Lot's of things...
Firstly, @KijkkiJikki, the fact that people are responding to this thread dictates that the discussion is not over. This is reinforced by the fact that there is no unanimity on this issue - which there would have to be if there was nothing more to say.
Secondly, @Farmer Smurf, I agree fully that MA's interpretation of PvP is inadequate. I think the thing which makes EU's PvP so personalized is the underlying fact that it's not PvP, it's BvB (Bankroll versus Bankroll) because it's corrupted by the pay-to-win game mechanic - which is the same, in my mind, as race-fixing. Period. Full stop. Drag out the diva and poke her till she sings!
Thirdly, I totally agree with @HardWrath that certain bugs imbalance space in favour of pirates. I'm simply amazed that ship summonses work outside designated spaceport and hangar areas and one of the things which really threw me when I first started was all the broken spaceports and hangars where there are no dynamic arrivals/departures signage, no space transport timetable, and no functional booking terminals etc. It's not a big ask. As official DLC for any other game, full mothership access, spaceport and all attached functionality wouldn't amount to more than US$20. Anyone who's ever played a simulation, first person shooter or role playing game understands that it's all about immersion - and if an operator wants more people to stick around when they first try the game out, then the operator needs to be prepared to invest, seriously, in the game's ongoing development and not just initially.
Having said this, I tend to think that the speed-hacking vulnerability causes far greater imbalance in favour of pirates in a game which already panders to pirating by bottle-necking all outgoing space traffic through a very small zone around the planet's space station. It is bad enough that players cannot choose their entry point into space around the planet but is it really necessary to set things up so that we all have to put up with pirates being allowed to magically automatically outrun anyone and everyone they chase? This is even the case when the aircraft is a quad, has a head start well outside gunnery range, is travelling at full documented speed in a straight line away from the pursuer and, according to its
Item Information has the same speed as the aircraft used by the pursuer (nearly always another quad). No wonder so few people even bother to try space out when all we hear is, "Don't try to outrun pirates because they'll always catch you". Sheogorath give us sanity!
Code monkeys; listen up! When you run a real time simulation off a server which synchronizes input from multiple clients, you do not, ever, under any circumstances, read peripheral input directly from client peripherals because connection interruptions (which you have no control over) will guarantee that direct input is all too often out of sync with the server or simply never delivered. Instead, to keep client peripheral input synchronized with the server you must do the following things:
- Buffer all peripheral input (i.e. mouse, keyboard, gamepad, joystick, dPad, touchpad, VR-kit, trackball, brail-reader, touchscreen, guncontroller, etc.) on the client - instead of sending it directly to the server.
- Have the server read the client buffer and act on all position-related input stored there in order with the objective of positioning the avatar at the point in space corresponding to where the peripheral input would place that avatar now().
- Whenever the client peripheral buffer cannot be read by the server, safe the avatar, at the server end, using an "unreachable" modification of the avatar tag and not a shoot me while I'm DC'd bubble which tends to reveal the position of avatars which may have gone to great lengths to conceal themselves (e.g. in PvP).
- When a disconnected buffer can finally be read (i.e. after reconnection), acquire input and extrapolate position and orientation from the client peripheral buffer content (recorded during the period of disconnection) to the current time before applying.
- Once the buffer has been read without interruption in real time for about five seconds, unsafe the avatar and remove the "unreachable" modification to the avatar's tag.
Also, when an avatar is safed, it is because the person controlling the avatar no longer has enough information to make informed choices, so weapon discharges, mining probe releases, crafting machine clicks etc. which may appear during the period in which an avatar is safed should be ignored and neither charged nor executed. Anyways, the game-end of this whole connection issue is dead easy to fix if you are one of the people who maintain the source for the project - and I suspect that solving the larger connection issue would make the speed-hacking issue go away if the same procedure is applied to vehicle control (which also means making sure that all item specifications are stored on the server and not on the client).
My personal opinion concerning the systemic equality of both planetary and space versions of lootable "PvP" tends to fall in line with something @SoReal had to say. I don't buy the "bet" theory. I think that both the re-entry tax (space) the anti-toxic shot (toxic zone) are poorly contextualized (i.e. unsubtle) special area access fees which are charged either in advance or in arrears to compensate, in theory, with the reduced turnover of lootable zones as a consequence of the conditions. This is not the only reason I find it difficult to see how space PvP is, systemically, different from planetside PvP. Both are strictly pay-to-win (which is why I avoid treating EU PvP as PvP - a wallet is not a person, after all), and both revolve around
access to assets which is only mandatory
if the player is engaging in specific economic strategies. Few people hunt or mine in lootable PvP and the sheer number of new players bottled up on Calypso proves that most players choose to stay out of space too - which would only be possible if space was not necessarily mandatory. But whether we are talking about exploring interesting new terrain, freebies (crude oil, beer, nawa drops, etc.), or unique commodity mining/hunting, it's about
selectively mandatory access. If you wish to explore another planet or mine or hunt an exotic resource there, you must cross space to do it. If you want something special from planetside PvP you must cross planetside PvP to get it and to bring it out. Just because it is mandatory for one player's role doesn't make it mandatory for everyone-else and, likewise, just because something is optional for one player's role, does not make it optional for all other roles. After all, this is a variation of the
role-playing game and the mandates of role vary from one role to another.
I dont have to "like" every aspect of the game to make it work.
). The idea is to move away from uncontextualised development and ease players into changes which can occur as they would be expected to occur in a naturally evolving environment. Old gear should be made obsolete by little changes and improvements in new gear. What was uber or eco seven years ago, should be a relic in the Entropia Universe of today. Rather than nerfing new items - old items should get nerfed - and rather than nerfing old items by changing their stats, the new items should simply come out with newer and better stats because that's how it works and, even in fantasy, this progressive evolution of technology is what is expected. Meanwhile the mobs get tougher because they evolve too - and the ones that don't, well, now it might make sense when we cannot find certain mobs any more. This way, the overall balance is maintained without losing touch with basic realities such as momentum, conservation of energy, and progress. 
