I've always been torn on this topic. On one hand a PLEX system allows the developers to make more money while hindering RMT'ers somewhat.

On the other hand, Zoom is correct in that "PLEX IS PAY2WIN" not nearly as bad as say a cash shop is, were items come out of tin air with no player actions involved. But you still can use real money to gain an advantage over someone with less material wealth. That is by the very definition, Pay2win.

Now I've used PLEX's in eve since the first introduction of the old 30 and 90 day timecodes could be traded. But I still hated their addition to the game, even if I did play for free for years because of it. In perpetuum I'm also filthy stinking rich and could play for free with a dozen or so accounts eventually if they added this. But I also feel it would ruin the game somewhat, as someone out there could simply put in say a thousand dollars, and would have a army of best fitted heavies that could constantly attack another corp without fear of losses and the defenders would be unable to replace the losses due to the monopoly guy(s) in another corp.

It's got both major pros and major cons to the system. If I honestly had to choose, I would go with Zoom on this and say to avoid this system altogether, forever. Yes RMT'ers will "eventually" cause similar issues, but those will exist even with a PLEX system in place, and two major problems is worse than one.

My two cents on the issue.

Heh. You'll find another, don't worry.

Siddy you are alive! Thought you had quit the game from what I'd been hearing.

Edit: Ok, I'm figuring this out now. After checking all the structures again, I feel like everything but the terminal is made out cardboard, both in terms of armor, and material costs. Why are these "structures" so flimsy and made of so little actual material?

At risk of further flaming what appears to be a battle royale between Lemon and Lupus... I think you each have valid points in some areas. Here's my take on it currently, in appropriate order.

Destroyer mech wise your both right technically, Lupus is right in that Gamma islands need to be the source of obtaining them, as they would also likely be the head of an attack force on a heavily defended network of turrets. Lemon is obviously also correct in that the dev's obviously arn't anywhere near done with them. (As far as I know.) Same applies to artillery I'd suppose. And while rich people (Also me) would have access to them primarily at first, the same could have been said of when they added any of the heavy mechs. (They were UNGODLY expensive when they first became available.) Personally I'd strangle someone if it got destroyers in the game any faster.

Next topic, first off when you mention the alpha island market *** you don't mean me do you? (I assume not, as I haven't been playing for a while. And I don't recall ever seeing you when I last played.) Anyway, we can all agree that the upcoming changes are drastically changing the market and is causing hoarding of materials/bots. But this is rather normal, and should be alleviated shortly after the live patch. Will postponing also postpone the market issues? Of course, but I think that's a lesser evil than releasing a broken expansion. (I don't personally see the expansion as being "broken", just horribly balanced at the moment. Hell I expect it to be poorly balanced not matter what at live. It'll take time to iron it out with several additional patches.)

Next topic... Weak PBS's. I have to side with Lupus here. From what experience I have testing turrets over the last day or so on Gamma, it seems there would be a bit too much ease in raiding a PBS. (5000 armor turrets isn't exactly "defense tough". Granted they hit with some oomph.) I still need quite a bit more testing before I can make a reliable determination on exactly where balance needs to go, but I do get the feeling that PBS's need a lot more bang for their considerable buck so to speak. Cost to effect. At least defense wise, I think the facilities so far are fine. Also Lemon I think you and I talked about this in Trade chat the other day about the 3000+ active players and building it around that. Understand that doesn't exist yet, (I really wish it did, and I know the devs feeding their families do too.) so it's wise to build this at least somewhat around what the current playerbase can handle. (They could also add 300+ more gamma islands, but no one would likely ever even see 1/10 them with the current population.) Now it could be concieveable that if an entire alliance built a single PBS and used it you'd have around the clock people, individual corps just can't do this now, not yours, not his, and not mine. As such these PBS structures need to take a very large number of people, or at the least a moderate number of people fielding some expensive toys to tackle when even lightly defended by players. Granted there will be a fine line where you should be able to take only a few guys and whittle down a PBS when the defenders arn't online, but this should not by any means be a quick thing, it should a very long time to destroy a huge investment in time and resources with little risk in assets in doing so. Again this comes down to the good old, "Risk vs reward".

Adding a line break here because honestly it needs one so your eyes don't bleed. Continuing that last paragraph, if we go your way Lemon and make it so easy to walk into a PBS base or destroy the structures, your corp (Assuming your corp makes a PBS.) will suffer this effect and much as mine or anyone elses. One night all members in someone corp will gather around their timezone and walk into your PBS when 90-100% of your corp/alliance is offline. (Quite common with current pop.) And simply undo a months worth of work if not more. Yes they wont be able to take the actual base due to invuln, but they will remove all defenses, all facilities, all mining outposts, etc. To where even if you drive them off when you get back online, your still back where you started a month ago. Now all this in based on "current" base specs on the test server, I know I personally could wipe out a ton of structures in only a 4 hour window. (Yes terraforming defenses would slow this way down.) with a few of my combat alts and tank several towers with 2 RR alts supporting them easily. now this is "just me" let alone a whole corp doing this, or even just a whole squad. But enough on this topic, I'm making a wall'o'text here.

Last topic, the reward. Now again I agree with lupus mainly. There does need to be adaquite reward for such massive risk or if you prefer... massive investment in a Gamma island and PBS. Now we do get some as you pointed out, best facilities in the game. However note that with changes to the indy system, basic facilities will matter far far less than they do now. Though the CT combination facility is definitely a another benefit. You mention the epeen of obtaining one and slapping your corp's name on it. This doesn't in itself make having something worthwhile to many people, just as I personally find achievements in games to be utterly stupid and not worth my time. (Unless they provide a actual benefit to me.) Now some will love that, I take it from what you said that this does appeal to you, and that's great, in fact that means you gain something I simply can't. But you can't expect that to be the case for everyone.

Well I guess I did list two perfectly good benefits of a Gamma island, maybe it's just me but I think it needs something more for all that effort and risk of losing so much investment. (Yes as you can guess I'm all about gaining profit, that's my endgame along with fun pvp battles.) I "personally" would like to see Gamma materials used in destroyer mechs and only able to be built on Gamma islands. Thus making them high cost and high risk as someone could destroy the factory making them. (They should still be able to be shipped and used on alpha islands, to allow future budding corp/alliances to rise up and take over gamma islands that are being poorly defended.

I think Gamma islands NEED to be defended by players to repel attacks, turrets SHOULD NOT repel determined forces, however it should take a fairly large amount of time to destroy structures and turrets without bringing some major firepower. After all those structures cost a LOT to currently make (Especially the higher tier ones.) and at live will take a fair amount of time to build. They should be worth that cost in effectiveness, and so they don't insta kill attackers, that means they should have sizable amounts of armor to make them take time to destroy. (Unless you as an attacker bring a large investment thus taking a large risk yourself to make destroying them faster and more successful.

Christ that was one long post. I'd make a TLDR, but it'd likely end up being a paragraph long. Hope I covered everything, I probably missed a topic.

Whatever happened to the planned Artillery + bots?

Anyway some I'd like to see...

1. Also want dedicated support bots, though not in a rush for one atm, Industrial heavies still work great for this.

2. Also want a mobile command center type bot able to hold and swap out bots on the field for other players.

3. Would like to see a rorqual type bot able to compress minerals/harvestables on the field. (Ever try and haul 100mil units of helioptris? I don't recommend it.

4. Slow but massive artillary type mechs. Essentially 3x the dps of a heavy mech, but moves like a slug and has a mediocre tank. It could have a minimum range to help balance it. And would need allies to spot for it due to very low signal range.

5. Mobile Shield Generator mech. Able to project a shield onto other bots in range draining the cap of the shield bot instead of the targets. Bit of a stretch I know, but would be interesting, pain to balance I'm sure, if at all possible.

And my number one WANT is freaking destroyer mechs (both industrial and combat) Been waiting on these since closed beta when we actually had extensions to be able to pilot them. (I miss my expert robotics extensions...) Also I'm approaching maxed out skills in mining and industrial bots. (3 months or so) so soon I'll have to make a hybrid miner/combat/RR character if we don't get more stuff to spend ep on. (Ok yes your adding the one new harvesting skill next patch.)

Edit: My bad it was 3 months not 2.

Thanks Grem. I always have Perpetuum to fall back on if I get bored. Plus I'm really looking forward to the new terraforming and base building.

Not until I can't get my yield a single unit higher or faster. Then I move onto manufacturing and RR. Then... not really sure. Guess I hope they add new extensions by then.

I'd vote for winter to take the spot honestly. Plus a female on there would "magically" increase the audience by 50%. I would offer to take the position myself, but then there would be claims I was spying on the podcast or something.

It should be noted that it used to be whole numbers only. Not having decimal points however had a profound impact on the raw minerals market, where many of the materials arn't even worth 1 NIC. Hence the effect was no market at all for them. This was the main reason for the addition of decimal points in NIC transactions.

Is the 0.01 NIC game annoying as hell? Yup. But it's a necessary evil. Take care in the fact that you can't change your market order values without waiting on a sizable timer. So at least "effective" market order "bots" (Pun not intended) are out.

As much as I dislike Syndic, I can't argue with this. The game is grind heavy enough as it is. And it was already inhumanly difficult to max out research before the changes.

As has been stated above, the mk2's are fantastic endgame equipment. They are oriented towards the higher ep players, and are worth the cost in the end. I LOVE my rivler mk2.

However if there were to be a mk2 that sucked, I'd have to say the sequer mk2 and especially the Lithus mk2. If your not hauling on a pvp island, then these are 5m and 70-80m decorations. And honestly, if your attacked in one, the bonuses ain't gonna save you.

Other than those, the mk2's are great. The battlefield needed more expensive stuff to lose. Most mk1s us older players can lose every hour of every day and not even care. (Bar T4 heavies perhaps)