Should there be research and development costs?

[Strangelove]

Recently there has been a trend towards people designing guns, most of which end up being used by the creator himself/herself and no one else. From an OOC perspective, it may not be such a good idea to have so many people running around, as custom weapons are a staple of Mary Sues. IC-wise, having so many people coming up with personally-designed weapons doesn't float well, as construction requires precision machine tools, materials testing, and so on. Custom weapons should cost quite a bit, instead of being "free" like they are now. I recommend we should have some sort of system where the creation of an item blueprint (i.e., making it canon) costs a set amount of production cost-per-unit.

Some may argue that requiring capital may stifle creativity, but I see the potential for RP: If an inventor has a good idea, they can meet with investors or corporations and make a sales pitch attempt to get it to sell, just like in real life. It also encourages investors/corporations to roleplay more in their attempt to seek out purchasers for products and establish trade contracts, rather than simply creating anything that it can get approved on the technology forums.

Solo inventors aren't the only potential problem, though. The concept of every corporation having seemingly bottomless research funding doesn't really seem like a good idea in practice. Take the Carthage Project, which has been trying to produce SAoY-grade starships and droids, despite the fact they only have a tiny fraction of the income realistically needed to develop that technology. While OOC non-approval has stifled such occurrences, I think we should have a more precise system than whether it "sounds powerful or not." Thus my proposal:

Personal Equipment Design Capital: 50 SRPpu
Mecha, Fighter, and Droid Design Capital: 100 SRPpu
Starship Design Capital: 200 SRPpu

SRPpu (SRP per unit) is the cost of one production unit. Thus a gun worth 10 SRP (1000 credits) each would cost 500 SRP (500 000 credits) to design.

If a design is directly based on currently existing design templates, the developer will receive a 40% discount on total research costs. Nations that invest in corporate research, or corporations that invest in individual inventors will receive a discount of 20% of on research costs in comparison to self-made designs. Effects are cumulative.

 

[Zack]

Why doesn't a character have reasonable time to design a technology? In Doc's post he quoted a scene where a character built a new machine in what would be essentially a matter of seconds. Provided the character knows what they want, a computer should be able to rapidly prototype a model for them as quickly as they can describe what they want.

 

[Abwehran Commander]

Even if a person knows what they want doesn't mean they will come up with it in a matter of seconds. Designing is a process that takes time, whether in a matter of weeks or months.

I know the majority of my designs for both SARP and other things can take from a month to four months. Hence the reason why I plan on having research and designing processes for the Abwehrans take time In-character.

 

[Zack]

Like the quote above established, a computer can generate a prototype in seconds. Also, don't quote me on this, but one of the neko bioweapons was generated entirely by people filling out a question sheet on a computer (Or at least I sware I remember reading that JP).

Provided you have a computer to generate the blueprints for you which would be able to be completed as fast as you can describe what you want for the computer, then a prototype could be built from a rapid prototyping machine like we use today or out of a vat of nanomachines.

A custom weapon could be produced very rapidly. If you wanted to test it out and go back and change things you could extend the time considerably or if you had a lot to describe (like on a starship) then the design could take a while but the entire process could be completed in less than a minute for a small object.

 

[Tesuro]

I agree for the most part, if only because of how slowly time can pass in the SARP. If you took the "realistic" amount of time it takes a person to come up with an idea, then chip away at it and polish it all up, then the invention probably wouldn't come into play for at least an OOC year. The blueprint reading ability of the computers is not only fairly logical for a futuristic society, but it allows people a reason to fathom and market their inventions in the RP that may have taken the player months to fathom, but will allow the character or company to put it out for use almost immediately.

 

[Abwehran Commander]

Zack, I read what you wrote and took that into account. Even with the help of a computer, it would still take a person at least a week to come up with a design. No human or enhanced human is perfect and the first design will always be flawed. Thus you can not create the final design for anything until you've culled the flaws from the design. This means even in a futuristic society, things can't be done in a matter of hours.

 

[Zack]

The design should always function as well as it was told to the computer. A computer would not make the mistake of misplacing a part or designing a faulty mechanical component.

Even if the device then doesn't work as the user wants because of errors that the designer made, computer models can be used to find and fix those flaws in seconds. If the device does gets built and is not satisfactory it would take less than a minute to go back to the computer and ask it to redesign the device.

Just like in Doc's quote a new piece of equipment could be created in less than a minute.

 

[Karma Mechanic]

I might mention that last I new anything more than a simple item was supposed to be charged if made by MEGAMI. As for special items for individual characters they should have to pay KS for materials(so people can't just get free items).

For corporations however, I don't think we really need much change in the current system.

 

[Legix]

I voted on the poll (only vote) because the proposed system and idea behind this is very hindering. A nation has resource costs (as should players), but economical flow is based upon GM, FM, and Setting Manager decision. Because of this, anything similar to "limiting research" is ultimately a worthless tool. This seems like a fear that has died and gone away, but it should be a good idea for new players to realize that making things should be sensible both from an OOC standpoint (does X need Y, supply and demand basics, and is it not some broken-ass thing) and an IC standpoint (would a character be able to realistically create X given their experiences/economics and the price ranges of similar objects).