So I went to R&D a few weapons for my ship to get it set up like a Romulan Warbird weapon wise. Then I ran into this unreplicable mat bs. I had the samples, and I had the rares to the make the weapons. So let me get this straight roughly 25k Dilithium I can buy any kind of ship weapon I went. If I want to R&D I need to spend 30k Dilithium at a vendor to get this Unreplicable mat bs. So heres my question what is the point of R&D? You just turned it into something that is more expensive then just buying the weapons and gear straight out with Dilithium. Not to mention R&D was limited in selection in the first place, and couldn't compete with stfs gear. So what in the hell is the point? Yes I am ****ed. I reactivated my account to have some fun in the star trek world and I run into this bs. Who was the numb nuts that came up with this idea?

Its become common knowledge the crafting system is broken and in dire need of revamping.

I am a very successful exchange trader in this game. Hundreds of millions of EC.

I do absolutely no crafting for a very good reason.

There are very few things worth crafting and selling on the exchange for a profit.

With the way exchange prices are tanking on the exchange every day it becomes easier and cheaper to just buy what you need off the exchange.

Alternately just do elite STF's and get your weapons from the STF store for prototype salvage.

Buy Common weapons off the exchange to use until you can upgrade. That way you can resell them when you get your better weapons.

Another option...

I am sure you can probably find one of the old regular missions that has a reward for the weapon you want. Just keep repeating that same mision to get the reward.

The reward just like the mission scales to your level.

There are several pros & cons to crafting these days, but what i always think of first is that without it, where else would you find Mk.1-9 gear outside of mission rewards & decent drops? If I need to pick up some LT or LT Commander gear i go to the exchange where there is a plentiful supply of very cheap very good stuff and buy it, and quite a lot of that is crafted. I like giving ppl gear when they need it, i'd rather buy/craft it then try and find it else where

I enjoy crafting items for other people too, but this just blew my mind. We all knew R&D had issues prior to this screw up in the area of selection and matching up to stfs gear. Now its just not worth it to even try. I spent all that time grinding samples, and no not afk grinding like most did, actual grinding. So I would never have to run into this type problem . Turns out it was just pointless. Is there any update on the horizon to fix this? Or should I just sell my end game samples and cash in profit wise?

Your mathz skillz while impressive still don't negate the fact that crafting in this game is very very broken and has been for a long time

Agreed!!

OP, you're doing it way wrong.

Smarter to use the Mission Replay rewards with which you can kit a ship out pretty nicely - it's not purple but you should be VERY effective with these blues. There's no need to pay the extortionate prices being charged on the Exchange or in Memory Alpha.

Of course you should select 1 energy type from those below, don't mix and match

• Blue Phaser beams from the Devidian mission "Everything Old Is New" which takes about 10 minutes a pop.
• Blue Plasma weapons from Romulan mission "Project Nightingale"
• Blue Tetryon weapons from Cardassian mission "The New Link"
• Blue Polaron weapons from Cardassian mission "Boldly They Rode"
• Blue Hargh'peng torpedoes from Klingon mission "The Doomsday Device" (don't work with Hi-Yield or Spread)
• Blue Turn console from Romulan mission "Ground Zero"
• Blue Armor console from Undine mission "A Light in the Dark"

Ship set (engines/deflector/shields) you can grab any of the following:

• Craft Aegis set
• Breen set from Deferi/Breen Featured Episode missions
• Jem'Hadar set from DS9/Dominion Featured Episode missions
• Reman set from Coliseum and Vault Shuttle Event
• Borg set from Borg STF missions
• Could also grab MACO and Omega Force sets if you're REALLY patient

That just leaves you needing these, which you can craft or grab from the Exchange:

• Specialized Weapons Consoles
• Science Consoles
• "Normal" torpedoes if you don't like Hargh'Pengs
• Turrets if you like those

Crafting is just for the AEGIS set really, I leveled my first character in crafting and when I realized the costs involved I did not crafted it... well until I make a Tactical.

Crafting is supposed to be changed in the future, the real issue right now with crafting is not as much as the materials costs but rather the Dilitium store that makes it mostly redundant.