What are you talking about? re-read topic.
On Alfa islands can found NPC 5 rank, without new patch.

Just no. Let the newbies a chance to get some better stuff before trying to get on betas.

If they want to compete on betas, not just come and die, they need good stuff.

Maybe but it helps

Stop whining about PvE and risk and reward and balance and blah blah blah.

It's a one shot beacon. You use it and you need to go farm more. It's not like a faucet for free loot. People don't need to be forced to go to beta to do PvE content. Beta is PvP. Stop mixing the 2 constantly, they don't need to intertwine all the time. The risk should be in the difficulty of the NPC's. If someone has the EP to do it, then why should they then be forced to also have to PvP to face PvE content? This game is too small for that crap.

Please dont talk risk/reward about those beacons.  I just spent 3 hours farming in BETA for those, killed around 20 elites, none dropped.  I spent 3 hours risking my bot just to discover the droprate of these (and i didnt), seems my efforts are not ended.

Artifacters got em cool, but the poor fighter that spend hours praying for his life dont deserve some love?  In that case just say "Its an artifact improvement", dont sell it like the "so fun pve now" because ive seen nothing atm. Remember that artifact scanners just use light bots and geoscanner, minimal investment. They can get so much highly priced, obviously essential items i wonder why i continue ratting, even with a HM MK2 on the high end spawns, i feel like im losing my time...

And some wonder why theres no farmer on beta. 3 words: NOT WORTH IT. 
May i be clear, nothing gone worst since yesterday.  The game has improved, new feature, everyone happy.
But:

Since beta, i feel like every single decision is made against ratting.

*Kernels drop nerf: ok was needed to handle research rate... but who was impacted? One single playstyle thanks
*Dynamic spawns: well... im sure 95% of the peoples that came to the forum to say "thanks dev so fun cool cool" are NOT farming at all.. Anyhow with those spawns profit loss at least 40%
*New AI: frustration, 90% of spawns are in building or hard LOS terrain, come on get out of there little npc... when you go search them behind their wall 15 times in a day, you start to lose patience.

I could find more im sure...

Today, i launch the game just after the patch , discussing in gen chat:  15mn after server restart, some begin to talk about those distress beacons... im farming, time passes, i check gen chat.  Many peoples start to talk about their beacons, almost all (except one that told me otherwise) received them from artifacting. Time pass and situation still the same. So 2 solutions: almost everyone is artifacting, then you can understand where the problem lies, if nobody ratting anymore... oh ok that why nobody can buy kernels... logical.  Or the other solution, at server start peoples started to do what they usually do, some got to arti, some to farming. In that case that means those new funny items are far more easy to get while artifacting than farming.  Why? please explain me why? In 3 hours of artifact scanning, someone would have gotten at least 1 or 2 of them no?
OR i didnt shoot the right npcs (rabid elite M/HM) they are almost the strongest elites so what now? OR im such an unlucky whiner. Well i wont set a poll i know what 99% of you would vote...

Frustration mode deactivated.

All in all im happy with the fast paced patching/feature development rate, its very nice to see the game improve.
But sometimes i feel like im gonna rage for real. Exactly like when elite mobs where added. The spawnrate at the beginning was so low, that was almost *** (one in 200 or maybe twice... or maybe half?) Im just hoping that will be somehow balanced, because from what ive seen so far, farming mobs =/= getting distress beacons.

Wow so much text just for ranting

TLDR:  Droprate too low for the new items, at least in comparison to artifacting. IF the item is REALLY RARE, then it must be hard to obtain by ANY mean. If its NOT SO RARE, why didnt i looted one in 3hrs of gaming?

Please feedback from other "dedicated NPC hunters" about droprate please.

Artifact hunters may get the beacons, but they certainly can't use them in thier light geoscanner bots.

There is absolutely nothing stopping said hunter/ratter from spending a little time getting some beacons, then going out and getting the reward.

This falls squarely under "I want to do it this way, so change it" even though the current method is fully available to everyone.

Edit : Spending some time artifact hunting that is.

This game has some problems with risk and reward:
f.e. resources for upgrading modules. t4 modules have slightly better parameters (300 meters (t1) 350 meters (t4)), and x3+ of materials to upgrade them from t1.

Hum, how i can say that... you are right i was wrong. Maybe i just didnt farmed the good ones. And even in that case i admit i didnt think about the fact that artifact scanner can only get the first step. But i tough someone said he found a distress beacon rank 3 no star in an artifact... i tough every lvl could be looted in stashes. Considering all this, i admit ive 2 solutions: OR i want them badly by myself without buying, in that case i train geoscanner OR i dont really need them and can buy.

Your right about that patch, its too early to take conclusions.

BUT i insist on the fact ratter life is getting less and less profitable and easy. And the game world, the market, everyone need them just like prototypers/mass producers, miners and artifact runners.
I farm considerably and since many time. Ive done mining with friends alt, ive also participated in artifact etc...
Ratting sucks more and more and more, until nobody will do it anymore, except for finishing knwoledge base of corp prototypers.  You see many farming on beta? Not worth the risk.  On alpha?  I feel like i see less and less...
Biased opinion? certainly.

I dont like mine neither (farming interrupted by pvp)

Lets wait and see how it comes. I just hope beta island are more populated, because tbh atm it quite saddens me.
And i dont speak only of my "home" island.

NJust a quick thing we ran a certain spawn for two hours getting three beacons but only got them from the highest tier elite spawns so i think its probably just luck I think the rate should be increased but not by much they still need to be rare if this is the case that some people are farming forever and not getting any. Fyi was a one bar star and two two bar squads tht dropped.