like starship skin that could be applied to a ship or armor appearnce regardless of the shield used on it. Such thigns would have little effect on game play yet for those that like vanity things would enjoy them highly, and if you kept that the appearnce could be disabled on the client side than those that want to keep a traditional star trek feel could disable such vanity appearnces.