Here is my feedback on the points you wrote:

1+2 would be a good idea, knowing more before doing a mission for the first time is useful.

3 I think this will be difficult to add. Nobody will do them if they are "less good" than ordinary missions, and everyone will do them if they are better. You would need  a special case for when to do them(for example they could yield no relation bonus but more syndicate supplies?)

4 Difficulty is covered with point 1 i guess and for traveling maybe add that you can see all waypoints not just the first in the mission details. This should not spoil too much of the "story".

5+6. I don't know why this would be needed? Whats wrong with just doing the mission on the island you are on?

7 More assignments might add variety, but right now you can only do 2, at most 3 missions at once(cargo space restrictions) so i would put this at lower priority. Actual Squad missions (harder, but more rewarding and always squad-turn-in) might be nice too. They could require actual teamwork(something like "taking an active hack sap" while under attack by NPCs).

8 I have not mined that much lately so i cannot comment on that.

@Norrdec fair point. It was going far to much into detail.

@Arjha Shanoo I think you are now more looking at the first point. Now the thing here is not that i want to shoot NPCs for hours and loot everything and take it back with my bot.

I was doing some Level3 mission the other day in an Arbalest. I killed a total of 12 light/assault NPCs(took no more than a few minutes), did not pick up any of the 1u large mission items twice and still was not able to take everything with me. Thats a bit sad if you ask me...

So you are both answering to the second point i guess. I agree teleports are nice(i bit too nice if you ask me but thats a different issue) and help a lot and the 900u hauler is also nice(but also takes some time to train), but not enough. If i could be bothered i could probably mine 900u on my own(1bot) in an evening if i mine some high-volume ore. Why would i need the largest transport bot in the game to haul it away(keeping in mind the cargo is only worth 10-20% of the bot)?

That is actually a very nice idea. Keep the current kernel system but introduce another way that is disconnected from any form of combat. Learning to produce(prototype) the next higher item by building the item below (or learning it faster if given a ct of that higher item already) would mean a few people would start building stuff. That would accelerate the mineral market and the resulting modules would practically be sold without profit in large quantities for what today is T1 and T2 modules, seeding the market nicely.

With this method, an already "finished" prototyper could also share his knowledge by letting "new" producers build the advanced stuff.

The only disadvantage i see is that producing and prototyping, two formerly loosely connected professions become entangled. New extensions enhancing the learning process would also be necessary. It would take very long for a producer+prototyper to become competitive on the open market.

Another option i can think of is the possibility to make kernels manufacture-able requiring minerals/plant commodities. This way you could also mine to gather knowledge instead of shoot stuff.

Fun fact: If you would evenly distribute all players among all islands you would not be able to detect the agent next to you.

First of all i want to address the people who fear open world pvp would stop - really? So all mining bots an no one tempted to blow them up? And risk vs. reward: If reward is 0 the risk should be....??

But the arena as suggested here has some flaws. First of all i would not let people bring a bot - they should get a random one to prevent this becoming a testing ground for lolfits(maybe they should also give everyone some  skills that come with the bot).

Then it should not be a permanent place to hang around. More like the corp tourney with a time limit for a match. Also access should be limited somehow. There are a million choices: Pay nic for a match, find access card through artifact scanning on beta, max of 4 matches per day, only one day a week is "tourney day",...

Also it should not give out any reward. And no killmails. And teams must be random(again - not a training ground). The arena now has lost some appeal for senior pvp-ers but it should only really be a minigame.

Overall not very sandboxish but also nothing to be worried about. Suffice it to say there are a gazillion more important things this game needs than this arena...

Ok first of all i have to say this is a great idea.

I hope it is balanced from the beginning so that it is really a goal to acquire these beacons and not something that you get just as a bonus for normal artifact scanning. Maybe these beacons should drop most of all in Tier1 artifacts (on beta)...those are worthless most of the time but still must be cleared to get new artifacts. Still i hope if you do some artifact scanning during the week you will get enough to have a few hours of fun on the weekend.

Too bad i can't play this weekend, but i will totally try it out next week to see how it works

I think Corp-Level research would need the whole system to be redesigned from scratch and resetting everything. I can see a lot of people who would not be very happy with that.

As a compromise you could make KB shareable(in Corp, say max of 3 people with access,just a thought), so that several people can prototype from one KB(If the "owner" of the KB stops to play you would still have access to it, but you could not progress any further).

Also you could make it so that you can exchange your KB(even partly) with someone elses. If someone stops to play he could simply give his KB to someone else.

Or you could form "reseach groups" where all new reseach is shared within the group but also all KB are available for everyone.

Just some ideas that could make corp-reseach obsolete.

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?

@Cassius: I can understand your point of view as a solo player to have something to shoot for, however it gets more complicated when you try to be competitive as a corp and want to live on beta. To have a real chance to win a serious battle you not only need the manpower, but also the tech. You will loose stuff and must replace it regularly. The only way to do that is to prototype by yourself, buying items is far too expensive and also there is not enough supply.

Right now if you start as a new Corp with 20 active players you would need ages(literally) to get to the point where you can sustain yourself without help from outside. So the only way right now is to join in with veteran players that will help you. It is extremely hard to start something new, much harder than it was a few months ago.

Back when every Bot dropped a kernel the system was ok. After that, it was harder, but still doable. Right now you have to farm much longer to get the kernels you want and higher level indu-kernels are now not farmable at all any more as random spawns do not spawn indu mechs any longer(well they do but only once per day as it seems). So you cant even get proper mining equipment.

Also farming kernels, even with random spawns gets really boring after some time. There should be more ways to gather kernels...maybe let players drop some when they die in PvP?

Ok here is my view on the issue. During the last months, many changes were made that did indeed change the kernel flow. The droprate was reduced some time ago and with the recent changes to NPC-Spawns farming the required kernels is a lot harder or nearly impossible(High-end indu kernels for example). This means a new Corp right now has to farm about 10 times more(this is a wild guess) to be on the same tech-level as someone who farmed a few months ago. This is a very huge and dare i say unfair advantage for veteran players and Corps.

Also this system is not well balanced as it promotes large corps. They will get the farming done faster while small corps may never be able to get all the kernels. Also if a prototyper stops to play it would not take as long for a large corp to replace him...maybe they even have stockpiles of kernels.

The system itself also discourages kernel trade as it is always a good idea for a corp to have them in stock.

I think a solution could be to improve reverse engineering. You would have a choice to either do it the traditional way, so build a prototype end RE it. The new way would be to just take the item you want a CT of, add the decoder and after that some fitting kernels(or something else...robot parts, minerals you name it). The more kernels you use the better the CT will be. In the long run, the prototype method would be cheaper, but if you only want to create some item for yourself the extra costs for the kernels might not be as bad as buying the item from someone who just made 300% profit because he is the only one selling it.

This way new players can directly start to manufacture high-end items if they got enough materials to start the process and a constant stream of kernels afterwards.

I have to add a thing

I guess there occured a bug while the spawns were transfered to random-mechanic. Here is why i think so:

Yesterday i farmed a spot that had under the old system: 3x 4star HMech +3x 4star Mech

Yesterday the best single spawn in over 2 hours of farming (not counting the new darkstar spawns - we got 3 in total) was 2x 4th star Mech (only one single time) or 1x 4th star mech (more often).

So I guess while the old level of the spawn was "remembered" the number of mechs were reduced to 1 for that level so that now - of course - there is a lot of room to spawn lower level groups. The most regular spawn were: 2x 5star Light, 3x 2star EWLight, 3x 1star HMech, 3x 2star Mech, 2x 3star Mech, 3x 2star EWMech and some others in the same region. I guess this is empirical proof that during the conversion of at least this spawn there occured an error.  It should be an easy fix.

This still doesnt solve the looming problem of gathering indu kernels...