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People keep expecting the minigame to be skill based because it kinda, sorta, looks like a game where player choices matter. Unfortunately, it plays like wack-a-mole, with no more player skill involved then the ability to click a button.

I feel the same. Having played in excess of 5000 mini-games (literally), it feels like a glorified game of whack-a-mole where your skill level is just an adjustment on the mole speed. With maxed skills in a T3 cruiser with T2 hacking mod, I can clear the core strength 50 mini-game in ~3 seconds, core 70 in 5-8 seconds and core 90 in 8-15. Anything over 15 seconds in a core strength 90 one and you are better off retrying it.

The loot scatter mechanic just adds to the click fest. Either the mini-game or the loot scatter alone would have been a welcome change. I vote, keep the mini game but remove the loot scatter. What used to be, activating mod via function key followed by one click to loot all, has turned into 30-50+ clicks per container. Repeat this over thousands of containers and all you have accomplished is annoying me and killing my mouse buttons.

Final note, rare storyline items are now out of balance as a result of loot scatter. They already had a really low spawn rate but the fact they appear in a random loot can means that they are 2x less likely to appear for a solo pilot. (rare bpc parts for storyline items do not follow standard can type loot distributions like the scanned down sites do.) I now have to dual client the click fest to ensure I do not miss the rare drop.

I've lost over 110mil to the scam that is somer blink.

If you allow me, I have some suggestions that address player suggestions, keep in line with your intended effect and resolve lore concerns:

1) Make the site use the salvager module to access the cans, assigning it virus values, like they were used in sites prior to odyssey. This will make it more likely that a player will already have the required mod fitted and would not have to sacrifice tank to do it. This ties in well with the lore fix.

2) Scale the damage. Make the ships signature radius be the deciding factor in how much damage is applied when the site/can explodes. Like missiles, there is an explosion radius and the sig radius of the ship being hit determines if full damage is applied or not. Smaller ships take less damage because the have less surface area exposed to the blast.

3) Lore fix. It can be explained that the site is visible on basic scanner because there was an accident at the site that caused it's cloaking field to go offline. The absence of ships on warp in is because they were destroyed in the accident. The entire site will explode within a set amount of time due to some type of chain reaction taking place that will destroy the entire station. Perfectly fits with having to use a salvager to access the containers. "Ghost site" refers to the fact that everyone manning the place was killed in the initial accident leaving it a ghost town possibly haunted by the ghosts of dead employees. The NPC's who arrive during a failed hack can be explained as a response team attempting to salvage some of the research before it is destroyed.

If I might ask, which slot is the omega going to occupy? Will it be slot 6 like the rest of the omegas, or is there a chance a different slot could be used?

The reason I ask is that the Ascendancy implants will become pretty much required if you want to use a battleship as pretty much anything other than a defensive tool thanks to the warp speed nerf, and I've got quite a few fits that require a powergrid implant to make them function.

Ships have crews.

Pod tech helps automate certain systems to the point that capsuleer-flown ships need far smaller crews than their regularly-piloted counterparts. Moreover, it gives the pilot such immense control over the ship's various subsystems that the likelihood of surviving combat is theoretically much higher than that of ships with regular pilots and longer response times. I say "theoretically" because as everyone knows, average crew life expectancy on a capsuleer-flown ship is just a little bit longer than if you'd simply been shot out the airlock once the ship undocked.

(It's really not, though. Most of your crews have escape pods, and survive to fight another day. Your camera drones ignore them, because they have no tactical value and - because everyone knows how capsuleers think - entirely too much amusement value, brief as it is.)

If ships have crews, then we need PI on inhabited planets that train crews, and a fitting slot for them. You can expand on this, like crew experience, performance mods, and module-based crew requirements.

Yes, I know this thread is about ghost sites. I'm told that laziness is a side-effect of hunger.

The sites that are not "Ghost" in that everyone was killed can be listed as "Black sites." (nice hat tip to "ghost ships" found in debris fields already in eve)
I would then suggest that "Black sites" :
1) require scan probes to find and require high probe strength or be given as a possible escalation from a "ghost site"
2) use hacking module to access
3) contain the more rare items for the given loot possible in that security space or contain a higher drop rate for the rare stuff.
It provides balance and mirrors the current theme of sites/escalations & possible loot drops. It would also make sense that you could find information regarding the location of other facilities in the wreckage of a compromised one. A truly 'ghost/black' site would otherwise be undetectable; only found through clues or their stealth becoming compromised in an accident.
Thank you for the reply by the way.

That and have the screams of crewmembers as your own ship explodes.

Only if they use the Wilhelm scream.
see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdbYsoEasio