The intent of your message is good Samisu, and the intent of what is in your message is also good, I think we can all agree on that. It would be even better if reality agreed with it however and if it was actually handled that way, which I still have to say, it was simply not. And I guess that is all I am allowed to say and I agree, I really don't want to discuss the issue any further, so I won't.
All I am saying is, there is still a huge problem with the new rules and you will see the same discussion as above happen over and over again unless it can be solved asap.
1) Apart from limiting investments automatically, maybe make it easier for corps to maintain their majority while still allowing prestige hunters to invest enough to get the top prestige at level ups?
This means not requiring 50% of the investments to maintain majority but maybe only 25%? Or just giving majority to the corp who invests the most, no matter what % it is (this would mean no more neutral industries).
2) Maybe after level ups (when most of the majority breaks occur because the prestige hunters really can not wait long to re-invest and because it takes the city haulers usually at least 6 hours to re-invest), maybe change the residual investments from 10% to 25%? This would automatically create more room for outsiders to invest without having to ask and without having to wait a whole day to get their money in.
Both of these measures would reduce the need of the city haulers to complain, it would reduce their needed investments and it would allow the prestige hunters to get what they want more easily without having to 'ask for more investment room' every hour. Something like this has to be done, because as a prestige hunter with 500 industries connected, I do not have the time or the patience to be 'considerate' of other players feelings and to write down all the industries where I need more investment room and then hours later go down the list to check if I can now invest again. The fact that I need to ask in the first place fearing being reported and punished is ridiculous anyway and heavily favours the city haulers.
I have to also add, the investments in their current design, were designed exactly to make it more difficult for multiple corps to work together, to create a 'competitive atmosphere' anyway. This is the whole point of a competition and investments are simply a HUGE part of that competitive element. A lot of prestige is awarded for level ups so this additionally attracts also the prestige hunters on top of the multiple city corps. Everybody wants to be able to invest however much they can, and giving only 1 fragile 'majority' which requires 50% of ALL investments, is simply too much to ask. It is a very sensitive issue for city haulers, and yes the prestige hunters know this but why should we be forced to forgo our objectives just to allow them to run off-line for 20 hours with maximum WT discount, just because they want to and because they have the ability to complain about it and to report us? The prestige hunters don't complain about extreme wait times from the wrong or non-existent integration of the city haulers, we don't complain when we want to finish a prestige comp while having to deal with 10 minute wait times and we don't complain about their non-stop whining in city forums and their threats to us to just leave 'their' city and go somewhere else. We spent the same amount of money laying rails and should have equal rights to haul goods and to invest anywhere we want to, without fear of being accused of 'ill intent or wanting to damage their game'. No, I do not want to damage their game, but I don't want to help their game either. This is a competition, and it was supposed to be a fair one.
1 more serious injustice happening now, which is really an issue of overal player mentality of city haulers. They think that a certain industry is 'theirs' an no one elses'. They think they can determine who is allowed to use it and who is allowed to invest in it and who is allowed to gain prestige from it. And now, with these new vague rules, they have been given a lot of power to enforce this incorrect thought. Well, I have a message from the game developers for those players: NOBODY owns anything. If you lay rails you can haul and you can invest. This is the DESIGN of the game. Deal with it. Invest more, complain less, work better together with your corp to maintain majority, or accept the fact that maybe you have a bit longer wait time while you sleep! The so called 'Damage' that everybody is complaining about is in reality really not that damaging, the complaining city haulers just think it is. Again, I point to the fact that prestige hunters have to hunt comps and daily deliveries in other cities where 99% of the time they DO NOT have the majority. So what if we break it or take it over when we need to occasionnally?
What is the 'real' damage of this???
3) My solution is therefore to just make these complaints more difficult or at least scrutinize them a bit more, maybe by a 3rd party before just deleting a player or corp and at the very least provide CLEAR and PRECISE rules for investing and majority breaking.
Realize that there are multiple strategies and gaming styles and allow each and every one of them the leway they need to obtain their goals without being harassed after their every action. If I want to invest 10 mln, then I want to invest 10mln. I earned the 10 million and I should be able to spend it wherever and however I want. It's really as simple as this. And by creating some new vague rules without specified threshholds and by accusing these players of really wanting to do other things is kind of just silly. Especially if they are at the top of the prestige rankings and when everybody can clearly see what their goals and intentions are. The rest is juist all made-up nonsense and it only creates more frustrations and debate and unneccesary punishments and a big waste of time of the support staff. This HAS to be avoided somehow. I know many of you don't want to see it this way, and especially the city haulers don't want this, but you will see for yourself soon enough that the 1000 year 'war' between prestige hunters and city haulers has already been at its boiling point for a while, and now a big new barrel of oil has just been poured on top of the flames.