Well the whole game so far when this was talked about it was met with 'afk gammas dont defend themselves' I agree that things should be set, documented and work as intended.

This should have been a blog (or still will be), but yes, the sensible time to do anything about gamma is before Steam.

We do have plans for two changes:

1. Limit terraforming to slopes that you can still pass. This can be made more interesting by making the limit so that at max slope possible lights/assaults can pass but mechs/heavies can't (just barely, so still no vertical walls). Obviously this would make lights/assaults useful for gamma base infiltration, if someone still uses terrain to defend it in light of this change. Our goal is to make you NOT use terrain for defense, but wall units instead, or anything that would make sense to develop after terrain defense is not useful anymore (shield fence, etc).

2. Limit the number of buildings you can connect to a terminal. This could be done by introducing a resource that the main terminal provides and all the buildings connected to it tap on that resource (basically what is CPU or reactor when equipping robots).

Reset, if we want the change to have any effect then there is no way around that unfortunately.

To be fair I would advocate the following:

1) All terraforming charges ever bought would be respawned to the character that bought them

2) All gamma structures linked to a corp would be server deconned and placed in the corp hanger of said corp

3) All corp assets would be placed in the same hanger

4)all personal assets would be placed in peoples alpha hanger

And sooner rather than later

On this, my thought was something like

Devs : here are the changes

as of right now ... players are credited for what they have.
take these credits and spend them on a new base on the test server using whatever new mechanics.

Gamma reset or whatever, whenever, and Devs assemble player made plans.

Something along these lines.

This what happens when you remove Epriton, rebuilding is not a wise investment

Simple change:

Remove teleports. Access to gamma via new mobile tps at a certian range to gammas, these spawns you at a random location on gamma every 4 hours. Bring back Epriton. Some tweaks to rebalance.

+1

Fair to all.

-1

Since the goal of the wipe is for a fresh restart with all the new mechanics then it should be just that. Everyone gets their stuff back on alpha and have to re-build everything.

Now lets hear the QQ about not wanting to reinvest time in remaking gamma .

One thing I would like to add - terraforming as it is isn't the problem - the ability to do it everywhere is. my fix would be:

Institute the limit on number of structures by giving bases 'grid' already proposed

make terraforming and contruction only able to be done 3km from a terminal

make bases be placed 5km from each other and from the teleports

Limit the number of bases to 3 per island

If you did all that you could move epriton back to gamma

Many a gamma were lost due to changes in mechanics after they were built. No DEVS were batphon'd to modify those designs around the new mechanics. Keeping to the status quo these new changes should be made and the current base design left as is with the new changes in place. We could do that also. A reset is whats needed and is whats fair for all. Im pretty sure the biker gang would rather see those high walls come down so we could reset your gamma bases for you.

TL:DR You can end up on alpha with all your stuff or you could end up on alpha after losing all your stuff. Up to you.
Either way Gamma needs these changes for it to have a purpose in this game.

this is pretty key. I was planning on deconning rhao, we were in the middle of a campaign attacking stc's islands - make the changes very soon.

+1 Agreed

You should adapt and overcome.