Since resources are such a hot topic now, just a quick idea: 1) Players receive "auraxium" by earning EXP. 2) Players can invest auraxium into bases (hexes) to upgrade the base to generate more resources. 3) This is a pool everyone can throw auraxium at. Once it hits a certain requirement, the hex upgrades. Low level upgrades don't take much, high level upgrades may take a lot of people. Depending on how many people are working on it, it could take anywhere from a few minutes, to a couple hours. 4) Higher level hexes generate bigger bonuses, encouraging people to invest together. More difficult to defend hexes receive a bigger bonus (ones not of your empire normally, or near the middle of the map). 5) Resources are shared cross continent - so you are not ****** when cont locked. 6) Balance resource gain accordingly. 7) Bigger EXP gains for fighting and capturing hexes of higher levels. 8) Attackers gain a "loot" of that resource type when they take the hex. More important hexes give bigger rewards. 9) Increase the max resource cap, allowing you to stockpile resources. Rely on them when your important hexes are lost and you have to rebuild new hexes. The game becomes less about "how many certs do I have to pull vehicles as fast as possible" and more "let's invest and defend our **** so we can continue to pull things faster". And even more importantly "let's attack their high value hexes so they can't pull as many tanks, etc. and make them feel it". Resources become more valuable/have a purpose, but you still have some control over them (as an individual and as an outfit/empire). Important strategies would be to attack high value hexes. Metagame stuff. Base upgrading has always been a favorite idea of mine. There are a lot of other ideas you can toss into that sort of thing. Possibly other ways to "attack" other bases with auraxium. Like debuffs or hacks you can toss on adjacent bases, etc.
Outposts/bases farther away from your warpgate would be worth significantly more resources and have a much higher cap to encourage people to place them at risk. Building up a base near your enemies, for example. Risk = fun. The bases near your warpgate would be upgradeable of course, but not have nearly as good of a potential.
