The one thing I would like to point out.

While stEVE may have different ratio of stations etc. Not all stations have all services.

In Perpetuum you have every service at every terminal or outpost but they have different levels of efficiency.

If they made the terminals and outpost void of specific services then maybe, and that is maybe we would have a need for more terminals and outposts per island in Perpetuum.

Also, you bring up a good point about better missions/agents or as you put it more complex.

A lot of times these better agents in stEVE helped form market hubs and this doesn't happen in Perpetuum at this point.

A combo of specific agents offering good mission and rewards, along with specific station services in the system and adjactent systems help form the smaller markets and hubs or micro markets as you put it.

Just IMO.

The point on station services is important, other than efficiency, you don't have to leave station tomdo everything. I would like ore terminals, but to differentiate them into small / med / large.

Small would have 2 services available, one at level 3 and one at level 2, medium would be 4 evenly split and large as they are now. Wilst you could still effectively manage with a large station, using the others would max your efficiency and mean more moving between terminals = more opportunity for PvP.

My other gripe is still that it is too easy to get stuff, alpha hubs just aren't far enough away to make a difference. Can't find what you need? Simple, jump in appropriate bot with lwf and you are 10 mins away from main hubs. If we want beta islands to be the equivalent of midsec in stEVE then we need a ring of gamma islands with very little standing infrastructure and POS. That's when markets will really develop when its a 40-60 min round trip back to the hubs.

sure, splitting up the current outposts into several de-centralized facilities, where each building only has ONE use would be a fine thing - image the "city" around the alpha terminals would actually be the different facilities that currently are all combined in that one building.

it would change the gameplay a little bit towards normal mmo, where you go to the weapons-smith for crafting, then carry it over to the trading post, etc...

but around beta island outposts it would cause more transporting -> and with more SAP's the ownership of the different facilites could make a difference (you own it -> its a rank higher then if you dont own it)

But somehow then i would love to have those station interface on terrain, or without that docking timer.

Even if we have a low population of players we have to think more players will eventually come in to play.

To have more stations even if its limited in services or none at all could add different ways to play the game after all it's a sandbox.

I hear new players/mission runners complaining about missions being to far out the outpost to long journey times to finally reach NPCs, same for mining some ore spots as just too far out of the stations 4-5kms by the time you setup up scanned area changed to mining bot 45minutes has easily gone by.

Compared to stEVE, get out of station with mining bot warp a few times to look for a good place and you are all set, same for PVE.

Players should be left to do whatever they like most, not forced to run back and forth for 15-45mins before they can finally start what they logged in to do.

I find that the omni present stations in Eve are a weakness in the game. Station also represent safe havens and have a negative impact on PVP. If there is a station around every corner it will be very easy to avoid small roaming gangs. The only PVP that will occur will be the massive intrusions.

From the perspective of a PVEer I agree with the fact that getting around feels like a job. Stations closer to missions could help with this issue, but it’s not the only solution.

i really wonder where you find more "outposts" on the new "alpha" islands. theres only a single terminal on each one.

that all islands contain npc robots of all factions is IMHO one of the issues. in early beta i had to go to a green island to farm green bots, and go back to a blue island to buy ammo for my EM guns. Now, i can find a spawn of each color just around the terminal

There is a reason that three pvp islands created three main powerblocs in the first few months of the game. If there had been two islands, two powerblocs would have been created.

A single island is the default self-sufficient political unit because it's defendable and scoutable, assuming you have sufficient active players. You cannot have competing corps actively controlling different outposts on the same island...or at least not for long. It's not a sustainable war for anyone, particularly given the lack of benefits outposts provide in comparison to the cost of defending them.

More outposts and less islands will just encourage political centralisation.

If you want to support smaller corps moving out to beta islands, you need to add more islands with single outposts.

I disagree. POS's and POS warfare were the biggest mistake EVE made. They led to the introduction of Caps, Super Caps and Titans. What used to be a fun game, turned into Capital ship blob online! It sucks. Please think things through Devs, before you ever add anything like this.