Just yesterday Factional Warfare has received the update, which was initially planned for Retribution. Why would CCP resolve to ninja patching in this case? Well, there can be a few explanations.
First, market has been quite well unbalanced by militias dumping a lot of LP store goods. Prices for implants and datacores sold by Gallente Federation have fallen sharply after Gallente militia pushed to T5 on October 7th . the same happened to ships like Dominix Navy Issue (it has affected Navy Meathron and Comet as well, but to a smaller degree). Crashed market also means that L4 and L5 mission runners had their income substantially reduced.
PLEX prices have stricken through the roof again. Similar thing happened when CCP has introduced the Incursions, when a lot of people quickly become rich, PLEX prices went from roughly 350 million to 500. Now the overflow of ISK caused PLEX prices to hit 590 million. High PLEX prices might discourage younger players from sticking to EVE.
Factional Warfare had no real meaning; players would push to cash out, instead of keeping space. Moreover, players of one militia would keep alts in their enemy’s militia to flip systems and farm plexes in them.
Factional Warfare was supposed to be a fun PVP experience. Instead, it has became a PVE-centric gameplay.
To combat the issues above, CCP has quickly deployed some of the planned features:
Replace the LP store price reduction from War Zone Control Tiers with a LP gain bonus.
Remove all rewards for completing complexes in a system that is already in vulnerable state.
Add LP rewards for defensive plexing. Formula is as follows: LP Gain = Base value of plex * (Contested percentage of the system/100) * 0.75
Increase the cost of upgrading systems and decrease the bleed-out when those systems are attacked.
It is now required to kill the defending NPCs during offensive plexing.
Yesterday Jason Parks better known as Marcel Devereux has updated Aura to use Inferno 1.2 data dump. Additionally, some users have identified a crash on pre-Honeycomb devices, which was quickly patched by Marcel.
The current stable version is 1.3.9 (build 73)
App can be downloaded directly from Google Play, and if you haven’t heard about Aura yet, this review is a great source of information about mobile companion apps for EVE, including Aura.
If you need support, or have an idea for a cool feature, please head to our forums: www.aideronrobotics.com
The JAVA EVE API Viewerhas just been updated with Inferno 1.2 data dump (so the Iteron Mark IV Amastris Edition shows just fine).
I will also try to provide a data dump conversion for Aura in the near future, so the finest EVE app for Android would finally be up to date with the new skills and items, which have been introduced in Inferno.
If you use Linux or Mac and are looking for an EVE Online character tracker, my App should meet your needs.
Don’t bother checking in the official patch notes, because you will not find it there. A closer inspection of the the Market interface however will reveal yet another monocle for EVE Online characters:
With the latest release of new (added to the game in Incarna 1.1.1, but not released until recently) items, the prices of items in NeX store are much more sensible and well within the “micropayment” range. I hope this new monocle will continue the same trend; affordable micropayments will likely bring CCP a bit more revenue, while keeping the EVE community calm. Remember: greed is only good for Ferengi (and Ferengi’s place is in Star Trek Online).
This new Combat Ocular might have been as well released to Tranquility by mistake. In any case, players who are still waiting for meaningful avatar gameplay can rest assured that Team Avatar is still there.
Update (14.08.2012)
According to the patch notes, CCP has removed the new monocle in Inferno 1.2.4:
“A black monocle that was unintentionally released has been removed and characters who had it equipped will have their portraits flagged for re-rendering.”
The item however still displays in the market window (unless patch notes mention a different black monocle).
This increased resilience will come at a price. Mineral price. I have reviewed the blueprints of all Mining Barges and Exhumers on Singularity and found out that both ship classes will use considerably more materials to build. I have compared the changes in the table below:
All the data come from build 7.43.401066 on Singularity.
Exploit concept Business opportunity concept
At first it made sense to me: to build a ship that can withstand more damage, more material is required. But the table in the previous paragraph clearly shows, that the change can be speculated (best with Procurer). For this to work, one needs to prepare before patch is deployed. Simply build as many Procurers as possible, using a high ME blueprint, or just buy as many Procurers as possible from the market. After Inferno 1.2 is deployed, all these ships should be reprocessed (perfect refining is required to maximize profits). This will generate about 20 to 50 times more minerals than used for their production before patch. You can sell them for profit after Inferno 1.2 has been deployed.
Please close this loophole before Inferno 1.2 deployment! This is crucial. The idea of changing the amount of minerals used for manufacturing of Mining Barges might seem great from roleplaying point of view, but from design point of view is flawed and will create a very powerful exploit for players to (ab)use.
Entity saves the day
This is not an exploit. Where has my mistake been? Extra Materials of course. Some blueprints require more materials than the item itself contains – these are called Extra Materials. So by using Extra Materials rather than changing the amounts on the blueprint itself, CCP actually prevented the exploit which I was initally so vocal about.
One thing I *should* have done before posting this kind of information was VERIFY it further. This brings some other interesting idea:
Show Info should show difference between “Required Materials” and “Extra Materials“. It currently shows the sum of both.
Speculator’s market
You always speculate at your own risk. EVE Online changes a bit with every update, and it is often possible to make some ISK on these changes. There is always some risk involved: either CCP rolls back the change, or if too many players speculated, prices fall because of market saturation.
With the Alliance Tournament X now behind us, we have winners, we have runner-ups, and we have CCP preparing another installment of Inferno. Yup, the art departament is still working to improve the most important part of EVE: the spaceships.
First off: Eyecandy
This time tha Art Department has redone some of the most beautiful vessels in New Eden: Angel Cartel ships. To the contrary of what people say, they now look a bit brighter than the existing skins. The amount of detail resembles that of V3 Serpentis and Federation Navy. The only thing I dislike so far is the light shafts: in vacuum there should be no light shafts, because there is no atmosphere that could scatter the light. To art departament’s defense however: it does look cool. It is just completely unrealistic. As usual, it will be best if you have a look yourself (video on youtube)
Angel pirate faction has a few more non-flyable ships, and they have received the V3 facelift as well. If you are interested, this post unveils some of their mystery: Mysteries of New Eden pirate ships.
Inferno 1.2 is not just visuals; there is much more to be had
Ship balancing
So far it’s been unclear which parts of this dev-blog will make to Inferno 1.2 release, but the Inferno feature page mentions mining barges and attack frigates. On a side note, I would not call Procurer’s EHP boost to battlecruiser battleship levels “Minor”. Mining Barge rebalance will make ganking a tiny bit harder (but increased sig radius will make them easier to hit with big guns -> Tier 3 BCs FTW), while improved cargoholds on Retriever and Mackinaw will likely make them preferable to Hulks, which are going to remain top-of-the-line state-of-the-art king of the hill. Or rather king of the rocks. Or space debris. Whatever. The official dev-blog regarding Mining Barges is now available here.
All Barges and Exhumers get a EHP boost (Hulk and Covetor – smallest, Skiff and Procurer – largest)
All Barges and Exhumers have their cargohold reduced and get an Ore Hold instead
All Barges and Exhumers have their signature radius increased to BC levels.
All Barges and Exhumers need much more components to manufacture. WARNING – possible mineral multiplication exploit!UPDATE: Exploit has been made void by CCP by adding the new additional minerals as Extra Materials
All Exhumers have their 7,5% shield resist bonus reduced to 5% per level of Mining Barge skill
All Exhumers (including Skiff) get 50 m3 of Drone Bay and 50 Mbit of Drone Bandwidth
Procurer gets a 15k m3 Ore Hold, and 5% per level to shield HP
Skiff trades it’s Mercoxit harvesting and +2 Warp Strength boni for a substantial EHP boost
Retriever gets a 20k m3 Ore Hold (and 5% more per Mining Barges level) and +1 low slot
Mackinaw loses it’s ice harvesting bonus for a 25k m3 Ore Hold (and 5% per Mining Barges level) and +1 low slot
Covetor gets 4% mining yield and 3% Ice Harvester duration reduction per Mining Barge skill level
Hulk gets 3% mining yield and 5% to shield resist per Mining Barge level, and an additional 3% mining yield and 4% Ice Harvester duration reduction per Exhumer skill level
New mining rigs for Ice and Mercoxit harvesting (only one can be fitted at a time)
Rookie ships get various bonus to combat and ewar (10% to 30%), but still lower than Tech I frigates – dev post on forums
Rookie ships get a EHP boost, more low and medslots
Executioner, Atron, Slasher and Condor have been rebalanced – dev post on forums
Tech I Mining Barges – Updated 01.08.2012Tech II Exhumers – Updated 01.08.2012
* * *
Skiff in a maximum yield configurationAtron, Executioner, Slasher, Condor rebalanced
New Alchemy reactions, that allow bypassing Technetium with other moon minerals. I’d never knew I’m going to say this, but well… THANKS, MITTENS. And a “Good Job!” badge goes to CCP Fozzie for tackling a problem long overdue.
CCP Fozzie has posted an update to the initial plan (ratio change from 20:1 mentioned in the dev-blog to 10:1) – see this forum post.
More naming changes
This time it will touch (change) the F.O.F. missiles. Some implant descriptions will also be re-formatted to be in line with other implants. For details – see this dev blog
New player experience
The tutorial instructions are now more intuitive, more informative and make EVE easier to grasp for new players. If pretty labels are to make EVE more readable, then so be it. Complete dev blog about the new player experience is available here.
Reinforced Steel Plates II armor plates will finally have more HP than Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I (Meta 4) (see screenshot). Unfortunately, Faction versions remain unchanged – their fitting requirements are greater than Meta 4, but the amount of HP is the same.
Update: Fittings now save ammo and fit rigs
According to a dev-blog by CCP Punkturis, saved fittings will finally fit rigs as well as modules (which they saved but did not fit, even if these rigs were available in the hangar). More than that, fitting will now save ammo, so younger pilots will know exactly what to take with them for a roam.
In about 3 hours Aideron Robotics will be at war. We have received a war dec from a small, 2 man corp. It doesn’t mean this foe can be underestimated. To the contrary.
Small corp targeting multiple industrial corporations will have plenty of targets to choose from, making it easy to score kills of opportunity. The War History of Praetorian Cannibals shows a lot of industrial and exhumer kills (not to mention unfitted battlecruisers). Second reason, why 2 man corp can pose a serious threat is neutral reps/boosters. The fact that a single pilot shoots guns doesn’t mean he is all alone: he can have a neutral Tech III boosting alt, or a bunch of neutral Logistic(s). Or both.
Thanks to War History, War Reports and new Killmails introduced in Inferno, players are easily able to view all past wars waged by an entity, along with the kills associated to them. Since killmails have been already stored in each pilot’s combat record, CCP had all the data they needed to fill the War History. Even back to the times long before Inferno! This is invaluable source of tactical knowledge, so THANK YOU FOR THESE AWESOME FEATURES, CCP!
Now let’s have my locator agent find that sleazebag who wardecced us 😉
CCP has deployed Inferno 1.1 on the Singularity public test server yesterday, bringing a whole batch of features that did not make it into the initial release, namely Minmatar V3 skins and a bunch of smaller adjustments to War Declaration mechanics. It seems devs didn’t like that The Star Fraction turned the war initially started by Goonswarm mutual, and then hired a number of allies for free (see this forum post).
Team Tri-lambda has made a tiny facelift to the Drake, to make it look better with the new missile launchers.
Pilots involved in Faction Warfare will welcome the removal of all E-WAR from FW NPCs. Initially this looks like a considerable boost to Gallente.
We will also witness a new skill for Reactive Armor Hardeners: Armor Resistance Phasing, which makes them adjust faster (and as a result – use more capacitor).
Incursions will see a removal of two nerfs introduced in Escalation to Inferno, namely:
Lowering the reward for vanguard sites by 10%
The system influence
A lot of unreleased clothing will be made available for AUR – and this time the micropayments will really be micro (prices will range btween 100, 300 and 500 AUR) Complete dev-blog is available here. Eight uniforms, two for each race will be added to FW LP store.
As usual, if you would like to test the new content yourself, feel free to read the Singularity guide at the bottom of this post.
Words are just words, so better have a look at the beautiful minnie ships. They don’t look “streamlined” like the Reaper; instead, they kept their rusty and menacing looks.
Yesterday CCP has deployed long-awaited EVE Online expansion called the Inferno. It has brought many changes: new missile engine, many new models and launchers. It has also brought a new Inventory UI. In most RPG games inventory is one of the most important features, and for sure most extensively used. It is no surprise then, that some players are opposing big changes like this one.I have played a lot on Singularity over the past few weeks, so the new inventory was not a surprise for me. I have also noticed many pros of the new system:
It is much harder to put items accidently in a container, instead of Hangar floor,
It is much easier to tell which POS structure hangar I am interacting with (previous windows did not indicate the structure name),
It is easier to manage hangars with lots of containers (like mine)
You can move items by dragging them to the tree on the left
I now know that my entire ship collection is easily worth as much as a Nyx
New Inventory shows how much space would items on the hangar floor take
You can create your own custom filters
Unfortunately, not everything is so usable.
Viewing wrecks seems to be a regression; opening multiple wrecks quickly fills the tree, making it unusable. Previous approach with a small loot window and a big “Loot All” button was much better. It was not only usable, but was also pretty much consistent with many other MMO games. Of course you can still do this – if you press “Shift” when clicking “Open wreck”.
The currently active ship vanishes from the Ship Hangar (@CCP_Arrow has confirmed this is a bug)
Even though new UI shows the structure name, it becomes cluttered when managing a POS with multiple labs/manufacturing arrays
Managing Turret batteries has become a real pain. CCP has confirmed they 1) will group structures by type 2) will allow any structure to have a specific name
I think the solution would be to let the player configure which windows should open in new window by default, and which should open in an existing view. It would also work if the client “remembered” which windows were “detached” from the main inventory window.
The EVE blogoshpere has many different views on the topic. There are two must-reads on Unified Inventory:
To sum up what was said: the new Inventory is a brilliant idea that needs a bit of polish before it becomes just as usable as the old one. I hope CCP will use player feedback to improve and iterate on it.
As usual, I have made two quick-and-dirty Full-HD wallpapers for EVE Online: Inferno using the available website assets.
If you like them, feel free to download them. If you don’t like them however, you can easily do your own wallpaper – just check my quick wallpaper guide in this post.
PLEX prices have stricken through the roof again. Similar thing happened when CCP has introduced the Incursions, when a lot of people quickly become rich, PLEX prices went from roughly 350 million to 500. Now the overflow of ISK caused PLEX prices to hit 590 million. High PLEX prices might discourage younger players from sticking to EVE.
