Difference between revisions of "Research agent"

Revision as of 12:40, 2 August 2009

Research Agents

Research Agents are agents representing various NPC corporations' R&D divisions. Rather than the usual missions, R&D agents can be asked to do "research" for you. Once an agent is working for you, you get Research Points (RP) from them to trade for Datacores (available from the agent with RP as currency) to sell or use in invention.

To use a Research Agent you need to train the right skills.

Skills you must have:

• Science - Level 5
• One or more of Mechanic, Electronics, and Engineering at level 5
• One of the science skills listed below

Skills that will benefit you to have:

• Laboratory Operations - Level 5
• Research - Level 5
• Research Project Management - Level 4 or 5 depending on your dedication, and how many agents you want to work simultaneously.

In order to do all the things above you must spend time and money. Supposing you start the game now you will need about 3 months of training to get all the skills above to the right level. If you have played a while you will need less time training depending on your career dedication (your starting attributes), implants you use, etc. Also the financial part is very important, especially because you will need about 40 million ISK to buy the Research Project Management skill (which allows you to have more than one R&D Agent simultaneously).

The next step is to choose one field of research, each field being represented by a special science skill:

• Amarrian Starship Engineering
• Caldari Starship Engineering
• Gallente Starship Engineering
• Minmatar Starship Engineering
• Astronautic Engineering
• Electromagnetic Physics
• Electronic Engineering
• Graviton Physics
• High Energy Physics
• Hydromagnetic Physics
• Laser Physics
• Mechanical Engineering
• Molecular Engineering
• Nanite Engineering
• Nuclear Physics
• Plasma Physics
• Quantum Physics
• Rocket Science

As you can see there are many fields of research, so you have many opportunities. Remember that the level trained for each of these skills will give you the correct level of R&D agent(s) that will agree to work with you, so train these skills to the highest level possible.

Now you have complete all these requirements and you're ready to go. You must find R&D agent(s) who wants working with you. Each empire faction has its own research corporations, which are the following:

The Amarr Race:

• Carthum Conglomerate
• Viziam
• Khanid Innovation

The Caldari Race:

• Ishukone Corporation
• Kaalakiota Corporation
• Lai Dai Corporation

The Gallente Race:

• CreoDron
• Duvolle Laboratories
• Roden Shipyards

The Minmatar Race:

• Boundless Creation
• Core Complexion
• Thukker Mix

Now depending on your standing towards these corporations you can access a R&D agent(s) of a certain level and quality. Your goal is gain access to the highest level and quality R&D agent(s) you can. In order to do that you must run some missions for these corporation to increase your standings with them. To gain standing faster it's preferable to have some good social skills (Social, Connections and Diplomacy), so train those to the highest level possible. Also is good to know that Research Corporation have very few agents who provide combat missions (you already know that combat missions bring more standings gains than the others), so finding them will not be an easy task. But always remember to run missions for the highest level and quality agent(s) you can, so don’t spend time with level 2 agent(s) when you can increase your standing faster with level 3 agent(s).

Now that you find a suitable R&D agent(s) you can start working for him/them. Working with these agents will generate RP depending on the field of research you choose and the level of your agent. It's very important to know that the RP are generated on a daily basis, so each day your total RP will increase by a set amount regardless of whether you interact with the agent or not. Certain fields have a multiplier that will increase the RP for that field. For example the Starship Engineering is a research fields a multiplier of 3x for all RP generated. However, the cost of datacores purchased from the agent is multiplied by the same field multiplier. Starship Engineering datacores cost 3x as much as normal datacores, which essentially makes the field multiplier cancel itself out when determining how many datacores you can purchase through a particular research agent over a given period of time.

When you get ready to select a field, the best way is to look at the description in the info box for the research agent that you are interested in working with. This will have all the information regarding the different fields that agent can research.

Now back to the RP: the RP that you will accumulate are based on only three factors: effective quality of the agent, your science skill level, and the agent level.

RP/day = Field multiplier*((1+(EQ of agent/100))*((My skill+Agent Lvl)^2))

Note: you can run missions for each R&D agent only once per day. Completing the missions will give you the same amount you gain per day with that agent as reward.

Once you gained a certain amount of RP with your agent you can trade them in against Datacores. Just start a conversation and click the appropriate option. The datacores available from R&D agents are as follows (links take you to EVE Central buy/sell order details):

• Datacore - Amarrian Starship Engineering
• Datacore - Caldari Starship Engineering
• Datacore - Electromagnetic Physics
• Datacore - Electronic Engineering
• Datacore - Gallentean Starship Engineering
• Datacore - Graviton Physics
• Datacore - High Energy Physics
• Datacore - Hydromagnetic Physics
• Datacore - Laser Physics
• Datacore - Mechanical Engineering
• Datacore - Minmatar Starship Engineering
• Datacore - Molecular Engineering
• Datacore - Nanite Engineering
• Datacore - Nuclear Physics
• Datacore - Plasma Physics
• Datacore - Quantum Physics
• Datacore - Rocket Science

There is also a Research Agent profitability calculator available which will help the ISK minmaxers select an agent.