I wanted to try using a research agent, so I ran a bunch of epic arc missions. Now my Amarr faction standing is at 5.26, but the level 4 research agents still show up as unavailable in the Agent Finder. According to the in-game text, it seems like factions standing should be enough. Is there something else I need to do in order for them to become available to me? Is it using the base (unmodified by connections) standing?
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You need standing with the corporation for research agents. Faction standing doesn’t count.
Most of them offer distribution missions you can run very quickly in a blockade runner.
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Plus Amarr agents are stuck up.
:< Why can’t CCP write that in the in-game text? Very well.
Research agents are already not even worth it.
Actually to access R&D Agents you need both Faction and Corporation standing (along with skills in their field of science).
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Not true. I have several characters with Lai Dai Level 4 agents, happily earning 119 RP/Day for Graviton Physics and Electronic Engineering (T2 drones are a significant part of my business) - none of them have +5 faction standing with Caldari.
I generally harvest on New Years day - a few thousand datacores I don’t need to buy!
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To access a research agent, you must fulfill both a normal standings requirement for an agent of their Level and Quality, as well as a requirement for Corporate or Personal standings at 2.0 less than the normal standings requirement. For example, to use a Level IV research agent, the “Agent Info” tab will say something like: “Your effective personal standings must be 3.00 or higher toward this agent’s corporation in order to use this agent, as well as an effective personal standing of 5.00 or higher toward this agent, its faction, or its corporation in order to use this agent’s services.”
Note that attaining the required Corporate standing automatically fulfills the lower requirement. The extra requirement exists only to prevent those with high Faction standing from accessing top-level research agents without actually working for that corporation.
So, if you had perfect 10.0 standings with the agent’s faction and 0.0 standing with his/her corp, you couldn’t use that agent. However, if you had 10.0 faction standing and 3.0 corporation standing, or if you just had 5.0 corp standing, then you could.
Lastly, even after obtaining the required amount of corp standing for access, if the faction drops to -2.00 or lower standing, you’ll lose access to the agent. So you still need to maintain some Faction standing for access.
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Maybe 20 million isk worth for a whole year?
I think that’s a fair assessment of not worth it
You misplaced the decimal point! With level 4 skills (5 agents), I’m harvesting roughly 200 million per character per year (+/- depending on the retail price of the datacore). It took a weekend to grind the standing initially, now it takes a half hour/year to fly around and collect the datacores.
For my business these are datacores I would otherwise need to purchase so the saving goes directly to the bottom line.
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Ok, I guess some are in the 60 to 70k each range. So 50 to 60k profit. I’m pretty sure your 200 Mil figure is a bit high though.
The ones I use the most - Electronic Engineering and Graviton Physics are currently 110K in Jita - they range from a low of about 80K to a high (this time last year) over 150K. Most of the others average 100K - that’s what I use when calculating my invention cost. Mechanical Engineering datacores are cheap - I don’t waste any agents on those. The buy/sell spread tends to be narrow - not worth the hassle of putting a character in Jita to manage buy orders - I simply buy what I need when I’m in Jita picking up advanced moon material.
probably that is “standing which is pumped by diplomacy skill”,
but that whole standing it is not applied to research agents
Actually all Agents accept standings modified by Social skills.
As for accessing Research Agents, Faction standing will help but they mainly require Corporation standing. For example if you already have +5.00 Faction standing, then you still need +3.00 Corp standing to access lv 4 Research Agent.
On the same token gaining +5.00 Corp standing with Faction above -2.00 standing will also allow access to lv 4 Research Agent.
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Honestly, managing the buy orders for these really isn’t time consuming at all. I put up a buy order in Jita last Tuesday for 500 of each of them. I never updated it and most of it got filled by Friday.
The market changes actually made it easier for me to acquire a lot of things outside of the weekend.
I understand the value of the research agents for people with low net worth (or are really frugal). Free stuff is still free but people still tend to have minimal values they expect for any amount of effort.
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