Datacore farming
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First Steps - Start the Training The following skills are REQUIRED to start using R&D agents: - Science V - Mechanic V (or) Engineering V (or) Electronics V
Once you have those skills trained up, you can now start training up to use an agent. The agent's level determines what level the skill needs to be trained to. Below are my recommended areas to focus on, since they'll make you the most ISK: - Mechanical Engineering (Probably the most common to find agents for) - Molecular Engineering - Nanite Engineering - Quantum Physics
The following skills are REQUIRED to use more than one R&D agent: - Laboratory Operation V - Research V - Research Project Management I (each level gives you the ability to use another agent)
Now For The Fun So you don't know the first thing about research agents? Well, have no fear. It's as simple as picking a faction you have some standings for, and starting to grind out the missions. Once you work your way up to level 3 missions, you'll be well on your way to making some decent ISK per month. Easy way to find out who likes you already, which will save you some time: 1 - Open your character sheet 2 - Click on Standings 3 - Click on the "Liked By" tab. 4 - Scroll down to the "Corporations" section 5 - Right-click the top Corporation 6 - Click "Show Info" in the menu 7 - Click on the "Agents" tab in the new window 8 - Scroll down to the "R&D" agent list 9 - In the "Available" list, scroll down to the highest level agent and do a show info on him. 10 - Look under the "Agent Info" tab for one of the above mentioned research fields. 11 - If none of the above skill areas are listed (Mechanical Engineering for example), move to the next best agent and repeat.
Keep in mind, not all corporations will have R&D agents. If your top corporation doesn't have them, move to the next corporation and repeat the above steps until you find one that does.
So Now What? Now that you've found a faction that likes you, and has R&D agents - it's time to start pounding out the missions. Hopefully you have done missions before and understand how they work. I'm not gonna explain that to you in this guide. The idea here is to just complete as many missions as humanly possible to get your standing with the particular corp up to where you can use level 3 agents. Don't stop there though... your standing with the corp opens up higher level agents, which ultimately effects how many datacores you get per day, which I'll explain later.
Just do whatever missions you feel comfortable with. You'll make some ISK along the way, but remember to focus. Don't take forever doing a mission. Once it's complete, go talk to your agent and finish it off so you can start on another. Here's a list of what areas give what types of missions:
Administration: 50% Kill, 50% Courier Advisory: 34% Kill, 66% Courier Archives: 5% Kill, 90% Courier, 5% Trade Astrosurveying: 40% Kill, 30% Courier, 25% Mining, 5% Trade Command: 97% Kill, 3% Courier Distribution: 5% Kill, 95% Courier Intelligence: 85% Kill, 15% Courier Internal Security: 95% Kill, 5% Courier Legal: 50% Kill, 50% Courier Manufacturing: 5% Kill, 95% Courier Marketing: 5% Kill, 95% Courier Mining: 5% Kill, 85% Courier, 10% Mining (II) Production: 5% Kill, 95% Courier Public Relations: 34% Kill, 66% Courier R&D: 0% Kill, 50% Courier(Short), 50% Trade Security: 90% Kill, 5% Courier, 5% Trade Storage: 5% Kill, 95% Courier(Llong) Surveillance: 95% Kill, 5% Courier
The Math
So now that the basics are over, here's some math for you so you can understand how to get more Research Points per day. The raw calculation for how many research points you'll get in a day is as such:
((Agent Skill + Your Skill)^2 * (1 + Effective Quality / 100)) * Area Bonus
Agent Skill: Determined by the Level of the agent. Level 3 agents will have Level III of the appropriate research skill. Your Skill: Determined by your training in the research skill. Effective Quality: is your effective quality (after Negotiation, Connection, etc.) with the Agent. Area Bonus: Depends on the research field. Most fields have no modifier (e.g. 1), weapon-area research is doubled (2), and ship research is tripled (3). Don't worry about this one too much.
Skills Effecting Research Points per Day: Negotiation: The Negotiation skill directly improves the effective quality of your agent, and is the most efficient skill for raising the number of RPs you earn each day. Negotiation IV, for example, raises Effective Quality by nearly 20 points.
Connections: Not terribly efficient (but very useful in grinding standing to be able to use agents), Connections can minimally raise the effective quality of your research agent.
Area Specific Skill (Mechanical Engineering, etc): Each level of your skill in this area increases the "Your Skill" part of the equation listed above. I would recommend getting this skill to level 4 (level 5 is just a bitch).
Now for the ISKies So, you've selected your corp/faction, gotten your standings up, and you want to start gaining Research Points. Fly out to your R&D agent and have a chat with him. Tell him you want to begin researching with him. Doing this will bring up a window where you have to select what field you wish for him to study on. Since you've read this guide, you already know which one to pick by now (I hope) - so pick it. From that moment on, you'll start gaining RP every single day your character is alive. Once a month, or however long it is between the times you have some ISK and you are flat broke, go talk to him again and tell him you wish to purchase datacores from him.
He'll tell you how many you can afford. Buy as many or as few as you wish, check the market and if there's some decent buy orders out for them... sell them and start spending your ISK on cool stuff. If not, fly them out to a different region and check the market. You can usually get 200-300k isk more per core by placing a sell order, but don't get too greedy.
Keep in mind as well, you can pretty much double your RP by completing a mission for your research agent. You will only get offered one mission a day, but it is equal to 1 day's worth or RP - effectively doubling your ISK potential. As mentioned above, your research agent will offer you the following mission types:
R&D: 0% Kill, 50% Courier(Short), 50% Trade
I hope this guide helps some of you become more self sufficient. It's a bit of time invested, and some ISK for the skills but the payoff is worth it. I'll guess, starting from scratch, it would take about 1-2 months to train all the required skills. You can do missions in the meantime with regular agents to get your faction/standing up and unlock the higher agents. Please let me know if anything else needs explained better, or any comments you might have on the validity of this guide. THANKS!
