I do think the defense subsystems need to be autonomous in all incarnations. This enables some defense even if nobody from the owning corporation is online.

Scanner arrays/watch towers need to work as a warning system. If a non-corporation entity is detected, every corp member in the tower range gets a warning and the ofending item (whatever it is) appears on the radar. This is updated in set intervals (so not continuous) like 20-30 seconds to prevent server performance problems.

I'll work on a list of modules and descriptions to add to the thread and add more posts.

Secure Teleport relay:

One unit per POS (outpost) as it it using the main power of the POS any POS can only operate one at any given point in time. 

This item should take about 5 minutes to deploy and have about ~80U in mass. This unit is designed to be deployed within 5Km of POS and act as a two way teleport that has a life span of 30 to 60 min. This item will be designed to be used for Flanking / defense of POS and or logistics.

Could even separate this item in to two items that are direction based one that takes you to the POS and one that takes you away from the POS.

<.<

[Begin Message Topic: 4]

Just say No to automated resource gathering

[/end Message:4 ]

Edit: The arguement for this hasn't changed since piglet brought up the subject months ago. Mining/harvesting is a profession in the game. Having devices that perform that function without needing a player present highly devalues that profession. POS's that enhance mining/harvesting like auras or remote storage sheds are great because they add value to those professions.

As long as the character has to be online and active at the POS, then it's not automated and then yes its just a matter of balancing it.

AFK is different from drop it and leave. This POS idea is a DIRECT replacement for a mining bot, not an enhancement to it. Ore is one of the basic items in the game, and has direct sale value. Allowing this type of POS would be the same as dropping a combat POS at a NPC spawn and having it kill and loot while your not even logged in. Or, in simpler words, its a POS that just generates NIC while you sleep.

POS should never replace bots (which are characters). I know that other game does it, but that doesn't mean its a good idea.

Mining is boring. Please automate with POS.

Acutally, driving out and emptying the POS is boring too, how about it just teleports the material to the nearest outpost.

On the other hand, the nearest outpost is a factory, better it teleports it to the nearest refinery.

Mining, hauling, PVP, PVE, ... these are all roles that are full-filled by robots in the game, not by structures.

And to clear up the mining thing for new players that may be reading this.

AFK mining is limited by your cargo space and the number of cycles per tile. Liquids are the only resources that can be effectively mined using a cargo bot with a single tile targeted. The largest multi-tile mining bot, the Riveler, will still only hold 21U of ore max if you set it and walk away. Single tile mining on ores are limited to 255 cycles which is about 190K of titan or 10U without yeild bonuses.

Um, but mining IS boring. We can argue that its something that should be done by players, but I personally run 8 separate Riveler Mk2 accounts when my corp is mining. Another guy is running 6, that guy is running 2, that guy is still sitting in his Termis, main two producers are running some 20-25 Rivelers between them... Hell, thats like 5-10 guys running 30-40 miners.

It's mind-numbingly boring and tedious.

I personally have NOTHING at ALL against player structures like automated mining/harvesting facilities. It gives something to fight over anyway, I assume it would be open to player damage so as long as it wasn't something you'd destroy with 2-3 light bots in a 5 AM alarmclock raid, thats fine.

Only condition would be make it not usable on Alpha. Only on Beta, where its open PVP.

Roaming would have a tactical purpose again rather then "lets go roam and hope someone's dumb enough", people would have a reason to undock & protect their stuff. As it is now, its just useless.

Scripts like that are bannable. just fyi

Research Station.

Corps collect kernels and throw them into station (where they are consumed)
Let's say for every 500 4th level Mech kernels installed the station gives out a 1% bonus towards T4 item research. When the corp researcher is in the PoS and the bonus gives him enough to have 100%, he can make his prototype.
Should the researcher leave the PoS or the corp for the matter, he loses the bonus, but retains his personal level. This bonus should be capped to a maximum of 6%, or whatever figures allows it to be a valuable module and enhancment to a Corps' assets, but not make it too easy for higher teir production.

Plus making it a Beta stucture and destroyable makes it a very worthwhile building and a great reason to either attack or defend it, because of the potential massive amounts of kernel bonus that could be lost.  Have the same structure in an Alpha PoS but with slightly lower % bonus, and it still makes a Nic sink like a PoS a worthwhile investment.

And corps don't lose 100% of their research investment when their prototyper decides to quit the corp.

I completely agree with Arga here, buff mining via station / POS Nexus modules yes. Automate mining, no thanks.

I personally enjoy mining and harvesting. I enjoy working towards a goal to build some nice modules / bots.

Don't devalue mining as a profession just because some burn themselves out mining for hours on end everyday with 8 accounts.

even if there is a Defense turret that can shoot at 1km range with missiles on 2s cycletime - there is no reason to implement ANYTHING new to counter it. That would be total fail, as everything necessary to defeat that is already ingame.

sure, you wont be able to overcome that turret with 3 assault bots in 5minutes...

Player could overcome indestructible 1km shooting instant-death laser police-towers during beta (with a shield seth btw) and the tools to do so have been increased since then...

This only has an impact because the server population is low. If a corporation had 800 members they could have 200 players with 1 mining account each instead of needing 20 players to have 10 accounts.

But, to your actual POS suggestion. Why have it mine at all when unattended? The issue there is simply that corps with lots of resources then build 100 POS's and then have the equivelent of 100 rivelers worth of material coming in without needing to deploy a single character for resource gathering. Hauling would still be an issue, but there will eventually be a larger hauler, even if not, your still only requiring players to have indy 8 and the remaining EP can be combat or production.

POS's that automatically do something 'replaces' the need for a character to do it. This gives corporations the ability to 'create' more characters; that is if a POS does the same thing a character can do, then it is essentially a character.

Looking specifically at a corp with lots of material now and miner accounts, since you bring it up.

ABC has tons of resources now, so building 10x POS mining units would be negligable impact on current supplies.
Instead of having 10 accounts dedicated to mining, they can reset and have 1 for mining, 3 for production, 6 super sepcific PVP builds. The PVP players with 1 mining account can now produce 10x the amount. The dedicated miner players all keep their 5 miners, but now have 50x the amount.

Let say you can field 40 rivelers now, and it takes the same time/material as 10 Riv to build 1 POS. You could easily build 5 POS's the first 2 weeks, but you'd have 5 POS's running that second week for 35 rivelers + 5x10 = 85 rivlers worth of material, meaning you could easily build 10 the third week, but during the 3rd week you know have 10x10 + 30 = 130 rivelers worth of mats so by the end of a month, you would have all 40 POS's built, and the fifth month be mining 400 rivelers worth of mats a week attended, and 40's worth 24/7. Some of those POS could even DIE, but its' ok since your mining the equivalent replacement value in less than a day.

Depending on how the POS were deployed, you'd more than likely be limited to the field it was mining, but the point is simply how dramatically overpowered something like that would be at scale.

Having autmated POS would simply give corps with material advantage MORE material advantage, as well as give them the abiltity to operate at higher effciency with less manpower. Talk about new corps not having a chance, especially if POS was limted to beta Islands where they could never deploy them.