If you're talking about tokens for Epoch currency, I use that currency for p10 parts. I haven't seen any other tokens.
Regarding upgrading with energy and raid currency: Not all parts are sold for raid currency, and energy drops 1-2 pieces of the required materials for purchasing additional energy.
Yeah, there is something very different in how you're handling the economy. In Era Shipments, below the Coaxial Servomotors (the relic 10 pieces), there four Aurodium Lightspeed Tokens, which instantly take a character up to 6* r5. Are they not available in your country? But anyway, that doesn't matter for new Era characters, since the Lightspeed Tokens don't work on them anyway.
All g12 gear is sold for raid currency in the Guild Store except for the first g12 finisher piece. But those are available in the Guild Events Store, Championship Store, and Episode Shipment, as well as from the Wandering Scavenger in Conquest.
I'll be the first to say g12 is a real pain—it's my current bottleneck for a lot of my roster. But I don't think it takes three months, not even to do five characters.
Capital Games Team