Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I'm relaying an idea that someone else proposed in a chat channel which could be of interest.

Simply put, accumulated R&D agents research points get a second option when you cash them in. Time in research slots. As an example, 10k RP can be cashed into however many datacores, OR a week of ME / month of PE time. Where the agent itself is doing the research on your blueprints.

Thoughts on how this would pan out?
How would it function with LP from faction warfare now being a common and sometimes more preffered source of datacores?
Would people wander into lowsec r&d agent sites more to make use of some security status perk by researching through them?
Would they instead be more prone to staying in highsec to cash in RP for lab time there instead?

This would certainly cut down on the supply of datacores, raising their price and the profit from selling them. It would end a lot of the crying about lab slots and give an interesting new use to R&D agents.

+1 for this, and I hope someone from CCP sees this idea as well.

good idea I think, +1 from me

This would be an interesting idea. I think I like it.

From a lore perspective, however, I'm not sure how much sense it makes. Each research slot represents a team of scientists that you manage. How does one R&D agent manage the jobs of even one scientist team, let alone doing so for seventy-four different capsuleers at once?

This would represent the capsuleer handing over their research to the corp in return for the researchers you were using to research mechanical engineering (for instance) to research that blueprint you want to have higher Material Research on instead. Each kind of research would require a fixed number of RP per point e.g. 5rp (or whatever is suitable) per ML level or PE level etc...

Personally, I've learned how to survive in lowsec and get goods out of occupied systems without going BOOM. With that and this as a new feature in mind, I would actually venture into lowsec more to make use of higher RP gaining R&D agents. Especially if we actually had some lowsec l4, or even designate deep lowsec as space for l5 R&D agents.

Thinking back to when I first started wandering in hostile space, it was in search for two things. Empty labs, and quiet areas to run some kind of mission in cheap ships. If RP for lab time would have been an option, and r&d was a more advertised/known part of industry, I may have taken the risks involved in using a feature like this.