EP. The EP-pack would be an ingame, tradable item sold in the Perpetuum webshop, and should be two types of them:
First - give "extra EP until caught up to Y% of the current maximum EP a player could have (so this would be a rolling limit). For example if the maximum amount of EP any player can currently have is ~1.000.000, these packages couldn't be used if a player is over... say 250.000 EP (25% of the max)". Or may be it would have fixed limit (within 150k - 300k EP is quite objectively). I think it should have 10000-20000 EP each
Second - give extra EP until caught up to the current maximum EP a player could have. Of course it will be much more expensive, for those people who want to donate this project.

ICE (Integration Cycle Extender). I'm not sure about it. Instead (or may be with ICE) move to F2P system with non-increased EP on on accounts without a subscription (increased only by EP-packs)

Sorry for my "French", I tried as best as I could.

if they ever put in something that keeps pushing your EP so you can follow up to us 1-million-EP vets,
then it should cost at least as much as the several hundred € i have already pumped into the game over 2 years now.

I understand what your thinking with the small ep gain per assignment. But thats will actually "widen" the gap, not shrink it. I can run WAY more missions in much less time than you can. Hell if that were added I'd macro it and come back in a week to 2mil ep. (Yes even at 1 ep per turn in.) For this and several other reasons, your "solution" would actually have the opposite effect.

A wise mmo player once said. "Whatever you add to the game to help newer players catch up to older players, will be used to greater effect by the older player themselves."

Oldest player still in the game. Perpetuum for life.
Original Founder of M2S, may it rest in peace.
"Hungarian Math" is defined by the dictionary as "Just like normal math, but where each equation ends by dividing the sum by Potato."
-Shoutout to "Stranger Danger" for the "potato" comment.

oh yeah, the 10% damage bonus when your dispersion was smaller then half the hitsize of the target? It was so IMBA that it had to be nerfed out of the game....

... actually, that one would be really imba nowadays when you think about vets with maxed extensions and t4 weapon stabs on seth mk2...

i think i dont need much more to say about ICE. that is good as most already pointed out.

the thing with catching up for new players is a complicated thing. i can understand when you say that the gap at the start is a bit big. but giving the new players a advatage that the old ones did not have will greatly upset those. so this is a very delicate topic.

it has been said before and yes new players can catch up when they specialize relative fast. of cource they will not be able to pilot a mk2 heavy with maxed skills. my own chars are getting close to a year new and they still are far fom having maxed skills for everything that relates to their heavies. may it be in combat or may it be in industrial.
but honstely that is not the problem.

like in most mmos and rpgs we have the same problem here. you start with basicly nothing and then have a fast learning curve that gets flater at the end. this has its advantages because it give the starter char the feeling of big improvement.
but this is not realy realistic as well as has this disadvantage that the veterans are so far away.
if you want to change that then you have to give the starting agent a hell a lot more EP. this would make sense the we are agents that were prepaired for their job. they had training, and surely a education. that will shurly be worth more then 2 weeks of work (skilltime).
if you want to close that gap then you change that you are a noob at start. then you are already a skilled agent in certain fields. of cource you have to let room for improvment. you cant let a new char start with 500k ep.
but maybe 100k would be ok, maybe 200k. and of cource you should not hand them out just so. you should include that in a bit more complex char creation tree so that if chosen ppl can pilot some bots/mechs medicore on day one.

the only game that i know and has a system like that, where you start with medicore skills and then have a slow advancement, is shadowrun (yea the good old pen and paper rpg) here you start with a char that has skills and is not bad at what he does. but if you want to double that power then it will take you a lot time (karma) to get there.

this is the thing that you should look for in my opinion.

of cource if you do so the vets will get pissed if new chars get more ep then they got at the beginning so you have to give them the same. that will get them even more ahead agin, but the gap between both will defently be smaller.

this is the only solution that came to my mind after looking a bit deeper ino that matter. any fast ep gathering for new players will not realy work in this system.
this skill system is build for long time players and there is your reward. other games like wow and all its clones punish long term players because with teh next patch/addon all their work will be for nothing again. most ppl that play here dont want that. they want to play a game where they can have fun for more then a few months and where that is rewarding.

my 5 cents

(edit spelling)

If you think newbie players are not worth much, give them more starting EP. Toss in a couple of resets too to correct the mistakes people tend to do early on. It could be so that newbie has 10x EP rate until they have, lets say 100k EP. With 100k EP they could be reasonably competent with mech or some other bot. I find it really funny that people can't figure that out and when they realise newbies aren't worth much, they try to correct the issue with some very odd ideas. It's not like you are giving newbies deathstarts. Everyone will get the extra EP and everyone will evolve further thanks to it, newbies just have a little bit more choices early on.

The other point BoyC mentioned about EP catch up game. There's probably no easy way to avoid it. Players will feel that with current skill model and thats it. Every time you give lower EP players the feeling they can catch up, vet players will feel like someone is stepping on their toes.

1. ICE:
I would love to, but I have to turn it down.
Such system will inflate the price of every item on the market. As soon as the chinese gold farmers will have a whiff of this, they will start farming NIC tu buy the items en masse for NIC, and resell them under the purchase price. this simply mean inflation, but this is not the worse.
No, after that, once they have customers, they will re-use their credit card informations to purchase more ICE for "free". You could say it's the player's fault for trying to buy ICE cheaper than normal price, but it's not the issue here. The problem comes when the scammed person discover this, and cancel all transactions. Perpetuum will have to pay for high chargeback costs and our beloved game will lose money instead.

2.Catchup EP:
Making that a paying option is a big no-no. I would give the game a terrible reputation to new players. They would interpret this as if you are asking them to pay all this from the start to be competitive. It is too borderline to be a paying option.
I would suggest instead a daily objective/mission, that reward EP untill they reach the limit cap (25%). This encourage new comers to login daily and get accustomed to the game.

1. ICE - I am okay with

2. The EP catch-up game - I do NOT agree with.
    a. There is a catch-up mechanic already built in
    b. New players can (and should) specialize
    c. If you allow a mechanic that allows a quick catch up to 25% you will solve nothing and create more of a headache for yourselves
        1. New players will still complain that they don't have enough EP
        2. If you quick-boost noobs to say 400k EP taking (3 months instead of 6), they will complain that they have to "waste" 3 months of game time until they get the "minimum EP required" to be competitive
        3. There will be numerous posts with analysis about how DEVs should increase the boost from 25% to 50% or sumesuch
        4. Newbies will still feel like newbies regardless of EP because of older players' experience and resources

No one forces you to buy it!

Mongolia already stated a pertinent fact- No matter how much EP someone has, someone else has more and you'll want it to be competitive.

ICE is a great idea, I fully support it.

In terms of EP- there's not going to be a way that everyone is happy with. Newer players want more, other players want it left as is, others will want some form of in-game method of obtaining it (missions/items)- there's not a single method that will please everyone.

You could implement a dozen different things- Double EP gain days, bonus events that can net you EP in some way that even new players can competitively play in, tokens or other methods- but one way or another it's going to be a headache- someone is always going to feel left out, cheated or otherwise unimpressed that their playing Perpetuum for X amount of time has amounted to little as a newer player can gain EP faster or someone is going to exploit it.

I wouldn't complain with anything, personally- it's just a game. But even so, the entertainment factor will suffer if, as a subscriber, I'm at a loss in a weeks time as someone has paid to get EP somehow. It's a mechanic that means there is a good progression level for players- a new player who forks out hard currency for effectively instant access to something player's have had to wait for isn't just unfair- it's impractical. Sure, plenty of PvP players will rejoice at having easy kills on inexperienced players- but that's besides the point.

The Kickstarter should be the only, I say -ONLY- way of "paying" for an EP boost. 20,000 EP is more than enough a boost for any new player. If there is some kind of "anniversary EP boost" on a particular day that nets everyone double-ep-gain, fine. That way it's at least "fair" in that everyone gets it and newer players aren't given an enormous head start or such.

1- Yes:)

2 - No =/

Totally agree with Dharkon - + 1 -   It's not Pay to win - it's pay for convienience!