As Orbelea just pointed out Hunter, it's one thing to encourage groupplay, but still make it possible for soloplayers (e.g. kernel research), and another to shut them out.

Nonetheless, I do believe a solo player can do it, but it's long, boring grind which also includes doing all types of missions on both alpha and beta.

Once aganin though, what's wrong with the 'coin' system? If someone needs the relation themselves, they just hand it in, if not, they can sell it on and get some extra NIC. To make the missions a bit more balanced, different missions (type and level) could give different coins. Therefore, combat coins would be priced higher, and transport coins lower. It would also add an interesting dynamic element to missions.

Yeah the coin system seems like a nice idea to begin with, but Alexadar picked it apart pretty easily. Sounds too much like a homogenizing feature that popular theme park mmos tend to employ.

If you purchase relation there is still effort involved as you will need nic (effort) to purchase it. It's just a choice you make where you prefer a different activity to make nic and get something in return for another activity you don't like. Isn't that one of the reasons we like sandbox games so we make a choice on which activity we enjoy the most?

The 'noob agent' is in no way obliged to sell it, he can keep it and use it himself. If he needs the reputation himself later on, well then he can buy it from someone else. There is no abuse. There is a market for almost everything in this game, so why not this? What makes this grind so sacred and special to all other grinds?

As Orbelea pointed out, why do you care who carries out the grind? That person is paid to do it by someone who values it more. But it is still there. And saying I give up nothing is such utter nonsense, I pay for it, NIC which I have earnt doing other things (things I actually happen to enjoy, and the reason I still keep my accounts subscribed).

Now, if you oppose this system though, how come you're okay with the current kernel research system? Surely that is essentially the exact same thing?

Seems one step in the right direction is coming... (new devblog)

Doesn't make much sense for reputation to be NIC purchasable. It is, after all, supposed to indicate whether a faction likes you or not. It would be an odd society that allowed me to sell off my university degrees and job experience to some rich guy when I'm hard up for cash. "I realize you thought I was a reliable worker, but I sold that to Tim. So he's the one you think is reliable now." You can't commodify everything.

I'd be very in favour of both manufacturing missions and linking facilities to sub-faction corps instead of the whole faction. Those are fantastic ideas.

Another possibility might be raising your productivity for a facility through repeated use of that same facility. It would represent things like familiarity with that base's equipment, and being considered a "regular" by local staff. A downside is that it could anchor you to a single location. But long-game players could also build competitive advantages by developing relations at multiple bases.

Remember that "fair" and "identical" are not interchangeable. Progress in each profession should have its own unique gameplay characteristics to give the game as much variety as possible. Relations should remain more useful to some than to others. Same goes for things like NIC, territorial knowledge, fitting skills, etc. Variety keeps games fun.

I was just suggesting another way to make the grind activity more related to the goal. Rather than explicit assignments, simply doing a lot of your own industry in the same place might be an option, and for specific, one-base-only gains, not general faction or even corp gains.

There's a lot of grinding that comes from the ridiculous amounts of active experience needed to gain tactical advantages in combat PvP. Intimate knowledge of local terrain, the ability to guess another person's skill and fitting before engaging, it all takes ages of active work to internalize. Indies are self-sufficient (NIC-wise) as industrialists; you earn money doing what you're earning money to do. Combat PvPers need a lot of grind time in non-PvP to fund new bots and replace losses. So there are two "grinds" that aren't shared by industrialists. Fair, but not identical.

Other roles have their own unique grinds, too.

Paragon, how can you call things like analyzing terrain a grind? You will have to explain this further if you truly believe in that yourself, and I'll counter it more extensively when I have more time.

The problem, as I, and I think Arga, sees it is that industrialists are subjects to very heavy grinds. The longest one being the kernel reseach, why do we have to be the only ones bearing the grinds?

And no, a combat player does not have to grind, he simple needs to earn a bit of NIC, which he can choose to do in a variety of ways. For me to obtain reputation, I have to repeat the same missions 100 times or so.

I will once again reiterate one of my main arguments. If grinds are so much fun, let's indeed introduce the +damage (based on relations ratio) into PvE and PvP combat.

Now, if you think that sounds like a bad suggestion, why are you so fine with me having to grind? I'm not sure about you, but what I enjoy most about this game is not the long grinds. Some grinds, sure, but both relations grind and relation ratio grind? Please...

It's less a complaint then trying to open the Dev's eyes. Relation played a more important role for everyone in Beta, but it was changed, and this is just something that got overlooked/back-burnered.

Flipping it around and turning it inside out with discussion is just a way to expose more sides of the issue and perhaps help the Dev's see a better way to accomplish the same thing.