Bring it on, Kuvakei!

Bring it on, Kuvakei!

Last weekend I finally managed to do more than just a few Scout incursion sites. I have joined a fleet from Synepublic channel (not an official FCORD fleet though) and we went on doing Vanguard sites.

In the meantime, I’ve noticed, that the Incursion channel was full of LFM DPS! and “Looking for fleet” kind of requests. Immediately I felt like playing … WoW. EVE universe is harsh by design, players generally don’t trust each other, so this kind of questions flooding a public channel is rather unusual.

The fleet was an armor one, consisting of 10 people. We had three Logistics (healers) – 2x Oneiros and my Guardian, 2 Abaddons, Dominix, Deimos (FC), Thorax, Myrmidon and one Ishkur fitted for hacking. The first encounter, “Nation Commander Outpost” is pretty easy. The site consists a few waves of Sansha frigates and the final spawn brings the Boss frigate – Sansha Commander. Since our fleet had three Battleships, most dangerous NPC to us was the Tama Cerebellum – very similar to Cloaked Bomber class, which can fire Banshee Torpedoes against bigger ships. Read more

Incursion ‘Intelligent’ Sansha NPCs

Incursion ‘Intelligent’ Sansha NPCs

I have ran through the Static Data Dump available here, which was released by the CCP shortly after the deployment of Incursion 1.1.0. I have found several new NPCs, which will be part of the upcoming Incursions.

A complete list of new NPCs, their effects and some other items related to Incursion 1.1.0 are available here New Intelligent Sansha NPCs in Incursion (links work in-game).

Antem Neo

Subject: Prototype Nation Vessel (ID:Antem Neo)

Military Specifications: Cruiser-class vessel. Primary role is long-range sniping support. Moderate microwarp velocity. Vessel will attempt to establish orbit ranges in excess of 100km.

Additional Intelligence: Est. 900,000 civilian abductions from Antem IV. The Neo identifier suggests this variant was designed recently, or alternatively, is an improvement upon other, pre-existing designs. Possible links to the Mara Paleo variant.

Synopsis from ISHAEKA-0059. DED Special Operations.
Authorized for Capsuleer dissemination.

Incursion 1.1 to hit Tranquility on January 18th

Third installment of the latest EVE Online expansion, the Incursion is set to be deployed on January 18th 2011. CCP has decided to split the expansion into three parts to increase the overall quality of the expansion. So far, so good: the amount of issues related to patch deployment was less than what would a veteran player expect. There were two database issues which resulted in emergency reboot, but CCP claims they weren’t related to Incursion itself.
The list of changes coming into New Eden is not as short as one might expect. New content includes:

  • overhauled Trinity engine with volumetric shadows,
  • new graphic effects for ship explosions,
  • new Neocom GUI with Windows-like menu interface,
  • Incarna Character Creator including CARBON technology,
  • PI Improvements: Extractors replaced with Extraction Controllers = less clicking in PI
  • Updated Contract system – new GUI, better search, sorting done server side
  • PLEX tab in Character Window
  • Sansha Incursions & Incursion early warning system,
  • CONCORD LP store

Below you can watch a couple of screenshots with the new content. Enjoy!

New NEOCOM: EVE Start Menu

CCP Optimal has posted a dev-blog regarding changes to the EVE GUI – Neocom. The coming change makes the Neocom look much like Windows Start Menu. See for yourself:

This change will be available as beta in the third part of Incursion coming to your EVE client on 18th of January (you will be able to toggle the new and old GUI as you like). You can also have a glimpse at it on SiSi (Singularity test server).

Easter Egg in Incursion 1.0.1

Recently released Incursion 1.0.1 static data dump (you can read more about EVE data dumps here) contains a funny (but rather unsettling) Sansha related easter egg. Database dump also contains the Revenant, which means we might encounter this mighty supercarrier in the next developer-run incursion.

EDIT: This is a product of reprocessing Purloined Sansha Codebreaker.

True Slave Decryption Node

“Functionally, this piece of hardware – obviously of Sansha origin – is an extremely sophisticated parallel processing unit. Connecting it to a standard interface bus and running a few diagnostics reveals that it has been configured to act as the master node for a quasi-distributed decryption system, and its response rate suggests that it’s exceptionally efficient at this task.

It is, however, difficult to ignore the fact that it’s also a head in a jar – particularly when it opens its eyes briefly, looks around, and frowns.”

Second part of Incursion goes out on 14th of December

Second part of Incursion goes out on 14th of December

Second part of Incursion expansion to the well-known sci-fi MMORPG will be published on the next Tuesday. So, what does this part of Expansion bring? First off, all Learning skills, are going to be removed from the game. Previously, every character had to train Learnings in order to train all the other skills faster. Instead, each character is going to get a permanent bonus of +12 to every attribute. This makes it a great moment to start playing EVE.

Second gift for christmas is a new ship – Echelon. It is a new limited edition ship, which all active players are going to get for free. The new ship is a CONCORD project, containing some reverse engineered Sansha technology and is rigged specifically for hacking and breaking electronic locks (Hacking is a mini-profession in the world of EVE).

We still have to wait for the final part of Incursion until January 2011. The last part is going to bring the brand-new character creator based on Carbon technology, along with the title Sansha Incursions. Until then, all players can still participate in developer-run incursions.

EDIT:

Because of FIRE in CCP server room (one of the Blade’s faulty power supplies caught fire) the deployment has been rescheduled one day to 15th of December.

Big change coming in EVE: Learning skills to be removed

Big change coming in EVE: Learning skills to be removed

CCP has released a dev-blog about the future of Learning Skills which need to be trained by each and every character in the game to make training efficient. Basically these skills improve 5 basic character attributes, and all training times are based on these.

CCP proposed to remove all these skills, allow players redistribute skillpoints from Learning skills to other areas and reimburse cost of all Learning skillbooks bought from market but not yet used.

Players have been asking CCP to remove Learning skills altogether for almost as long as EVE exists, as unnecessary months of training each character had to take.

EVE Incursion

Last wednesday CCP has released a statement about the incoming winter expansion here. To sum up the coming changes:

  • Incursion will feature the escalating attacks of the deadly Sansha’s Nation
  • Incursion will also include many improvements as suggested by the Council of Stellar Management
  • Expansion includes updating the character creator with CCP’s Carbon character technology
  • Sansha Mothership, Fighterbomber (we do not know yet if it is going to be available to players)
  • New playable ship – the Noctis salvaging vessel – more info about the ship in the recent devblog
  • New forums in EVE Gate
  • More group oriented PVE content – new NPCs with sleeper AI even in high sec
  • New loot, new visuals (visual effects?)
  • More dynamic and simplified system for Planetary Interaction.

From the description of the coming changes it looks like a rather small expansion, similar in its scope to the Quantum Rise.

I took a minute or two to mash up the images from the Incursion website to make a nice wallpaper for the new expansion. Copyright owner of the images is (c) CCP.

EVE Incursion wallpaper (1280x800)
EVE Incursion wallpaper (1280x800)
Noctis salvaging ship (Primae Hull) (c) CCP
Noctis salvaging ship (Primae Hull) (c) CCP

Caldari defenses held in Isanamo

Shortly after midnight, at 00:16 on 15th of June, Sansha Nation has attacked planet in Isanamo system. According to logs gathered by “Operation Bad Moon” team, due to strong planetary defenses and quick capsuleer response, the Nation was unable to abduct any inhabitants.

It shows that even though the attacks cannot be predicted yet, good planetary defenses and quick exchange of information between capsuleers can protect us from the new Sansha threat. Strong planetary defense is one thing which Gallente government could learn from Caldari. Regarding us capsuleers – we need more coordination (intel channels, intel forwarding paths) to lower the delay between attack and capsuleer response. Creating an alliance is a costly but very effective option. It will also protect small corporations from Sympathisers wardecs.

Sansha Nation can, and will be stopped.