no safe zones = win.

problem is all the wussies leave, and let's face it, the wussies make up the majority

For a sandbox like this to work you need people who enjoy different aspects. No safe zones results in forcing pvpers to do boring stuff like mine and craft. Those who enjoy doing that but not pvp will leave due to constant threat of ganking and losing stuff.

Something that took all the wolves in df forever to understand.

No safezones with some sort of outlaw system with really heavy handed police effectively locking known alpha pkers from the zone would be cool. Kill, but face the consequences of being forever banished. (or atleast making it such a rep grind as to make it a really big deal).

Doesn't Eve work like that, or something similar?

I gave up with trying to even talk on that one, the numbers people use are so far out in left field it is funny. according to one persons percentages, there was 0.3 PvP players in this whole game. Said there was only .05% of Perp's population in PvP, we were passing 600 players at the time.
People would probably look a lot more intelligent if they paid attention to at least a semblance of the facts.

Dude that was Ultima Online back in the golden age of MMOs. I loved the system back then, if someone really pissed you off, you waited till they left the protection of the town guards and ganked them, looted everything they had and be labeled a murder for a couple of days. With bad rep came demised stats and you were a free kill for anyone. If you constantly did this it would take months to clear yourself, some hardcore pkers stayed perma red and lived outside the towns all together. They have a pirate city like in Pirates of the Caribbean movies, I forgot what that island was called. I loved UO...:D

You have to be really bad for a while to get your security status that low in Eve. You can also work it back up. As with most games, you can use a alt to go to place you can't and bring stuff back to you.

Went to a beta island, 20 minutes later found a Termis, ransomed him for 2 millions. Good first impressions.

I think there should be a 25% mining bonus to any mining module used on a PvP island though, to represent the overabundance of minerals. Can't expect the miners to show up just for the sake of dying.

Not adding any more safe islands would probably help too.

Yes this is annoying when you have to watch how kernel farmer in assault tag all spawned npc and kill one by one and all newbies must just wait for other spawn hoping that farmer just forget to tag it.. there must be different solution.

Also the world is to small by feeling, but even so it's to "big" by it's emptiness and takes to long to go from one point to other simply do a mission.

Amo cost is to high for new players. When you have to spend 2/3 off you earnings only on amo it's wrong.

I think it's safe to assume a new player will do it wrong.

Anyway, if I remember the numbers I've seen, for Eve it was only like 30% of the playerbase playing in what's equivalent to our beta island. And I don't think people will be more hardcore here than they are in Eve.

For me, there is only one reason to go to beta and its epi.

There is an abundance (as there should be) of minerals on alpha, and if you look.. quite a few red nodes. Granted, these nodes are nothing in comparison to the seas of red you can find on beta.

However, the risk v reward for an indy type simply isn't worth it, unless you're already in the top 5% of the playerbase nic-wise and have an endless termis stream if/when yours pops.

Termis were selling for 5m yesterday. I'd rather not risk that 5m termis (granted, a lot cheaper if you farm the mats yourself) or even my 1m seq. Not to mention that if I get popped with a field container out, there will be next to no chance to recover it or the material inside of it.

I could bring a teleport beacon, but being 60U i'd have to transport it in a seq, which is fine.. however, they seem to vanish after deploying more times than not, so this is not a viable escape option. And I'd still lose whatever was in my field container.

I've farmed for hours and hours on beta without seeing a single person though. So it's fair to say that it still is pretty safe. It only takes once though, and I'd still be in the hole mech cost vs the value of everything i've mined there so far.

I think the largest factor that comes into this is that mining bots, if attacked, have little to no ability to retaliate. Again, this is how it should be.

Here are my possible solutions:
1) You can see every player when they are 1km away from you on the map. Every bot/mech has mass. The system could be reworked to where your mass/signature size/whatever directly relates to how far away you can be seen on the map. There can be things added to increase/decrease various factors of this.

2) Going along the same line as number one: moving targets generate more heat, noise, and other stuff. Perhaps moving targets/targets that just moved could be seen at a longer distance than immobile ones. Or, accumulator/cpu/energy usage could attribute to how far away you can be seen instead of the default 1km. This would also lead to people being able to create ambushes.

3) No arkhes on beta. Kind of harsh, but since they ARE tutorial bots, maybe they lack the complex electronics to transport over such a long distance required to get to beta, but for the short distances on alpha it's fine. This would create another problem of "what if I am home-based in beta and die" though. Maybe make arkhes weaker to start with, with nearly/no combat/ewar capabilities. This way you can do the first 2 or 3 tutorial missions still, and then get the mk2 when you have to learn combat during the tutorial.

I'm at work so I'll probably get fired if I keep writing things.. but, this is my biggest problem when I'm on beta. And my biggest fear to keep me from venturing onto another corps territory. I have no problem risking my neck if I have a means of escape.

Right now, almost any mech/bot can catch me in my term/seq/arg. I can see them at the exact same time they see me. Unless I'm within 600m of an outpost, they will catch me.

Please don't say "bring people to protect you" as that is a *** response with no real weight behind it. I don't think there is a single person alive who would sit with me while I mine for 8 hours and twiddle their thumbs.

Just my thoughts.

Ixath I'd just like to point out that  "I don't think there is a single person alive who would sit with me while I mine for 8 hours and twiddle their thumbs." is actually not true. I spent 8 hours watching teleport points just yesterday so our alliance miners could mine and PvE'ers could farm without surprises. I'm not the only one either, there are a ton of us willing to put in the hours for the good of our group. Mind you I have more than one account so I can still do stuff while I scout.

This game is all about forming a group and doing stuff together and sharing the benefits.

Senior Numbersauce ... that made me laugh. I just might have to roll a character with that name.