3 days of not very hard-core mining and I've got like 9+ trips of crap I need to haul to a t2 refinery (which will probably just get refined at a t1 due to laziness).

200-300U of storage would still be pretty inadequate imo. But hell, anything would be better!

Vorgrim, you couldn't even carry a sequer load of loot if you killed a sequer.. because, like, you're not a sequer.

For me, there is only one reason to go to beta and its epi.

There is an abundance (as there should be) of minerals on alpha, and if you look.. quite a few red nodes. Granted, these nodes are nothing in comparison to the seas of red you can find on beta.

However, the risk v reward for an indy type simply isn't worth it, unless you're already in the top 5% of the playerbase nic-wise and have an endless termis stream if/when yours pops.

Termis were selling for 5m yesterday. I'd rather not risk that 5m termis (granted, a lot cheaper if you farm the mats yourself) or even my 1m seq. Not to mention that if I get popped with a field container out, there will be next to no chance to recover it or the material inside of it.

I could bring a teleport beacon, but being 60U i'd have to transport it in a seq, which is fine.. however, they seem to vanish after deploying more times than not, so this is not a viable escape option. And I'd still lose whatever was in my field container.

I've farmed for hours and hours on beta without seeing a single person though. So it's fair to say that it still is pretty safe. It only takes once though, and I'd still be in the hole mech cost vs the value of everything i've mined there so far.

I think the largest factor that comes into this is that mining bots, if attacked, have little to no ability to retaliate. Again, this is how it should be.

Here are my possible solutions:
1) You can see every player when they are 1km away from you on the map. Every bot/mech has mass. The system could be reworked to where your mass/signature size/whatever directly relates to how far away you can be seen on the map. There can be things added to increase/decrease various factors of this.

2) Going along the same line as number one: moving targets generate more heat, noise, and other stuff. Perhaps moving targets/targets that just moved could be seen at a longer distance than immobile ones. Or, accumulator/cpu/energy usage could attribute to how far away you can be seen instead of the default 1km. This would also lead to people being able to create ambushes.

3) No arkhes on beta. Kind of harsh, but since they ARE tutorial bots, maybe they lack the complex electronics to transport over such a long distance required to get to beta, but for the short distances on alpha it's fine. This would create another problem of "what if I am home-based in beta and die" though. Maybe make arkhes weaker to start with, with nearly/no combat/ewar capabilities. This way you can do the first 2 or 3 tutorial missions still, and then get the mk2 when you have to learn combat during the tutorial.

I'm at work so I'll probably get fired if I keep writing things.. but, this is my biggest problem when I'm on beta. And my biggest fear to keep me from venturing onto another corps territory. I have no problem risking my neck if I have a means of escape.

Right now, almost any mech/bot can catch me in my term/seq/arg. I can see them at the exact same time they see me. Unless I'm within 600m of an outpost, they will catch me.

Please don't say "bring people to protect you" as that is a *** response with no real weight behind it. I don't think there is a single person alive who would sit with me while I mine for 8 hours and twiddle their thumbs.

Just my thoughts.

Somehow limiting the number of people who can target a single unit would be one idea. Rationale behind it could be something along the lines of "There is too much interference for your targetting system to lock on" or something. However, this would be easy to exploit by having X number of friendlies lock onto the said target, and that would be a big issue. If there were some way around this, it might encourage smaller groups. Or, it would just make people learn to call targets better.

I like the idea of limiting squad size. Perhaps make the size relational to some skill located under the.. (sorry at work, cant remember the name) teamwork/leadership extensions. Everyone starts with a 5 person squad ability, then each level adds 2 more members, for a total of a 25 member squad. This wouldn't really prevent zergs though, since you could just run multiple squads without too much trouble.

Or, along the same lines as the targeting thing, maybe the more people in your immediate vicinity the longer it takes to lock onto targets (due to some sort of interference) but, this could also be easily exploited by a huge group vs a small group, as everybodies lock times would increase and not just the larger group.

I don't think we will ever see a "roving band of 100 people" walking around beta island solely looking for PVP targets. I think this will only be an issue during schedule corp combat.

I've only participated once (in the battle that crashed all of M2S).. but, having multiple objectives that must be completed and defended simultaneously, fairly spread apart, would not stop a corp from amassing 150 people.. but it might at least split that 150 up into 5 smaller groups. Having say, 7 objectives, and the first to either defend/capture 4 of the 7 is declared the winner.. vs 1 defense as it is now. Or maybe 3 defenses to win and 4 captures to win. Shrug.

Anything that somehow limits a "blob" will be exploitable in some fashion I think, unless that blob can be split up.

Just my thoughts.