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R&D agents hate me
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Tito Holzman
14th Legion
#1 - 2012-04-02 16:01:08 UTC
Why do my level 3 R&D agents hate me (they are working for me) while level 4 sec agents of the same corp are happy to see me?
Rengerel en Distel
#2 - 2012-04-02 23:05:26 UTC
you probably need the required skills to talk to them. atleast, that's as much as i can get from your post.

With the increase in shiptoasting, the Report timer needs to be shortened.
DeODokktor
Dark Templars
The Fonz Presidium
#3 - 2012-04-02 23:16:43 UTC
Show Info on the agents.

You need corp AND faction standings for R&D agents. The requirements are much more strict compared to using l4 mission agents. In fact, you may find that you can use level5 mission agents before you can even use level4 r&d agents. It's not as bad now that agent quality was removed but it still takes a lot of grind.

Why would you work for it now anyhow, CCP are wanting to remove r&d agents because of it's "Passive Income".
They were happy to introduce PI and Moon Mining as passive income. Hopefully they'll get rid of PI, Moon Mining, Market Orders, Production Jobs, autopilot and any other form of passive income. Then they can get rid of passive training.

I have 5 pure Lab/Production accounts and can tell you now that it's a lot of work to get the standings for non-combat characters required to max out your r&d points (Most r&d corps dont have storyline agents). I can also tell you that ccp will not be getting any passive income from those 5 accounts any more. 18 r&d agents yeild about 300m/month and plexes cost well in excess of that.

Go Go CCP Killing passive income. (Your 2011 bankruptcy odds might come back in 2012 at the rate your going).
Tito Holzman
14th Legion
#4 - 2012-04-03 06:48:45 UTC
The reason this is a problem is because of the incoming nerf. The agents in question have been working for me for years now it is time to collect....but the bastards now tell me to begone scum.

But thanks for the help guys they seem to like me again now after doing a few lv4 sec missions.
Plyn
Uncharted.
#5 - 2012-04-03 14:49:51 UTC
DeODokktor wrote:
...I can also tell you that ccp will not be getting any passive income from those 5 accounts any more. 18 r&d agents yeild about 300m/month and plexes cost well in excess of that.

Go Go CCP Killing passive income. (Your 2011 bankruptcy odds might come back in 2012 at the rate your going).

Seems to me that you are misplacing the blame here, and are probably a good ways off on your prediction as well.

CCP does not dictate market price on PLEX, other players do. A combination of higher player ISK income and price speculation over the past year or two has caused the spike in PLEX prices. Also, friendly, helpful players, like yourself, teaching newcomers how to better participate in your market reduces the value of your market share.

CCP does occasionally offer promotions on PLEX, but generally the approach they have taken so far has had little difference. Any discount on the PLEX is negligible as the ones that go up for cheaper are gobbled up by speculators. This is all fine by me though, as creating an artificial price ceiling would have a detrimental effect in that market players would be extremely disgruntled over that sort of intervention.

Further, higher ISK -> PLEX prices inspire more people to buy PLEX with RL cash. To put it simply, players see the higher ISK amount and are more likely to consider investing the $15 for 500M than they would be for 300M. This effect likely leaves CCP making more RL $ than otherwise. There has been talk, however, of potential intervention if the PLEX market gets way too far out of control, which it isn't right now. Sorry for not quoting the source on that, I can't remember where I read it, but I think it was in some of the FanFest discussions.

PS. Try calculating how much ISK/Month those 18 toons would be making if you did R&D and PI both. Pretty sure you could PLEX all your accounts and still have some to blow. Passive income is still alive and strong, just have to put your eggs in more than one basket sometimes.
DeODokktor
Dark Templars
The Fonz Presidium
#6 - 2012-04-03 21:16:52 UTC  |  Edited by: DeODokktor
You trimmed part of my reply out there...

Yea, PI can turn the odds. I don't want to do PI .. And to be honest when I take the time (like, a few hours a month) to install big r&d jobs then I can cover the cost of all of those characters. The passive r&d income is paltry compared to other nearly-passive income chains.

I would much rather see a change to R&D agents to bring it in line with S&I skills and to offer rewards in those areas. I did run R&D missions daily on all of my characters too. This is probably something else CCP is looking to get rid of (18 L4 missions a day per account means you get at least one storyline a day on average per account).

A LOT of work, game time, and planning effort went into me making my R&D/S&I alts. Science skills to Level5 for multiple paths just to make sure I could churn the best cores.

Remember too that cores no longer accrue on offline accounts (They did in the past, so early adopters could make out like bandits). If RP is an issue now, then PI and MoonMining will be an issue next. When I did moon mining then it was a LOT less work than anything PI related, and only required my supervision twice a week. Wars didnt really matter because a good POS would pay for your setup in just a few weeks.

As it is, quite a few of the R&D users never caught up with how it all worked anyhow, Starship cores maxed out around 50k/unit and people still kept characters in those paths. Other paths would make 3* as much with only about a days worth of training. (For those who say starship RP grows with a 3x mutator, it's worth remembering that core cost is 150 rp and not 50 rp, so all paths yeild the same output).

The ops issue was probably one of two things.
He either had an old agent (say L3q-20) and the changes raised it to L3q0 requiring a higher faction standing. Or he's shot something that caused a faction loss.

I am not sure about the PLEX Manipulation by CCP. They often give new exit paths for PLEX, but some of the high profits from incursions is possibly helping to keep the plex price up. Sadly CCP refuses to publish any data on PLEX other than what we see on the rough market views. If they would give us information regarding PLEX Created, Plex Consumed for time, Plex consumed for NeX, and plex consumed for other (Computer Hardware, FanFest, Starving Ethopians, RareShips that will sell for 1bn isk) then we could make really good judgements on how much ccp is manipulating the PLEX price. Keep in mind that they have said in the past they will manipulate the PLEX price, what they didnt say is if they were going to manipulate it to keep it growing or to just keep it between floor and ceiling.
Stella SGP
#7 - 2012-04-04 03:58:40 UTC
DeODokktor wrote:
Show Info on the agents.

You need corp AND faction standings for R&D agents. The requirements are much more strict compared to using l4 mission agents. In fact, you may find that you can use level5 mission agents before you can even use level4 r&d agents. It's not as bad now that agent quality was removed but it still takes a lot of grind.

Nah you don't need faction standings.

You only need corp standings and relevant skills.