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Re: Alpha vs Beta balancing?

Syndic wrote:

Don't get me wrong, I completely understand what you're saying. Yes, I view Beta-access as granted because my corp has been fighting & holding land on Beta since we came in-game and joined Vindictive alliance.

But you need to on the other hand, understand the point where I'm coming from; CIR has spent the better part of the last 6 months tweaking and fine-tuning every point of our internal corp industry in order to match up to M2S. Now, we know what happened with that so no need to go there; but what I'm saying is that because of this, our industrial production quite easily outputs in 48 hours what most other corps output in 2-3 weeks.

I've tried it all, believe me. I've personally gone to every Alpha-corp I could get my hands on, offered them a carte-blanche guarantee that we'd buy everything they could mine up. We did, and all of those Alpha corps couldn't mine up enough to cover a quarter of our production at the time.

Therefore, it is infinitely easier for us to mine it up ourselves with 5-10 guys doing it in shifts with 20-30 accounts mining, have the simpler commodities refined on Alpha & hauled into production and/or moved into local production of non-essentials. The market, and all Alpha corps, quite simply do not possess the mining capacity to supply our production with Alpha-ores.

For example, after the assault-patch we separated an inactive factory account that is maxxed out, mined up the resources and set 30 lines burning. Today we have DEVs posting how assaults will be made less uber - that still means we're going to end up having to rip out the CT's or burn them out. 300 assaults from 30 lines, in a few days. Where are the Alpha corps that can supply me with the resources for that, nevermind the materials to produce fittings for those bots?

It probably is a waste of time to mine on Alpha, but again you need to understand - we have been sitting every day, 8-12 hours, on Novastrov mining with anywhere between 15-30 rivelers in full T4 fits & T4 Nexus support for a long time. There just AREN'T that many ore fields left that are rich enough to warrant exploiting them on an industrial level. Nobody is roaming us since M2S got wiped, and nobody roamed us except M2S before they got wiped.

300 assaults... That's about 100 mil nic worth of resources. Another 150-200 m to t4 them. You're saying 250-300 m worth of resources each 2-3 days is very huge amount for corp which, according to you, can mine with 20+ rivelers uninterupted 8-12 hours a day? Is it the case like of Smokey bragging about his mk2 riveler who appears to have same cycle time and just about 20% better yield as my miner if I'd put him in t1 termis without the nexuses? It's not even funny to read nonsences like that anymore.

On topic of "waaagh gimme moar": Congrats. You created a blob and now you are crying that nobody can supply minerals your zerg needs or is able to mine on one beta island themselves. Maybe, just as I mentioned before, you should start changing things from yourself. Brave Sir "nobody roams us". Why would anyone who is not in equvalent zerg roam you? When we go to Nov 2 things happen - A) you get outnumbered 3:1, B) nobody is there or people stand under outpost in plated mechs if they can't achieve number "balance" in A. Somehow other corps are doing fine, be it alpha or beta mine. They don't need more. Maybe, just maybe, because they are not overblobing?


I still dont see a reason to use Beta for mining non-Epriton materials, the risk vs reward - theorycrafting-wise - is so off-balanced that its more sensible to mine them on Alpha.

Wait a moment... You've just talked about 20+ CIR rivelers mining 12 hours a day on beta without interuptions because nobody ever roams you. Now you talk about lack of reward on beta because of taking some kinda risk. Contradicting yourself much, brosef?


I'd actually pay more attention to what you posted if you "elite PVPers" didn't completely stop roaming of any kind since the "incident". It's refreshing to see what a little bit of honest mining will do to develop respect for the T4 you scoffed at and threw away like candy before.

Keep repeating that just like you already do over and over and over again. Maybe somebody will start believing it. Maybe if you sticked your nose out of your blob and alpha mining a bit more often you'd meet some of us, just like F-Navy, Foom, TOG and numerous other corps do everyday.


TLDR: No, your blob shouldn't be rewarded more. Resources on betas are already plentiful be it minerals, npcs, artifact scans or assignment running. If you don't use it properly or simply over-use, it doesn't mean something in the game needs fixing.

27 Reply by Lemon (edited by Lemon 2011-06-21 01:55:56)

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Re: Alpha vs Beta balancing?

@Saha

You speak of a zerg, a zerg is a never ending hoard of opponents who out number you and simply rush with mass and continue rushing with zero skill. Here is a example so you may better troll in the future:

http://i1022.photobucket.com/albums/af3 … Edited.png
http://i1022.photobucket.com/albums/af3 … /Zerg2.png

You speak of no one roaming us due to our numbers? no there numbers are inferior due to being beat in to obedience. Case and point.... The graveyard that which is Syndics signature.

Plated mechs... you let such things stop you? Arn't you supposed to be "M2S", oh wait i forgot.... you bark form alpha now.

As for being on beta we seek a reward or reason to drive players to live in such a dangerous  place, as we on the great nova island have experienced. We do not have any pvp to entice us so we ask for something to quench our parched throats.

May you go Troll else where my friend as you have failed once again.

Undefeated 2013
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28 Reply by Mara Kaid (edited by Mara Kaid 2011-06-21 02:37:45)

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Re: Alpha vs Beta balancing?

Lemon wrote:

@Saha

Actually saha brings a lot of good points to the forefront. Good stuff saha excellent point about the mining bit. Indeed, why ask for more when you can mine in safety 12+ hours a day. There's a balance, and when you're saying beta is boring, it likely means more corps should be on beta.

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Re: Alpha vs Beta balancing?

Saha wrote:

300 assaults... That's about 100 mil nic worth of resources. Another 150-200 m to t4 them. You're saying 250-300 m worth of resources each 2-3 days is very huge amount for corp which, according to you, can mine with 20+ rivelers uninterupted 8-12 hours a day? Is it the case like of Smokey bragging about his mk2 riveler who appears to have same cycle time and just about 20% better yield as my miner if I'd put him in t1 termis without the nexuses? It's not even funny to read nonsences like that anymore.

On topic of "waaagh gimme moar": Congrats. You created a blob and now you are crying that nobody can supply minerals your zerg needs or is able to mine on one beta island themselves. Maybe, just as I mentioned before, you should start changing things from yourself. Brave Sir "nobody roams us". Why would anyone who is not in equvalent zerg roam you? When we go to Nov 2 things happen - A) you get outnumbered 3:1, B) nobody is there or people stand under outpost in plated mechs if they can't achieve number "balance" in A. Somehow other corps are doing fine, be it alpha or beta mine. They don't need more. Maybe, just maybe, because they are not overblobing?

Again you are not reading with simple comprehension. I stated that our corp activated a previously not used factory account, in order to quickly and efficiently mass-produce 30 lines of assaults. It's obvious that there are other accounts whose lines are busy mass-producing the normal mech/heavy mech/medium fits normally used, aside from the brief flash of FOTM from the assaults.

And again, not reading with comprehension or I'm coming across wrong - I quite simply don't care if we get PVP, or if we get roamed. It is irrelevant. What I do moderately care about, is people building up a fable on the forums about "epic Beta lockdowns and dangerous living on Beta" when it couldn't be further from the truth.

As previously stated, we strive for 14:1 odds in our favor. Minimum. Because we're crap at PVP and need to buff up our numbers to have a chance at killing all these elite PVPers. lol

Saha wrote:

I still dont see a reason to use Beta for mining non-Epriton materials, the risk vs reward - theorycrafting-wise - is so off-balanced that its more sensible to mine them on Alpha.

Wait a moment... You've just talked about 20+ CIR rivelers mining 12 hours a day on beta without interuptions because nobody ever roams you. Now you talk about lack of reward on beta because of taking some kinda risk. Contradicting yourself much, brosef?

I even bolded & underlined it for you so you wouldn't have so much trouble reading simple english.

Saha wrote:

Keep repeating that just like you already do over and over and over again. Maybe somebody will start believing it. Maybe if you sticked your nose out of your blob and alpha mining a bit more often you'd meet some of us, just like F-Navy, Foom, TOG and numerous other corps do everyday.

TLDR: No, your blob shouldn't be rewarded more. Resources on betas are already plentiful be it minerals, npcs, artifact scans or assignment running. If you don't use it properly or simply over-use, it doesn't mean something in the game needs fixing.

If I don't see you because we're a blob, thats a shame.

Its not about rewarding blobs or not rewarding blobs, being able to mine in one spot on Alpha for 10-15 hours a day is not balanced. The new Alpha islands are not, by any means, balanced. The amount of ore on them has no risk, for all the reward. And if that wasn't enough, now they got a nice amount of plants added so you can harvest and mine it all in the same place. Balanced. Not. lol

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Re: Alpha vs Beta balancing?

  • Beta islands have very little reward over alpha islands.

  • Alpha islands are not designed with the players who are meant to be there in mind.

  • This game cannot support all out war which can easily happen once you reach the beta islands. This makes all fights a war of attrition (Having more stuff than the enemy has)

  • Even with outpost changes there is very little reason to own one other than to be able to make things a little cheaper or faster

Alpha islands make sense but beta islands cannot be locked down without a considerably large show of force at all times or a large amount of scouting alts. Give outposts a radar which was suggested when the game was still in closed beta. There is no need for a nexus but a radar (Destroyable by a forward assault squad) that shows a 5km around around the outpost would make sense. The outpost could have 250 detection which is shared with everyone in the owning corporations. This would mean that NAPs would either need very tight communication (Not always possible) or would break down with out member owning their own outpost. There is no reason to own more than one outpost but if owning 2 or 3 would allow you to cover an island with a radar field to see incoming enemies there would be a very nice reward for owning an outpost. It would mean that raiders get less kills (Which is already a rather depressingly small amount) but it would also mean more people would go to beta islands and expand there while also defending their territory.

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Re: Alpha vs Beta balancing?

Alexander wrote:

  • Beta islands have very little reward over alpha islands.

  • Alpha islands are not designed with the players who are meant to be there in mind.

  • This game cannot support all out war which can easily happen once you reach the beta islands. This makes all fights a war of attrition (Having more stuff than the enemy has)

  • Even with outpost changes there is very little reason to own one other than to be able to make things a little cheaper or faster

Alpha islands make sense but beta islands cannot be locked down without a considerably large show of force at all times or a large amount of scouting alts. Give outposts a radar which was suggested when the game was still in closed beta. There is no need for a nexus but a radar (Destroyable by a forward assault squad) that shows a 5km around around the outpost would make sense. The outpost could have 250 detection which is shared with everyone in the owning corporations. This would mean that NAPs would either need very tight communication (Not always possible) or would break down with out member owning their own outpost. There is no reason to own more than one outpost but if owning 2 or 3 would allow you to cover an island with a radar field to see incoming enemies there would be a very nice reward for owning an outpost. It would mean that raiders get less kills (Which is already a rather depressingly small amount) but it would also mean more people would go to beta islands and expand there while also defending their territory.

I agree. IMO this might help get more corps interested in owning an OP.

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Re: Alpha vs Beta balancing?

Radars are good, but will they help at all? Even with them it will still be safer to mine at alphas - guarding a caravans hauling stuff a bit easier than guarding miners all time they mine. Increasing amount of roaming npcs? yes, but doesn't it makes alpha corps mining harder?

I believe there should be something very special and different to make beta islands more preferrable to live in.

Have a productive day, runner!
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Re: Alpha vs Beta balancing?

Imo drag ppl out of alphas,
Make them only for newb assignements and nerf yields like was done on old alphas; no sure if removing titanium form Betas had the effect that was pretended, as Alexander pointed we have undepopulated game or over productive planet.
New materials only in beta could help also, but production its alrdy quite complex so no sure if that would be best choice.
Other way, and might be the one Dev´s have choosen; its to allow Alpha Corps to make their cash and wealth there, to a point they wont fear any more the dangers of Beta and will venture there without risking all their wealth, at their own pace. And that will bring more competence over Beta territories at some point too; why? obviuslly its much more proffitable; less eforts to have same result = more time to burn some lasers.

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Re: Alpha vs Beta balancing?

What about some special module that grants syndicate protection on user so he can't shoot or be shooted by other players? Or kinda pvp flag on alphas. Such thing should be permanent unless you turn it off (unfit). After that - welcome to the painful world!

Such thing will allow alpha corps to do whatever they like on betas (actually, there will be no safe zones anymore), and when they feel they're ready - they can join pvp competition. Alphas will be no more safest places to mine, that will force ppl to use theyr betas more. With radars on outposts that will be even better.

Such protected people can have some restrictions in something - to stimulate them turning protection off.

This idea has been taken from Neocron world - runners there have special implant right from the start - Law Enforcer. It fits one brain slot so you can't use it for any other implants, and it can be putted back in while your level is lesser than 30.

Have a productive day, runner!
R.I.P. Chenoa, you'll never be forgotten.
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35 Reply by Mara Kaid (edited by Mara Kaid 2011-06-21 17:05:12)

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Re: Alpha vs Beta balancing?

Its not about rewarding blobs or not rewarding blobs, being able to mine in one spot on Alpha for 10-15 hours a day is not balanced. The new Alpha islands are not, by any means, balanced. The amount of ore on them has no risk, for all the reward. And if that wasn't enough, now they got a nice amount of plants added so you can harvest and mine it all in the same place. Balanced. Not.

Sorry, but you have a full beta island with all the loot you need, why do you care? Unless you're worried about loosing power?

One good point about the new alpha islands is that they allow smaller corporations to build up resources so they can fight against the ones on beta gathering even more resources. It's clear on beta you guys can have much more resources then the ones on the new alpha islands( ie you have heavy mechs produceable etc ). There does need to be an island that's a stepping stone for corps.

Hopefully with the new energy credit system you'll get another "reward" for living there.


And again to quote, you say that they mine too much on the new alpha, yet you can mine epitron...

SAHA wrote:

Wait a moment... You've just talked about 20+ CIR rivelers mining 12 hours a day on beta without interuptions because nobody ever roams you. Now you talk about lack of reward on beta because of taking some kinda risk.

LoL if you can mine epitron 12+ hours a day and people on alpha are mining devalued minerals in comparison, then why is their an alpha vs beta balancing? Seems to me we're mining undervalues minerals on alpha.

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Re: Alpha vs Beta balancing?

I got a question to the EVE player: if you are the most feared corp out there in space, shooting everyone on sight and having endless support - can you go into protected zones without any threat from the law-enforcers there?

Pirates usually are persuaded by law even if they are not "caught in the act" once they enter a country with law-enforcement. Trading with them usually is risky or forbidden (=blackmarket).

An Outlaw system should be implemented, which removes Syndicate protection and syndicate standings once you gain to much power or if you are working against the syndicates grand plan.

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37 Reply by Orbelea (edited by Orbelea 2011-06-21 18:34:12)

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Re: Alpha vs Beta balancing?

In Eve there is something like 'syndicate standing' which gets negative if you pirate or initiate aggression to other players in pvp space, once it gets too low you will not be able to enter high sec in a ship, here known as alpha islands.

You can always raise this standing in various ways though, and as usual most have a carebear alt to take them stuff to pvp areas .

aka celebro

38 Reply by Mara Kaid (edited by Mara Kaid 2011-06-21 19:37:36)

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Re: Alpha vs Beta balancing?

Annihilator wrote:

An Outlaw system should be implemented, which removes Syndicate protection and syndicate standings once you gain to much power or if you are working against the syndicates grand plan.

That'd be cool, I'm very use to -10 standing, but then that's off topic, and it's more towards griping about having lack of targets because they allied up the server rather then lack of balance.

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Re: Alpha vs Beta balancing?

lol @CIR once again.  Thanks to nefarious activities within M2S and the devs wiping M2S, nothing to do with CIR whatsoever.  You now feel safe to mine all the time and are bored, poor little CIR blobbettes.

Reap what you sow roll

GJ CIR, now stop whining about it and stop trying to get the game changed to "Whats best for CIR" you've stated many times that is all you care about and couldnt give a rats *** about the game itself so once again, mind your halo doesnt slip lol

40 Reply by Saha (edited by Saha 2011-06-22 04:23:56)

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Re: Alpha vs Beta balancing?

Syndic wrote:

Again you are not reading with simple comprehension. I stated that our corp activated a previously not used factory account, in order to quickly and efficiently mass-produce 30 lines of assaults. It's obvious that there are other accounts whose lines are busy mass-producing the normal mech/heavy mech/medium fits normally used, aside from the brief flash of FOTM from the assaults.

Yes. Reading comprehension. t4 fits for assaults as I wrote. How many lines to produce t4 for 300 assaults in 2 days? 1500 t2, t3, t4 weapons to be produced (that's asuming you farmed t1) which is roughly 200 lines only for weapons. Or did you plan to spin those 300 assaults in stations as soon as you saw somebody with more than 2 people on Novastrof?

I even bolded & underlined it for you so you wouldn't have so much trouble reading simple english.

Bolding and underlining doesn't make your theorycrafting statements to not be contradicting each other. Nice try though.

If I don't see you because we're a blob, thats a shame.

Its not about rewarding blobs or not rewarding blobs, being able to mine in one spot on Alpha for 10-15 hours a day is not balanced. The new Alpha islands are not, by any means, balanced. The amount of ore on them has no risk, for all the reward. And if that wasn't enough, now they got a nice amount of plants added so you can harvest and mine it all in the same place. Balanced. Not. lol

Not sure what 10-15 hours on one spot you are talking. Maybe if you mine in an argano. 3-5 of M2S miners manage to strip any Tellesis field in couple hours. Plants balance? 100 Noralgis plants on beta ring any bell? But then again, you have your gf harvesting helio/triandlus in a riveler, so I guess it's a bit moot point to discuss balance.



@Alex: Radars would kill any small scale PvP which the game actually needs to promote atm. Poor suggestion this time.

Moving mining fields to be at least 1.5-2 km away from the outpost and implementing player built, high NIC upkeep outpost improvement which would speed up minerals respawn rate by 30-50% with 4-5km radius around outpost. Miners happy, roamers happy, NIC sink, reason to have beta outpost. Though such change should come when server pop goes up a bit. Not much point for higher regen rates atm since 300 or so players spread across 6 beta islands just don't mine enough for outpost change to be needed. Moving mining fields a bit further away would be helpfull and long overdue.

41 Reply by Lupus Aurelius (edited by Lupus Aurelius 2011-06-22 05:59:04)

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Re: Alpha vs Beta balancing?

Lemon wrote:


...
Plated mechs... you let such things stop you? Arn't you supposed to be "M2S", oh wait i forgot.... you bark form alpha now.
...
May you go Troll else where my friend as you have failed once again.

We may bark from alpha, but not because of you or any other corp in Perpetuum, so no victory for you there...

And we have bit, with our trolly canines, and will bite even harder soon, on beta...

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Re: Alpha vs Beta balancing?

Okie M2S. Tell me which corp is living on Beta fully now.

Have a productive day, runner!
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Re: Alpha vs Beta balancing?

Line wrote:

Okie M2S. Tell me which corp is living on Beta fully now.

Is this a trick question lol

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Re: Alpha vs Beta balancing?

Sure it is. Everyone mining at alphas mostly, not only CIR. Thats it.

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Re: Alpha vs Beta balancing?

about the outpost radar - not a bad suggestion, really.

but at the moment it gets implemented, there also needs to be a mechanic that kills scouting drones around teleporters.

why bothering about a radard, when you can place your trail-account-bots near every chocepoint for free? (just remember Jita-TV...)

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Re: Alpha vs Beta balancing?

Annihilator wrote:

but at the moment it gets implemented, there also needs to be a mechanic that kills scouting drones around teleporters.

How about an increasing AP drain within 1000m of a teleport?

No drain until destabilization wears off, then double the drain every 5 seconds until you are outside the field; the effect doesn't change with distance, if you in the field, you get drained the same at 1m or 999m.

This won't kill you, or stop scouting completly, but it will stop masked scouts and TP camping.

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Re: Alpha vs Beta balancing?

Arga wrote:
Annihilator wrote:

but at the moment it gets implemented, there also needs to be a mechanic that kills scouting drones around teleporters.

How about an increasing AP drain within 1000m of a teleport?

No drain until destabilization wears off, then double the drain every 5 seconds until you are outside the field; the effect doesn't change with distance, if you in the field, you get drained the same at 1m or 999m.

This won't kill you, or stop scouting completly, but it will stop masked scouts and TP camping.

masked scouts are not the big issue the issue is people leaving arkhe scouts on alpha teles that lead to beta or beta teles that lead to alpha. then cranking up the sound and minimizing that account and just waiting for the telet sound then reopen that client to see what jump in.
so a AP drain wouldnt help with that but i still think its a decient idea to keep people from just camping them with a large group of numbers maybe.

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Re: Alpha vs Beta balancing?

The Nian's can port in a hit squad (not Observers) if they detect someone sitting at an alpha TP with Beta access for too long (20 mins within 500m); would make for a fun NPC farm mechanic too, but not OP since it's only every 20 min.

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Re: Alpha vs Beta balancing?

Arga wrote:

The Nian's can port in a hit squad (not Observers) if they detect someone sitting at an alpha TP with Beta access for too long (20 mins within 500m); would make for a fun NPC farm mechanic too, but not OP since it's only every 20 min.

that one is better, but adding a time limit makes it easy exploitable, and even worse - someone could just spawn such "teleport camping" npcs and hape for someone teleporting his sequer right into that npc-camp.

I once had the idea that the teleporter could use the passive-hack game mechanic to build up a "deadly charge" that discharges on any bot that was to long around a inter-island teleporter, not matter which side of it.
Additionally molecular instability (from teleports) adding a fading sensor masking value.

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Re: Alpha vs Beta balancing?

Back on topic...

After playing the game back in beta for a month, and then coming back with my friends in FOOM, I've picked up on a few things that would make being on beta islands much more appealing:

- Increase spawn rate of tier II and tier III artifact sites on betas. Going onto a beta and seeing nothing but salvage 1s doesn't make me want to hunt them down, because I could be finding observers on alphas I can actually solo. This would increase solo-roaming people on all betas, as they'd be hunting for precious cargo. And this would actually make locking down an island possibly profitable, as you might catch a guy after he's brought in his 10 scientific wreckages.

- Increase mining/harvesting rates on betas (see "concentrated"/"dense" asteriods in that other game) so that mining even the mediocre stuff takes less time/is more profitable. A simple 10-25% boost across the board would be major. This would make it so that Riveler pilots on an alpha would at best be pulling in what a lesser pilot in a Termis can do.

- Give beta outposts a -50% time modifier onto constuction time. More bots constructed = more bots on the market/in the hands of players = more people willing to risk their pixels. As a side benefit, this might actually let people put stuff on the market as they won't have to worry about how long it might take to get a replacement. As it is, production time is nuts; you can't afford to lose a bot as a new corporation simply because the time it takes to make them if you can't get them off the market.

- Increase the plasma and kernel drop rates. 5 good artifacters can get more kernels faster than 5 people farming a spawn, even on beta. If I'm farming a spawn, it'd better have more reward than the occassional t3 drop. I can get t3-, CTs, decoders, and everything else all day without risking my mechs; the risk needs to be rewarded.


I'm hoping/trusting the devs to add some outpost improvements for manufacturing/refining as a part of the stuff from the devblog. However, if they aren't considering it, making it so you can at least get tier III (if not better) facilities on *any* controlled outpost would be a large benefit.

Basically, the more you push for players to see betas as more time efficient, the more they'll want to at least try to ninja the goods off them, if not live on them.