IMO it's good the way it is. If you'd decrease the ep cost for these people would think they are ready too early. It takes a long time to be able to properly pilot and fit a heavy. The needed ep keeps noobs from failfitting, blowing up, then ragequitting.

And to shorten the time it takes to get to "endgame" or whatever you wanna call it is not the way to go about attracting new players. It should take long and it should be rewarding. This is not a downside unless you have adhd and need to be entertained with new shinies every two hours. But then the game is not for you anway.

if this game had content geared toward smaller bots i would agree but the combat numbers just don't support it was not designed to support it.

bigger is better why pilot an assult when a mech has base armor over what an assult with plates has?

assults are just as easy to hit as mech even another mech can hit an assult with little trouble and do massive dmg when they do  it.  which makes driveing them pointless get into the bigger bot as soon as you can. more defence more firepower

then work on support skills to be honest there realy needs to be one more robot between mech and assult or between mech and heavy ie the battlecruiser size robot.

i say need a new bot cause the mech class are very flawed I drive pestial I have not had to fit a turret since noob ship I did not train for them yet the mech only has 4 launchers and 2 turrets. the turrets are wasted cause have no skill at least the gropho goes back to all launchers 6 launchers vs 4  is a huge dmg boost given the insane respawn time on npc all the extra dmg ya can do is vital.

but compareing this to eve is not a bad thing the skill system half the ui and many many other things come stragith from that game with new twists. its based off of that game they need to base the skill progression mroe like it as well because it works eve is very succussfull because when you start it you at least feel like your makeing progress are you the best at the ships you can fly no but you can fly them.

new players are not going to jump right into pvp anyway there going to look for pve content. but sadly how long can you truely be entertained droping out of station running 1km killing same t1 drones maybe a week if yoru lucky

I have been playing almost a month now on the two acconts now and best i have killed is t2 the incomeing dmg is just way to massive and the respawn rate is way to high to even attempt anything higher

In retort..... This game an assault can effectively farm a lvl 3 mob with minimal skills and a Mech with minimal or assault with med skills can effectively farm a lvl 4 mob spawn.... That being said try and run a lvl 4 mission in your T1 fit battleship in eve and let me know if its not frustrating... your comparison is jaded to the fact that you can't just fly a BS in eve in 7 days and effectively do crap.... This game you can effectively be in a Mech which i would compare to a BS in EVE not sure where you point was here.

This isn't steve, so making a side by side comparison of how long it takes to pilot whatever is really a moot point. Im sure the dev's here have their own agenda and as much as this game is like steve, it doesn't need to emulate it 100%. Sure, it takes a month to pilot a Heavy, but so what? A month to be in the biggest bot in the game is not exactly terrible. Sure, you probably wont be able to pilot it well even then without support skills, but you really shouldn't. There needs to be a stepping path towards endgame, not just instant light to heavy. Like in any MMO, reaching the end game is only a fraction of the challenge. What's really important is how you gear and skill up once you get there. As in typical levelling MMO's like WoW, just because you're level capped doesn't mean you can compete with other people capped. The ones that spend time on getting proper equipment and specs will be the ones that flourish.

Learn how to use your bots, class by class. Figure out what they're good for. Implying you need to be in heavy's fast, else you'd  probably quit, isn't exactly a fine point to debate. I've farmed 5 bot t3/t2 assault spawns in a light. I've even taken down mech spawns with no real challenge in an assault. If you're leaning more-so to PvP though, well, don't expect to compete with other heavy's without a good time investment. If other players invest time in to their char, so can you. There's always going to be someone better than you, so trying to speed up the process is a moot point that the dev's control. If they want you in end game bots at the current rate, then that's how it is. If you think it takes too long, you missed the boat. Others followed the same rules and to me it sounds more like you just want an easier way to catch up. Sorry if that sounds snarky, but really, it's fine as is. Be patient, build up your resources and eventually you'll be where you want to be just like the rest of us.

Much like Eve, you kinda need to let your character marinate for a month or two before you can do much beyond killing a Light Bot spawn or missions.

To me, there seems to be a large skill jump between Light Bot spawns and Light Bot + Ewar spawn because the Drainers/Neuters are vastly powerful vs. anything smaller than a Mech.

every bot i've ever lost to npcs was because of demobs/neuts/drainers in that order .. they are wicked .. and as arga points out it's all about range and lock time.  you lock first fire a couple volleys pull back break their lock without breaking yours rush in fire again repeat and you're not getting hit much or even at all.  with greens it can be even easier.  find some impassable terrain for them and sit just behind the lip of a hill and rain down on them; although i still think missile trajectory should be higher, especially on smalls and maybe a bit faster to compensate.

not realy haveing touble killing now that i am in a mech am doing pretty well even killing t4 now just needed to get sismic 7 to be able to hit them.

the training time would be fine if each bot had there own role and content but sadly they don't 90% of the spawns are just hordes of fast spawning light bots few have 1 or 2 mechs not going to say all are like this as i found whole spawns of mechs on the new islands

but  even the starting content is diffucult for a new player i am almost month in and just getting to point in ep were i can handle spawns

maybe its me but a new player can't kill 5 lights in under 30 seconds and most of the mission spawns are on around 30 second spawn timer which leaves the new guy out there always fighting 5 or more bots at once all the time if the game were more popular and there were more new players out there wouldt be a problem as would be people to group with or more then likely somebody else at the spawn  but the fact is there realy isn't that many of us new guys

most that I started with have already quit due to fact they either lost there bots to the insane spawn rate lack of varity of missions or they actualy did the grind to level 2 pulled there first mission ran out lost there bot cause they got dem on them could't get away as tactics do nothin against ew could put a planet in the way and they can still hit ya. so they  quit.

I know assults can do these things i need a mech to do but everyone i have seen do them in asslut have lost there bots many times or they have a heck of alot more ep then me I know from my years in eve you can do alot with a smaller ship if you have the skills to back it up.

as for folks telling me i should drive yellow i would love to try yellow but I already pay for two accounts sadly my combat went green cause at that time green seemed to be more fun I made mistakes bought alot of skills that weren't needed so had to use my reset now its 20% pen only lose 10k ep but 10k is alot when you only have 50k so its green or bust lol.

so all and all till i got the skills i have now i spent a week driveing a mech with small mods just to have the edge but after much thought I would say it would be no problem waiting a month if was actualy more content geared for small bots  but to be honest pve content is lacking at any level in this game at the moment have high hopes for the future tho. maybe someday will see them remove presison and sesimic skill and actualy make useing a small bot in pvp worth while.

I know one of my fav roles in eve was to fly my assult ship circles around a battleship while they tried to hit me with thos big guns and miss try that here and your just a container waiting to be looted.

either way thanks for all the tips some of them I have put into practice and they are working well.

You do not appear to be using both accounts. Your second account should be useing Energy transder and Remote Sensor Boosters to help your shooting character.
With a single account shooting and running away is needed, but with 2 accounts you can also tank most spawns.

"pve content is lacking at any level in this game"
The PvE that you have been able to do without dieing may be limited, but there are many types of spawns (ECM, demob, neuts ...), learning to defeat each type is something you have yet to master.

the funny fact - three month ago there was whining about "how useless mechs and heavy mechs are compared to lights and assaults", and that the game is so focused around crawler bots.

now the general statement is "assaults are useless for anything but farming lower npc spawns"

tbh, i'm fully laser specced atm, with a single level in light missile skill just to be able to equip a small launcher with smite missiles - but i am planning to raise a few more universal extensions and then going for a green assault bot. I like to use missiles from time to time, and it will take me 30 days to bring me back into an effective waspish

Everyone must be playing and having fun! Not much chatter here in the forums

with the tips here I have been able to improve my combat alot so thanks to all thos who posted tips and tricks

I do still find that the spawn rate is bit excessive and unrealistic maybe I am spoiled from all the years in eve pull a mission go out to my own little pocket either by myself or with couple friends on a level 5

pull and kill but it was more like a mission when they died they did't come back at least not for few hours.

as for green bots I am in agreement there not that great ya i do pack a pretty good punch with 4 med launchers I can take down a t2 yellow light bot in 2 to 3 cycles prob is thos cycles are 10seconds long lol

watched a friend yesterday hit a t2 blue camp with his artermes or how ever its spelled and he shreded them couse he has couple weeks of ep on me but the diffrence in dmg output vs dmg income was very noticable

makes me wish i had't burend my reset as now would lose 10k ep to switch.

Im into yellow bots a couple of month now, and if i go into a blue spawn, together with a corpmate and his blue mech - often he has the better DPS against them, but has much more problems to keep his accumulator up. If I bring the wrong ammo with me, it gets even worse.
DPS wise we are almost even against blue, where i should have the advantage, but if the target has a thermal hardener, that advantage is nullified. Main difference there is the ammo costs -> i'll burn through several thousands of Laser cells, where he has only consumed half the numbers in slugs.

about your 10s cycle on medium missile launcher -> it sounds like your using only alpha strikes to farm npcs. In RTS games strategy topics this is called "overkill". Missiles and EM-Guns do great burst damage, but having a long cycletime. fire one weapon after the other and you will do less overkill and those 10s cycle are down to 2,5s.

theres also another advantage of missiles while farming npcs - you lock target 1, manuall trigger one launcher after the other while target 2 and 3 already in locking-progress.
When you see that the last fired missile will kill target 1, you primary target 2 and next missiles will continue fire on that one - only those which had already missile in air will start the cooldown.

If you try that with turrets (instant-hit-weapons) you wont get very far with it.

Missile bots are perfect for long-term npc farming for the combined advantages of:
- locktime bonus on many robots, which means only one sensor amp = more tunings
- accumulator recharge bonus. something you never have to care about - akkumulator
- high damage per shot = less ammo consumption = economical
- Arc-of-Sight = less shots into hills
- described weapon cooldown workaround = same

especially the constant long-range-dps over hills is their major advantage in pvp battles, and you can switch ON TERRAIN from long range to short range weapon.