Corp structures you have known in Eve.

[Sharkith]

Hi folks,

just a quick question here. What kinds of corp structures have you seen in Eve and in your view how have they operated?

Now we have our fledging corporation off the ground I am thinking of how best to configure it. I have some ideas all of which involve avoiding a hierarchy. In my view hierarchies just don't work particularly well in Eve and the management tools allow a lot of flexibility.

So any thoughts would be useful.

Sharkith

 

[LordjOX]

Could you emphasize what you mean with corp structure?

If I understand you correct. I've mostly been in corps with hierarchies. Normal members on the bottom, fleet commanders, directors, CEO. The hierarchies are there to restrict access from various assets. But I guess the new tools for corp management changed the view on that abit. Because then if you were a director, you could basically rob the corp wallet and all the assets of the corp.

It's the ones that work the best tbh, don't think there's much support for democratical ones with voting and such atm

 

[taB]

Hi mate,

Not run a corp myself but a few points:

Tax wise you've got anything from 0% to 100% (Reikokokoku springs to mind on that one)

What will your corp provide for it's members? Free frigs, cruisers even? If so how is this funded? Will you want to buy BPOs or a POS? How will it be fueled, mining ops and cash contributions from non mining members? Will contributions be mandatory?

I realise that you said you would be investing your isk into this but at some point the whole operation needs to fund itself or you might as well piss it away.

Security: Will everyone have access to all, how well do you know your members? There seems to be a fair amount of corp theft going on at the moment if the eve forums are to be believed (yeh right). How will you secure your assets, yet allow members access to restricted stuff if you're not on-line?

I've only really been in smaller corps and always with a couple of guys I played with since I first started. I have generally found myself more than willing to take part in collective efforts yet many pilots aren't so keen and need to be motivated / incentivised.

If you want to have a PVP efficient corp then some sort of hierachy will be necessary for it to work well. People will need to know when to shut up on TS and who is calling the shots. If the commander loses connection everyone should know who is then in charge, no questions.

I think I can honestly say I haven't answered your question at all

Will add later, got to go home, whoop!

 

[LordjOX]

Ah yeah, I was in a PvP corp for 6 months or so. Wasn't that organized, just getting together for gangs when people wanted to. But yes, important that everyone knows who is boss and who to listen to / who to stfu for when on ventrilo or TS.

All of taB's points are very much valid

 

[Sharkith]

thats all a good start and thanks so far for the feedback. I posted the inital question very quickly.

There are several reasons why I am against hierarchies especially for Eve - they are inflexible, if you lose one person the whole thing can be fecked, one person can screw the whole corp, they are unresponsive and they require a lot of hard work by a dedicated few who have no life outside of the game. In short they are ineffecient and outmoded.

Reikokokoku are a case in point. A 100% tax is not individualistic it is a brotherhood and a collective. I like that. However I am just getting going and I need to attract people in. That is not necessarily going to be the best way to do it (although I can see some advantages).

Eve promotes rugged individualism as a game. That is its semantics so I think taB your totally right to say that a lot of players prefer to be left to their own devices. However given the ideas I am chasing hierarchy does not fit the goal I need to develop some form of collectivism for this to work.

We will not be owning POSes or territory. Yet your totally right it MUST fund itself if it is to survive.

Ok these are the current ideas I am working on and putting to the members:

A structure that is organised into small groups of players who work for each other. Each group is semi-autonomous during peace time and works to build up their stores of ships and modules for the next campaign. Each finds a way to fund itself. To that end each group will have access to their own hangar and own chunk of the corporation wallet.

The groups must try to establish themselves and to fund their members growth. Initially we will be in a period of building skills and getting members into the game.

Each group will be headed by a Steersman. Steersmen are there to:

a) look after their groups wellbeing and support their members
b) ensure their group is mobalising and getting ready for the next campaign
c) organise the finances of their group
d) make sure their group works well together and that players are happy in the roles they are developing for PvP

Steersmen will automatically be members of the Council of the Kaminjosvig. The council of the Kaminjosvig will take decisions on behalf of the membership over a period of time. All steersmen will be nominated and elected to take charge of a group.

No steersman can tell another steersman's members what to do. Groups are autonomous. If a dispute arises between members who are from different groups it is up to the respective steersmen to resolve the dispute. Failing that the leader of the Kaminjosvig can be requested to resolve disputes.

These are the peace time arrangements. For a military campaign there will be a very different set of rules. Now already I have hit a problem:

Having a diffuse organisation like this means that we have to avoid duplication so for example - it would be silly to have duplicate BPO's and so on. So obviously a degree of centrality is needed even if this is a simple administrative function.

OK those are the rough ideas at this point. I am interested in what you think. Nice and very helpful feedback so far!

Sharkith

 

[LordjOX]

There's a reason why hierarchical structures are among the most popular and used ones: they work.
And are not necessarily prone to get fecked by one top person leaving, because you can also have top directors with more or less all the access rights.

When I read your description there I already see many flaws that really work against the purpose you have described in your first thread about your corp.
Splitting the corp into smaller groups with one leader or "steerman" that act individually and are supplying themselves, hell it's against what a corp in EVE is all about.

You even point this out yourself.

If one looks aside from that, it's not that far from a true hierarchical structure anyways. Members are in Groups, Groups have Leaders called Steermen, all Steermen are in a Council with an elected leader. Although it's democratic, it's still a very much hierarchical structure. That most real life organisations today employ and also most in EVE.

And even so if you fear:

...one person can screw the whole corp, they are unresponsive and they require a lot of hard work by a dedicated few who have no life outside of the game. In short they are ineffecient and outmoded.

Still this applies for all, one Steerman can screw a group, they will still have to be the dedicated few that have to fulfill your points a) to d)!! Since the groups will be working "on their own".

I think it's better that the corp activities and such are planned by one person, thus needing only one dedicated fella to run such for everyone in the corp. Good luck getting the 1+n DEDICATED people you would need for steermen, especially about keeping members happy, which is no walk in the park!

Yes, EVE is very individual, especially when it comes to ISK, which is a central part about it. No GOOD opportunities to make ISK = your members will leave when they dare to enter 0.0. Unless they want to pirate or get regular merc contracts, which doesn't come just like that *snaps fingers*

Also count with paying alot of the expenses in the beginning. I think the CEO in my current corp has forked out tens of billions so far, even with 20% tax things cost alot of money when supplying about 50ish people in 0.0

 

[taB]

Tired & tipsy so apologies for the short post that will contribute nothing:

The concept you give sounds like that of an alliance with each steersman & group being a member corporation. Have I understood this right? Will give more thought and sense tomorrow


Ben.

 

[Sharkith]

Lordjox,

I think to be honest you have missed the point slightly. Group dynamics are such that you will simply not build a tight knit group of people if that group is 20+ members. You simply cannot do it, so to go for a flat structure, as flat as it can be and to promote autonomy protects the corp. If a steersman is poor its simple the group members can ask for him to be removed and it will happen. One thing though that steersman will not be in a position to rip the corp off and that is a gurantee.

Most of the hierarchies you see out there are inflexible and unresponsive to what members want. Sure there are good ones but for every good one I can point out multiple poor ones. Most corps I have been in (with the exception of Jericho Fraction) were basically channels where people simply chatted and where you would turn up two three nights a week to run around on a mining op for the corp and nearly always all you would get in return was ammo and that was it.

They had high tax rates and the cash was being skimmed off to pay for a pipe dream that people did not identify with. Usually holding territory in 0.0. I have been in the game over two years and I do know what happens.

This is about building something different, something that feel different and works differently. So bollox to it if it doesn't fit the usual mould I don't care if we do things differently. In fact it is nice to have a different organisation that has different problems to solve it makes the game more interesting than simply doing what most other seem to do. At the end of the day I do not want to be skimming ISK off people. Besides your wrong on one point hierarchy is on its way out at the moment most large RL corporations operate a matrix project based structure. Hiearchy has much less to do with it these days because they are basically inefficient.

As for the ISK sink - tell me about it. I have decent resources though and certainly more than enough to get it up and running. That bit is not hard. The hard bit is making something unique - not the usual same old same old. The people I speak with when I am recruiting more or less to a person really like the structure we are discussing. So I seriously cannot see your problem.

Sharkith

 

[Sharkith]

The concept you give sounds like that of an alliance with each steersman & group being a member corporation. Have I understood this right? Will give more thought and sense tomorrow

yes in many ways the analogy holds except the difference is that within the corp certain resources would be shared like being able to have the BPO's used to build the groups ships.

 

[LordjOX]

Well, you tell me when you get it to work. You asked for opinions, you got them, if you wanted lies and me loving your idea I could have given it to you on a silver platter sprinkled with parmesan. No need to be offended by honest opinions tbh, how else to improve if you can't see two different sides?

And yes, I've been in the game for about 1.5 years so I've been to various corp structures so don't count me out on that.

Players join what corp that suits them best, if high tax rates and holding 0.0 space is their goal then all is jolly good.

 

[Sharkith]

yeah sorry I did overreact there. Thanks for the advice now recruitment has gone so well we are in the process of setting the corp up and getting logistics in place and so on.

A lot of what you said does hold quite well its a case of working in the other things like groups and so on to give it that added flavour.

Sharkith

 

[Faeldawn]

At work so don't have time to read all the responses, so apologies if any of this has already been said:

The main thing to bear in mind is size. Many corps fail by having too many chiefs and too few indians:

IF your corp is small (less than 20) I recommend one CO and a single deputy.
IF your corp is mid-size and has a corp breakdown (40-60ish players, maybe three areas such as Production, Security and Mining) I recommend one CO and one deputy CO with one Head Of Department (HOD) for each area.
IF your corp is mega-sized and cross-time-zone (100+) You will need one CO and two deputies (from different global time zones is preferrable) so most of the time there is at least boss-man online, each of the three have full authority to do whatever they deem best for the corp. In this situation you might need several "gang-hands" as well, which are senior members who will lead raids, mining sessions, hunting/patrolling, security etc. When you get to 100+ having one dude leading all the Production will not work, so it's best to have a pool of "gang-hands" to draw on, players who are trusted to put the best intentions of the corp ahead of their own needs. In this situation it needs to be said, nothing can be done without a gang-hand present. Anything done without one of thse persons has to be disavowed by the corp, otherwise the corp will spiral out of control.

My two pence from being involved in small and mega-corps which have both worked and failed.

 

[Ctuchik]

Hi folks,

just a quick question here. What kinds of corp structures have you seen in Eve and in your view how have they operated?

Now we have our fledging corporation off the ground I am thinking of how best to configure it. I have some ideas all of which involve avoiding a hierarchy. In my view hierarchies just don't work particularly well in Eve and the management tools allow a lot of flexibility.

So any thoughts would be useful.

Sharkith

theres only one advice u need really. never ever ever ever ever give anyone u dont know in real life access to the corp hangar or item storages.

 

[taB]

theres only one advice u need really. never ever ever ever ever give anyone u dont know in real life access to the corp hangar or item storages.

Heh, you sure about that mate, even that's backfired on people in the past!

 

[Gamah]

theres only one advice u need really. never ever ever ever ever give anyone u dont know in real life access to the corp hangar or item storages.

Thats not fair tbh, I have access to my corp hangers and I would never rip the guy off that gave them too me, he's given me like 200mill isk and ships etc i have the upmost respect.

 

[LordjOX]

theres only one advice u need really. never ever ever ever ever give anyone u dont know in real life access to the corp hangar or item storages.

Not really a problem, usually corp hangars don't contain much valuable stuff. Mostly t1 modules or good named ones, but no faction etc where the cash really is. Hell, in 0.0 you'll leave your ship inside the POS shield so anyone with the skills can just take your ship. You just have to trust your shipmates on that. I've a hurricane, 2 ravens and an occator (200m w/ fittings) parked in space and not yet had a theft, but some day it will come I guess..

 

[Sharkith]

heh! nice to see your playing in Eve Gamah!

There have been classic examples of theft in Eve - everyone knows about them but those events are the exception rather than the rule.

LordjOX is right the vast majority of people can be trusted and whilst there are a few out there looking to rip people off (and lets be fair its part of the game) you can take enough precautions to protect yourself from them.

Anyway thats not the main concern of the thread. Inevitably getting organised is more complex as you guys have pointed out. So in the first few weeks we have had to differentiatie not according to groups of players (that will come) but to focus on organising according to function. So access to corp hangars is based on slot and ships and we have restricted access for BPC's. Most of the stuff in the corp hangar is tech one loot for players and provision to provide basic ships.

The ships thing proved interesting - we had to secure the BPO's and BPC's of course and then hit the brick wall of not having any minerals. So like you said we are working out how to sort out the supply chain.

It is good fun and the organisation is quite hard to sort out. Especially with mostly new players on board. So for example the Hangar divisions are not he same as wallet divisions, and social divisions will also be quite different. In short the early ideas I outlined earlier are in some ways much too simplistic. So I transferred my trading alt onto my main account and started a mining alt.

The problem however is how to build the ethos you want for the corp?

Thats the bit that is going to take a lot longer than I had thought at the outset.

Sharkith

p.s. look me up on Natasha Donnan sometime if your about.

 

[LordjOX]

Well tbh. If I was to start a new corp it would be a pirate one. IMO that's really where the freedom in EVE is, go where you want, shoot and take what you want (from others of course). But keeping a pirate code of conduct, like ransoming all targets then blow them up if they don't comply. The juiciest targets and the most resistance are in 0.0 however so might be some hassle getting in and out alive with booty, but it's doable I guess.
My experience of merc corps in empire is that some corp contracts a war vs some miner corp. And then you play the dock-undock game for a few weeks... bloody boring. People in empire avoid fighting if they can, especially those that aren't the aggressors.

I'm Uncarian in game, if anyone wants a chat, convo me

 

[joyce]

Corp Structure
"btw english not my native lang".

Well I been running corps in some years and I would say:

one man rules the rest are slaves are the best corp structure
in IRL and in EvE, less hazzel.

I would if having a corp who are more then 100-600 structure the corp
into PVP group ( each group not more then 10 people and a commander for each of those ) a corps most vital assets are the Miners (just a note)
Miner groups each group 20 and a miner commander then add more groups on both miners and the pvp group.

Here is a vital thing set up rules strict rules.

Miners mine, PVP fights never allow some stupid smuck" whine that miners dont come and fight and versus.

" that whining or statment of attidude will kill our corp faster then any hostile corp can ever do"

its realy simple to set up a corp and whois doing what today in eve with splited wallets and security cans /storage with logs.

flat operations can be made but then you need to "trust more people" becouse then you give more people more access. O sorry to say this knowing who stole your stuff is one thing but wont get it back to you in EVE the hard space

need more precis help how to make the corp make a mail