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Wow, Lots of Questions;

My thought process was to find the lowest skill T2 hull that could survive, first attempt was with command ships, but only three of my toons can fly them so I was a bit shorthanded. And realistically Command ship pilots are quite possibly more skill intensive than Pirate BS pilots, so I scrapped that idea and tried again.

Your right, these will probably be run by BS's and tag along logi's, but like I said I wanted to see if I could survive it in a small T2 hull something that most Toons can train for (Thinking about the 'Noob wants to do Incursions' question I see everywhere). The XL-ASB, repairs just over 1k per cycle, and if your still taking agro when it runs out charges then the 12x small RR armour repairs were going to (Theoretically) keep it alive just long enough for the ASB to reload.

Using a RR setup allows one more DPS on the field, that makes sense to me since the jams are going to effectively remove one DPS pretty much continuously throughout the site. So the RR setup was me compensating for expected loss of DPS.

Short range and long range drones, because my previous attempt had me chasing cruisers at +100 km, a MWD because we know the rats will stop running as soon as they are out of drone control range, then turn around and 'nanny nanny bo bo' you from the safe distance.

Your setup;

I think 5 nightmares would do these with ease, RR each other , but bring Tachys, these rats move out to 100km pretty quick, one web should help with the few Frigs that get in close.

I have seen most communities stick with a 70% resist with an OGB, but not exclusively. For the scout sites I think the 70% worked fine (might even be overcompensating) and 60% might be surviveable with a good Logi on grid. Like Jill Antaris pointed out, if you have a 4 rep cap stable logi (Scimi, Oni) you will have more than enough reps to keep you alive while pecking at the rats.

I think the Vindi will be wasted in a scout site (Just my opinion), blasters is where the Vindi shines and I think only two rats came in close enough to make blasters useful. Killing the frigs that came in close first spawned the next wave dropping 4 more jams and 8 more cruisers on me, (providing me with the opportunity to use my prolific cursing vocabulary to no effect). Rail Vindi might be useful, but having never flown one all I can do is guesstimate at its usefulness.

In summary;

Before I got up to write this, Jill and Yuri made excellent points, too many jams, site is too random with no real way to prepare, Long guns (Range of 100km) are a requirement, pay is too low for current time it takes or site is too difficult for the pay.

The initial concept was to create a site that could be run by the current meta while waiting for a fleet, this should exclude noobs wanting to try it in their T1 frig and cruiser as well as people wanting to make billions with a small box fleet. In that regard I think a few tweaks are needed, swap the Arnon's for Antem's, Romi's or Auga's, drop the Niarja spawns to max (or always) two per wave, and keep your options open to change it in 30 days if it turns out to be too easy.

end game as one of the last things you do certainly, but i would suggest a branch, rather than LV 5 missions THEN incursions it's LV 3-4 missions THEN lv 4-5 OR incursions, simply cuz you can, they're about equally accessible in terms of location:difficulty.

and last i looked opinions about the topic was what was asked for, but not what was being provided, in this we agree, as the reason for my post was quite obviously i thought, to keep arguments about old income Balances, in the threads that've been talking about them for years already.

end note, my comments regarding end game content were to indicate the difference between mechanical requirements (the game/world rules) and enforced requirements (player rules) as it seemed to me quite a few people were not distinguishing between the two when presenting their argument justification - who (which collection of players) scout sites should be aimed at plays a large part in their design and so clear distinctions are nice.

Thanks Goldiiee

Did another propaganda cluster, and stopped after things kited out to 140km. do they all do that, or is it just the triggers that tempt you to shoot them first (while they're in range) so that killing them means spawning another wave

everything got killed off pretty quickly, and the dps was oddly nonexistent... but that was with Mega Pulse II / Scorch. I dislike [understatement] Beams. I might try it, though.

but that tracking, wtf.

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if you had a staging system to yourself, you could go around to each site and kill off the stuff in range in each site, then come back through and kill it off after everything has returned to viable ranges.

I get the challenge that is supposed to be there, in the ranges. but along with the 5 ship limit, and the laughable payout... there just isn't one ship that can clear the range and dps hurdles at one go (and prove worthwhile)...

the mobile refit from Pulse -> Beams was a good idea, though.

I am somewhat aware of what incursion groups do with beams (tons of tracking compensation) but dude... that is a hard life

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if a vanguard group is 10, you could split up into 2 groups of 5, and kill the scout sites in a sequence... allowing the rats to reset between the two groups (and reset to acceptable ranges). then split the payouts or something.

I used 3 nightmares, a vindi and a scimi. the vindicator made short work of a Jel Rhomben which I left for last, thinking it was a trigger, but other than that the vindi just sat there.

the rats were pretty keen on jamming the nightmares mostly, and never bothered my scimi. they never shot at it, either. if they had messed with the scimi, that would have put an interesting load on my RR (If scout sites are not supposed to be worth the effort, there's room for improvement in having rats jam the logistics as well)

I don't know if the vindicator had anything to do with their kite ranges (and whether the ranges would be affected by not having a menacing web brawler among the battleships and scimi)

without a web option that can reach out past 45 km (where the rats start, pretty much), I'm not motivated to even attempt beams. but I might just for the sake of being thorough.

not sure what ranges they're liable to pull, but if it's any further than 140 you're talking about a targeting range script... 151.75km -> 231.96km but it's just one more thing that raises the question of why I'm doing this for a few million ISK

wrecks at site

Logs

Mega Pulse II w/ Scorch Nightmare (1 scimi Optimal Range link)

...2

...3

Neutron Blaster II Vindicator

my suggestion: keep things within 80km

2 things:
1. As far as I am aware of those scout sites have no triggers. The next wave spawns when the current wave is completed.
2. Yes, Antems will always (try to) run out to 140 km. Those are the incursion rats that orbit the furthest out. More on the individual rats can be read here: http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Sansha%27s_Manual

You can't TLDR a post that is only two sentences! Can you?

TLDR Wut?

Begin theorycrafting such an idea. drop it into F&I and watch it die a horrible death.
Incursions are supposed to be end game content. t1 BS hulls with t2 fits should be the baseline minimum to do without someone very experienced doing the fittings and experienced people doing the logi. It is the only content in which the number of ships (and supposedly players) is limited before you lose potential payout. It is one of the fastest low risk (never no risk, ship is in space, in a system in a constellation advertised as having an incursion to all and sundry, and upwards of 10k DPS on many grids) isk faucets. It also is the only one with a mechanic which explicitly rewards shiny fits that out DPS others. These are the intended characteristics. It is DESIGNED for bittervets and those just shy of becomming bittervets.

What are NCN's?

general suggestion - You should really spell it out the first time it is used so those of us that are not in the know can follow along. Because who's going to read all the way to page 8 to find out?

I tried several gang comps only to discover this update was meant for the incursion-initiated.

you know, I had a feeling the sisi update had some changes, so I tried it again. I pre-emptively swapped out a sensor booster for a tracking computer, so I could get more optimal from the Mega Pulse IIs. sure enough, the second wave of the distress beacon has 2 of each: Antems, Vylades, and Maras. I was chasing a Vylade that snuck away when most of me disconnected. It seems the range/ Tachy thing is being pushed. I had a feeling.

I was curious whether the payout was changed, as well. I was also going to do a Tachy run after this. Looks like there's still one more run to go.

it seems the game logs combine when the clients log in at the same time, and staggering character selection prevents it.

Logs:

Nightmare 1

Nightmare 2

Nightmare 3

Nightmare 4

wait... by proving that I can run these faster and faster, am I making Incursioners' lives suck even more?

if you have kite-y npcs, at some point the best ISK/hour is through bringing more than 5 and just blapping everything. CCP. I'm playing your game by bringing 5, but you're mistaken if you're counting on players to adhere to that limit ("if I can run 2 sites with 10 faster than I can run 1 with 5"). This kiting behavior of the Antems and Vylades is best countered with blapping while they're in range, and that's the bulk of this time sink. This is way more tricky than it's worth, imo.

from what I can tell, you pay out with a flat 5-ship cutoff, with no considerations for extra ships. so if there are alts that aren't being used otherwise, just bring them in for utility, like logi or webs.

After watching some Vids(thx Rain) and looking at the spawns I am not really sure how well the person that designed the sites knows Incs or the the mechanics. It looks like a random selection of ship types from other sites with a very big focus on sniper targets, what makes the sites very inaccessible for newer players(that will not have T2 or better fitted sniper BS) or would require a lot of movement, what isn't feasible with 1 Logi because of the limited RR range on BS/BCs and a mwd fitted logi that could keep up needs very good skills and fittings like this are very uncommon, because they are very skill intensive and require good micromanagement(I fly a mwd Oni a lot for Utility reasons in VGs). So you are looking at a very good sniper fleet(bad) or a insane good mwd fleet with one logi that manages to move around while the logi never falls behind. I done something like this in AS with a Basilisk or Guardian and it is very challenging keeping yourself in a specific range to mwding BS and manage all the RR and cap requests while you do so.

3 Maras are ridiculous, in VGs 1 is the max amount and they got removed from the OTAs because the RR was this high that you did need alpha setups to alpha stuff of the field if you wanted to do them in any efficient way after the VG changes 2 years ago.

Overall Idea

Assuming Scouts should be accessible for newer players and a good entry point in Incs, that require less people, tank and coordination than Vanguards the current design of the sites doesn't archive this at all. It is even pointless with high end ships like pirate BS and T2 logistics because it takes longer and pays less than VGs, it will be even worse for a fleet with BCs or T1 Logis that add less tracking links to the fleet or have more limitations when it comes to keeping a mwd fleet running over the grid. The idea should be a accessible site type that requires less dedicated ships and high end setups than VGs and its doable with less coordination, so it creates less complications for the FC and less potential for newer players to make mistakes.

Implementation

This is a small draft I made real quick to demonstrate how sites with multiple solve mechanics could be made for scout sites:

http://go-dl1.eve-files.com/media/1408/National_Industrial_Proxy.png

The site can be done in different ways(static, mwd close range, mwd sniper etc), scaling in the difficulty and time it takes by the type of fleet you use. A and B are hacking spots, that prevent the reinforcement wave RA and RB and disables 25% of the shield of target C each(200k EHP in the shield, brining the last target down to 200k EHP -> 100k in shields, 100k in armor/structure). The Guards at points A,B,C don't auto agro similar to missions, they agro you once you get within 20km, you shoot them or you shoot objective C. The objective is completed when structure C and all sansha on grid are removed.

Sniper fleet, static:

You take out the frigs at range and then attack objective C(300k EHP) that re spawns the reinforcements that also need to be killed to finish the site.

Sniper fleet mwd:

The ships move in the middle with the logi and a fast ship does the hacks, while the BS remove the frigs in the meantime. A long range fitted HAC or 2. mwd fitted Logi could be optimal for this job, I use both hulls in such a fitting for VG to when it the char has to do the hacking and ore dropping in VGs.

Close range BS MWD fleet:

The BS move to A and start hitting the target, by the higher DPS and close spawns, this should be doable in 4-6 minutes. Alternatively a they could move in the centre while a smaller hull Hacks A and B, they grab the frig agro and take them out and after it all hulls move back to C after this is done, to prevent the extra spawns and speed the site up.

Medium ship fleet:

The fleet simply travels from A to B to C. By having only frigs to shoot, medium guns, being in web range of the frigs to take them out quick and only facing frigs and relative little EHP to remove in the site, this should be the fastest way with a couple of close range fitted BCs/Cruisers, depending on how quick you can travel and preferable for newer pilots and BCs/Cruisers because it doesn't require huge tanks or high DPS, just a bit more movement.

In my opinion this would be a good way to redesign this and other sites, even beyond the flexibility of VGs when it comes to the way how they can be done. It is a great opportunity to include scaling mechanics that create a similar time consuming environment for some more advanced fleet types while allowing far less dedicated fleets to complete the sites in a ok time frame and also offers people without sniper fittings or high dps blaster mwd BS a way to do the sites relative quick and hassle free, even with T1 Logis and BCs/Cruisers.

5M isk and 500 LP would be a good reward for this, this is a bit under what VG fleets can do, but still would give around 45-50M a hour with 4500-5000 concord LP given you finish the sites in about 5 minutes each.

We are aware of the Antem and Vylade orbit ranges and the jamming amounts that mess with the overall balance.
The re-balance is meant to simply bring them more in line with the risk vs reward of the higher-tiered sites.

Currently, Scout sites on TQ don't reward enough and are under-utilised.
These upcoming changes should alleviate this somewhat.