Oh and also, it would be good to know what islands are we talking about here. Alpha, beta, gamma?
For example ECM NPCs on alpha shouldn't be present anymore (in theory).

Yes, I meant Alpha 1s regarding ECM.

And I know there are still red spawns on alpha, those are all mission spawns. They need to be red because the nature of the missions, like where you need to turn switches under attack and stuff.

I'm not sure, I think it was around the time when the players thought a lot of the spawns have been removed when they got only relocated. So I guess it was too many changes to list and was handled with a "various changes to NPC spawns" line or something

We had a little talk with DEV Alf about how could we make miner/harvester robots able to defend themselves more, and one of the ideas is to switch their module CPU usage bonuses to miner/harvester accumulator usage bonus (and compensate the loss of CPU on the robot's base CPU).

This way they would have more energy left for shields and stuff. But we also have to be careful not to make them too OP in their PvP support role, which is why we'll probably split the miner/support role so we can better balance it. But this is only a loose idea as of yet.

@Inda
Ville I have a question for you, do you think when this changes dont happened the population is higer than now? ANd I dont attack you just ask it seriously.

Inda the main problem is the changes are not the changes themselves but the changes after the fact.  In my example I pointed out when things are nerfed they are nerfed with out consideration of the backlash of the population and the players they most directly effect.  Some changes are needed "ERP" and even walls but they happened after the fact. =/

Yep... We need to find a balance between the two.

-1

One of the challenges before was to fit your miner with proper modules and extensions to keep the accumulator stable while mining. With the miner/harvester accumulator usage bonus it looks like energy management / accumulator expansion at 5 will be more than enough. I doubt it's a very good idea. It has already been made 'simpler', now it's gonna be even easier?

Cause it's a part of character progression. If you want to use higher tier of modules and mine faster and in larger volumes, it should require some adjustments and thinking, doesn't it? The more challenges there are, the more interesting it gets, how to find your way around.

So why did it have to be a challenge to fit and skill a miner properly before, and now it suddenly shouldn't? Why wasn't it simpler from the very beginning? Of course if we are orienting towards newbie-friendly measures to help them start their gaming progress easier, then yes, I see your point. But is it actually the right angle to look at it? There need to be more drastic measures to attract new players and make mining more appealing rather than fixing something that has always worked fine and appropriate.

Of course, conditions have changed, now ore is travelling across the island, sometimes getting under the mob spawns, etc. But I really don't think accumulator going to solve the whole issue. And generally, with the population increase (it's what we are aiming at, eh?), you don't want people to be mining easier, faster and better. You want to increase the challenge, so ones who can break the obstacles get more benefit, look it at like a sort of alpha-industry-competition part.

But then it's like like cutting off one element of the gameplay to cater towards another element. From my perspective I just really doubt it's a good idea to do because it shallows and simplifies gameplay and it's something I don't want to see happening; but again, opinions are subjective. Also, we still have neut/drain mob spawns on alpha, will you try to change the feature (i.e. bonuses) in such a way that miners while mining are going to be stable against even those?

I would really like to see some more witty ways around instead of cutting a part of something that has always been there and worked perfectly. Can't suggest anything at the moment though, however my job is to give you an opinion at least

not only on gamma. Roaming NPCs respawn is just limited to "not respawn within X km radius where it got killed". There is no rule that prevents them from spawning near agents on ANY island.

That's cool

Weedy if you actually mined in the expansion you would know even with accumulator exp and energy  management 10 improved shield 10 and all shield hardeners some spawns can't be tanked. So the alternatives are a chain of energy transfers on multiple characters or have someone farm them and on beta neither are really feasible with can explosions now.

And now we might get to see a  cap stable medium miner on an Argano!