Change of that kind (industry 2.0) that detrimentally affect older account to reduce the gap between them and new accounts, have 2 bad effects:

  -the vets feel scammed. They bought an extension level with a described effect, often very expensive, but now the described effect doesnt apply anymore. Saying "but your an industrial anyway, so no need for refund" totally exclude the fact that this game permit you to cross train whatever you want. The 30k EP spent in expert mass prod efficiency, that will give you at best 0,5% less material need for prod, would be very more useful to make a basinc prototyper or RE toon. Dont forget we are coming to the 800k EP mark for the oldest accounts, and this amount is the limit were cross training is better cause speccing is almost at max....

  -player wont trust anymore the "invariability" of said extension described effects. Why would i trust that my adv ballistic will forever add me 3% more dmg? This imo weakens the confidence players have in their build and therefor in the game continuity, reducing dedication of said players. And dedication is the beating heart of a sandbox.

All in all the signals i receive from those changes are: 

  -you paid from the beginning one or multiple accounts (seniority aspect), knowing very well that this would give you an advantage over newer players, more than actual online time (more than in fixed skillcap games or lvl character style games), but now we will reduce this advantage to something marginal because we feel like its frightening the new players.  New players retention come with fun, not with less gap between them and vets. WoW didnt improved players retention by letting lvl 30 characters beat lv 50 (its a complete different gameplay i know, its just for the rethoric)

  -game rules are subject to changes, like the game would be in beta. You take decisions about your character(s) that could be very well discarded by gamedesign changes. Without a way to change your decisions afterward.

Now for the ridiculous metaphor:

"Dont be sad you bought a ferrari FF 360k dollars man, because of the new engine limitation laws. You still go 5 kmph faster than a fiat wagon, and i know how you like speed!"

"and the produced items will also appear in your storage as soon as a cycle is finished"

read: as soon as ONE item is finished (or a batch in case of ammos)

Making resources require less U overall, will help all gathering professions, and make it much more friendly for new players that may not have access to a second hauling account.

It will also help 'offset' the scanning issue for ore, if say a riveler MK II could hold 1M units of titan, it could be self-reliant for a 'casul' 60 minute mining op, instead of needing logistic support.

The resulting decrease in cargo space, would also make hauling resources between stations more cost effective.

Lastly, is the strategic movement of materials, where large corps can have now 50,000 U of ore to transport, which is overwhelming even for a fleet of Scarb MK IIs, where 5,000 U for the same would be managable.

Or, provide a strategic hauler for transport, with a 10k U capacity.

OK, maybe I'm being dense here, because if true this is a fantatsicly good change.

As long as there's no additional penalty, which before was CT % reduction for short runs, there's no reason anymore to make large runs.

Run sizes will be based on completion times, for the most part, or on available material.

Ohhhh.

Actually, another hit for vet producers. Previously, it was difficult for a new producer to get enough material for a run of 10 hmechs (and with CT production costs, making 1 or 2 for sale wouldn't be profitable). But that advantage will also be gone, since the smaller producer can just make 1, vastly increasing the competition on the market for high end bots. It won't really drive down the price though, since most of the cost of a hmech is determined by the cost of Epitron.

But, back to runs;

If I log on about the same time everyday, I'll set the runs to complete in a 24/25 hour range. For instance, I wouldn't run 8 modules to complete in 30 hours, because they'd just sit in my inventory until the next day, but if I adjust it to 6 modules that completes in 23 hours, then I can log in and put them on the market or put them in corp storage for immediate use.

I still would like my alt producer to be as efficient as possible, not much of an issue for me, giving out the option of returned EP would still be a plus.

True, though some beta players just mine and sell for NIC or trade and don't really take advantage of OP facilities.

The only reason to make large runs is convenience and automation.

What's the actual advantage in terms of efficiency for gamma now though?

~15-20% refine from facility + ~5% refine from full relation bonus + Factory gain (assuming 5-15% gain on average seems conservative) + CT merge facility (might add 2-3% on overall efficiency as a conservative estimate) = ~27-43% less materials needed

So basically, let's make new alpha producers be able to compete very closely to veteran alpha producers, but let's make sure gamma producer get a huge advantage over everyone. Not sure how that will drive new players?

At the moment the difference in efficiency is quite high, but bearable, with these changes being a large alpha producer is not really viable. I feel you guys really, really don't want people to produce on alpha.

Agreed. And if you don't want vet players producing on alpha, the lack of items for sale new players constantly complain about would be made even worse, don't expect alpha hubs with cheap prices any time soon.

We're still discussing this.

Also, will there be any system for the black green tiles in fields to slowly decay?
Because all those small black green tiles around the edges of fields are going to be a huge pita to mine.