Unlimited moneys, bots, modules and ammo for premium users. +100500 for PVP-server.

+1 to additional sources of kernals and/or RP

The old way was to grind beacons.
Beacons are nerfed so:
+More/Better loot on TAPs
+More/Better loot on NPCs in general, or certain spawns (rare/caravans/reds)
+Provide new ways to get RP

I see so many new players see the industry system, get excited, and then crushed when they realize the kernal grind is hopelessly long, and involves them skilling into high-end PVE combat to do it.
Even with the corp research tree, they still want to bonuses.  This gives indy players a goal to work towards, but at this moment in time its not a goal, but an impossibility for many.

And to add to Rugerx's solution and make it easy to see an implementation: put kernals in the syndicate store!
Tokens->kernals.  Maybe even just NIC; there is your nic sink! Boom inflation problem solved.

I do like the daily assignments more, because this draws players back to the game with regularity, and rate-limits the kernals one could earn over time, so its not easy to just drop 10bil nic and have your research done.

how do player farm kernels these days?
is it still macro grind that makes you bot explode either when your attention fails because you fell asleep from repeating the very same click order over more then an hour, or when your advanced screen-capture supported macro fails because of a random event?

i mean, how does it compare to the even more boring and simplified NIC-printing industrial (harvesting) missions on beta? (how many cycles is it these days for a symbiont to finish a lvl6 mission? 1 or 2?)

I would really like to get back into the game,
but at this moment, all the PvE content is on the level of the "Sandbox testing mode" of any game, that lets you spawn targets on demand

One problem is that in last years almost everything is given to player in plenty compared to the years before. Kernels are one of the items that remained in shortage. This game was never meant for a single player to solo make self + corp research. Given the current player base it feels as if this would be necessary, but in fact there should something remaining bringing player to act together.

And Anni you can macro everything if you like and need. Eg. leveling in WOW from zero to max including doing all necessary quests for items. But in Perpetuum I hope nobody is using that high sophisticated macros that perform every task full automatic. And if the only reason is that the player base is not large enough to sell macros that require a man year or more in development, I'm fine playing a small niche game with players and ignore those using macros as far as possible.

Daily EPs
Daily RPs
Daily NICs
Daily Resources
Daily Robots
Dailiy Stuff
Daily whatever

No. Just no. Play the game, you lazy %#$%#

I would, but farming kernels is hardly a playing. I can't even call it PvE - just standing and clicking(can we replace it with tetris at least?)...
And it's an illogical scheme, because crafters are usually the type of players which prefers to use their brains in game, not just their ass-hours with 0 real effort...
Even if it'll require 5 years of logging in/booster to research all tree passively, it'll be incredibly cool...

No, suffer. After all, that's what the MMOs are about.

But seriously, you either do something or find someone who will do that for you.