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[Shanty Anzomi]

Me again and I have more stuff (I believe that this is the correct section for this)

This time is about capsuleer birth.
I believe that capsuleer tests and then the installation of the tech in the subject have a cost… an elevated one.  And I think that most of the costs are covered by the empires or CONCORD.
I think too that some characters are rich enough to pay their test and upgrades, but most no.

So, the question is why one empire or CONCORD would pay this for the future capsuleer?

In the case of my Shanty, she isn’t rich, but she isn’t poor. A common Caldari girl that go to elementary school, after this his father fell in depression and started to bet a lot, so the money was short and she went to a common high school (the money for the school was taken from her father's salary, and went to a good school, not the best, but good, after all the State take care of its citizens).
After the initial three years of school she showed good abilities and got a scholarship in a military academy. In the Academy she showed some good abilities, so she was elected to take the capsuleer/clone tests. Then she was sent to the Trade Institute where she was trained in capsuleer stuff and was put through the capsuleer upgrades.
The Academy paid her upgrades since they sent the girl to the Institute. But after that, she became a capsuleer and keeps her contact with the State. She sell and buy in Jita, so her taxes goes to the Navy, she takes missions in the Navy and other Caldari corps.
Maybe she has her own ideas about the State, but she is very loyal and she always try to contribute with her nation in her new condition as capsuleer. So is kind of a good inversion for the State, and they knew this when they paid her upgrades and tests and clones, etc.

But what happens when the capsuleer is a renegade or something like that? Or he or she doesn't show much love for their country? He or she can be rich and pay for the test and upgrades, but if this isn't the case?
I have this doubt because the capsuleer can be a menace for its own nation, or a bad investment.

Then, brainstorm. Why an empire or CONCORD would invest in a capsuleer that can become a pirate? Or maybe they didn't know? The guy passes the psychologist test and this goes positive and then he became a pirate?
Throw some ideas

[Lyn Farel]

This has always been a subject of wild speculation bringing more questions than solutions in my experience...

[Karmilla Strife]

*tinfoil* The Jovians are paying.

[Arnulf Ogunkoya]

Well. I've always been of the opinion that anyone spending a lot of time in space would put sperm or eggs into storage. This seems especially likely given the potential radiation hazards of such a life.

That way if you want a child of the body (as opposed to fostering) you can just have one tubed. Possibly with a clone body altered to carry it to term. You'd need to avoid clone jumping or getting podded if you are carrying in person for obvious reasons.

......


And I've just realised I completely mis-read the initial post. It isn't about podders having kids at all.   

The only thing that comes to mind is that pod compatibility is so rare that they upgrade anyone who passes in the hope that enough will stay loyal and relatively sane to be useful.

[Shiori]

It's an investment. If it works out, you end up with a fairly potent killing machine who'll do things for :lulz: and Monopoly money.

[Ché Biko]

I'm pretty sure their investment is returned by all the taxes we pay and stuff.

[Elmund Egivand]

Also, capsuleers are exceptional force multipliers for baseliner fleets. One capsuleer could decimate whole baseliner fleets by himself. Any Empire military wants one, and far as they are concerned, the more capsuleers they have the greater their chances. However, the real issue is keeping the capsuleers loyal, which is what I took as the justification behind that terrible tutorial system. They deliberately withheld information about what we can really do. They do not lay out the possibilities and ventures we could pursue. They drum up faction propaganda, so that we would remain loyal and fight for them instead of flying off the nullsec and be a sperglord.

So far it doesn't seem to work.

[Morwen Lagann]

Another common theory is that, because of the supposed rarity of the combination of genetic capsule compability with the physical/mental capability to avoid mindlock, anyone who's able to get through it is worth investing in. A sizable number of capsuleers that are 'unbound' by loyalty to a faction is a natural result of simply meeting a quota of required loyalist capsuleers.

There's probably some arrangement that details how many they need to come out of the program and side with the empires directly - there are precisely ZERO player characters who are, by game mechanics, actually proper-loyal to a faction. But that doesn't mean there aren't any at all - there's actually quite a large number of loyalist capsuleers; they're NPCs and event actors.

We're just not good enough, or weren't needed to meet the quota.

[V. Gesakaarin]

Well the major activity freelance capsuleers are involved in is blowing things up.

They represent a closed and controlled economy where supply and demand for armaments is in a perpetual equilibrium. This war economy is also automatically taxed directly and indirectly by the SCC.

If the freelance capsuleer market represents trillions of ISK that is in its own little bubble, and they can't purchase commodities or services with that ISK outside of what the SCC allows on the market thus preventing inflation, then it seems like CONCORD and its signatories stand to make much more off capsuleers by taxing them and levying fees from them shooting each other in their own little world than they lost providing the training.

That's how I've always seen it anyway -- who cares about capsuleer loyalty so long as they're contained and their violence can be taxed?

[Lyn Farel]

2 complementary things I think :

- Capsuleers might be trained as military capsuleers first in every academy. Ours being freelance capsuleers, a fringe, are probably either defects or rather the opposite considering the advantages they get (being absolutely free demi gods), the top layer of their classes, which get offered the choice to do whatever they want instead of being the paid dogs of the empires.

- Considering the number of capsuleers just playing by concord rules with missions, industry, etc, their number just makes it up for the few ones that turn pirates and all (who still consume in either way anyway).

[Vic Van Meter]

Probably the most important part of the question revolves around the assertion that even the most broke capsuleers have enough money to buy small towns to retire to.  That means that capsuleers, just by being capsuleers, are paid a metric buttload of money to keep their bills paid.  A few things to consider:

-We capsuleers also have a bunch of crew.  While you may be low on the pecking order of your corporation, military, pirate organization, etc. in game terms, you're essentially serving at the rank of captain to be in charge of your ship crew.  That means you're on the high end of the pay grade anyway.

-Capsuleers are rare.  Most of the PVE ships we blow up (and most star-faring people in game) are piloted and commanded by mere baseliners, so a capsuleer-flown ship is a rare commodity that is worth a lot of money to have around.  The crew compliments link states that a capsuleer can, at least, take the crew complement of a battleship from 200-550 down to 100-300.  That's 100-250 people that a capsuleer is worth just in saved salary alone.  Imagine that, if you paid every crewman on an earthly battleship ship an average of say 35,000 dollars a year, and theoretically got a capsuleer to reduce the crew complement by that much, that capsuleer would be worth 3.5 to 8.75 million dollars a year.  Just in terms of money, that's a LOT of money a capsuleer is worth.

-Capsuleers make things easier.  If pirate capsuleers come upon a non-capsuleer freighter, that freighter is dead.  A capsuleer has a chance of escape just because of their enhanced ability to fly the ship in a concise and coherent manner.  Capsuleers can easily toast through equally well-geared PVE ships because regular pilots aren't even close to being able to work the way capsuleers do.  That makes them incredibly valuable in whatever jobs they have, because they can nearly guarantee success unless another capsuleer interferes.

So very often, they're worth the money they're paid, even to do the same jobs regular starship pilots would do.  Think of the savings in lost material, collateral, salaries you don't have to pay, equipment you don't have to buy (we buy, fit, and insure all of our own ships).  It may seem like a lot of money to employ a capsuleer, but it's probably worth it in the long term.

[Louella Dougans]

It used to be suggested, in the PF, that there was more than was observable ingame. That the universe was a bustling hive of activity, with megacorporations vast interstellar commerce fleets transporting goods across light years. And that the freelance capsuleer, was a significant development in terms of a plausibly deniable contractor, as well as the capsuleer and their organisations being well placed to exploit the frontier regions of space.


Now, it seems to be very much the case that the PF is in the direction of, what you see, is all there is. Making it a mystery how any of the megacorporations make any money, because they certainly do not engage in interstellar trade. They barely operate interplanetary trade. Blah blah, immortal semigod podders etc. Futur of civilisation.


vOv

[Shanty Anzomi]

Well, in various missions you have glances of stellar activities of the different corps.
Sometimes you need to deliver mining stuff to a station and they will send it to a colony in space. Or you have to clean trade routes, or assist merchants that are being attacked by pirates, even attack enemy corps of your contractor and you can see (and shoot) npc mining ships. So, I believe that a lot of stuff are happening in space all the time, and capsuleer is a resource like everything else (with some specialties)

[Silas Vitalia]

Finding a civilian baseilner who is capsule compatable is a figurative lottery ticket worth billions and billions in currency.

There will be no shortage of wealthy institutions, investment conglomerates, state-run enterprises, etc who will gladly pay for every bit of your capsuleer training for the tiny, tiny return of .0001% of your future income (or some other fraction), or even a flat return of 'x' isk or items upon graduation.

Capsuleers are money-factories, paying ungodly amounts of currency in taxes for station services, trading on the interstellar markets, ship and module construction, etc.

The risk of investing a small fortune in paying for their training is peanuts compared to how much money that capsuleer will be making in a few years when they start building capital ships or running an ice mining operation or whatever.

[Alain Colcer]

Althought many of the reasons above might seem plausible, the one thing i belive paysoff any investment made in capsuleer is ship/equipment/implant development and research by the empires.

Remember when crielere (funded by the empires) created several breakthroughs that were later licensed to Capsuleers throught the CONCORD agreements?

basically, by investing in capsuleer pilots, you are creating a market for stuff that will sell at a high mark up, with fearless pilots who do not care for death and will use any tool that provides and advantage to accomplish their goals ( be those leaning towards service to their former nation or one forged by their own kind ).

So basically by creating more capsuleers, empires broaden up market opportunities for creating value there and increase space activity (always welcomed at this moment in eve's universe )

Of course there are loyalists, traitors, pirates, conquerors, etc....all of them however must pay the licence of a megathron BPO if they wish to produce one themeselves