EVE Online tier-3 battlecruisers wallpapers

…& more!

The new tier-3 battlecruisers are still not yet ready on Singularity (they are not even textured yet), but it doesn’t stop me ( 🙂 ) from creating wallpapers based on the entries to the Create a Starship contest run by the CCP and the one run by CCP together with Deviant Art.

Both ships will be coming to your hangar soon in EVE Online: Crucible, also known as “The Winter Expansion“.

EDIT: According to the forums, the new Singularity build already has Tier 3 BC textures, so expect new wallpapers really soon!

EDIT II: The official EVE Online: Crucible wallpapers have been released. Check them out if you like the new nebulae.

The first is the Minmatar Tornado:

Minmatar Tornado wallpaper
Minmatar Tornado wallpaper

The original Tornado artwork is here
(all credit goes to its creator, =dreamwa1ker)

The second is the Amarrian Oracle (original name Mentor):

Amarr Oracle wallpaper
Amarr Oracle wallpaper

Look for the Mentor original artwork here
(all credit goes to its creator, Alexey M)

New Nebulae

If you don’t feel like having a ship on your desktop, you might always like the new nebulae:

        

EVE Online: Crucible Status Update

EDIT: For winter 2012 expansion, visit this post.

It seems that the words of the CEO of CCP are slowly taking shape in the form of the new Winter Expansion. Dev blogs and video dev blogs are being released almost every day, and so are the updates on Singularity. Let’s sum up what was said and what is already there:

CCP promises

Current Status

dev blogs/video dev blogs/sisi

Hybrid weapons balancing
Less CPU, less PG, less cap, 20% tracking to blasters, 10% damage to railguns, 5 seconds reload instead of 10 seconds. See dev blog here, feedback thread here
Factional warfare
LP can be used to buy Customs Office Gantry BPC, There is a discussion in the playerbase about removing Faction NPCs from high sec.
Assault ships
re-scheduled until after Crucible
Capital ship balancing
See dev blog here, feedback thread here
New T2 modules
Siege Module IISiege module II, Triage module II, Bomb Launcher II, Warp Disruption Field Generator II, Warfare links II, Expanded/Core Probe Launcher II, MAPC II, Drone upgrades II – see screenshot and a feedback thread here
Starbase logistics management

  • Fuel Blocks – four racial type of Fuel pellets instead of the current model. See dev-blog here.
  • Decreased anchor/unanchor and online/offline times for most structures.
  • Removed the need to enter password when using Jump Bridges.
New EWAR-Drones
no info yet
T2 Rigs manufacturing
Magnetometric sites value incresed, will now spawn T2 rig BPCs and more rig components
Ship spinning
New font
already on Singularity. See my post here and dev blog here.
More captains quarters
already on Singularity. See dev blog here.
Time dilation
See dev blogs here and here.
CCP_Soundwave video dev blog
  • Logistic ships (Oneiros +200 PG, -1 med +1 low)
  • Destroyers (10% to HP/25% to cap, signature reduced by 25%, RoF penalty removed)
  • Dramiel nerf – reduced scan resolution, velocity, CPU and powergrid output, gaining mass.
    “and if you fly Dramiel… train something else”
  • Bumped up value of exploration sites (but not their distribution)
  • Corp bookmarks (and possible alliance bookmarks in future)
“This is not a final list”
  • New tier-3 battlecruisers: Talos, Tornado, Naga, Oracle
  • Updated ship shaders (V3): faction/t2 corp logos
  • Updated ship models: Raven & Phobos see more Raven and Navy Raven screens in this post
     New Phobos model
  • New nebulae – my post, dev blog
  • Better shadows shader – see this dev blog
  • Crash logs auto upload
  • New Cyno effectscreenshot and video
  • New Jump Drive effect – screenshot and new video
     
  • Player-owned Customs Offices in low and null sec (including WH)
    • High sec CO will be owned by CONCORD,
    • low sec and null sec CO will be owned by Interbus and will be destructible (no standing loss against InterBus)

    BPC prices:

    • Faction Warfare LP store: 3000 LP + 10.000.000 ISK
    • CONCORD LP store: 6000 LP + 20.000.000 ISK
  • Implants will be listed on killmails
  • “Loot all” button
  • Missed hits now really missvideo
  • Remote “jump” and “dock”: you can now click jump or dock at any distance. Your ship will warp to 0 and do as ordered.
  • New UI for autopilot. Autopilot will warp to stations as well. – screenshot
  • SiSi launcher evolved into EVE Launcher – see this dev-blog
  • It is now possible to drag fitting from Fiting Browser window to market Quickbar
  • New map view – smoother, more readable, anti-aliased:
     
  • Drones will now attempt to return to drone bay automatically if EVE client gets disconnected. See feedback thread here.
  • New DED 3/10 and 4/10 complexes
  • Exploration sites will despawn automatically even if still occupied by players
  • Magnetometric sites value increased – will now spawn t2 rigs BPCs
  • Anomaly value increased: more rats, more bosses, more deadspace mods
  • Dungeon pop-ups can now be minimized for later reading
  • Session change timer shaved from 30 to 20 seconds
  • Engine trails – they made it in the winter expansion after all
  •  
  • New warp tunnel effect – cinematic grade sci-fi effect!
    “full screen procedural chromatic and geometric distortion”
     
  • Tier 3 ships now have shaders (Tornado is still not ready yet)
  • Nearby stars are visible on the sky now + jump gates have been aligned so they face the destination star.
  • Naga has lost its Siege Launchers – it has become a Rokh-like gunboat

NEW:

  • Booster Changes Slightly weaker than before, but without the side effects.
  • Increased Player Ship Salvage 
  • More Bandwidth for PI links
  • Log Off Timer Change – logoffski is not a valid survival tactic anymore
  • Per-Ship Orbit – Orbit distances will now be stored based on ship types. Game will remember your default orbit range for each ship type!
  • Autopan on Hover Removed – Accidentally hovering over a target no longer causes the camera to automatically pan over to it.
  • Remote Unrent Office – No need to fly to a station to close a corp office.
  • Fitting List Limit Raised – Store up to 100 personal/200 corporation ship fittings
  • Blueprint type in Killmails – killmails now contain information if the destroyed blueprint was original or not.
  • Click and drag to select multiple items in inventory containers.
  • Neocom Blink Toggle – You can now disable the blinking NeoCom icons
  • Corp Chat MotD – Corp, Alliance and Fleet channels can now have a Message of the Day.
  • Scan Signature Filter – Cosmic signatures can now be filtered by type, allowing players to easily sort cosmic signatures in the scanner results.
  • Skill Training Highlight – The skill currently in training will be highlighted light blue in the Skill Queue
  • Re-arranging targets – it is now possible to rearrange the targeted items

The new ship shaders remind me of the Trinity expansion back in 2007. As long as the poly models haven’t been touched (except for Raven and Phobos), the texture quality has been improved greatly. In one of the video dev blogs, CCP Basement Ben said that ships are now being “vee-threed”, which I understand as another iteration upon Trinity (which would be the V2) and original artwork (V1 in this example). First visible difference is the detail level (thanks to new PGS shaders – textures are the same size, but their map composition is different – see my post about PGS shaders and Scorpion model evolution here). Additional effect of the new shader is the ability to place custom decals on ships – most Gallente and Caldari models now bear either a faction logo (for T1) or R&D corporation logo (T2). Screenshots say it all:

Gila with Guristas logo Arazu with Duvolle Labs logo Navy Mega with Gallente Federation badge Rattlesnake with Guristas logo Helios with CreoDron logo Ishtar with CreoDron logo Worm with Guristas badge Ares with Roden Shipyards logo Taranis with Duvolle Labs logo

The new nebulae look really cool and much more detailed, but some regions still need some work: for example Essence looks unfinished – there is only one cloud taking a quarter of the sky, and the rest is basically empty (black). Genesis is much better though:

Beautiful nebulae in Genesis region 1 Beautiful nebulae in Genesis region 2 Half-empty sky in Essence region   

New Phobos modelThere is some cosmetic changes as well: turret icons have been reverted to the custom drawn ones, which are much easier to distinguish (and take less time to load). Another change has been done to the Phobos, which now has visible large Warp Disruption Field Generators (they spin!). When we talk about HIC’s, it’s worth to mention, that WDFG has received a Tech II counterpart, which has 36km range.

I have almost forgotten about the BPOs for the new tier-3 battlecruisers: these are already available on SiSi, so all industry moguls can already start planning their mineral supply chains.

Overall impression of the development is rather good. CCP is doing lots of necessary improvements, but in a very tight timeframe (most of these changes should have been done during the past two years, not months). I am a bit afraid that pushing so many things at once will most likely result in a higher amount of bugs. Also the balance changes will surely cause a lot of discussion, especially the Supercarrier nerf.

PS. I think CCP_Soundwave summed it all up perfectly: Winter Expansion “is gonna be exciting for spaceships… If you like spaceships. If you don’t like spaceships, you’re gonna be a little disappointed”

Blueprints for the Tier 3 BCsEDIT: I have calculated the tier-3 battlecruisers build price at ME 0 (for researched BPOs it will be about 10% less). Clearly, the Talos is out of line, being almost as expensive to build as the Dominix.

BPO Build Price
Talos (ME 0) 52 747 405,11
Tornado (ME 0) 41 597 934,74
Naga (ME 0) 47 949 742,59
Oracle (ME 0) 47 386 315,47

EDIT 2: The Winter Expansion name is “Crucible” source: evenews24.com

Windows 8 Developer Preview doesn’t like VMware

Important: On February 29th, 2012 Microsoft has released Windows 8 Consumer Preview. I have already tested it – check this post to read more about the new Windows 8 beta.


Information below is true for earlier Windows 8 Developer Preview

BSOD when starting Windows 8 on VMware Server 2.0.2
BSOD when starting Windows 8 on VMware Server 2.0.2

If you have just downloaded the Windows 8 Developer Preview, which is available in 32 and 64 bit flavours from microsoft.com website, you might have run into trouble running it on VMware products. I was unable to boot the installer on both VMware Player and VMware Server 2.0.2, each try ended with HAL_INITIALIZATION_FAILED error on the new, pretty BSOD.

Users report that the same problem happens on MS Virtual PC 2007. It is possible to run Windows 8 on the current version of Oracle VirtualBox 4.0.12. I have managed to installl the 32-bit Developer Preview without any issues with the following settings:

  • OS: Other/Other Unknown
  • RAM: 2048MB
  • CPU: 2 Cores, VTX enabled
  • HDD: 24GB
Windows 8 installer on Virtualbox 4.0.12
Windows 8 installer on Virtualbox 4.0.12
Windows 8 login screen
Windows 8 login screen