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Topic: Corp level research

This idea has been approached before but I feel it deserves its own thread.

I support the idea of corp level research. At the moment corporations have the options of either pool their research on one (or a few) accounts, or let the members who are interested handle their own research.
In the first case, (typically communistic corps) the members are asked to put an unheathy amount of trust in someone, since months and months of farming are at the mercy of a single player.
In the latter case you will find a number of people with at best moderate level of research (I know there are one or two exceptions with players who have grinded state of the art research levels on their own)
The concept of corp level research would ofc affect the first case in particular.

All significant assets are corp level shareable (bots, modules, nic) except the most valuable one.

As the owner of a corp prototyper account I am very well aware of the asset entrusted to me and the amount of work behind it, and as the tree grows taller I am starting to get more uncomfortable with it beeing tied to one account. Even if it is mine. What if I had irl issues and had to leave the game? Or just got sick with the game? Or got sick of my members (just speculating guys) and joined another corp? Examples of this has already become reality since the release. The most probable solution is that the prototyper takes a piss at the EULA and hands the account over to the next guy, which doesnt solve the problem in the first place, or the research is simply lost.

The solution is simple: When researching kernels, there should be an option to do it for the corp. The corp has its own research tree which would be accessible for lets say prod. manager. The person prototyping would then use his own extentions to calculate the mat cost, fee and time. The only balance issue I see here would be an increased amount of total pt lines for the corp, but in my experience the production chain has other bottlenecks, so I dont see it as an issue at all.

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Re: Corp level research

I'm pretty sure this had its own thread at some point and the issues was largely ignored.
However I do think research should be much further reaching than it is now and player research should be shareable with corporations and that kernel research as shared in some way.

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Re: Corp level research

what is a corp? what defines its? WHERE is it?

actually, it would not change much - The container for production knowledge just moved from a dedicated prototyper agents up to Corp-Ceo.

Researching into an undestructible persistant instance - wow, sounds really great. your sick of your corp? just kick everyone, transfer CEO to an alt and "safe" the researched data there, join another corp and use your alt to invite best prototyper of your new "home" into your old corp for production...

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Re: Corp level research

Annihilator wrote:

what is a corp? what defines its? WHERE is it?

actually, it would not change much - The container for production knowledge just moved from a dedicated prototyper agents up to Corp-Ceo.

Researching into an undestructible persistant instance - wow, sounds really great. your sick of your corp? just kick everyone, transfer CEO to an alt and "safe" the researched data there, join another corp and use your alt to invite best prototyper of your new "home" into your old corp for production...

You immediately assume an ill-intentioned CEO. While the topic is about how to make life easier for the good ones.

I also like the idea of pooling research from individual members.
The best we can get is:
* players have personal KBs
* corps have corp-level KBs into which you could feed kernels separately
* KB that is actually used for production is the sum of all members' KBs and corp-level KB, i.e. the "pool".
With this system players will be able to split research holding responsibility betwen themselves and the corp in any proportion they see fit and none of eaten kernels will be wasted.

Pooling should also help individualist corps immensely.

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Re: Corp level research

not needed. you still have to trust the corp and once you want to leave, that then ?

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Re: Corp level research

I think Corp-Level research would need the whole system to be redesigned from scratch and resetting everything. I can see a lot of people who would not be very happy with that.

As a compromise you could make KB shareable(in Corp, say max of 3 people with access,just a thought), so that several people can prototype from one KB(If the "owner" of the KB stops to play you would still have access to it, but you could not progress any further).

Also you could make it so that you can exchange your KB(even partly) with someone elses. If someone stops to play he could simply give his KB to someone else.

Or you could form "reseach groups" where all new reseach is shared within the group but also all KB are available for everyone.

Just some ideas that could make corp-reseach obsolete.

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Re: Corp level research

Exchanging a KB will be too exploitable - some ppl will start to sell theyr KB, even maybe for IRL money.

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Re: Corp level research

hell, before corp level research - like ZUBO wrote - complete revamp of the system.

base tiered production on factories. fill up all those useless buildings on tellesis and hershfield with life!

PoS system similar to a starcraft base - you build up a research center to unlock something you can only build in a specialized production center, research time based. NPC input are parts that cannot be crafted by players (like fragments for prototyping)
...

just saying...

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
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9 Reply by Lucius Marcellus (edited by Lucius Marcellus 2011-10-14 14:26:34)

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Re: Corp level research

If the research is to be corp-wise, it must be set so that only one corp member can prototype (otherwise it's extremely unfair as you can just give loads of people access to the research, and completely invalidate the research currently undertaken). But if that is the case, then what's the point of corp-wide research? I suppose there is one advantage that if a corp prototypes leaves, then the CEO can reassign the role. But even so, there needs to be strong limits even on this person, for example if it can be instantly reassigned, then just let one person start 10 prototypes for himself, then reassign and let next one do it etc.

Changing the way research is done or how it is shared must be done with extreme caution - otherwise we risk what some people have been working on since start, and the market will be flooded with T4 (which is supposed to be at least a bit rare!).

Now, of course there can be a much steeper requirement of kernels to obtain corp research, but then what about the research that has already been undertaken? Should corps that have a top prototyper be able to transfer their research? (in a sense unfair as it required much less research to obtain that)

Also:

Saramara wrote:

All significant assets are corp level shareable (bots, modules, nic) except the most valuable one.

Because research is only valuable as it is exclusionary, as I explained above, changing that completely invalidates the need for research, so there must be strict restriction on how this sharing is done.

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Re: Corp level research

The system right now is broken and stupid. It's nigh on impossible for individuals to get a decent base of research together, and communist corps have to place an enormous amount of trust in single individuals.

It's incredibly bad game design.

I think the first thing to do is make it easier for players to research specific lines, so that they can specialise in certain things, instead of feeling obliged to eat every and any kernal that comes their way.

"...playing a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles."
Bernard Suits, 1978
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Re: Corp level research

Campana wrote:

I think the first thing to do is make it easier for players to research specific lines, so that they can specialise in certain things, instead of feeling obliged to eat every and any kernal that comes their way.

That's not really what the thread is about. Anyhow, this was treated in another discussion, and the problem with specialisation is that many people will just ignore some parts, so in order to balance, one would have to increase the total amount of kernels needed.

Also, it's a complete lie it's so impossible. To my knowledge there are at least 3 individual who are very close to having all the research (and many more who has finished assault research). Given the small population that's quite a high number.

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Re: Corp level research

But the population was not always that low and the amount of people who are helping (either the corp of the market) them is pretty big.

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Re: Corp level research

If the KB will be on corp-level, there should be an special role granted acces for it, like "Prottype director" or "Lead scientist".

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14 Reply by Lucius Marcellus (edited by Lucius Marcellus 2011-10-15 13:12:13)

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Re: Corp level research

Norrdec wrote:

But the population was not always that low and the amount of people who are helping (either the corp of the market) them is pretty big.

Well, if kernels can be bought on market, then corps can buy them from there too. There is nothing preventing it.

Edit (just reiterating what Line said and what I mentioned earlier):
Overall I would be okay with corp-specific research IF it is strictly limited to one person possessing the role and this role may not be 'flipped around' to often (say 48h timer, max 1 change per week)

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Re: Corp level research

It's really just a manufacturing plan we're talking about here. Don't tell me they can't upload and share it on a corp level database in the future. Unless somewhere in the timeline of this world somewhere apple's itune won all the lawsuits and managed to prevent ALL SHARING everywhere in the galaxy with their omnipotent DRM.

Aside from technical difficulty in coding the actual game mechanics, I dont see why this hasn't been done already.

my 2 cents.

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Re: Corp level research

Either individual players should have a direct effect on every level of the production vertical, or it may as well be removed from the game.

When corporations start performing industrial operations then there's no longer a need for any player to learn that. Take for example the Corp level researching. As a new player it may seem like fun to research, but then when I join a corporation, its no longer needed. Even if I were to start my own corporation, my personal research would be wasted.

Research would be eliminated from the player perspective.