o.O  Accumulators!

Finally a reason to produce and sell neut/drainer for PVE players! As well as a chance to practice/test fits. That and the ability to possibly tank npcs, as well limiting ECM which I assume they will start using again with new AI.

Dev Zoom,

New NPC AI sounds good, though; if you keep adding new stuff not mentioned in any of your earlier blogs and keeping making new features out of the blue you will never get through the old ones, just saying. You know, the ones that make the game a actuall full game.

I really Appreciate your reply I understand you cannot work on 1 feature at a time and I have no doubt you are all working hard. What I don't understand is the reasons to hold back information of features not mentioned to us.

Would this not motivate players to stay active?

Why do some features make sense to announce and not others, do you care to elaborate?

You have the right to hold back information of course, but there is a lack of communication imo.

Celeb and I were just starting to work on that Glad to know that we can now test it without getting blowed up for flagging on alpha!

Sure, it can have multiple reasons.

1. Simply not being ready enough. If you announce a concept that you well know is unfinished and bleeding all over, players will likely point out its flaws (that you know too) and dislike it before it could mature, even if you tell them this is only a very early concept. Yes, players can be helpful in finding flaws too, but that only makes sense when we can't find anymore ourselves.

2. Project management reasons. If we would tell you everything right now, you would start demanding that we deploy *random feature that you like the most on the list* in the next patch. Or demand that we tell you a date for a feature that only exists in a concept document yet. Or demand a new blogpost despite we already told you everything 3 months ago. And so on

3. Marketing reasons. The element of surprise is still a very useful asset (with the right timing, of course).

Disclaimer: no offence intended of course, I speak from my own experiences.

Wake up, ictus and troyar pilots, you're becoming useful in pve Nice things, can't wait to test new AI.

We were just talking the other day that EW units had no purpose, and were worthless as a single unit in attacks. Now with the possibility to drain enemys before attacking, and jamming them in different ways, even a pair of EM's can do work on bots who have little or no power. That might make owning an EW unit something to try.

Hmm i like most of it...but the HP increase of NPC-Mechs not only would have meant less plasma (what you covered) but also a 20%/25% reduction in droprates of anything else they drop: Modules, Ammo, the occasional Tx Item and most importantly...Kernels!

Now if the random spawns would have been "fixed" i wouldn't have said a word but there is no mention of that in the patchnotes, so why deliver yet another kernel nerf?

What i mean is that it takes longer to kill the NPCs. The Devs know that this is basically a Nerf to your income, so they increased the plasma for these bots to compensate(even overcompensated by considering plates). They have not increased everything else though so the effective Drop-Rate of (H-)Mech kernels are reduced(less in the same time interval as before). Mech kernels should have been increased to 60%, H-Mech to 62.5% to compensate (not considering plates) to yield the same amount of kernels per time as before.

This does by no means mean that it is difficult to farm them...its just VERY boring to do so for so many hours and days even(of playtime).

I don't mind to put some work into it as well but in my mind it was already difficult enough with the static spawns, random spawns made it even worse and now this. What i want to know is if the system was regarded as too easy? Maybe the game becomes just too grindcore for me

Good changes, although it essentially is a 20% nerf to mech kernels/drop rates even before the plasma bonus plated mechs get (which does not change kernel drops either)

As for ECCMs, there should be some other drawback to using them to bring them in line with their new strength, like a much higher CPU fitting requirement.

I am a Kain pilot and I have not tested out my speed yet, but the changes were probobly needed as long as it is a minor adjustment after LWF.

Overall good changes Devs, keep it up.

If they really want to make kernels/technology more dynamic to relegate the influx of combat player's EP over time, they should just alter the research system in itself. Instead of making the acquisition of technology a grind through combat, it should be the research in itself that takes time. This will make combat EP less a part in something to do with research and make it more relient on the researchers which makes more sense I think.

This could be done by dropping data kernels with specific tech in them that you research over time. For example, you could find a kernel with the tech to making a T1 miner and it would take X amount of time to complete, based off a subset of skills or just the research skill in itself. You could also limit the tech tree so that people can't skip tiers either, so to say, if you have a T3 miner kernel, you can't research it until you've done research on the T1 and T2 kernels for the miner. This would prevent the need to constantly tweak drop rates because of the ease in which combat players can acquire them which puts a strain on researchers and newer corps and players that won't be able to keep up or acquire at the same time as vets.

true, and the reason is not a to low reward for doing so, but more or less the lack of reason to risk so much as your single mech you have to a random roaming PvP group.

Sparks unlocked by higher standing is going to be a short termed reason to go PvEing on beta soon - but once you hit 6.01 standing, there is no reason to continue.

Sandbox means, there is no defenitive given goal by the game itself, like a storyline with a final boss.

goals that player have set since release:
- reaching tech4 (PvE)
- destroying another player corp by real combat, not metagaming (PvP)
- claiming all existing outposts (PvP)
- spamming forums until banned (PvD)
- starting balancing topics until DEV Alf changes something (PvD)

all those goals are reachable in a rather short time - and after that, what you do? getting bored as there is no need to "defend" your archievement.

- tech 4 reached, lasts until something new is added (needs DEV-team)
- destroying another corp leads to frustration and when its done, theres nothing left to do
- if you have been able to claim all outposts, youre corp probably has already discouraged all others to go against you, so its a permanent state
- bann = end
- well... even if he changes something, you wont be happy with the result