It just occurred to me that a very old idea of mine, once voiced on IRC to a dev, might come in handy here. If one would like me, have Mk3 be specialists for either range or siege, then anything you do will cause balancing issues with existing roles. Like NPC farming or regular PVP.

A solution is to introduce a new type of siege weapon, that does focus on delivering a new damage type (phasing, whatever) at long range. Now allow those weapons only to fit into specialized slots and only allow them on Mk3 versions of bots.

This way you can balance very specifically their role in taking down structures from range. Either by manipulating the damage/range stats of the weapon/ammo or the defense of structures against that specific damage type.

You wrote (in case you forgot):

If you had read my post and it consists of several aspects, not just the one you replied to, you would see my reasoning. Observers on gamma are farm-able and unless i am mistaken (always possible), they would be a good source for those beacons that ultimately drop the CT.

I also gave feedback on other aspects then availability. But you just can't take it and stop reading after a few lines just so you can post your reply without any content in it?

Something being rare should not mean finding it is confined to areas under control of a very small amount of people, that will just unbalance things more. Specifically gamma, where bases keep the "natives" safe from having to deal with PVP and where observers are plentiful and easy to kill. It all sounds too self-serving.

Also, why should new content be restricted to a few "elites" being able to control supply? That would have NO value to the game whatsoever!

As for better mk3 seed mechanics:

1. Make it a very rare drop in artifact scanning on BETA, where everyone with balls can access it and still have to do some serious effort to find them.

2. Use the existing SAP mechanic. I don't like this option as it really is free candy. Tying even more game balance into the broken mechanics (my personal opinion)  of conquerable structures seems bad to me.

3. Make multiple mk2 CTs convertible to a Mk3 one.  But please make this vastly inferior to say the quality you get with artifact scanning. Exposed activity should be rewarded!

Now to the core of the idea, are the Mk3 bots as described desirable?

I think adding glass cannons just ads a ton of scenarios that scream exploit. It also promote blob fights where one side is sure to win regardless of tank and throw out possible interesting fights and tactics.

For PVE the whole proposal is bad, spawns that need little tank are so easy, the firepower would go to waste. And those that are hard, require the tank. A reverse proposal might work for PVE tho, more tank, less damage. Allowing players with less accounts then me to take on harder spawns, be it more time consuming.

A better idea would be to make mk3 speed and range specialists (detection + lock + optimal) with moderate dps, mediocre tank and very easily jammed and hurt by interference (to force use of more terrain in groups). Speed always gives nice tactics and range offers even more. My side intention with this is to make gamma bases that are bad or not defended easier to dispose off to make room for others.

This would also make them the ideal bots for scanning on beta. Good detection, fit a masking module and use the speed to find things of value.

As you most likely are aware, its not just field container performance (which happens in memory). It is also the individual storage of damaged modules in stations, which end up in the database in likely a not too efficient format.

Then there is the user experience factor and the likely extra client and/or network load.

The original (?) one and a half year old idea is worded here (with some player comments for all to read):

http://forums.perpetuum-online.com/topi … lth-level/

In case of armor plates T2P is in fact very much the way to go, the weight savings are enormous and the build cost are quite reasonable, even for use in PVP. Profit can be made there no doubt!

Because T2P is a fitting and weight optimization of T1, you should focus on those modules that are used in PVP and weight a lot in T1. For PVE fitting and increased performance is the area to look into. Everything that people use on their logistic bots, tuners and weapon systems is what work well.

In my own case, for PVE combat I use T3P machine guns in combination with T4P tunings. This saves a lot of ammo for the firearms platform at only a modest decrease in DPS, which is compensated for mostly by the tunings. Other weapon systems might fair similar in combining tiers, I would need to investigate that first...

Oh and if you found you sold all shield hardeners in Tellesis.....me bad, just had 3 accounts slip into heavy mech and glider haulers .

I scanned all green and blue NPC for starters, found the common theme and then calculated their effective resists. Then i calculated the effective damage of all ammo and missiles in game on those resists.

Please realize that faction damage type specialization causes their respective ammo for that type to have higher base damage. This extra raw damage makes it better then chemical in certain situations. In the case of bullets however, the insane amount of raw damage of chemicals always wins (at the hefty price of a 50% drop in optimal range).

With hardening taken into account, each weapon class really has only two sane non-mission ammo types to use. The rest is sort of decoration with the exception of very rare specialized cases.

In condensed form it is a good lesson why not to level up past 5 if you want to gain abilities fast. A picture visualizing this might work quite well. OR a statement that level 9 to 10 always takes 100 times longer then 0 to 1, with a notification of the sweet spot being 5.

You get the idea

Mixed feelings:

* Yes more players would be good and this is one method in a world of free to play games;
* No, because of the obvious meta gaming issues;

In the end you need to have a game with content people are willing to pay for, or else it will never be sustainable. A large non paying population does not just add "cannon fodder" content so to speak. It also brings with it costs, both in and out of game, such as:

* Increased server load;
* More operational costs, think not of bandwidth per see, but also GM support hours!
* Competition to resources, like: dozens of non-paying miners scraping every last bit of ore from the most convenient mining spots, leaving paying dedicated miners leave in disgust. Or NPC spawns where they only game in town is to lock faster then anything else (we all hated that, right?).

In the end it is a cost/benefit analysis and for now I don't think it will fix anything, but does bring some unwanted pains and overhead.

It is still an apples to oranges comparison in the end (not meant this in a trolling way). These different faction weapon systems have different optimal/falloff ranges and different restrictions on when a weapon hits or not (missile/LOS) and for how much % of maximum damage. Even the before mentioned volley damage and accumulator use play an important role in a balance discussion.

This really means each factions mech ends up having different tactical specialties and that in turn means comparing them on just one, namely pure raw optimum dps is no valid method to draw conclusions about what needs a buff or not.

Important is if they each can successfully function in their more or less obvious roles. Obvious being based on weapon systems and bonuses/mechanics.