While I was busy keeping the Retribution Status Post up to date (hence the lack of new posts, just a lot of updates to the forementioned text), CCP has pushed the DUST integration to Tranquility. While DUST servers are not connected yet, Districts and their influence over Faction Warfare is already deployed on live server. The same applies to Orbital Bombardment ammo and the whole Infantry market group.
This only means one thing: CCP is getting ready for DUST 514. While Retribution might seem lacking any “theme” feature (like incursions or wormholes), the crown feature can simply be the introduction of DUST. Let’s have a look at the initial impact of DUST on EVE (shamelessly stolen from patch notes):
- Each district owned by a particular Factional Warfare faction affects the number of Victory Points needed to move a Factional Warfare system into a vulnerable state.
- If a district owner is the same faction than the one controlling the Factional Warfare system, the number of Victory Points needed to put the solar system into vulnerable mode is increased
- If a district owner is the opposing faction than the one controlling the Factional Warfare system, the number of Victory Points needed to put the solar system into vulnerable mode is decreased
- Each temperate planet in Factional Warfare space contributes by 12.5% to the System Capture Status Victory Point pool, for a maximum of 50% Victory Points in Factional Warfare solar systems with four temperate planets.
- Until DUST514 is fully implemented on Tranquility, planetary districts have been set to belong to the NPC faction that traditionally owned the Factional Warfare solar system.
What does that mean?
- It will be harder to put some systems into vulnerable state, depending on which faction originally owned the system
- Some players are concerned it might be impossible to attain Tier 5 status with this change
- Math suggests the changes will be superficial: while “enemy” systems require more plexing to put into vulnerable state, originally owned systems require less plexing to make them vulnerable. This means pushing to Tier 5 should still be possible, but will require a bit more work “behind enemy lines”.