PLEASE NOTE : First off, as always a reminder that this is a Primer Guide and not a full blown ‘How To’. For that you will need to work together and share info. But this will be enough for you to dip your toes in the ‘Facts’ and work out what you’re going to need to do and work at to succeed with ‘Corporations’.
Corp History
Corporations would have been in game many years earlier if I’d have had my way. Sadly I’m but one man and the needs of Settlements and then many, many, many other elements of CE took over. I actually wrote the base code for Corporations way back before Level 6 Settlements.
Why Now?
I think its time. We have a LOT in Core-exiles and this enables you to make the most of things you have already done and experienced yet gain more from it. It’s also aimed at pretty much EVERY player 25 and over. It doesn’t matter if your a full time ‘Exile Nutter’ or a passive lunch time player, this add on can be utilized and played for years to come by all.
For the simple fact that it will impact, and have more ‘traction’ with pretty much everyone in game, I put it’s release above Set Seven and Starbases. They are coming (yeah we heard that for the last few years Coops) but they are large complex addon’s that if not balanced correctly will cause some serious issues. Not to mention they really only affect a small % of CE players. So I decided Corporations NOW.
Enough blather whats Corporations?
In CE you play the part of a ‘Single Captain’. You run your own ship and business. But what if you could run a Corporation? Not just one ship but many ships. Hire Crew and decide what direction they will take. Skill them up, load out their ships and choose their contracts?
Corporations will allow you to start small and get bigger and bigger. Start ‘simple’ and get as complex and large as you like. (over time with a lot of effort). Eventually you could own a sprawling network of offices, ships, crews. Built up relationships with new companies in game that even begin to alter how current NPC’s and in game companies look and treat your primary character.
So as you said enough Blather… lets talk brass tacks….
READ BELOW IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE
A starting guide to setting up a Corporation
- We are going to be, purchasing a license.
Opening an Office.
Set the Office to be your Corp HQ (via ‘view Corporation) from the View Assets Tab.
Deploying a Corporation Reactor.
Deciding on which Entry Level Contract Office and then Deploy it.
Transferring a non PM Starter Ship (UHL)
Hiring a Crew Member (Galactic Crew Agency).
Registering the Ship (Naming it).
Adding a Crew to Captain it.
Checking the ships load out for the Contract type we are going to run.
Skilling our new crew where needed.
Finally – choosing a Contract and sending the first ship out on it’s maiden voyage!
DID YOU READ ABOVE?
Grab a License – Name your Corp
Make your way over to Pistia in Kendra. There you will find the Corporation Licensing office for Corporations. You need to be Level 25+ and have 5 Million credits on hand in your ships account. You also need an inspiring cool name for your Corporation. Not overly long and only use Alphanumeric characters.
Got a License ? OK onwards
You will see over on the right hand side in the View Assets tab an option to ‘View Corporation’ This is an overview and also gives you some Task’s to complete. These are for those of you who don’t read this Primer 
Take time to Ponder a Moment….
Now it’s time to consider your options. Sure you COULD Race off and Open an office. But you would be paying for the Office rental costs whilst you gather some ‘other elements’ from that long list i made above. So lets look at those.
Whats required Coops?
The minimum requirements to make an office ‘work for you’ is the following :
An Office – These can be found on Promenades by looking for ‘Corporation Bureau’ in the Finder. Think carefully about your first office. Like many things that make you richer and poorer in CE you will need to visit this location. So again think before opening. As i said above BEFORE opening an office check out what your going to need once that’s done. You could save yourself a lot of credits by not opening until your ready
Power & a Contract Office
Corporation Offices EACH come with a Five slot Facilities Area. Here you place Reactors, Contract Offices and Research Facilities. These are ALL player made (ohhh Joy I here you say) and for those resource challenged and in the mood to support, available in the CE store (see Captain and Corporations section.)
The choice of Office is up to you. Initially for this release we have added ALL the office types at all their currently available levels. Your Corp will start out as level Zero. This limits the types of offices you can deploy.
As a VERY good idea I would start with Haulage – ‘Catlow Aerospace‘. You cant go wrong, and even if you hire the wrong crew it wont matter as you can haul cargo without an expander. You can of course ignore my advice There are Four ENTRY level Zero Contract offices.
You WILL require at least ONE Corporation Fusion Reactor. Again you can only Fit the lowest type initially.
When ready deploy the Reactor and the Contract Office of your choice. (see i said don’t open an office right away)
YOU MUST : make your First Office your H.Q – Use the View Assets Tab and View Corporation. From there at the bottom make the current (and only) office your Corp HQ. If you don’t you can’t hire crew or transfer ships.
Your First crew Member – Grab one of these from ‘Galactic Crew Agency’. It’s important which key Ability they have, as this will give them a direct leg up and bonus when it comes to Contracts for your corporation later. So ideally, don’t grab a Miner if you purchased a Combat office lol.
When you grab a crew member they are put through an ‘Accelerated Captain Training program‘. They come out the other end Level 10. They are automatically transferred TO your Corp HQ.
Quick word on Crew – They are just like you. They bleed when punched, and level just like you do. Also just like you they have Skills and gain IP when they level! Oh man, now your starting to see the depth of this evil plan You will need, over time to spend those IP points (sound familiar?) on skills to fit ship based items that THEY have the LEVEL to use.
Transfer your First Ship – Remember we said the crew come out of the G.C.A at level 10? Can you remember back to being level 10 (Bet Hunbaba can’t) Well at that level the ONLY ship you could fly was a Marauder. So you will need to transfer over one of these.
Please Note that Corporation Hangers can NOT cater for Player made PM Ships. You can ONLY Transfer non PM Ships.
Visit your UHL – (don’t have one? Grab one via Festive Points or the store) from there you can Transfer ships in your UHL store To your Corp. As always crew and ships are initially transferred to the Corp HQ (see there was a good reason to set that up). You CAN by the way transfer as many ships as you like or pretty much any level into your Corporation.
WARNING: Currently you CANNOT transfer them out and later you MAY lose the ship if not careful!!
OK so we have a Crew member and a Ship. Great!
Now of course you DID pay attention and grabbed a Reactor and a Contract Office and you have these down and ready….?
If not keep paying the daily charge for your Corporation….
OK you caught up
Name that Ship – You new Shiny Marauder needs naming. This is simply done, but I would recommend naming the ship with something in mind. During testing we soon realized that a ship named after its profession was a boon when it came to figuring out who was doing what But I’ll leave that to you.
Add a Crew / Captain – At this stage you are now ready to transfer your crewman into the Ship you just named. As you only have 1 crew this will be an easy task and require no thought on your part. Assigning him / her to your ship effectively promotes them to Captain of said vessel. They will remain captain till you remove them or they loose your ship in a fireball of disaster. (don’t worry at this stage we have turned off Ship destruction). But you get the point!
Depending on which type of office you choose the next steps will vary. But I will Assume you took my advice and grabbed a Hauler Office.
If you did then you could just select a contract for the ship and pop into the Haulage office. Nothing wrong with doing a maiden voyage with 50 units of cargo space. We all did it initially. Or you could take a look at the crewman’s skills and squeeze them into a Cargo Expander. At level ten there are a few choices, but they will require you to spend IP.
Quick word on Items – When fitting items on to your Corporation ships the ITEMS come from YOUR ships store. But they are filtered and fitted based on the crewman’s level and skills. So that first visit into the ‘Ship load out’ will seem very bleak, and remind you what it was like to be level 10.
At this stage it’s wise to begin looking for low level items again. Take the dust covers off all that gear you have been hoarding for the last X years and start to put it to good use once again!
Items are taken from YOUR ships store and fitted to THEIR corp ship. When removed they go back to YOUR Ship store.
So you may have a Level 8,9,10 Cargo expander and you may be able to squeeze into something giving you more Cargo space. Now pop into the Contract office.
Contracts – I’m not going to sit here and tell you about these offices, how they differ and how you can affect those stats. That’s for YOU to figure out. But I will point out the BIGGEST thing. Corp Ships Complete contracts using YOUR FUEL DEPOT FUEL.
Whaaaaaat ! noooooo!
LOL – We have so many players now with over 1 million units of fuel its beginning to become apparent that you all need something to DO with that fuel. We have optimized the Offices to offer up a reasonable return for your fuel (remember your level 10) as you level up so will your income. Whilst this may not suit everyone, it’s something that over time will enable you to gain credits, lots of resources and even some special perks. Not to mention the fact you OWN a Corporation man!
We are aware that some players may look at the fuel to money value and think ‘I can make 100 times that with X fuel’. Yes but not at level 10 Besides other than decorating your wall with it what else are you going to do with it
OK so you have looked in the Corporate Contract office and gestated whats there. BUT, before you hit the Accept button, lets consider some other elements. It’s early days but its worth mentioning bad guys!
Lets face it you just placed a rookie at the hands of a banged up marauder and asked them to go earn you some credits. Problem is they are rookies and as such they are going to run in to bad guys. So unless you want to be paying repair bills you have a few options.
1:Ignore me and pay the repair bills when the contract is completed.
2: Fit a Gun (or two) and hope the rookie can fight his way out – then pay the repair bill for the rest.
3: Ask a Genesis Friend (or yourself) to look in the Commercial Plans section and make you some Corporate EBK / SBK’s. That way you can stock your corp with repair tools for your captains to use on their return. Saving you a fat bill.
Lastly if you don’t fit a gun and your rookie runs into a fight, you can bet they will pay a bounty to be let go rather than use the ship as a battering ram. They may be loyal, but they are unlikely to be suicidal.
So you have consider ALLLLLLL this info and taken a Contract.!
Congratulations the first of many. You can review the ships progress over the next few hours or how ever long the contract was for via either the Corp Office Home screen or via the Assets Tab. When the contract is complete and your ship gets back you will get a PM with the main pertinent details.
Finally…
There is a LOT to corporations. I have just touched on what you need to get going. It may NOT be for everyone, but the staff have all had great fun testing it and even tested it again when I wiped it
We all think that this is a great first iteration of a major addon for CE. Over time it will grow with a mass of addons. But for now start off small work towards your first level, get some research going and then expand. Talk to others about their experiences with different offices and figure out that different offices in different locations will offer different stats. Plus figure out how YOU can affect those stats on missions offered.
It’s day one and we will likely do a LOT of tweaking to corps but they are here to stay and I hope you enjoy brushing off you old weapons, shields, expanders and reactors and putting them to good use!
Coops