STO....

First things first. The changes to the admiralty rewards for both Klingon and Ferengi campaigns are horrendously bad(in my view). Horrendously bad for not getting any more Dilithium ore. I'm glad I've got characters with a stockpile already but when that's gone my use of it will limit the characters. In some respects it's true to say that the free to play will be hit the most from this. Admiralty was the best/easiest way to gather dil to convert for Zen and make a purchase from the cash store. Now that that's gone....  Free to play will be harder for sure. Makes me appreciate the Lifetime sub Zen stipend even more now. Also makes me realize how privileged I am in the past to say that I don't really need anything from that store today.

All isn't lost as at least the Ferengi campaign will still reward Dilithium ore, just not as much by a long shot. It now gives a bonus pool (of 40k Dil Ore) just like XP/rep bonus pools. For any Dil ore you do earn you also get a certain amount from that bonus pool. Something is better than nothing right... That Dil ore still needs to be refined and that cap is still the same per day so...... That 'some' is a lot, lot less than it used to be(depressingly low). If only there was a use for Ferengi GPL that each mission gives.....
The Klingon overall reward is now Dil Fleet vouchers, not useful per say but good for fleet project works and gaining fleet rank in turn. Bit of a bummer but still I'm new to fleets so it's kind of ok for me, now. At least it's campaign rewards Dil ore per mission.

I can see why they did it, the Dil to Zen exchange had maxed out on it's inflation levels which had been out of control for years. Even looking last night at the Dil to Zen exchange it was easy to see a big drop already. I'm sure it will drop further, not quiet a crash as there's a stockpile of Ore on player characters in the game. Once that's worked through time will tell. It could take 6 to 8 month's for the average playerbase ore stockpile to 'go'; A year or more for the true economists who have massive stockpiles on the max level of characters per account. Again time will tell.

These changes are all new, maybe I'm being more bleak about these changes, there will be a phase of adjustment for players for sure. I'm also sure that the Dev's will monitor how it's effecting the game.

The massive problem I do see is that R&D will be screwed, it needs a LOT of Dil to speed things up. Leveling a character in R&D is the same. That's a problem for me in that my Jem'Hadar needs a lot of R&D work to claim his transponder account rewards.... Not really worth doing it all on him now.

The other massive down side over all characters is with upgrading an item to improve it's level(mark)/quality(rare etc.). That needs a huge amount of refined Dil. 150k refined Dil can disappear in a second when upgrading some basic items. The higher the level you want the more refined Dil disappears.

Moving along to my Science character.

I missed out on creating a character when Delta Recruits were first introduced. However just after I got the lifetime sub they brought it back for a short promo time. So I created a new character to take advantage of both(Lifetime and Delta). Specifically my Liberated Borg. I also created a KDF version 'just to have'. That character has sat idle ever since as a level 5. It's only now that I realize I should have created a Romulan version as well. Long Story short I have more Delta recruit account rewards to unlock and both KDF and Romulan characters are needed.

So that lil'level 5 KDF might get his bird of prey in some action.

Finishing off the commendations there was also the Infinity Duty Officer Promotion! I didn't do anything for it's extra's but it did help a bit due to it's weekend boost; But it still took a lot of time.

It's a pity that the lifetime sub doesn't make the temporal/delta recruits a selectable option.

My Science Temporal character has been plugging away with the level 5 to 6 rep which is almost done but that's just for the sake of completeness/rep abilities. She completed the last of the Doff missions needed to claim the Transponder reward/account unlock.

I'm sure that there is a lot more I can do with the character but that means a lot of work needed to be manicured into perfection. I'm happy to have upgraded some gear/traits etc. Change to Phasers and the second Discovery space set. While I did see an increase in the damage numbers (space combat), there's a wide variation when I try to chart it. It seems the lower end is about 18k and the upper end is 23k.

That's when I'm paying attention and staying quick with abilities and buffs. It's a big of effort, more so than on a Tactical character. However being part of random TFO's that's good, above average I'd say. Yet I've seen more random groups where there are players with 250k to 300k dps. Insane damage. My guess is PvP builds but that's way off on the meta horizon for me.

Then again registering DPS charts is hard as there is character up-scaling in TFO's as well and a lot of variables that skew things.

I'm glad to have finished the Temporal agent transponder rewards. I'll be thinking about running that low level FDF charecter to get those rewards unlocked. Romulan will have to wait till they bring the recruits back.... I'm sure they will at some stage.