When R&D is enabled, will those who have R&D credits be able to apply them to a rented DC in order to generate a new DC with just the changes on it, and thus you'd still need to rent the DC in the future to use your mods? Or they would apply to nay rented DC of like kind?

I'm not sure what you mean by R&D credits.

How R&D will work is that each faction will have their R&D tree. Everyone will start at the bottom and use their R&D Research Points they accumulate via the R&D Actions, to unlock entities on the tree.

"Mods" will be pre-determined variants of entities so that they're balanced from server side. IE: A CR90 may be on the tree with 0 weapons, but +3 HS or something like that. "Mods" as in modding a ship, will not be possible.

And once you R&D an entity, your faction gets the DC to do with as they wish.

Are these trees then by faction or by the base DC.

for example, and maybe not a good one... but take groundhogs, whose DC is owned by every mining faction... would all those mining factions then be able to research the same hog variants?

Maybe a better example would be a ship like the BFF-1 (bulk), whose DCs are owned by Aurora and Incom. Would both factions have access to the same 'bulk tree'?

Last I saw, it was one tree for everyone, for each entity type. So in your BFF case, Aurora and Incom will have the advantage as they can immediately start researching the other variants or go up the tree. Everyone else has to research their way up to the BFF first.

Will I be able to upgrade a ship that is already spawned? Or Can "Mod" DC only apply to a brand new ship?

ie: Will I be able to upgrade the Hyperspeed of my already existing YV-666?

"Mods" as in modding a ship, will not be possible. - Jesfa

That is pretty lame, considering that mods on private ships were big part of canon SW. We all know the countless ships that were modded by their owners and were one of the kind. Sure there should be some limits so people can't make overpowered ships, but I don't think it shouldn't be allowed at all. Just doesn't make sense that you could only research on improving DCs.

“"Mods" as in modding a ship, will not be possible. - Jesfa

That is pretty lame, considering that mods on private ships were big part of canon SW. We all know the countless ships that were modded by their owners and were one of the kind. Sure there should be some limits so people can't make overpowered ships, but I don't think it shouldn't be allowed at all. Just doesn't make sense that you could only research on improving DCs.
 ”

I was referring to initial R&D, as in R&D 1.0 or whatever people would like to call it. Modding of entities is something that has been discussed many times, and for the time being has been simply decided to be shelved until later on. There'll be plenty of new entities that modding can be placed on the back burner for a time.

“Last I saw, it was one tree for everyone, for each entity type. So in your BFF case, Aurora and Incom will have the advantage as they can immediately start researching the other variants or go up the tree. Everyone else has to research their way up to the BFF first. ”

Everyone will start at the base, and move up. Those with the DCs now, whether they're "everyone DCs" or Unique DCs, they'll have to start at the beginning and move up in the tree to unlock new things. Factions have had 5+ years of time to abuse their headstart with DCs, no reason to let R&D give an even bigger one.

Are there any plans to allow R&D to be applied to non-entity objects?

For example: will Weapon R&D allow you to work towards creating a DC for a projectile weapon? Or would Metallurgy R&D allow you to work towards an armor DC?

I realize this may not be the case with R&D 1.0, as it's called above. But maybe with 2.0?

How are those not entities?

fair enough Jesfa, it just sounded like it wouldn't be planned for SWC at all.

Belloq, everything is pretty much an entity, ships, facilities, weapons, etc. The different skills will allow you to get different points which can then be exchanged for a DC. Obviously researching a gun will use primarily Weapon R&D but will likely require some metallurgy etc as well.

Is there a ew ETA for R&D?

Will having existing rare ships give a R&D bonus?

:)

The term "entities" in the Combine usually refers to vehicles that you can sit in or fly in: space ships, subs, speeders, that sort of thing.

That's why the term "Entity vs. Entity" combat is used to describe eventual ship-to-ship combat, which, as I understand it, will not be part of the soon to be implemented Player vs. Player combat ("soon" in a relative way, of course).

Right now, R&D trees are being used to create new ship DCs or to modify existing owned ship DCs. What I want to know is, is there any discussion for opening up R&D application to non-entity objects, specifically, weapons and armor?

My reason for asking this is simple: since PvP combat will be implemented before Entity vs. Entity combat, perhaps by many months or a year or more, it makes sense to allow players to apply their R&D for the more immediately-needed equipment for PvP combat, as opposed to R&Ding for entities whose full implementation will be some ways off.

“Obviously researching a gun will use primarily Weapon R&D but will likely require some metallurgy etc as well.

- Ellias
 ”

Excellent answer, Ellias. Good to know.

You're misinformed.

When we say entity vs entity in regards to combat, we mean that since you're inside the entity, that it's entity vs entity, in current combat, you're you/npcs fighting.

In regards to R&D, personally, I wanted to release ship R&D first, since it's by far the easiest/largest tree, and would be infinitely easier for me to do. However, I believe Sin, last we spoke, wants to do at least a small tree for everyone with things added in as possible.

Per the eta. Basically sim says the code is mostly done, the formulas we tend to start and get distracted. Plus, I've been fairly inactive due to issues with school and tech problems. Hopefully next week I can get finagled around to become active enou to where I can work on the R&D pool.

Edit: regarding rare ships/current ships, reverse engineering is unlikely at this point.

Thanks, Jesfa.

“How R&D will work is that each faction will have their R&D tree. Everyone will start at the bottom and use their R&D Research Points they accumulate via the R&D Actions, to unlock entities on the tree. ”

Yes, but this doesn't answer my question. Let me give an example.

A Merc faction wants an improved version of the destroyer droid. Given they can rent the DC for the droid, can they apply their faction generated R&D points to the rented DC and generate a new DC that then requires it is used with the original to build the enhanced version? Or does the enhanced version automatically include the original DC (in which case the owner would seldom if ever consent to rent it)?

I'm here concerned with IP and what fosters more DC rentals and enhancements. Seems to me if in order to enhance a DC you will end up with your own copy, there won't be any rentals in the future, just sales and those will be very few and far between. Instead what we'll have are factions trying top purchase R&D points from others and maintaining exclusive control over their IP.

I really don't think the DC Rental system is applicable for obtaining variants through R&D.

As I conceptualize the system, the Existing DCs will be placed somewhere on the owner faction's Tech Tree. Further, the owner faction will be able to research Variants of those existing DCs right off the bat, if they have the Research Points. That 2nd understanding could easily be incorrect if SIMs muck about with multi-branch pre-requisites like a tech tree from Starcraft, for example, or if they use any number of other reasonable rationalizations to prohibit or delay variant research of existing DCs for balance purposes.

The same way that a CR-90 and a CR-90a are two completely different DCs available for rental (ie you don't use them both in conjunction), any Tech tree that happens to include something like a Destroyer Droid would create a new DC for the faction that owns that tree.

More directly towards your example, if a Merc faction wanted an improved DD, they would need to a) Have somewhere on their tech tree the said DD-like DC (which they wouldn't likely KNOW per the outline of blind research), and b) have the points to get to that particular "leaf" on the tree. It wouldn't have anything to do with being able (ie permitted by the DC's Owner) to rent the DC.

I think it's analogous to Jefsa's mentioning of "regarding rare ships/current ships, reverse engineering is unlikely at this point."

Is there a ew ETA for R&D?