So rather than make another ce complaint thread, I thought I'd try and propose a solution. Right now, there are 3 main issues/barriers that people are facing regarding ce:

1. T1 players are finding it impossible to advance without paying due to mist energy (and the high price of CE)
2. T2/T3 players are stuck grinding one mission if they want to profit and advance their gear (RJP, FSC)
3. There is not another crown sink, meaning inflation is causing CE prices to rise.

So my solution is this: make a secondary mist tank possible, both temporary and permanent. I know that it says that you can't have more than 100 mist energy on the wiki, but why wouldn't it be possible for more advanced knights to attach a secondary tank to collect mist?

These would be the temporary items:
Secondary Mist Tank (30 days): 400 CE (price subject to change)

Mist Energy Amplifier (7days): 375 CE (1.5x mist energy collected)

[Math ahead]
Given a 30 day period, a regular knight generates 3272.72 ME under ideal conditions ((30 days *24 hours)/ 22 hours)) * 100.
Using the Mist Energy Amplifier would allow the knight to generate 4909.1 ME, creating a difference of 1636.38 ME for the month. This also breaks down to 54.546 ME per day. Over the course of 7 days, this works out to 381.822 ME generated by the amplifier.
These conditions do not account for overflow (i.e. 110 ME cannot be stored without second mist tank= 10 ME lost).

To make things clearer: the normal 22 hour period to generate 100 energy can be generated in 14.6 hours, and within the span of 24 hours, assuming no overflow, a knight will have 160 ME to work with.

Addressing these problems by tier:

T1: Perhaps as an additional award upon completion of a certain mission (rank 1-something), offer the secondary mist tank as well as the amplifier. Suddenly, things are a little bit more manageable, especially for more casual players. If every mission takes ~30 ME to complete, suddenly instead of 3 missions a day, they're able to do 5. This means they are able to advance through the earlier (and less profitable) missions quicker. While gear may be somewhat of a stopgap, within that week an average player may be able to reach 5-2 (RJP), and if not, then they will have more energy to work with for a month. Also, this could be included in the pay starter pack ($19.95? last I checked.)

T2: While this may not offer much at first to T2 knights (given that they've probably already used the free items), what it does offer is the ability to craft. Assuming that they reach T2 sometime within the month limit of the secondary spiral tank (I don't know if this is possible, I haven't done that in a while), then they have several new options available to them:
1. Craft a 3* item for almost free every 44 hours (200 mist energy). Doing this for the main slots (helm, armor, shield, and weapon) means that you can gain 3* clearance in a little more than a week (176 hours/168 hours a week = 1.05 weeks)
2. (taken from http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/57164) Grind out more energy on RJP runs.
100Mist = 3 full RJP runs
3 full runs = 8100cr + 9 tokens
1 token = ~270cr
Mist used = 30 per run + 10 for possible revives = 100mist
Profit = 100CE + a small bit left over

While the profit margins remain the same (per 100 ME), the addition of the secondary mist tank means you can space out your RJP runs to avoid overflow. Less straight grinding = less tedious.
3. Doing a combination of both for 4* gear. By grinding RJP with 200 ME's worth of energy for ~200 CE, and then waiting for 200 ME, you can craft 1 piece of 4* gear, meaning that 4* certification is possible in 2.10 weeks.

T3: While ME might be a nice bonus for T3 people, what does it offer besides maybe a free revive now and then? Well, this is where the permanent solution comes into play. Make it possible to upgrade towards 200 ME permanently. This is my idea on how it might be implemented:

NPC: Tank.
Description: After examining the atmosphere in-depth, the mad genius Tank has discovered a way to pack armor with more mist energy goodness. But be warned, he might ask you for weird things. There's a reason he's mad, after all.

Tank will add capacity to your mist tank, but not for free: he asks for 40k (EDIT: I messed up, see below) crowns (price explained below) per +1 capacity, and may give additional bonuses if you can give him certain materials.

Why 40000 (EDIT: value is wrong) crowns? Well, it's an arbitrary number, but I calculated it based on the difference of the mist energy amplifier. Given that most T3 knights can (and would have) the mist energy amplifier, I simply multiplied the difference (1636.38) * 3, which gives ~5000 energy. Given the current prices as well, 5k energy works out to be 40 million crowns, or 400k per +1 capacity. While that number seems ridiculous, take one look at the bazaar and you can see things selling for 5-6 times that price right now.

T3 knights would then get the benefit of having double Mist Energy for crafting or runs, and perhaps an achievement or a special mask could become unlocked.

This is getting to be a bit long, but I'd also like to offer solutions to possible problems with this:
1. The 2-3* market would crash: This would probably be true, but this definitely helps new players. Gear for advancement would be cheaper, and therefore the curve for new players would be a lot easier. Also, this wouldn't happen overnight: after all, even with the additional capacity, the maximum per week of 'free' items is still fairly low: 5.72 for 3* items (2* items can already be 'farmed', sorta.)

2. This makes rushing to 5* so much easier: It's true, I did list possible advancements to 4* in a very short amount of time (3 weeks + however long 2* takes). But that's basically if the players don't play at all, and not taking into account missions, revives, etc. This hardly breaks the game.

3. T3 knights are going to become even richer! It's also true., But it'll take a little while. Taking the difference (1636.38) and doing nothing but FSC runs (with an average payout of 8k, not including mats/tokens) yields only 2,617,600 crowns per month. It'll take investments, crafting, UV hunting, etc. to actually make the difference.

[Math is gone, don't be afraid]

Tl;dr Add greater mist capacity, stop overflow, temporary and permanent options for T1, 2, and 3 knights.

*edit: Yeah sorry, I did this in parts and forgot to check my math. 5k ce is indeed 425k, but I meant to put 50k CE (or 4.25m). Again, it seems like a lot, but this is an end-game goal.