I suggested something like this back in March after submitting a ticket about why we couldn't replicate 4* Latinum (this was when the old standard message was in place). Looks like other Captains have done the same thing and DB have listened. Cool
It used to be just 'this item cannot be replicated', yes? I remember when I first ran into that, I spent five minutes going back and forth in the build tree, and rebooting the game a couple of times, before my brain finally went "Ooooh, I get it."
Could be that the latinum doesn't actually become part of the 'combined' item, it's payment for a technician or craftsman or whatever to build/improve it (but yeah I have used that workaround a few times when I didn't have the latinum to build some component down the tree from the final product).
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Shush, good sir, don't give the Ferengi ideas. Only
we must know we need their investment to finish equipping our characters 😅