I think PvE'ers would appreciate more content or mechanics that were geared towards their playstyle, and actually included some things that explicitly could not be accomplished by PvPers. A lot of PvE players are just as competitive as PvPers, but prefer to compete in the economic or political arenas- perhaps expanding these areas a bit?
There are many existing single player games that fill this non-PvP niche and the game play becomes predictable in short order, if there is going to be that strong of a demarcation between PvE and PvP then the developers might consider a single player version of Perpetuum. The best model that comes to my mind is Mount and Blade.
Creating a centralized exchange might lead to some real competition among manufacturers. Cornering the market is almost impossible now, but if trades in all the terminals were connected, someone might make a run for it.
This is not PvE this is Roleplaying (RP). If someone becomes “King of the Market” well good for them, if that person has a billion Nic, or controls a particular resource on the market it does not affect me in the least. But Perpetuum does lack RP value, and character individuality, which IMHO make MMO’s more interesting from a PvE perspective.
Maybe a stock market, where everyone could speculate in the futures of corporations? And what if a corp's value on the exchange had in-game repercussions, such as capping their credit or affecting their interest rates?
Individuals, or groups of individuals that do not engage in PvP, having a direct impact on PvP corporations wealth or ability to do business?
Well O.K... if I can have a direct impact on all the harvesters littering the landscape on Alpha Island. The ability to drain said harvesters accumulator on Alpha would be a nice way to balance the equation... Quid Pro Quo Clarice!
What about a more flexible system of item modifications, similar to the enchantment systems in other games? Players could specialize in certain areas (armor, or missiles, or sensors, etc.) and be able to offer upgrades that others could not.
This would be a good idea if the implementation was for cosmetic or aesthetic purposes. I would gladly pay a crafter to customize my Mech with a skull and crossbones paint job, for the purpose of setting myself apart as an individual.
Above all, make the PvE players an integral part of the whole game: reward their specialization. Right now, there's really very little reason for PvPers to go outside their own corps for anything, and that's not the way things should or do work. If a corp wants to be self-sufficient, let it, but at the expense of reduced capabilities.
Fine reward PvE specialization, our corporate crafters would appreciate a buff. But it would be problematic to buff a specialization and then nerf it because the individual joins a corporation. Frankly I am not positive I understand what your implication is here, this is one of your more poorly written paragraphs. And it seems to contradict itself or I lack understanding of your meaning, but I have no problem with PvEers specializing.
A lot of PvE players are completionists- we like collecting all of the item recipes- which means that a lot of them lose interest once they've collected them all. Introducing more items is one solution, but eventually you're going to fall behind.
Exactly this is the heart of the issue, it makes no difference whether the concept is a recipe, Open World Mob, or PvE Instance, the player base will become bored with the new PvE content faster than it can be created by the development team. These ideas have some merit and use, but they are “old hat” and should be used sparingly if Perpetuum wants to raise the bar.
My solution would be viral content, or special edition content that is limited, but something that the player base can look forward to. Give the content a short “shelf life” that matches the attention span of modern consumers, and implement new or tweaked content regularly.
