I wondered how many expansions ahead you have to be on a TLP server in order to be able to do the research combines. i had always been told two to three and yet I am on Mangler server which is presently on Dragons of Norrath expansion and yet I am unable to craft research combines from Planes of Power. Please tell me how this works.
it works by hocus-pocus -- it is very flawed.... there are some spells you can make before and some that you have to wait a long time for the items to drop to make it. Also, a lot of the data out there on combines is pretty bad...
For the most part, in the mid to late expansions, you can research them the same time they show up on the PoK vendors. That's by design, they deliberately made research obsolete and useless.
PoP -> ?? some mid-late expansion you can buy them in PoK BEFORE you can make them and then when you can make them, they cost way more to craft than just buy. Very Disappointing, at least the rk IIs should be craftable or something TSS+.
I talked to this person in game today and they were trying to make a PoP cleric spell. It seemed like it was right and with Mangler being in DoN, it seems like it should combine. I wonder if the off by three rule is broken and no one ever noticed because everyone gives up on research, heh.
Because about five years ago they very deliberately changed the research skill to where it would no longer effectively do anything outside the first 3-4 eras. The only thing it is good for now, once you are past pop, is making a*aa's for cultural raid gear. The mechanoinstructions that is.
It was a time when they had one guy doing tradeskills and I think he was just overwhelmed. They hadn't really come up with anything new for research in years, so I think they just decided to cut back and make it obsolete completely. But no, they never gave a reason.
As others say Research is inconsistent, likely due to there being multiple different people in charge of the part of EQ that it comes under on the dev team or there being different criteria applied to the system in each era or even expansion. So what you can make & when you can make it changes as you move through the expansions on a TLP server.. It does become an actual useful & desirable trade to have a high level of skill in during the later era of the game but you can largely ignore it until the 85+ era.
I messaged a dev about it about a year ago and the reason they gave was that the team wanted spells to be acquired via raids, quests, mob drops and not via TS which is why they added other things for researchers to do (ie: mechanoinstructions), seemed kind of a weak excuse to me since the mats to make spells "in era" are usually super rare anyways allowing them to be crafted would just be a bonus. 2% chance you get the exact spell you want or 2% chance you can make an *attempt* at the exact spell you want if you put in the effort to level research.