Who is going to spend 60K+ FP to save a few days (5-15) in AF and OF research? It does not directly affect how long it takes to get through the space ages as at that point it only helps with obtaining the special good from the previous ages. I keep reading that it's folks who don't prep. Isn't standing up a GB and investing 60K+ FP in it part of prepping? Again, I ask where is this target audience? Are these players already swimming in daily FP or are they going to sit still and prep? New players who want to get through as fast as they can are going to prep and spend 30+ days to build up a GB to save a week or two through AF and OF? How is this saving any time? Yes, it stops moving through other ages because FP is needed for all ages, so it is a hard stop for x amount of time. This is solving for a non-existent problem by increasing the overall time to complete all steps to be happy about finishing two ages a bit faster after opening the research, than we who went through prior to the GB? For most of these players they may even take longer than we did because getting through the ages isn't important enough to prep for to begin with so this levels no playing field. Again I ask, where is the niche? Who does this benefit?
I don't know who's saying it's for those "who don't prep" - I've said it's for those who haven't been camped for ages a long while for one reason or another. But currently AF+OF the only prep is to be ready to speed-level carrier once after you're in them to get all the bonus collections. And my experience with that is that while it helps it still comes up short in OF of what I'd hoped. This provides an additional way to prep to do it faster. If that's what you want.
If you have an Arc80+, a few GbG reward buildings, and an Obs you are already providing more goods to your guild than they will spend on GE and an average GbG season. That makes this GB's guild good's assistance minor at best. In 24 squares I can provide 160 guild goods, obtain 1,448 guild points, 14FP, and 729,280 coins every day from 2 SoHs... just by being active in GbG for a few seasons (or less). The AI core has to be L78 before it gets up to the guild goods of these 2 SAV SoHs and it provides none of the other benefits and uses one more square. Of course, now, the Great Elephant is even better. So, why would anyone plant this for guild goods?
It really depends on the guild. If the guild's not so big but is involved in the 4-hour flip farming, they may have a need for more goods. Usually yes in some specific age where their members aren't as up to par as others. In such a situation one might hope the guild would help subsidize those AI cores they really want to exist.
The larger the guild gets, the less necessary it becomes because they're blocked by the same 4 hour lockout between spending anyways and have more people to fund it.
And you're comparing the statues to the AI core wrong : the non-GB when they say 80 guild goods mean 80 goods. GB when they say 80 guild goods mean 80*5 = 400 goods (80 of each). Because of its massive footprint the comparison between Atomium and GBG buildings wasn't so rosy (it takes the space of ~4 of em), but AI core is more moderate space-wise. And as for the cost to level "it's only FP" - personally I have > 150k FP banked on a couple worlds for no other reason than I'm too lazy to spend it on something.
Which doesn't mean I have any plan to build it anywhere, or that I thought the bonuses were perfect the way they're at (I had suggested at least removing the charge count on the boost so that it could work decently with synthesizers for people powering through space ages as fast as possible without saving one age's ore up for the next one in advance). But even as is, it does have a niche. It's just not my niche atm. I could imagine situations I'd want it though.