Thursday 20 December 2012

Research slots

If I have read it right; Gevlon has decided that we don't need our own research modules in a POS.  He admits that there is a shortage of Material efficiency slots; but so what; just train up another alt (it's quick) and wait around.


TL;DR: If your primary 'play' is research; then a POS is nearly mandatory.  If you merely tinker; then use a NPC station and suck up the wait time; or simply buy a researched BPO/BPC from a contract.

Gevlon claims that the amount of research is number_of_alt*10*/research_time.

I believe that the amount of research is more complicated : number_of_alt*10*lab_efficiency*player_efficiency*access%/research_time

Lab Efficiency: Doing research research as a POS research lab (either mobile or advanced) only takes 3/4's of the time.  That is :
  • 3 alts * 10 in an NPC station = 30 research 'points' or 
  • 4/3 * 3 alts * 10 in a POS = 40 research 'points'.
Player efficiency :  Players can get implants providing 1/3/5% bonus from a beancounter implant.

Access %: Getting access to a research slot won't take long?  Surely not in this region?  The shortest queue was 1 month; 4 days.



Your access % is research time / (research time + waiting time).  If you are trying to crank out research that takes 15 days and have to wait 30; you only have access 33% of the time.  Oh, and one of your toon's research slot is consumed by waiting.  For the purposes of this post; I did crank out another toon, gave him a few points in research; and loaded up the assembly line as far as I could.
This is with a few jobs waiting; but no jobs running.

Other things to consider:
  • BPO's tied up in a waiting queue are ISK sitting idle.
  • To get 10 research slots per toon; you are dedicating 2 lots of level 5 skills (1 easy; 1 less so)

I have a dirty confession to make;  I am not using all of the research slots I already have access to.  Research is not PI; and I seem to be mildly OCD about PI at the moment.

But even with that; I purchased a few new destroyer blueprints and sent them madly off to get my very crude guess as to what saleable blueprints might need.  I was not sure about what the value of the new ships will be, with this being the first release of BPO's I have seen in Eve; but I have played that other MMO enough to have a gut feel that new BPO's are likely to be better than old BPO's, and it seems that well researched ones should sell well; either that or every industrialist will jump on the same gravy train; and spread it a little thin.

Remembering the formula of number_of_alt  * 10 * lab_efficiency * player_efficiency * access% / research_time.  If your primary 'job' is research based; then you have two options:
  • 3 alts * 10 slots  * 100% * 100% * 33% station access = 10 research 'points'
  • 3 alts * 10 slots  * 4/3 * 1.05% * 100% = 42 research 'points'

If you have 3 alts per account all with maxed research skills; all cranking out 24/7 then a POS research slot makes sense.

If you do not have a POS with spare capacity already, and are only looking at playing with the odd BPO; then NPC station researching would be preferable.

For all else; it is a judgement call;

Some are very worried about the security of owning a POS.  I have personal experience in a WH; and observed behaviour in low and high; very little of null.

A defensive POS is a pain to knock over anywhere;

The thought of trying to kill a powered POS in a C1-C4 wormhole is daunting; especially if you only have battleships to do it.  I have a hard enough time with customs offices.

It is very unusual for High sec POS to be knocked over assuming they are correctly fuelled.  I am sure it happens.  However in Highsec; placing blueprints into NPC stations leaves you safe.  Off lining research structures and have defensive modules anchored and ready to online works.

I have seen 're-arrangement of furniture' - including POS in low.  But even there; the 'goodies' can be kept in very cheap NPC stations. For that matter; it is unusual for even POCO's to be knocked over in lowsec, and POCO's are much more fragile than a large POS.


If you are in a huge fleet in null, then maybe you can steam-roll one;   I don't know; haven't been in either a huge fleet or null enough.

PS.  I have just seen a theoretical 'lets bash highsec pos for fun and profit' post from The mittani website.  The comments already lodged against that post cover most of the issues;  that is; you had better bring a very large party to bash a Highsec POS without capital ship support.

PPS.  In his favour; Gevlon produces a daily post, where it takes me a lot longer to think about and mull over items.

4 comments:

  1. 10 slots actually require one lvl V skill and one lvl IV skill, not that hard to get.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A very poor article over at themittani.com but yours has good value. Your calculation about research time is much more solid than that of Gevlon. The prime feature of highsec poses are much less wait time and good time boni.

    If he really believes wait time doesn't matter... well let him be.

    If you deploy a new highsec pos there are some considerations, the Caldari pos is of cause the one with most Shield hp and CPU and therefor the best for labs only.
    But I highly recommend other poses to be used since they have a lot more PG available. In CPU gallente comes next to the Caldari. It has less shield HP but way more PG so you can have a good load of guns always online since they don't need CPU and you have much PG left.

    Would be nice to here from you later how well the research & sell is paying.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have a low opinion for much of Gevlon's posting, to the point where I don't subscribe anymore.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Gevlon has a lot of opinions, many of them based on long chains of faulty logic. The sun is bright, water is wet, ice is cold, therefore the moon is made is made of green cheese. Pretty sure he does it on purpose too.

    I read him mostly for the entertainment value. No sense posting because he censors everything he doesn't like... Anything that doesn't further his agenda.

    ReplyDelete

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