Ship spinning will be back soon(tm)

CCP Torfifrans has released a dev-blog about what is coming to EVE  in the nearest future.

Ship spinning is back!

Ship spinning is back!
Ship spinning is back!

This is one of the most important news, as most players have complained about loading Times of Incarna’s CQ and worse usability of its interface (no context menu on ships, no way to access fuel bay, corporation hangars, ship maintenance bays, no doubleclick to access cargo). There will now be a toggleable option to load either CQ or ship hangar (game will remember your preference). Additionally, Captain Quarters will receive some graphical fixes. To quote a few:

  • Fixed the incorrect specular behaviorFixed shader texture gamma issues
  • Implemented a new specular glossiness model
  • The specular reflection is tinted by the color of the light
  • Added diffuse and specular fresnel
  • Added specular light from indirect light (spherical harmonics)

New turrets look cool on the ship, but their icons in UI are too small. Thus turret icons will be reverted to the hand drawn versions before Incarna. Of course preview of turret models will still be available. Last news is the new cynosural field effect, which will make it to Tranquility in work-in-progres state without sound.

Unfortunately, most anticipated by some EVE vets (including me) engine trails will not be included in this update.

EDIT: CCP Punkturis has published a second dev-blog about the new font for EVE Online. IMHO it is a bit too compact and could easily be a bit wider. Readability is indeed better than the original font. Will need some getting used to.