First I was glad to see even the brief info on my last question covered - 1 name followed by "many" for how many actually swap bots around.  Seeing 9 vs 6 bots posted about as "being blobbed"...

I have no clue how many that might be - from 3 to ??? in the entire game?  It doesn't seem to be a very large quantity that swap around the bots they choose to use, not with any great frequency.

-- on topic:

I don't see why any balance is needed at all.

It's an entirely different slot than a turret.    I see it kind of the same as complaining about utility slots - look how they don't match with turret and missile extensions.  Does that need "balancing"?

So if a turret slot can hold different turrets - sharing extensions across a few types of fittings makes sense and any thing that can fit in a missile slot should share extensions across that type of slot.  If nothing else exists - yet - then wait for it.

Non-pelestial bots do have missile slots.  If you don't have missile skills, you cannot fully fit that bot.  The choice not to do so is not the same as the inability to fit them at all.

Overall, times change and I thought this game was about "the long haul" - not about instant gratification right now, especially not for veteran type players and this seems to be an extremely "veteran" issue that is only an annoyance for a very thin part of the community.  "Envy" comes to mind.

Again, just wondering why different fittings that go in different slot types should match up with extensions?

It really doesn't make much senses.

I know a hell of a lot about EVE - more than many "veteran" players with years on me.  I can walk a new player through scenario after scenario where they are of value and use in PvP and explain in terms they can understand exactly why their SP there is of value, makes possible options but also is only 1 part of an equation for success in PvP.

I'll provide an example and perhaps - just perhaps - some of the veterans here can find an equivalent method of explaining it in Perpetuum terms because this I do not see nor understand.

(note: some "EVE jargon" in use here...)

You have a nanocan piloted by a 2 year old char and 2 pilots going after it to tackle. 

1 in an interceptor, piloted by a year old char. 1 a T1 frigate piloted by a 1 month old char.  That nanocane can and will pop either one of these 2 ships in seconds if they aren't careful.

HOW you approach the target, how you line up to keep your angles correct, etc...  this will far more determine your success at get inside those guns and pinning that ship down.  SP, means jack squat here and so does the fact that 1 is in a T2 ship vs the other in a T1.  You'll need hands-on experience to succeed.

(I've seen the above where the inty pilot got his butt shot off yet the frigate got inside and tackled the target...)
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So - in perp - what is the equivalent?

Instead of just "you can...  you might... experience means..." FIND a scenario, like the above that, with little understanding of the game, players can see that they do add-value and are important for success from early on.. 

(conversely, in EVE, I also explained to a "get in there early!" person that a player can learn how to PvP in 2 weeks easily - doing it 2 weeks in or 2 YEARS into the game.  The difference there:  Sitting in highsec, you learned faster due to implants that the new PvP player cannot afford to use for YEARS of play.  That does NOT exist in this game so no "penalty" for PvP with respect to extensions/skills.)

There are reasons for getting the ratings but as has been stated, they don't apply so much here.

Example: Sony PS mandated an ESRB rating for their games.  It's one reason why the costs can be higher for a Playstation than the equivalent iPhone app and the like.

You also have certain groups/sites that won't publish/carry titles without such ratings available to reference.  (kind of like "system requirements" to some sites - what it says is less important than its inclusion.)

Both ESRB and PEGI do cost - a few thousand each and the advantages are slim for a digital distribution medium that caters to a more adult user base than the rating systems would provide access to.

Some of the legal ramblings and bills out and about may mandate ratings in the future but, for now, it doesn't appear worth their $$$ to get a rating.

http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p301 … erview.png

Closer view of the names.  The photo place resizes and converts images so I clipped that chunk out to see it better.

Well, after killing several hundred of them - I'd say "idiot" doesn't quite fit - zip losses and a whole bunch of kernels, a few T2 fittings, etc.    (besides, it's a lot easier to see how resists work when your main damage type is weak - you can then see how things stack up.)

On the smites - yes, that's shown -- and so are the other damage types from missiles which show more specific damage focus - "primary" + 1 other type.  When all resists, outside of focused damage, are within about 10 points of each other, "generic" - at higher base damage- is going to do the best.

On the passive vs active - it shows.  If it were active, the thermal damage missiles would have been much worse/taken more missiles to kill the mechs.  They took little more than what the chem did vs a lot more if it were +100 vs +25.

I honestly doubt my tests will surprise any of the more veteran players but the general "use x damage" - is not necessarily the best way to go.  Mixing damage types of ammo may do better in some situations - especially against "off mech" opponents.

PS: You may feel like tossing 100k+ per kernel at someone else for their farming but I've a young industrialist too and he has a LONG way to go to learn how to make many things so my combat fellow here will do a good deal of that farming - AND I get to learn how to fight these "you can't beat them" guys. 

Exactly.  Here's some additional details (as you may gather from my previous post - I *DID* do combat missions for the "3 combat only" group - the recon mission):

Low level combat missions were joke easy to do for rep "grinding".  I don't recall exactly how many but maybe 24 missions across all 3 factions.  I stacked them with others.

The mech and fittings I used: 
Argano
- Head:  geoscanner - chassis scanner
- Chassis:  3 mining lasers
- Legs:  lwf - armor repairer

Extensions I used:
Parallel Assignments 5 (allows stacking of 6 missions)
Long Range Targeting 2 (get a bit more range for chassis scanning)
Jamming Electronics 3 (needed for full chassis scanner - 300m + 100m scan range)

I did them with "single target" basic skills and no points in faster locking.

The armor repairer was for mining missions - you get some of the little drones on you while doing them -- NOT for combat missions.

Stacking missions via Parallel Assignments let me run them quickly and easily - if relations is an issue - don't whine about this extension being needed.

Types of missions favored: 
- combat: Recon - they "finish" in the field -- scan 5-10 mechs.  You don't need guns for this, just scan the target mechs so it's run in range, scan, run out.  I even did a couple L1's of these to give some space and the L1's had you getting hit with demobs and the like - no big deal if you know how to run in, scan, back out - repeat.

- mining: survey scanning:  "finishes" in the filed, run in, toss a scan, run out.  Mining ops also but they take more time.

- transport:  the "golden triangle".

Very fast and easy if you stack the assignments.  Any "combat are HARD" comments are a joke.  Not a single gun on that mech and doing them was very easy even if 3 others were killing mechs - it didn't matter, I just scanned any of them to complete my assignment.

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With this - getting standings to 2.0 is not a major challenge.  Beyond that is hard because of the loss of recon missions but, then again, the L2 missions for scanning via mining are very nasty.  3 spots to scan, all 3 at different points at T2/T3 mech sites, most with EW mechs...  Not something all that easy to pull off.  If there were recon missions, it would be EASY for non-combat types.

IMO this "removal of combat" wasn't needed.  All that was needed is a full "map" by the community of how to do them and - from the dev side - *ADD* some recon missions for higher level assignments.

The rest would have been easy to document and fairly quick to complete.

* (why did I do this?  that "golden triangle" is the most boring activity in the game and I decided to figure this stuff out to keep my brain from going to mush running in circles. - I also have a full mapping of which corporations give increases to what other corporations but that data will be outdated with the patch so it's worthless to publish it right now.)

It's not quite so easy.  Here's a quick breakdown.

Level 0's - 9 corporations - 1 mission each.
-- each mission "somewhat" specific to the corp's functions.

Level 1's - 9 corporations - 3 missions each. (I'll cover 1 set out of TM real quick)
-- Corp 1: Mine - Find minerals - Transport (2 indy, 1 logistics)
-- Corp 2: 3 Transport (3 logistics)
-- Corp 3: Mine - Destroy - Transport (1 of each)
-- Corp 4: Transport - Destroy - Recon (2 combat, 1 logistics)
-- Corp 5: 2 Mine - Find minerals  (3 indy)
-- Corp 6: Destroy - Mine - Find minerals (1 combat, 2 indy)
-- Corp 7: Recon - Transport - Bounty  (2 combat, 1 logistics)
-- Corp 8: Destroy - Bounty - Recon (3 combat)
-- Corp 9: Mine - Find minerals - Transport (2 indy, 1 logistics)

Breakdown:
Industry - 10
Logistics -  8
Combat  -  9
----------- 27

Now I'm not certain which counts as industry vs logistics but combat is pretty easy to spot.  In any case, it makes no difference if you're going for relations building - all 9 being raised up helps the most.  So who offers what that you can do is of far more importance and this "general relations building" is changing.

Level 2's gets to be even more fun being as sub-types change a bit.  So on and so forth.

I had a plan to map it out and show a "best approach" on building relations quickly but I canned that until the changes come out.  I don't know how it will all balance out.

The sub-types of assignments are rather important.  Scanning for deposits is fast and tends to be safer - sitting there mining, not so fast and safe for assignments - plus cargo needed...  Scanning 10 target NPCs - quick and easy, zero cargo needed and an industrial mech can do it.  Collect 10 items from them and return in time... A bit trickier and you'll need cargo space plus weapons to pull it off.

So on and so forth...

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It's not just 3 corps offering 3 of a type.  There is a mix of types for other corporations and how all those different offerings will mix in is the question.

True down to the last part -  Which is "kind of".

If you research far enough, small quantities of kernels will not yield any visible results - you will get a message saying this. 

Using a large body of kernels will show results yet you cannot use more than the max knowledge you would gain.

Example:  Using 5 kernels when you are near the top won't show any gains.  Using 500 when you are 50 out from maxing that level's knowledge will only use 50, leaving 450 in your storage, which you cannot use (the game prevents this waste).

I imagine this is similar to gaining standings.  0.00 showing doesn't mean you gained nothing - it means you gained too small to be shown even as a 0.01 increase.  It applied "somewhere" but you don't know how much nor what it was applied to.

As you say - degradation = 3% max.  Each run 3% worse than the last for what it pulls. 

So 5 runs starting at 75%
75%
72%
69%
66%
61%

So it would pull all materials for each run at those levels - not good.

Your solution is to hurt those who don't have vast stores of stuff - helping only the most overstocked types by letting them be lazier.  Right now, players can collect the stuff while the jobs are queued up but your "fix" ...

Leave it the way it is.