Can't sell on the market because you're giving the enemy supplies? That's only a problem with perpetuum because the game is so small, it's like a graphical MUD. Everyone knows everyone.

I agree with the OP. Lets open up the flood gates and get trading going. New people will benefit the most, which will help keep them around. And isnt that what we all want? More people?

I've said many times that Beta corps need to have a NIC sink, a large one.

What this will do is create an opposing statement to "I don't want to sell items to my enemy" with "I don't want to give NIC to my Enemy".

Be generating a NEED for NIC at the large corporate level, it opens up a whole new dynamic for them to use the market. They can balance Tax, NPC farming, and selling on the market to achieve a steady flow of NIC to counter the sink, so it actually encourages more diverse play then not having the sink.

For corps that have the production capability and the need for NIC, putting tiered items on the market would make ecomomical sense. While the arguement about selling to your enemy is now offset by the fact that your both Taking NIC from them and GETTING NIC yourself. In the current setting, where Corps can live without NIC, there is no motivation on the seller side, and not downside from the buyer side.

Tl;DR - An endgame NIC sink should stimulate corps to consider selling items as a supplemental NIC source.

You'll get T4 coming into the market as soon as you have these pure industry soloists get their research up to snuff and get enough capital to work around on the market.

The problem is that the only people that are this far along are typically fed by the larger corporations. Give it time..

I think the biggest hurdle to high tier items on the market is that only a few people at the moment have a ton of research done. It's a hell of a lengthy process for someone solo to get enough kernals to produce a couple of T4 items let alone a wide variety.

I really cant understand why kernel research is so random. Why not create kernel type linked to specific research trees, in addition to faction and grade reducing result pool.

Like for example weaponry, engineering, EW etc..  Each "tree" need specific kernels dropped by specific npc.  The kernel research results would still be random, but in a smaller item pool.

That would allow solo producers to aim for a specific higher tech, then fill the market fast with one or two T4 module type. Large corp would still have to research all to be selfsufficient, but they could "split" KB between few indies, its better than feeding a single dude until omniscience.

This system is far more realistic than what we have, how could one research everything in the world at the same time.

I guess they selected "everything at same time" research system to ensure that highest tier items wouldnt come too fast, and that a new corp cant compete technologically, by researching fast the only modules they need in their fitting/combat strategy.

BUT  atm i feel like the modules/strategies are well balanced, at a point where FOTM and specific strategies can always be countered by another one. So why not a beautiful research tree, more kernel diversity and less randomness?

In that case kernel %researched result could be lowered too.

Agra,

The above says it all about how hard and expensive it is for a soloist industrialist. Its a long, long road to that goal who ever , is willing to put the effort won't reap the rewards for a long time too. I have no doubt this will happen and will benefit the game for all players and level the playing field on the battle.

Cost for buying your way up the tech tree will also reduce in price as time goes by if, more player joins game, for that to happen it need to be enjoyable to farm kernals by shorter travel times, less ewar npcs etc....

Also a change in how kernals are researched within a specialised area is welcome not a random pile of mess.

Final point I would like to make:T3-T4 should always be hard to get so they will and should remain expensive on the market even if all are available on market they will not be cheap to field, but at least you can attain those items by means of grinding nic the way you want to, not how game mechanics dictates, thats not part of a sandbox imo.

Market does great things to vision your goals, if you envision a full fitted mech with full t4 mods and it cost x amount of nic. Go do the most enjoyable 'grind', farm nic get your stuff:)

IMO it would be crazy to punish corps for being organized, It sounds very counter productive to the game. No solo player nor 5-10 man corp should ever be able to keep pace with an organized group that has 20 plus member. As the larger group has more subs (IE pays more money to the game)  it would be crazy for a solo/small corp to be able to have as much as the "power houses' that bust their butts to get the mats, tech and invested time.
It would make more sense to make friend other corps (or soloist) to trade with. Like have one corp grind blue kernels while corp 2 grinds green and each trade for the others unused. When you start punishing the corps with many members for succeeding at the game then your going to lose mass Subs.. and then the game dies. This is just my opinion and  not the stance of RG. 

I would like to see the market seeded as I have also said I would like to take a portion of our unused kernels and pass them on to the new and upcoming corps at a low cost/trade. I do want to have good fights with others in comparable bots/equipment. At the same time I do care about my corp and our allies first, but after that I am open to discuss trades.

Example: I have no interest in allying with Foom, but I would be willing to work with them on Tech even tho we kill them when we see them. As long as it dose not put my corp at risk.

** Note I am 1/2 drunk so I may edit my point of view at a more sober time.

Dadar-

I can't say the concept is bad, because I would love to have something like that, but I don't think it would work out as most producers would concentrate on spending points on the most wanted items; which makes sense if they are producing them for profit.

So you end up with 90% of the small corps all making T4 light-wieght frames, small & med weapons, tuners, and med. harvesters/mining mods and that's it and the market gets flooded with them; so prices go down to reasonable levels (as they have with the LWF which is available through light bot kernels).

While this may be good for the combat troop looking for those modules, it now becomes a 'requirement' since the only gating factor is NIC, so new players now have to work for 2 weeks of NIC for 10 min of PVP and have to overcome both EP and technology.

The other 10% will clean up the side stuff like maskers and painters and get a little boost each time the FOTM build comes out.

There is a specific reason weapons and such are at the 'end' of the tech chain. Bypassing that just means we can do away with the tech tree all together, which may not be a bad thing, but is a complete overhaul of the Research and not a tweak.

EDIT: And sheilds

Eve has 70,000 players, of which only a small percent are capable of producing high end tech, but because of the volume of players, even that small % is enough to generate a steady supply of T2; but the price is still high enough that the 'fly what you can afford to lose' limits the demand.

For now, and as long as the population remains around these levels, Perpetuum won't have the supply of kernels on the market for all the solo players that may want to get to T4, and even if the large corps do start selling, there won't be that same level of competition that I remark upon, so T4 fits will not become common place. So I disagree that it will be a matter of time, it will be a matter of population; meaning that a year from now if we still have 300 concurrent players, we won't have prevalent T4, but in a year if we have 30000 players we will.

However, once even 1 solo producer gets a specific T4 items, you can be sure that it will be available on the market; but not neccesarily at prices new/solo players can afford, and certainly not at prices they can afford to replace after each pvp loss. Large corps again, will simply already be supplying these items to their members as they see fit, so the potential market for T4 are those players with the least amount of NIC.

Youre trying to balance a solo industrialist supplying everything alone, vs an entire corporation supplying everything for 1 researcher.

What 1 solo player farms in a month, a corp-team farms in a lazy afternoon. In short, its something that can't be balanced to achieve some "hey I should be progressing as fast as that researcher guy who has 50-100 guys farming his kernels" utopia.

not everyone will make just thos items people will make what sells yes but if everyone is makeing the same mods then thos won't sell and the market will shift as more players come in they will find there own spot in the market with my idea

with the current system the same can be said for the new guy he still has to over come the nic and tech for pvp as most of the pvpers join the larger corps and already have easy acess to these mods so your point of them haveing to farm more nic for 10 min of pvp is the current case as it stands.

and i agree this is a complete overhaul cause as everyone knows when something is broken you have to fix it and sometimes fixing it requires replaceing the whole broken componet. you don't blow and engine in a car and try and make the transmission take over the job you put in a new engine.