The boosters give a bigger advantage to new players than vets because of the way extensions cost more the higher you raise them.

But yes, +1 to giving new players a one month 50% boost for free! Would probably sell more boosters after that as well giving them a taste of it.

http://pastebin.com/JyV0qGCm

Here is my initial attempts at a system for reballancing MK2 robots into interesting roles. Some of the roles are inspired by Perpetuum, some of the roles are inspired by EVE.

I don't mean to hijack your thread Burial but I feel like alot of these ideas could be mixed together with your MK3 system (specialized bots that are not straight upgrades at everything).

+1

Why does it have to be MK3? Why can't we just have specialized bots be MK2 and generalized be MK1?

We should have combat bots for MK2 in each size focussed on different things...

Leave the current mechs (MK1) as they are, then add specialized versions (MK2) with specific roles and slot layouts/bonuses for doing certain things better.

Example for Pelistal:

--MK1 Tyranos--

4 High
4 Launchers
2 Turret/Utility
3 Low

5% Missile Damage
5% Lock Time
5% Recharge

--MK2 Tyranos: Assault Configuration--

4 High
4 Launchers
2 Low

5% Missile Damage
5% Lock Time
1% Velocity (Trade for recharge bonus)

Role Bonus:

25% Missile Cycle Time

--MK2 Tyranos: Bunker Configuration--

3 High
4 Launchers
4 Low

5% Missile Damage
5% Lock Time
5% Recharge Rate

Role Bonus:

-25% Reactor Stability
25% Shield Absorbsion
-80% to shield cycle time (reduce to 1 second)

Now we are on the same page. We need solutions before the new population starts making a go at beta islands else history will repeat itself. Granted some groups of players have been stronger than others, but I feel like many of them were destroyed too quickly.

Will it really matter if you can almost never mine? If you can't mine and do industry, you can't afford to lose bots, you won't be able to last on beta.

New entities need some breathing room to grow else we will always have 30 people in general chat.

EDIT:

Yeah ninja miners will get ganked, it is the nature of the beast. I am not worried about ninja miners too much, I am worried about new beta entities being able to grow.

The detector won't be in detection range of the terminal. The detector has been logged off on the island previously. These are not new tactics in Perpetuum Shadow.

The only warning they potentially will have is a mass of people sparking to the terminal. You have either 120 seconds to logout or escape the island if you cannot respond to the force (which there is no limit to). In 120 seconds (assuming perfect response time) a miner outside of detection range of the terminal can easily be tackled.

In a certain radius to the beta 1 terminal "notice" doesn't matter. The target will die.

When the population increases there will be groups like 62nd again that will use these detector logoff tactics in combination with some kind of force projection. My only point is instant SpT makes it easier on a large part of beta1 islands. The interzone drop works too, but its far more expensive and slower to project the full force to an island.

What I am saying is now instead of only being able to gank on one island at a time I can easily gank on all 3 with no difference. Force projection. You are assuming all entities are capable of responding with a signifigant force. Thats a big assumption.

The strong don't need anymore help to kill the weak which is exactly what SpT magnifies. Regardless if its STC or some gankers, it amplifies their power to respond to intel.

Yes it will continue to happen with or without SpT. However, since SpT all I need to do as a hunter is go drop a bunch of bots in each of the beta1 terminals, spark around or multibox detectors on the various islands, find a target, spark my squad of hunters to said beta1 terminal do the gank and get out. Basically, the ease at which you can respond to new intel and deploy a force to destroy a target is the thing spark teleport changed. It made it easy with a little preperation to project a force quickly onto a target.

I really like your relations idea btw. Problem is though now that we have moved PvP back to the betas people will complain that the only place they can PvP and not take a relations hit (gamma) is effectively immune to all but seige PvP. So in before posts about PvE rep grind, etc.

EDIT:

Not to mention we would need totally new agression mechanics.

I will adapt to spark teleport for now while the population is low and its less apparent, but I firmly beleive if the population goes back up any new aspiring beta entities will be ground out of the game by easy fast travel, especially ones looking to live on beta 1 islands.

This sounds like a very familiar problem from cousin steve that was heavily nerfed lately for this exact reason. Large ammounts of passive income just leads to a big blue donut napfest and alliances holding territory not to use it but only to receive passive income.

You should need to be active in your territory to receive bennefits from it.

A small ammount of passive income is ok though, it just can't be overdone. It should be a perk, not the reason to own an outpost itself.