My conclusions were not related to rising prices post patch.  I made a blunt accusation of insider trading, and tried to illustrate the harm that nepotism (real or perceived) may have to the long term success of this game.  I did not offer a conclusion. 

My personal conclusion (not stated here until now) is that DEV's should enact internal controls and act swiftly and decisively in stamping out all shadows of doubt (not limited to this post)

I like this game more than any other MMO I've started in years and would very much like to see it become a sleeper cult hit (insert your own simile here).  I like the patch changes and wasn't trying to comment on there impact on the markets, I think they will raise prices over the next week but thats a conversation for another topic.

Stated simply:
1) Yesterdays market activity was very unusual.
2) It appeared to be market manipulation (sometimes called market PvP) which I support.
3) The patch notes revealed changes to alpha island mining
4) Yesterdays "manipulation" was more likely a single person/corp acting on insider information.
5) Insider information makes outsiders disaffected

Over the long term yesterday was barely a blip on the radar but the ripples portend something much larger just under the surface, hence my conclusion above.  Just for the record, I don't believe anyone was acting in bad faith... but sometimes bad things come from the best intentions. When changing major mechanics like resource spawns, it might be better to release patch notes ahead of time (like the changes to radar viewing range), thus blunting the impact of information that might leak in advance.

Really can't wait for part 3

agreed on Chuck, Office I'm blah on really hit or miss for me... Did you see Better Off Ted, canceled after 1st season, but I thought it was great.. similiar to office but funnier/better written... I always feel like the office is some sketch comedy hybrid being carried along on the back Steve Carell.

Gunslinger, read the books up to the one about the runaway train... lost interest (felt like the series was being needlessly drawn out with too many unresolved plot lines for no particular reason) Then again I was never s Steven King fan.  Not too interested in watching the series unless they turn up the pace a bit.

Wow, good stuff, TY for writing and sharing

Assaults hunt other assaults and light/light ewar that can swarm/plague the larger bots, mechs hunt mechs and assaults that can swarm/plague the heavies, heavies hunt heavies and mechs... a progression with overlap.

Aye 4 subs 4 friends, membership in any corp larger than 4 people... really only need one other person, any more is overkill really, but I don't even need the help. The medium EM are so sloppily all over the place with damage output and I'm faster/cheaper in the assault bot.  I can just keep trying until luck swings in my favor... which it will before I've invested as much as the mech pilot.  Ohh and I don't need half the EP either.

Cost/benefit shouldn't be a foreign concept for anyone with references to zerg in their signature.

Greater range? We are talking about a 30m base range difference, I can close that in the blink of an eye, the advantage is negligible. I can fit 5 T2 guns on a light bot for about 25% of the cost of 4 T1 mediums on a mech and run circles around it any day of the week.  Heck I can buy a brand spanking new Arbey off the market for the cost of insuring a Kain and it takes almost a month of EP before the Kain pilot is at the same level of skill as a day 0, assault bot pilot.

Mechs have a hard time dealing with light ewar, I agree and I'm ok with that. light bots have a hit size of 3 vs the light ewar hit size of 2.75, so mechs can't hit light bots well either... I'm ok with that too, heck make em so small that the mech can't even touch them, I agree with you large bots should not steamroll masses of smaller ones! However, step down ONE class from the mech to the assault and the larger vastly more expensive bot should have a noticeable advantage or, maybe not.  My main point is their is a chasm between the largest light bot and the smallest medium bot that needs to be filled in.

As for 2v1, maybe I could have been clearer, I was alluding to cost/benefit.  I can field 5 assault bots for the price of a single mech to say nothing for the additional EP costs and yet it takes less than half that number to annihilate one, no contest hands down zerg pwnage. Debuff the assault hit size, buff the precision or throw a new bot class in the middle.

No single player can 2 shot a Tyrannos (not an assault bot) though a large enough group can alpha strike just about anything with focused fire. Moar Guns!!!

No single mech pilot can alpha strike (or Beta strike for that mater) an assault bot with a lwf even on the rare chance (1.2%) that they actually hit the darn thing with all of their guns twice in a row.

It's all in the numbers.  Facts at the top, formulas at the bottom for math dorks like myself.

Standard Medium "Short Range" Gauss Gun
Base Optimal Range - 150
Base Dmg - 44 (28 Kinetic + 16 other)
Damage Mod - 170%
Cycle Time - 6 seconds
Chance to hit with level 7 precision - 50.63%
Chance to hit with level 10 precision - 57.14%

Expected DPS(per turret) with PERFECT precision skills - 7.12

4 gun alpha strike - 299.2 (less resistance)
Assuming weighted average of 40 points resistance (low) - 213.9
Probability of landing a 4 turret alpha strike with PERFECT precision skills - 10.66%

Expected value of Alpha Strike - 22.8 (for ALL four guns together)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Standard Light EM-Gun
Base Optimal Range - 120
Base Dmg - 22 (14 Kinetic + 8 other)
Damage Mod - 135%
Cycle Time - 5 seconds
Chance to hit with NO precision skill - 100%

Expected DPS(per turret) with NO precision skills - 5.94

5 gun alpha strike - 29.7
Assuming weighted average of 40 points resistance (low) - 21.2
Probability of landing a 5 turret alpha strike with NO precision skills - 100%

Expected value of Alpha Strike - 21.2 (for ALL five guns together)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Regarding extension/bot bonuses, players will have equal access to modifiers in the end game.  However, in the time in between the mech pilot needs to take their assault bot/small weapon skills to level 4/5 as a prerequisite before starting over again at 0.  They also need to invest heavily in precision skills.

Comparing Nuimqol Bots
The mech has a range advantage of 30m and does an effective 1.2 more damage on the alpha strike (but only if they've trained 10 levels in precision).  The assault bot controls range and terms of engagement with 17.9% more base speed.

Assuming the toon has rolled a pure combat build the pre-requirements (lvl 4 basic robot control, level 5 basic magnetostatics, level 10 precision) will set the mech pilot back 41,344 EP (28 days 17 hours) and a mech costs 375% more nic based on current market prices, which translates into higher insurance premiums and then you need to account for the higher cost of medium modules.

Net result is a comparatively very expensive robot that can edge out an assault in 1v1 due to higher armor and accum but that will never get a chance due to lower speeds that will not allow it to engage. Moreover, anyone with a few friends can field a 5:1 advantage at equal costs and with less EP invested and proceed to tear the mech to shreds.

I've used Nuimqol as an example, but missile and lasers users face the same problems, though slightly less pronounced.  Discounting other mechs (why would they be out in PvP to begin with?), mechs do not have any viable targets, even in PvE it takes 10 cycles at ~1000nic and 6 seconds per volley (a full minute) to bring down a single assault bot...

The math:

DPS = (base damage * damage mod * (1 - resistance)) / cycle time

Chance to Hit = target size / (dispersion * (1 - .03 * precision skill))

Expected Value = Probability * Result

Damage after resistance = Damage * (1 - resistance points / (resistance points + 100))

Probability to land Alpha strike = (probability to hit with 1 turret) ^ # turrets

Chance to land multiple "Alpha" strikes = (probability to land 1) ^ # of strikes to land

more.

missiles trade seismics for precision unless I'm mistaken? The med launchers just had explosion size buffed to 8/9 as opposed to lasers 8/8... unless I'm mistaken that puts missiles in the same class as the other mechs... great potential but no viable targets.

not much when your firing on an assault bot either (just one class down).  With perfect level 10 precision and a base dispersion of 10 you have a...

57.14% chance to hit an assault
42.86% chance to hit a light bot
39.28% chance to hit ewar light

If on the other hand you put 4 light em on say a Kain, you can now hit your targets but with only 4 turret slots and no robot bonus  to damage you won't hit as hard as you could in a Yagel, nevermind the Arbalest that your trying to trade fire with.

Of course you have those two extra missile only slots, but you dumped all that EP into precision 10 just to try to put a round on target, never mind the other basic turret weapon support skills... now of course you will need to get seismics up to around 8 or so to get your missile hit chance up to the same fail rate as your EM guns...and then their are the missile support skills

So the mech is slower and doesn't hit as hard (even with perfect precision) but does have more armour and accum.  Lasers with a dispersion of 8 get up to a whopping chance to hit of around 71% though they do slightly less DPS... after accounting for hit %, and without any support skills/bot bonuses, the Laser mech is doing about 5.2 DPS per turret, the EM mech is around 5 DPS and the arbalest is putting out 5.94 base DPS per turret with 0 precision skill and never a miss... also I don't know what the laser bot looks like but the Arby has 20% more turret slots than the mech....

Anyway, I've been using the mech for some PVE, where I need the extra HP and Accum but otherwise I'm not sure what role the Mech should fill... it requires a greater EP investment, greater nic investment and under DPS's smaller bots in 1v1.