You can spawn these roaming spawns with artifiact scanning now...so it's fine..

Infestations are part of caches to defend the cache that could hold -T3 items, not as additional loot.

Grand observers still drop kernels 100% of the time, as well as having a nice cache. This is acceptable because GO's do not have a fixed spawn point so can't be farmed.

To compensate for the kernel removal, the game needs to increase or add another extension to improve the amount learned per kernel. Increasing the drop rate is not required, and would simply make NPC farming much too profitable per hour since the NIC 'bounty' was added.

I'm still not sure you have made a point of why these Infestation NPC's need to have better loot. Just like any other mob, they now drop 'goo' and still have a 50% kernel drop rate.

The NPC's spawning from infestations are not special the same level and types are available for farming from known spawn points. The drops from the infestation wasn't better before the removal of the kernels, why should it be better after the removal?

Saying they aren't worth killing now is saying that none of the NPC's are worth killing without kernels; hence the conclusion that your asking for the kernel reversion.

I'm not saying your incorrect, only that you havn't supported the arguement that Infestation NPC's need better loot. The only valid arguement being level III spawning Mechs on alpha that you wouldn't otherwise have access too, but those mechs are now going to be available on the Alpha-II Islands.

That was my confusion, because I'm usually out in a termis doing caches, so always just scooted away from the npc spawns, for me it wasn't worth killing them before either. This is what I meant by them guarding the cache, if your not paying attention, and pop an infestation without planning an exit route, you could end up losing your bot (not much chance, but a little). But of course I was doing this solo.

Are you scanning in a combat bot or dragging a combat alt along with you? A termis with a T3/4 geoscanner is 100% accurate, makes finding caches must faster. The only time I bring my Mech out for is the GO's.

Thanks for replying, but you misunderstand the problem. 

Normal NPCs respawn. If you take a mission you have to kill some number greater than 1 of them (usually 5-16). If you just want to farm you can kill as many as you want.  In that relatively large number of kills, you will get a some number of kernels (~half the number of kills), some loot, plasma, etc. making it worth the time it takes to make the trip to the spawn point.

Roamers and infestation NPC's do NOT respawn.  A typical roamer convoy will have 1 mech, a few bronze sequers, and a few T3 light combat bots (these last are the same type as any normal T3 alpha spawn).  A typical infestation spawn is 1 mech (lev 2) with 1 light bot (lev 3).  Once they're dead, it's all over.  It's just not worth the investment of time to make the trip to intercept them on the 50% chance of getting just a single mech kernel (and maybe 1-2 bronze kernels and a little of the same basic loot that you can get from any normal npc spawn in the case or roamers).  In a normal npc spawn you can fill your hold with loot and/or plasma as long as you made the trip, making the trip worthwhile whether or not you get lucky on the kernel drops.  Not so on the Infestation NPCs and (to a slightly lesser extent) the roamers.  Plasma doesn't enter into the equation at all. You can get it anywhere, so again, one is better off working a normal npc spawn (which is also usually more convenient to get to than the infestation/roamer).

It's all about the return on time invested in game play.  My point is that if one wants mech kernels, it is now much more efficient to farm a normal spawn or do combat missions, selling the lower level kernels and then buying the mech kernel, than it is spending 15 minutes traveling to MAYBE get 1 mech kernel. Same for the bronze assault kernels. 

My point is that infestation spawns and roamers take longer to get to than normal spawns and (because they are 1-time spawns) the possible reward for making the trip is lower.  So, why bother with them.  Yes, eventually someone will come along and kill them, but you don't see people racing to be the first to get there any more.  You don't even see people slowly walking over to them nowadays.

I remember spawning an infestation 2 mech last week and then coming back the next day in search of an observer spawn and having to finally kill it then (just because it was in my way and I didn't want to fight it and the observer at the same time).  This was despite the fact that the mech was visible in landmarks for over 1000 meters and there were people farming npc spawns and mining in the general area when I first spawned the NPC.

I still don't see any reason to treat basic NPC's any differently just because they spawned from a cache. The incentive to track down the infestation is the cache itself, if the NPC's were the only prize, than you would have a strong arguement.

edit: in after zoom

I don't know where that mech was spawned, but I always go after them if I'm already out and about on my mech, because the kernels sell for a lot on the market, and even a 50% chance at 500k is worth the time. But I don't interrupt a artifact session to switch to my combat alt.

@Dev Zoom

I understand your point, but almost anyone able to take on an infestation 2/3 mech is able to take on one of the solo T1 mechs that are permanent spawns on the alpha islands (and which drop the same loot as the infestation mechs.  So, the people you appear to be trying to appeal to are a small minority of the game population.  But, for the majority of the game population, you run into a problem that is a combination of economics, probabilities, and psychology.  Let me phrase the problem in a different way.

Players have a finite amount of time in which to play and advance their characters' goals and tend to pick relatively efficient ways to spend their limited amount of time.  The hard-core players will calaculate it down to how many NIC/hour various activities yield, but even the casual players get a general sense over time of whether what they are doing is worth the time and effort they spend doing it.  If their sense is that it doesn't pay, they eventually stop doing it.

Let's say a hypothetical player takes a hypothetical mission to kill 10 bots or decides to go farm one of the solo mech spawns.  The drop rate for kernels is 50% and let's say (for the sake of the example) that the chance of the npc dropping a T2 mod is 5%.  They spend 10 minutes traveling to the spawn, some length of time (say 20minutes) fighting NPCs and 10 minutes returning to base.  They've spent 40 minutes on the activity.  The chance of a kernel dropping is random, but because they had to kill 10 bots, they almost certainly got SOME kernels for their effort.   If they repeat the activity several times, the avergae drop rate for kernels per trip will approach 5 .  If they repeat the activity a few times they may even get lucky and get a T2 mod to drop.  Either way, they have something to show for their effort and at worst (only a few kernels) are satisfied that what they did was productive despite their bad luck  and at best (lots of kernels and/or maybe a T2 mod) are ecstatic about their good luck.

On the other hand, our hypothetical player hears in general or corp chat that an infestation mech has been spotted.  They interrupt what they were doing - e.g., drive their sequer/waspish/whatever back to base (say 5 minutes), travel to the spot (10 minutes), fight the mech (5 minutes), and then have to travel back in order to resume what they were doing originally (another 10-15 min).  The chance of a kernel dropping is 50% again, but there is only 1 'coin toss' possible.  The odds are 50% that they have nothing to show for their half hour besides a few k worth of plasma and if so, are pissed off that they just completely wasted a bunch of time.  After 1-2 bad rolls, the next time they hear about a mech being spotted they just continue doing what they were doing because the activity hasn't paid off for them in the past.

My point is that some kind of reasonably consistent pay off has to be re-established for these spawns or they will continue to be ignored by the majority of the player base.  If you think that's OK, it's not my place to tell you how to structure your game.  I just think it's a shame that something you guys worked hard to produce is not being used by most players for lack of interest, where that interest once existed, but no longer does.

@Arga: You just illustrated my point very well.  You will go after them if it's convenient, but won't interrupt something else to hunt them down.  If the drop rate were 100% then you might very well interrupt what you were doing to kill them. I certainly would. After all, the certainty of getting a 500k drop makes the interruption worthwhile because most other actiivities are less productive.  The mech then becomes a disireable target.  It isn't any longer as things stand now

The spawn was due east of TM apha terminal near the coast (just north of the T3 light Pelistal bots that are part of a lev 3 destroy and recover mission you get in TM alpha and west of the permanent solo blue mech spawn which was being farmed at the time)

Just a note, spawns not attacking stationary players is fixed in the patch/expansion, so be ready to move if asap if you hunting GO and infestation caches!

Yes. Infestations aren't worth the time it takes to spawn. They're two to three robots that can be found just about anywhere. If the stashes held something worth collecting not found or found less in other stashes then we'd bother to find them. Right now they're an annoyance.

i like the t3- modules that i get from artifact scanning, also the mk2 cts and stuff that just doesnt drop from npcs (shields, evasives, nexus)

incubator, briochit, noralgis and epriton drops are also nice things

if it does, its really rare. I've done hundreds of cache's and I dont recall getting any norgalis... but I do get the incubators.

Also, the infestations drop the MK II cpu's, so they are a 'must' spawn for production players.