Impossibru!!!!

Counter to what the choir is singing the current mineral mechanics are sound. minerals are not the problem people just want to make it the "thing" to fight over.

Dont trick your self into thinking you need a reason to go shoot some one you need no reason at all other than that urge to shoot something.

Martha is on the right track.

What i think needs to happen if you all want "artificial" conflict forced by game design is to make robot cortex's only available through SAP loot (not artifacting), and change SAP loot cans to be only accessible by the station owner.

this would:

1) give more reason to fight for betas (as MK2 stock piles dwindle)
2) make owning a beta station actually worth something other than bragging rights.
3) limit the availability of MK2 Robots
4) add in the limiting production controls the choir is asking for.

Also i would recommend (because form the on set gamma's purpose was based on Industry enhancements)
1) making noralgis grow naturally on gamma only islands
2) remove noralgis incubators along with the other harvest-able plant incubators. 

If you want a bottle neck make it for advanced items (MK2 Bots ) not base items like T3/T4 Items

I do agree that in the sense of resources as 'conflict-drivers', you might as well refer to them as 'NAP-drivers'. It's an empty game design promise, period.

This is sandbox 101. Some people want to build castles, some want to destroy other people's castles, some people are just crazy (it is a game, after all). Everyone (miners, producers) can easily keep up with the rate of destruction (of which there is next to nothing), so there's no need for a market.

Get rid of gamma (14 days grace period). Do it now. Get rid of walls. Make beta optionally safe from incoming teleports for 2/3 periods a day (one for each timezone), for an hour or so, between SAP times (and have these shutdown timers globally known). Prevent people not from the corporation(s) [owning the outposts] logging in on the terrain (put them on the island over), but obviously allow shutting down the incoming teleports while enemies are on the island (they can still get out). Have each beta color have a unique resource, force the intra-corporation market. Use the shutdowns to maintain the outpost's stability. Have equipment provide only slightly improved stats per tier. Get rid of global market views.

Also, pink paint.

Or they could just wait until June.

line has the point.

we dont need siege bots. heavys and their mk2 variant do the job quite well. and i think we dont want that a solo player (or one of the handfull vets left) can sit in his siege bot and nibble away on any defense.

defenses are there to hold a bit and that they do. they are not that strong. only thing thats need some change (as said already multible times) is the terraforming.
besides i think not a lot ppl have tried multible aproaches in the last couple of months to siege a base. for one or the other reason. just running against a wall and saying its unbreachable does not realy count.

once population goes up ppl will complain that defeses are too weak and will be easy broken once the enemy can field enough and moderate skilled heavy pilots.

it would be stupid to balance this game for the low population we have atm. we have to fix the low population and then it will be fine.

i also said that gamma still needs a lot work. and that is surly one thing that needs to be changed. i will not say anything in how it should be, but it has to be changed somehow. but the problem is not in the defense structures.

Yeah Chaos did it once and here you go their island was immediately devastated Then you're missing the point that for de- and then re-construct an a terminal, you should empty it's storages otherwise you will spend lots of time on pick it up from the loot can, sorting etc etc.

Yup that's protect us from enemy putting their own terminal, using all the exploits linked with that, including your own "de- and re-constructing"

That's a point, uhu.

That's a point too.

Still just one per 50m, that's not that much actually. Anything you can do with spamming turrets - is to slow enemy progress but not cancel it at all. It's a numbers problem mostly. Still, don't forget that turrets require resources and they have no reinforcement state.

And finally. How much time, efforts, NIC and resources do you think is reasonable to put in a Gamma base if a bunch of 10-20 ppl should be able to destroy it on the fly? Compare it with the current situation - why such expensive bases should be so weak? What's the point of them at all?

Oh but investment SHOULD bring some profit, otherwise it's useless, isn't it?

Everything in this game, except fun, is an equivalent of time. There is no point in spending lots of manhours if someone else can destroy all the results spending much lesser manhours.

Everyone in this room is now dumber.

That encourages interactions between smaller and bigger blocks. No-one has to start from the scratch if that's not what they want.

Where in my post was there is any suggestion on how to balance gamma?

I was just pointing out that the number of attackers isn't as important as strategy, which is how it should be.

But, I've posted this before and Ville also pointed it out, each 'failed' assault makes a gamma base that much stronger. Not simply because it highlights weak points, but the defender will add a few more layers in that area, like scar tissue.

Lastly, and this I believe is what everyone was asking for, it's will take a large continual effort to completely remove a defender from an existing island.

Is there something that needs to be balanced? Something that isn't based on corps only being able to field 10-25 players for a half-assed attempt to blow up a few structures.