Erm .. uhh ... ahhh ... *cough* ... i'm speechless.
I've done quite a bit of artifact scanning myself. The only situation doing it without this 3rd party tool i can think of: If i'm mentally challenged (well more than now ). This tool is practically a must have - given the current rewards and their chances.

Dear DEV Zoom: I fear you're a bit too deep in your signature .

Although i like the plasma colours and it feels good to collect it somehow - NPC bounties would help beta farming a little bit. Your collected plasma (and everything else)  would be lost in case of getting killed on beta while farming  those nice spawns. Bounties - as an instant reward - are unaffected from your death.

True dat

To answer your questions of course ... and i have 3 weeks left to do so.

Yeah sadly. Best example is research. I don't think it was intended that every Corp has it's specialised prototyper and focussing all available kernels to one or two characters and therefore accelerating the research process massively.
Until now the Devs are still struggling to find a (more or less) balance for this problem. Constantly changing NPC spawns (and the kernels they drop) as a symptom of this problem. They try to slow down the research. But it affects almost only new players interested in industrial/research and the damage is already done (well organized corps finished their research already long ago). Note, that i'm not an industrialist though .

Well i played more than 1 hour. But 1 hour was enough to realize that the very same facts that drove me away in the first place are still present. That's not quite accurate - actually it's a bit worse. I'm the typical single account user and running around solo half the time. That doesn't mean that i'm not interacting with other players (you have to if playing with 1 account). But the game favors heavily the "multiple accounts at the same place at the same time" playstyle.
Furthermore even the grind to achieve something ingame has increased ... making research and acquisition of ressources more time consuming. Alpha islands got nerfed quite a bit. Seemingly the Devs are trying to force players to Beta and Gamma islands.
Nothing wrong with that, except that it doesn't work. EVE has shown veeeerrrrry clear that 80-90% of player population prefer the carebear playstyle for what ever reasons (not enough time, avoiding pvp, more afk than actively playing, too old to react fast enough in pvp, too drunk to be useful in pvp ...).
All these game mechanics and circumstances increase the gap between newer players and old/established veterans.
They (Noobs) have to compete with filthy rich, very experienced and extremely advanced (EP-wise) characters using the shiniest stuff available on mostly multiple accounts.
Good for vets - not for new players. The situation was already really bad at the time of EVE refugees (i was one of them). NEX had very large numbers, motivated players, a little bit support (bots, modules), a bit of experience for this kind of game and a decent attitude "We've come here to chew bubble gum and kick *** ... and we're all out of gum." -  and they didn't make it. Those old vets have now even more EPs, wealth and with CIR returning: the same politics .
Granted, the market will recover IF a new chunk of players arrive ( a few hundreds minimum at the same time). The arrival of EVE refugees has shown it. But a new dude here and there won't affect the market in a positive way - but the non existent market will affect him ...
I mean the forum counts over 25k registered user (=accounts created??). Now look how many players actually play the game (really playing not just paying the account.
I'm not angry or raging about the game or the Devs. I'm simply dissapointed and even a bit sad. I really like most of the ingame music, the style of the landscape, the new plants, robots and Nian architecture.

On a side note: the mud fight between CIR and M2S was already annoying a 3/4 year ago. And now it starts all over again ... including posts here on the forum that are annoying as hell as well as tedious.

Thanks for this info. Now i know why i'm running around with 10 fps although my CPU usage is only at 10%.
Does Perp require now more RAM? It's constantly over 1 GB and i just have 2 GB . Memory usage all the time above 83%.
This change is a bit unfortunate since almost all computers have a decent CPU built in but only dedicated gaming PCs and very expensive notebooks can shine with a good GPU.
Btw i'm already "playing" with lowest possible settings ... and it's ugly as hell.

Would be great of course ... but i doubt that Perp can hold these new players for more than 3-4 months. We already had this situation (and that was like a fat win in lottery for the Devs) and the things that led to the decline of player population are still there.
Hopefully my thoughts will prove wrong.

@ Rex
On a larger scale it's quite counterproductive to keep your accounts subscribed. Of course you want to be ready (EPs) for the time you will play again actively. Although i wish the Devs a decent earning from their product ... gaining money from customers that don't use their product anymore (subscribed but not playing) isn't healthy for the game and its development. It doesn't put enough pressure on the Devs aiming for a healthier player population. They DO work for their money and the game IS developing ... just not in the direction required for more/new players.

Sorry for bad grammar and wall of text.

I've experienced exactly the same ... it's just horrible. Killing NPCs in numbers is now simply a pita. Nothing less. Really fun to catch your targets with a Mech/Hmech and running around some objects to get a free line of sight. Now imagine the moment when NPC E-War will work again ... sitting behind buildings/walls and jamming/surpressing you ...
For me it's the last nail in the coffin

Dude are you somehow mentally challenged? I feel pity for your pathetic and ridiculous mind.

But wouldn't it apply to player owned shots (POS^^) too if it was an intended feature based on changed LOS calculation?
@Hugh Raka
If possible go back to this location on the 2nd screenshot and shoot back with a turret to see if it works in both directions.

What about increasing the timer for someone else looting your bots remains? On alpha islands only of course. Right now everyone can loot your stuff in 2 seconds - assuming he's already watching how you die. Sometimes you can't even reach your own can in time before 15 minutes are over. Let alone someone else grabs your stuff ...

Hehe it's not. He had to change his name some time ago

Doesn't matter at all. It's not that he could have escaped in his heavy ERP tanked Artemis with a max speed of over -9000.

Is that so? It's an honest question. If that's true ... i don't like it. Reminds me too much of the verrrrry deep relationship between devs and some players in EVE.

And the abuse of it.

Hmm if you want some more details: here we go.

- kernel nerf a few months ago (down to 50% ... issue: research)
- nerfing Observers as a whole multiple times since introduction (issue: research and income)
- plasma "adjustment" ... not a nerf in my eyes but still: newer players earn less plasma/older players more plasma
- assault bot nerf (typically a great bot for young players)
- massive increased combat strength for Assault Observers (they roam only on Alpha I ... they're meant to be a juicy target for new players right?)(issue: income, research)
- removal of short range/high damage ammo ... the problem: NPCs are not longer close range combatants (some Nuimgol Mechs shoot at 350m+ ... more than a Kain Observer)

Of course all these aspects affect veterans too but much more the younger players. Btw i meant "relative to older players" in my post above ... not "relation". Language error from my side .
Even the change in T1 mods/ammo isn't a buff. Yeah it's cheaper to produce T1 crap now but more expensive to build T2+ mods (either you ninja mine your epriton or you buy it from market ... for lots of NIC). And ammo costs as much as before the patch ... according to market data.
When i was a small agent of 1 week i already started to kill Observers. It wasn't easy. I lost bots and lots of them i simply couldn't kill because of lacking EPs and damage. But it was one way to play Perp. 1 hour of running the triangle with 2 accounts and you could afford 1 Observer Mech kernel (before the patch). But an Observer hunter doesn't find 1 Observer per hour. So even a young noob could get his hands on tasty Observer kernels.

In general it seems that the Devs tend to swing the huge nerfbat regulary. Without warning and lacking a proper tact. And every nerf is harder the less EPs you have. Nothing of the above mentioned aspects is game breaking but the overall picture leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Obviously I'm not the only one regarding current player peaks. And that's the best indicator when it comes to a satisfied player base.