With the old transports from terminal to terminal nearlygone, those were also nerfed down in regards to "fast and much reward" (can't compare to the triangles). But the mission itself didn't change that much.

At Beta the missions (lvl 4+) should still be the old ones. So there they still are awesome top moneymakers if you don't mind the PvP.

For Alpha:
Transport missions as of now are nice to run if you combine it with other assignments. Now you have to run to interactive terminals situated on the terrain of that same isle and fetch or bring the containers there, sometimes both. With rising lvl the danger of having NPCs there will be greater.

A nice example for some good NIC and tokens would be the combination (of any assignment type) with production missions.
This new type of assignment requires you to fetch items, RE and/or to produce the items after fetching the materials (don't forget to extract the CT afterwards and to deliver it too!!!).
This process may take hours to wait for completion, a bit of running around but has high rewards. The waiting time gives you normally enough room for another misson.
So depending on your the extension level of "Parallel assignments" (< under "Relations") it is a nice base in low lvls (0-2 maybe 3).

F2P - in the beginning I was one of those against it like many others.
With the "current" situation not improving since too long now, I do think about whether F2P maybe could be seen as last resort.

Other than this, even if the content changes I doubt there will be a nice playerinflux happening based on past big changes.
The same counts for Steam release - Greenlight did give us a chance but once the first months were over most did disappear.
___________________________________
For those that like to read a little story:

A little sad tale about the Pepetuum Project...
The market is just one indicator that tells us: this game lies in coma since months - most vets are more or less awaiting the shutdown of the medical support.
We still do see what Perp is and could be so don't want to throw that hope away. But how to revive this game?

Playerbase is already low and decreases further with each month passing like a slowing down heartbeat of the comatose - the market as one of its indicators.
Vast Public appearances of DEVs are like the doctors showing up some times only saying "We're doing the best we can" sometimes encouraging us with new prospects.
There were that many Miracle treatments beforehand (like Gamma expansion) which certainly were necessary to prolong life and evade a sudden death but still - it was a fight against the symptoms of the illness not its cause:
The hospital has run out of money long ago so the necessary medicaments (patches, content, activity) can't be delivered on time.

How about Free 2 Play
Those analogies seem harsh and are my subjective opinion that led me to think about F2P.
F2P has many faces - we already have some kind of it here in form of some snowflakes. But this again seems like an analogy - the deepest winter of Perp.
But that aside, the free to play models have proven over the years to be more of moneymakers than subs or one time pay. And this capitalism is my reason F2P might give Perp another small chance for a miracle.

It shines in variety of solutions – from pay-to-win models along to pay-for-fun/assecoires.
Ideas like increase EP income per pay/sub is one of the first, paintjob/pets/... one of the latter. Another point would be awards for subbing like betatester/EA = shiny bots, or after lets say 6 payed  months a little carrier pet (similar to the demon in sacred 2).

For me a mixture of P2W and P4F would be okay.
Though I don't really like the subbased P2W like it's in Aion with its monthly Premium packages, if its more something like a collectors edition or other one time pay packages in different levels (bronce, silver, gold) with some ingame and some artists goodies (posters, models,..) I wouldn't mind – Even less if players get a discount depending on the time they had already subbed (like: you've subbed without fail since more than 18 months, you get +30-50% discount).
Combined with P4F elements like Paintshop, timed Speedimprovements of your spark on alpha (terminal activation only, only applied if no module active) or partythings like fireworks – it might bring in enough money to get a little miracle to happen.

That means if people still want to try Perp then and if the DEVs can still afford the time and costs for those.
One other good point beside money would be there too – for the steam release discussions can be cut down from payment amount/methods to talks about achievement and thus may be finished faster.

Conclusion:
F2P may be a possibilty to get some money in if it isn't already too late now.
There are enough models out there to keep the original intend of the game. To warn you beforehand - there's no surefire way to get it back up. But lean back for a moment and seriously think about F2P if you haven't already done so. Just saying a biased „no“ without any serious reasoning because of your pride will mean the end of Perp.
As I see it, PP does NOT have problems because of missing content rather than missing resources so the DEV team can grow (instead of demount), concentrate on PP and have fun tempering with it again.

To the DEVs: If there's no chance for a comeback left, I beg you don't hide - we will cry with you.

Wow, I'm shocked, just because I'm not online for a day or week turns such things into mystery?

Disclaimer: my reasons are for the current lookout of the game - if there's greater changes in gameplay, player base and DEVs ressources/count they loose their value.
+ this wall of text is just a direct response and isn't directly connected to the Threadtopic, so dear Mods/DEVs please move it into an according topic if necessary

To the basics - with those several islands we already have some kind of instances BUT everyone is able to enter them whenever they want (aka no alternate dimensions) and can be part of the selfwritten storyline in Perpetuum. This goes also along with the basic features of Perpetuum - remember that "one scene, one story, persistent universe" stuff.
So here's the first most basic argument against any instance that separates from the general Perpetuum world or even goes as far creating alternate dimensions for it: it's against the game's basic!
If we want to have that changed - we have no reason at all to keep ANY of a games basic features at all.

Okay, this part was really obvious, wasn't it?

• Obvious point 2: our small islands are already a kind of instance - you have for each favorite playing style an island (safe PvE, PVP/PvE, MPC, factions, difficulty). No need to have separated instances for something we already have.

• Obvious point 3: mapping. Even if you were told the terrain would be done fast - adjusting it to its purpose and making it playable without bugs takes away many ressources (working time, money, testing, nerves). Unless the DEV Team grows or gets a huge money influx each island is hard handicraft. Even more so if you want usable "random maps" or scripted instances.

• Obvious point 4: low playerbase - right now, if every single player that has subbed would be online with ALL his accounts at the exact same time we still couldn't fill even half of the discovered Nian isles (my opinion after seeing over 1000 players online before gamma expansion). A condition that will hardly be met in the nearest future.
  ^^^^ in italics because of lowest priority and the still existing hope that massivly more players will come in the future

Now to get to some ideas for the use of instances: training isle (also mentioned by DEV Zoom), missions/squad missions, NPC siege, special arena fights.

• Training Isle:
  long overdue and more than necessary, but if its anything near my proposal the access restrictions make it a borderline instance to fit the basic feature of Perp. Even so, one island to start out and train is really really needed - no doubts.

• missions/squad missions: why should there even be a need for mission instances?
  Given a working squad assignment system, a healthy random mission generator, evtly an improvement to orefield system (recognizing a field instead only single tiles for example), mission npcs with mission loot ONLY spawning per assignment trigger,... there would be neither overcamped mission sites (do we even have some atm??) nor problems with empty orespawns.
  BTw - if you want to grief an alpha isle mission - it's an APLHA mission!! Forgotten that alpha is a safe zone even for missions? If you don't like it, play on Beta/Gamma the missions or ask for the comeback of police zones to get Perp even more hardcore PvP - instances don't have anything to do with your boredome and the will to griev with your t4 fitted high specced bots some lower players that just want to have peace. (sry, raged a bit here)

• NPC Siege - Nian MPC vs Sndicate MPC - more activity to the AI. Originally this was an idea for separate isles/instances but it can be applied to every existing isle and enhance the PvE environment even more as an instance of this kind would do.

• Arena instances:
  don't we already have gamma? oh waaaait, there are two tings we don't have with gamma: capture the flag and PvP without losses, how could I even have a single thought that we don't need such things in Perpetuum ... (/hah got the cynism to switch off again )
  Honestly, I'm not a PvP'er, so there might be a purpose to arenas (perhaps even with according assignments) but that's one of the reasons Gamma exists. If there's an arena on training island to give a short look into PvP no problem, but a scripted PvP arena outside, dunno, honestly.

Ideas and improvements mentioned here can be found in the Perp-forums again and again in one way or another - instances are in most cases a worse choice for an open world sandbox game.

so in short - instances?

addition to my post before:
the choice depends on the changes to come

One of the great roles in this question would play the alliance feature:
Right now you may have really big squads which holds everyone of the alliance or at least of the corp - with those option number 2 is way better, to compare the active assignments of each member.

If the alliance feature will come soon - the first option would be better since the squads will only be needed to group certain activities (instead of grouping players with several activities like it's now). The squads would be smaller and the squadleader can easily decide which missions can be taken for the whole squad.

Another point is if there will be changes to the mission system like a min-max amount of participating agents (similiar to beacon farming) where the reward would be calculated depending on actual characters in squad and agents needed for the mission. Again method 1 points here

If any changes like these are planned method 1 would have more benefits, but if we start from the current state I'd have to go for method 2.
(Since I hope for some new variety in missions and a alliance system I choose the first option )

my basic idea was that every member that currently is in squad gets a popup-choice to participate if anyone of the squad accepted a squad mission. if a new member joins you can forward the mission to him again.
In case of option nr. 1 it could be implemented as "forward mission for squad to squadleader" (... Did thought I knew the squadleader idea from somewhere - now I remembered...)

All in all, I agree with zortarg: to find the most ideal system, it really depends on what you want to implement/change in PvE/mission system.

PS: since you already are discussing for a better squadmission system - please adjust also that you can switch after accepting a mission solo to squadmission

it wont be enabled for existing accs? sad, kinda liked to have those sparks...
Then, will we get a chance for new sparks for anniversary again?

hmm, let's see...

race selection - yep, should happen on starter island when you actually know the pros/cons of each

For building a terminal and a turret: I would propose instead of those huge thingies to build your own tent first - otherwise instances would really be needed (each player a base...). With building your own little tent you already get a shoot from the MPC side.
For Terraforming - don't have a good idea to implement that one without the use of scripted events making it undone

every item up to t3 available? Doesn't sound that good to me.
Side thought, T4 is normally beta equip because of epriton and noralgis, not alpha.
That aside, the wish to show the improvements of modules per tier is good, but T0 (Syncrap) and T1 (Standard) should be sufficient for this learning effect.
If you get a T3 reward for killing the endboss and can take it with you to alpha (hard earned reward) its sounds better for me.

Bots maybe up to mech but those only lend by the syndicate for arena use. Or Syndicate bots like assault and mech versions of arkhe (machinegunners roll!).

Besides if you already were able to use T3 equip and have to restart from zero at alphas it might be a shock to new players. Same with the extensions as soon as you leave starter islands.

Extension wise, I would have said free Extension reset for your agent as long as you are on this island (downgrade tokens may stay for your first month after this).

Improvement to Tutorials is the first and foremost goal to all trainings islands

Fights versus DEVs in the starter arena? WANT.

The main flaw of Elli is that other than gaining knowledge you have no reason to complete the training isle since you loose everything you achieved there (extensions, bots, items). This was one of the reasons many newbs jumped tutorial in TR...
Another flaw would be that you need another server just to seal of EP and extensions like on a testserver (it would conflict with the one world philosophy of Perp too).

All in all, you should still be able to discover different bots, fits and challenges outside of the starter area (not just open PVP and MK2 variants) or it may get boring even faster - at least my 2 cents here

Rewards:

• higher facility levels

• auras

• extended syndicate supply:
  production of items to be sold only to syndicate supply;
  plasma changeable to tokens;
  recieving tokens for activating/repairing/upgrading buildings, killing officers, invading enemy base, selling island special isotope;
  possibility to buy decoders, syndicate item CTs of higher tiers, ...

Alpha/Beta Siege or the PvP question:

• if Beta siege is wanted: safe Non-PvP zones guarded by police towers, around terminals and maybe single ones for PvE parts

• for those that want pure PvP there's Gamma (>>> maybe add some Nian invasions there too?)