Listen, The way crafting is right now, its only viable for the very rich, or people who have 7 hours to grind for an Ageis set. The need to have Uncommon and Common material (at the price it is) just killed crafting. Spending 23,000 Dilithum on one item is not viable for the average person (they might as well buy it from the exchange).

I'm not saying to remove the common/uncommon unreplicateable materials, but, say having them cheaper. 10 D for common and 100 D for uncommon would be acceptable, and actually viable. If you had left crafting alone as it was pre-season 5, everyone would be happy.

That's funny, a Mk XI purple crafted ship item only sets me back by 7950 dilithium, far less than the 22k in the shipyard. Also, I've been earning a steady stream of all the rare particle traces just by spamming science doff missions with green science doffs and getting plenty of critical successes.

you can also buy the uncommon materials in exchange for less than 100k each uncommon.

No, they are 100k each, no cheaper.

Not to diss the OP, but a lot of people saw this coming and planned for it. My toons have pretty much everything they need, and a lot of my friends in-game do too. AEGIS sets, FWIW, could be bought for about 500K-600K all in a couple of days before the changeover.

I know it might sound like gloating, but it's not meant to be. All the complaints in the forums about the 'dilithium tax' spurred a lot of people to prepare. And I'm glad I did.

But that does not at all change the reality that Cryptic has virtually killed crafting.
I know I myself have not crafted a single item since Season 5 went live, having both a fed and a klingon fully maxed.

I don't disagree with that. Crafting, at least crafting as we knew it, is dead AFAICS.

FWIW, I think Cryptic doesn't *want* us to craft much, as they want the rare and very rare gear to become harder to get. The crafting tax is a good way to accomplish that, as it's pretty much stopped crafting in its tracks.

I believe you're wrong: both in basic mathematics and in philosophy concerning end-game crafting.

Why You're Wrong Regarding Mathematics:

First off, each Aegis Item Costs:

• 15 Common @ 10 Dilithium = 150
• +18 Uncommon @ 1000 Dilithium = 18000
• Each Aegis costs 18150 Dilithium

That's a whole 4850 less dilithium than you quoted.

All other items (schematics, anomalies, particle traces) can be acquired without dilithium. I have no idea where you pulled the 23,000 figure from but you're mistaken.

(=| Reference Screenshot: Unreplicable Vendor @ Memory Alpha |=)

Even Purple MXI only cost:

• 75 Common @ 10 Dilithium = 750
• +31 Uncommon @ 1000 Dilithium = 31000
• Each Mk XI Purple Ship Component costs 31750 Dilithium

Why (I Think) You're Wrong Regarding Endgame Crafting Philosophy

Dilithium is in abundance--you can easily reach your cap each day, if not over a couple casual sessions. Someone who doesn't even run STFs (which have a casual mode now) can reach them, even if they only log in for a couple hours each week.

At 8k dilithium a day, you'll have enough for each item in under three days. That's not three days of hard grinding--a couple events, dailies and some doff assignments will easily net you 8000 dilithium.

Comparatively, endgame sets in other MMOs can take tens of hours grinding the same instance with zero guarantee (i.e. WoW).

I think crafting, while harder, is still easy in Star Trek Online--especially with the Duty Officer System netting you crafting mats and dilithium while you're offline. It's that simple in STO.

I did some crafting on my Klingon over the weekend. I made like 7 various items, and posted them on the exchange for sale. The one thing I like is that it's seemed to have brought value to the crafted items. Granted it does take a lot of dilithium now, but honestly I can farm it back in a day's worth of activity. The one thing I'd really like to see is have the crafted items available for dilithium instead of just energy credits. Getting a load of energy credit's really doesn't do much for us, but we could use the dilithium to put back into the crafting or get things we actually want.

Just my two cents.