These changes are steps in the right direction.

There are a few concerns that don't seem to be directly addressed though:

A few people mentioned that the cost of modules is prohibitive for any kind of frequent pvp.  This is also linked to things like artifact scanning drops, kernel drop rates and off course the minerals required for production.  I am not convinced that the noralgis changes alone are gonna make a big difference.

The second is that if corps living on gamma are able to wall themselves in completely (and sooner rather than later they will) we are all gonna be very very bored while we sit there mining and harvesting.

These are the two fundamental issues that I was really hoping would be addressed.

[Oranges]
I agree that at this stage players lack experience of how all the defences work.  With such a small active player-base, people are not queuing up to throw their assets into defending or attacking gamma.  It will take a long time to work out exactly how to defend or attack properly.

[Apples]
In the meanwhile the main power-blocks fortify their gamma islands to the point of being completely safe for hauling, mining/harvesting and producing.  This will not help generate regular pvp or (public) market activity.  At the moment, if living on gamma full time becomes practical (like it should be), beta becomes irrelevant since a mobile tp is easily used to skip over an entire beta island.  I would argue that it should be possible to access the main bulk of a gamma island without having to terraform your way through a wall while being shot buy turrets.

[The problem for the long term]
Imho with the population being the way it is, the primary concern for balancing should be to make the game fun for new and relatively casual (compared to many of us here) players.  Making gamma islands into personal playgrounds for two-three alliances is not helping that goal.

I probably won't be able to get off work early enough to make anything before 18:00 and would prefer anything closer to 20:00

Raises some valid concerns.  I also have been feeling uneasy with the degree of leverage I have over the devs but you know what we say: if you can't beat them, patch them.

The barrier to becoming an effective producer is too high imo.  As an earlier post pointed out, many corps gave kernels to a few people who are now inactive.  For the producers that are left there's no incentive to bother supplying the market...

Limiting things by corporation and CEO EP is just annoying and not fun.  If it actually becomes important enough to have more than X of the limited item, people will use alts for the CEO character and make lots of alt corporations with blue standing.  This goes for both probes and PBS.  The only reason I have not done it for probes yet is that we don't even max out on our normal probe allowance.

Why are so many people convinced that it can't be fixed? There are many relatively simple solutions to this problem.

Just to name a few:

> Bots leaving a temporary trace (like the intrusion scanning charge) on the ground after logging off.
> *A kind of molecular instability for 2 min after logging in which makes the bot invulnerable, unable to attack or move but able to log back off.
> Random + 0 to 120 second delay when logging back in after being offline for more than 15min.
> Ability to scan down logged off bots using an artifact scanning-like mechanic.
> Some indicator of the number of logged off bots in an area (e.g. using a scanning charge or a counter on the landmarks)
> *A vortex animation with a 1 min delay indicating that something is logging in on the terrain.
> ...

*To deal with DCs there could a 5min grace period to log back in during which the mechanic does not apply.

Any number of variants and combinations of the above could be used to link logging in to intended game mechanics.  It would just take some careful thinking and balancing.

Off-course some people are just far too awesome to get caught by a logon trap while others think that login traps are an elite pvp manuver.

Make another account so you can keep the can active you noob!

or +1

Wall this thread off!
Edit: Make it triple and don't leave any corners.

Tamas, maybe I didn't make it clear in my original post but this would be a cosmetic change only.  You wouldn't be able to stand inside a wall tile any more than you can now.

Also octagons would look nicer.  + is just an easier concept to grasp imo.