Though the timing of OP posting this poses a great entertainment value, it's still a well-needed change. I have long claimed that the current research system is severely flawed and only caters to the largest of corporations.

currently, I've been farming 3rd star light bots for the last 10 days, about 100-130 a night, i'm about at the 80% level of T3 for about 13 items.

So, I'm torn here. Doing this solo it has taken a long time, but on the other hand, if there were 15-26 corp mates each doing the same farming, we could get 1 player up to T3 inside a week, and probably through T4 in another couple weeks if they dedicated their time like I did.

How can the research be more productive for small corps, but still maintain a challenge for larger corps?

If reseach becomes easier, then to maintain the 'rarity' of T4 items, the material requirements will have to increase or the availablity of brio will decrease. Devs have already made it clear with the changes to Tiered gear and research that they do want to maintain T4's rarity.

wait... whut? Was that an attempt to troll? I don't even understand what you're trying to say.

Here's a long thread with multiple wall-'o-text posts of Styx, your banned CEO, vehemently defending the 50% drop rate kernel nerf "to make it fair" to you because it would otherwise be too easy for everyone else and your corp worked *SO HARD*

L
U
L
Z

I don't really give a crap about Styx/kernel drops.
The reason my corp merged with M2S was precisely because we couldn't produce anything worthy after a few month in the game. Therefore, my suggestion.

And regarding the fact we ''lost evarthing lulz'' you are mistaken. I always produced and made my own money with a production alt, and I can create most T2 and some T3 already. I'm not certain what happened exactly, but nothing changed for me. And I'm probably not the only one.

Yeah, I know. As soon as I have a M2S tag, I am a bad cheater/exploiter/badman.

I wish they would leave the corp Drama in the corp section.

Sorry Smokey, but e=mk2 had around 11 active players, and there's only 3-5 of us left.

As long as we won't be able to get any T4 module by ourselves, e=mk2 and every small corps are dead.

To return to the subject... yes, such mechanic will help new corp to form, and help everyone to search and reach at least 1-3 T4 modules in their research tree.
This would therefore have the consequences that common stuffs like weapons would be produced by a lot of different people, and generate a much active market.
In the worst case scenario, small corps would be able to produce their essential stuff, without always relying of the market, and buying their modules with a 200% margin from the big corps.

To repeat; while I think it's a great idea to try to help smaller/solo groups get research, anything you do to improve it even slightly for 1-3 players gets magnified in corps with 20-30 players.

This is sort of basic: the only benefit to allowing small groups to get tiered item production is to sell them for profit. They aren't building them to help defend/defeat/Conqure because they don't have the man power to be combat force in the game. Making the aquisition of the research easier, means many small corps will be selling T4, driving down margins with the floor being set by the cost of Briochit.

Large corps, which will all complete research now that's it is easier, aren't interested in buying T4 items, since they can produce themselves. If they are a beta corp, their cost floor will be considerably lower since they don't have to buy norgalis.

So, small and large corps can all produce tiered items... where is the market then? New players won't be able to afford to buy them, and the floor price will keep them expensive. With no market, small corps have them but can't sell them, large corps are using them but not buying them.

TL;DR T4 items being rare is something the devs want, if anyone that really wants to can prototype T4 because research is easier, then they'll have to make the materials even rarer.

T4 is easy to reach under the current system

if you search the stuff in order, you get some modules up pretty fast.

Weapons for example - eat your 2k drone kernels as basis
then finish up t1 weapon research with lvl2 small kernels
then finish up t2 weapon research with lvl3 small kernels
...

the lower the kernel the less possible research it contains - lvl5 assault kernels even contain t1 medium weapons - you should not start your research with them.

Celebro - that was the first incarnation of the crafting system: license and extensions based.

imho, we could have a few more kernel types, like seperating the EWAR stuff onto ewar bots,
or based on npcs role (scout, interceptor, tank)

There's got to be some importance put into the 'grind' if you don't all you've really got is an arena game with no persistence and accomplishments are defined by how long your accounts been subbed.

This is probably a stupid idea.... but what about a ''skill'' that allows you to slowly research stuff without kernels over time? Kernels would just accelerate the process.

But it will probably become too easy with that kind of system. So a credit cost for the research might become necessary.