Tag: Oracle

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 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	already on Tranquility. new on SiSi: ship spinning counter!
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 nebulae – my post, dev blog Better shadows shader – see this dev blog Crash logs auto upload New Cyno effect – screenshot 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 miss – video 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 source: official Crucible features page

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:

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:

There 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”

EDIT: 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.

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