I think 30-40 minutes as before to make the run up is good. If you want to plan for a longer session, we used to just buy multiple beacons...think the most was 6 in a row for our soc? As Das stated in his post, this is a hard question to answer because there is a lot we don't know yet...what is the cost (beacon TT & markup, and cost of killing all the mobs on the way up) and what is the return. As long as the average return covers 70-90% of the cost with rare profitable run, then people will keep doing them for the fun. If we lose a lot in the cost of the ammo/decay to get through the beacon, then the longer it runs for, the more we lose...the % return on the total cost to do a mission will directly affect how long we are willing to spend completing it.
One of the biggest things you could do to help keep the cost down is to make sure you drop plenty of them please, so markup is not a big part of the cost as it was before. Beacons should be practically TT food. Almost seemed like before, beacons had to be a loss for you guys. At least from what I remember, the loot almost always covered the actual TT costs of completing (ammo, decay, beacon TT cost). What it mostly did not cover was the markup cost on the beacon. Only covering that markup cost on rare occasions, sometimes with profit. As MU doesn't go to you guys, how did you make money on them before? If you drop plenty of them, so practically no MU, then it's normal hunting returns for you. If beacon drops are rare then can't see how you can drop enough loot in the boxes to make it worth doing these for player base, other than a few times as novelty and then most ppl stop doing them.
Drop em like animal hides please
Well, at least drop enough that MU is reasonable...20-40 ped (assuming TT values as before), instead of 200-400 ped.