When a friend of mine joins, is there a way to make him get a res next to mine? There are derelict res next to mine, I could get him the IDs. Can he request or exchange the default res he is assigned?
Your friend may /res unclaim the residence that he has (I can't recall if residences still automatically claim upon completion of the tutorial) and then /res forceclaim any derelict res next to yours for free (if it's not free he can claim it back via pmss.emc.gs) for a brief time. Or to speed up the process you can contact a Senior Staff member (light green) and they can do it for him.
Once one finishes the tutorial they get assigned a res automatically. They will need to wait 1hr before they can unclaim. At least in the all tutorial people were taught how to claim a res. Also when your friend join make sure they join the same smp as you by directly connecting to the smp. smp#.empire.us There is other links but i don't know them. If he doesn't have his first res on the same smp as you he will have to wait a further 1hr as the system will forceclaim and assign him another res when they move to the same smp as yourself, which he will have the unclaim again.
I do believe that the one hour wait is after the first unclaim and claim. So a new player should be able to /res unclaim the auto-claimed res and then /claim (or forceclaim) a new res right away. After that any further unclaim and then claim will require the hour cooldown between.