EVE Online Dev Blogs

  • Upwell 2.0 - Structures Changes Coming On February 13th! (UPDATED)

    12. February 2018 11:03

    This dev blog has been updated with changes to the plan made with help from the EVE community’s comments, discussion, and feedback.

    The biggest changes from the previous version of the dev blog are:

    • The removal of the Standup GTFO module from the plan
    • The removal of the 5 minute fitting period from the structure anchoring process
    • Doubling the “last stand” hull repair timer duration to 30 minutes

    We also wish to remind all structure operators that they are strongly advised to pre-set new reinforcement day and hour values for their structure before the patch deployment on February 13th. Structure reinforcement day and hour values can be pre-set through the right click menu in the “My Structures” tab of the structure browser (the same place where you can change the old style vulnerability windows). All structures that do not have a pre-set reinforcement day and time by the downtime of February 13th will have their reinforcement day and time set to Saturday at 18:00 EVETime. The reinforcement day and time can be pre-set as often as you want before the patch with no delay, but after the patch downtime new changes to the day and time will require 7 days to take effect.

    Hello again daring capsuleers and welcome to today’s dev blog. This blog will cover the plans for a major set of improvements to Upwell structures coming your way next month!

    In the year and a half since the initial introduction of Citadels, advancement of both new and existing Upwell structures has been a huge part of EVE Online’s ongoing development. Upwell technology has been advancing through the addition of new features to existing structures (such as industry, repair, and contracts) and new specialized structures in the form of Engineering Complexes and Refineries. Over this time, we have also been looking for the ways in which the basic structure mechanics introduced with Citadels could use a rework. Many aspects of these mechanics have worked out well in practice over the last year, but it has become clear that other aspects need to be changed for these structures to best serve the EVE community.

    This upcoming release is intended to address several issues with the fundamental Upwell structure game systems in one combined package that we are calling “Upwell Structures 2.0”. It will be an extremely significant set of changes to most aspects of interacting with these structures and we are very excited to be getting close to the public testing phase of development. We first announced the plans for this package of changes at EVE Vegas 2017, and the basics of what we discussed with you all in Vegas still apply. At that time, we told you that the Upwell 2.0 release was planned for sometime in Q1 2018, and we are now happy to be able to announce that these changes are part of the February release, which is scheduled for February 13th 2018.

    We want to give a special thanks to all the players who have been communicating your feedback on these features to us over the past year and a half. Whether it’s through the forums, responding to our email surveys, creating your own blogs and podcasts, events like Fanfest and EVE Vegas, or by passing your feedback to the CSM, we rely on feedback from the community to allow us to identify issues and improve the game for all of you. Your feedback has affected virtually every part of these changes including their schedule. As we discussed at EVE Vegas, we moved the priority of these changes up above that of the faction citadels and outpost replacement plan thanks to your feedback. We do still intend to complete the plans for faction citadels and outpost replacement, however that release is currently planned for a bit later in the year to make room for the Upwell 2.0 development process to take priority.

    As we mentioned at EVE Vegas, the core of the Upwell Structures 2.0 design consists of four major pillars:

    1. “Full power” and “low power” modes for structures
    2. A new vulnerability and reinforcement system
    3. A major structure combat overhaul
    4. Moon mining in Wormhole space and some Highsec systems

    In addition to the four pillars, this release will also include a significant set of other smaller changes to Upwell Structures and their associated mechanics.

    Pillar #1: “Full power” and “low power” modes

    The first major change to Upwell structures coming in February is the addition of new modes tied to whether service modules are online and consuming fuel in the structure. If a structure has at least one service module online, then it is considered to be at “full power” and it receives full strength defenses. If no service modules are online in a structure it is considered to be in a “low power” state and receives significantly reduced defenses until a service module is activated.

    The intent of this feature is to more closely tie structure defensibility to the investment and use of the structure. It will enable players to more easily clear uninhabited Upwell structures while preserving defensive options for structures being used for their services.

    Any Standup service module will enable “full power” mode on a structure, so structure owners can make use of any of the many service modules depending on their priorities and needs. Running more than one service module does not increase the “full power” bonuses, although each service module does continue to provide their own service benefits for structure users.

    While in “low power” mode, an Upwell structure will have:

    • Significantly reduced shield and armor hitpoints
    • One less reinforcement cycle (jumping straight to the final reinforcement as soon as the structure shield are destroyed and skipping armor entirely)

    “Low power” structures can be identified through a label on their text bracket beside the structure name:

    Pillar #2: New Vulnerability and Reinforcement System

    The systems surrounding the attack, reinforcement, and destruction of structures has been one of the most heavily discussed aspects of the Upwell structure design from the very beginning. This system is an especially challenging area of design as it requires a careful balance between the needs of attackers and defenders in any structure conflict. As owners and defenders of a structure, players need the security to ensure that their home will not be destroyed out from under them while they sleep. As aggressors against structures, players need the ability to inflict damage and generate conflict. This balance is further complicated by the huge variety of players and organizations in EVE.

    From our observations, research, and community feedback over the past year, we believe that the vulnerability and reinforcement system used by Upwell structures since the Citadel expansion have been too unbalanced in favour of the defender. With this in mind, Upwell structures 2.0 includes a complete re-imagining of vulnerability and reinforcement for these structures.

    In this new system, attacks against active Upwell structures will consist of three phases:

    • An initial attack that can occur at any date and any time chosen by the attackers
    • A second attack that occurs in the timezone of the defenders, on the day chosen by the attackers
    • A final battle that occurs in the timezone and day chosen by the defenders to allow them a last stand

    Under this system structure owners will choose an hour of the day and a day of the week as their structure’s reinforcement time and reinforcement day respectively. Any changes to this reinforcement day and time take 7 days to take effect from the moment the changes are queued, and if the structure is damaged or reinforced when the 7 days have elapsed the change will not take effect until the structure returns to full health.

    This reinforcement information will be obtainable by potential attackers using a relic or data analyzer module. Activating one of these analyzer modules will open a hacking panel similar to those found in exploration sites. The difficulty of the hacking challenge will scale depending on the size of the structure being investigated, with XL structures providing a more difficult hacking challenge than any previously available in EVE Online. After a successful hack a window will appear with the full information on the structure’s current reinforcement time and day, as well as any queued changes and the time that those changes are planned to take effect. Knowledge of the structure’s reinforcement time and day is crucial for potential attackers who wish to determine when their future fights would take place as well as plan how long they wish the structure to spend reinforced.

    Under this new system, the shield hitpoints of Upwell structures will be vulnerable to attack at all times.

    The mechanics of attacking the structure will remain largely consistent with the old system, including the same 15-minute repair timer and the existence of damage caps.

    If the shield hitpoints of an Upwell structure are completely destroyed, the structure will enter a reinforced state. If the structure is in full power, it will enter the first of two reinforcement cycles. If the structure is in low power mode it will skip straight to its final reinforcement cycle.

    First reinforcement cycles last for between 22 and 50 hours, depending on when the attack takes place relative to the structure’s reinforcement time and on a random element. When a structure enters this first reinforced mode it determines when to become vulnerable again by looking forward to the next reinforcement time that takes place at least 24 hours after it entered reinforced mode and randomly adding or subtracting some amount time up to two hours in either direction. This means that the structure owners will always have about one day’s notice that they need to form for a fight, and that the fight will take place at a random time within a four hour window centered on the time chosen by the defender. This also means that an attacker with proper investigation can plan for approximately when the structure will leave its first reinforcement period and control what day that reinforcement exit takes place to generate conflicts on dates of their choosing.

    When the structure exits its first reinforcement period the armor hitpoints become vulnerable with the standard 15 minute repair countdown.

    If a full power mode structure loses its armor hitpoints (or if a low power mode structure loses its shield hitpoints) the structure enters a final reinforcement period. The duration of final reinforcement cycles depends on when the structure enters the reinforcement, what reinforcement day the owner of the structure has chosen, and the area of space the structure is located within.

    When a structure enters its final reinforcement period it looks for the next reinforcement time on the weekly reinforcement day that occurs at least X days in the future, and then randomly adds or subtracts some amount time up to two hours in either direction. This X value depends on the location of the structure:

    • 0.5 days for Wormhole space
    • 2.5 days for Lowsec and Nullsec space
    • 5.5 days for Highsec space

    This means that the final battle for a structure will always take place on the day of the week chosen by the defender, within a four hour window centered on their selected reinforcement hour.

    Just as in the previous system, all a structure’s service modules will go offline while the structure is in this final reinforcement period.

    When a structure finishes its final reinforcement period its hull hitpoints become vulnerable to attack. At this point the structure may be destroyed once and for all with a successful attack and final battle.

    Under this new system a random unscouted attack against a full power Upwell structure could lead to a set of reinforcement timers with a maximum combined duration of 14 days in highsec, 11 days in nullsec and lowsec, and 9 days in W-space. However, a prepared attacker that hacks the structure for its reinforcement information ahead of time can ensure that those durations drop to 7 days in highsec, 4 days in lowsec and nullsec and 2 days in W-space. This highlights the importance of hacking potential target structures to obtain the best possible information for your planning.

    This new system also enables clever attackers to ensure that the first reinforcement period for a full power structures will exit during a weekend to generate potential fights by launching initial attacks against structures on Thursday evening, Friday, or Saturday in preparation for the next day’s reinforcement hour.

    The following chart shows the complete state flow available to Upwell structures in this new system:


    Chart has been updated from original blog version (click to enlarge

    Pillar #3: Structure Combat Overhaul

    The third major pillar of this Upwell structure revamp is the largest set of structure combat balance changes since the introduction of Citadels. Combat alongside, against, and near Upwell structures is an important part of the EVE metagame and it needs continued iteration to ensure that the experience is the best it can be.

    The key goals of these changes are to make structure combat more interesting and enjoyable for structure gunners, structure defenders, and structure attackers. This means focusing on mechanics that provide players with choices and opportunities to display their skill, and that have effective counterplay available.

    Superweapons

    One significant component of this combat overhaul is the addition of new burst projector superweapons to Upwell structures. These powerful disruptive weapons are currently primarily available on supercarriers and allow the operator to place area of effect disruption bursts anywhere in the battlefield remotely. The disruption bursts are visible before they take effect, allowing opposing pilots to see them coming and evade their impact range. The initial pass of structure burst projectors includes AoE target painter, weapon disruptor, energy neutralization, ecm jammer, sensor dampening, stasis webification, and warp disruption bubble effects.

    The addition of the new Standup Energy Neutralization Burst Projector will replace the functions of the Standup Void Guided Bomb, which has been causing balance issues. The Neutralization Burst Projector requires more skill and forethought to use and has significantly more counterplan available, making it a better choice overall for the EVE combat environment. When the Upwell Structures 2.0 release deploys on February 13th all existing Standup Void Guided bombs and their blueprints will be converted automatically to Standup Light Guided bombs and their blueprints.

    These new Standup Burst Projector modules are able to be used on all Medium, Large, and XL structures. The Large and XL versions of Upwell Structures are especially well suited to use these modules as they will receive a role bonus to the rate of fire of Burst Projectors and Guided Bomb Launchers.

    Standup Fighters

    Another major component of this combat rework is a re-imagining of structure fighters. Currently Upwell structures may launch the same types of fighters used by carriers and supercarriers, but these fighters do not receive any benefits from skills or ship bonuses. As a part of this release, Upwell will be releasing dedicated Standup variants of every fighter used by capsuleers. These new fighters will be much more powerful than their standard variants, and will only be able to be launched by Upwell structures. Building these new Standup fighters will require a standard fighter plus some additional input equal to approximately 25% more material value. The blueprints for these Standup fighters will be available seeded on the market from any Upwell Consortium member station (the same locations where other Upwell BPOs are seeded). Not willing to be outdone, Sansha’s Nation WISHES TO EXPAND ITS BORDERS has released its own structure-capable upgrade package for the Shadow heavy fighter that can be purchased in BPC form from Sansha’s Nation loyalty point stores. On patch day existing fighters will need to be upgraded to Standup variants in order to be launched from Upwell structures.

    Since fighters will now be playing a larger part in structure gameplay Upwell has also upgraded the fighter interfacing software for all of their structures. Staring with the Upwell 2.0 release, whenever a capsuleer leaves the gunner position of a structure (or two capsuleers swap) any fighters launched from that structure will not be abandoned. They will remain connected, disengage from combat, and automatically start flying back to the structure for recovery. New gunners will then be able to issue them commands immediately if desired.

    These new Standup fighters will continue to not require any capsuleer skills to operate, and therefore will not benefit from those skills. However, their powerful base stats more than make up for the lack of skill bonuses. They enjoy massive bonuses to dps, hitpoints, speed, and sensor strength that make them powerful forces on the battlefield. Fighters provide an element of positional and movement gameplay that is otherwise unavailable to structure gunners, which is why we are especially excited to upgrade structure fighters into a state where they will become a major part of these battles.

    Structure Module Rebalance

    The structure combat overhaul will also include a major rework to structure combat modules. The fitting gameplay options and choices available to structure owners has been lacking compared to ship fitting gameplay and we intend to start closing the gap with the Upwell 2.0 release.

    The largest change to modules in this release will be the addition of new T2 Standup modules. These will provide upgraded functionality to all the major combat modules for Upwell structures and introduce numerous new fitting options. Entirely new module categories will also be brought to Upwell structures, including capacitor power relays, capacitor batteries, armor reinforcers.

    To go along with these new fitting options, we will also be adjusting the balance around structure fitting stats and module stats to bring more interesting gameplay to structure fitting. Expect CPU and Powergrid decisions to matter much more after this release, especially if you wish to take advantage of the new T2 modules. The fitting requirements of service modules have been reduced significantly, and structure Powergrid and CPU pools have been reduced to compensate.

    Structure weapons are also receiving a balance pass, with anti-capital damage generally reducing and anti-subcapital damage generally increasing. The Standup Heavy Guided Bombs (formerly known as Standup AM Guided Bombs) will also be receiving a significant increase to their explosion radius to better differentiate them from the Standup Light Guided Bombs (formerly known as Standup AS Guided Bombs). All of the Standup missiles and launchers are also being renamed to more clearly show their roles and remove their over-reliance on acronym gobbledygook.

    Structure tackle modules will also be receiving major updates with this release. These powerful modules can often become oppressive with their ability to keep single targets tackled and webbed indefinitely. It is especially important for us to address these modules now since the addition of 24/7 shield vulnerability means structures will be able to activate their tackle modules at all times. To solve these issues, we plan to add a reactivation delay to the Standup Focused Warp Disruptor (formerly known as the Standup Warp Scrambler) and Standup Stasis Webifier modules that prevents them from being cycled constantly without breaks. The current plan is for them to activate for 30 seconds, and then need to wait one minute before activating again. The Standup Focused Warp Disruptor will also be changed to become scriptable, with a longer-range disruptor mode and a shorter-range scrambler mode accessible through a script. Combined with these changes they would also be limited to a maximum of one copy each fitted to a structure. The intent would be for these modules to be used strategically to grab tackle long enough for an allied ship to get their own point, or in conjunction with the new AoE webs and bubbles.

    After some productive discussions with the CSM at our recent summit meeting, we will also be increasing the locking range of Upwell structures significantly to better enable them to engage with targets at extreme ranges. Base lock range of Upwell Structures is planned to increase to 350k, 380km, and 400km for medium, large and XL structures respectively. Additionally all Upwell Structure will gain the ability to increase target range further to a cap of 490km through the existing targeting speed rigs and modules which will be expanded to also provide targeting range bonuses in addition to their current benefits.

    Pillar #4: Moon Mining in W-Space and Highsec

    The final major pillar of the Upwell Structures 2.0 release is the single most requested structure addition from the community over the past several months: moon mining gameplay in wormhole space and highsec.

    Starting on February 13th capsuleers will be able to anchor refinery structures at the moons in 0.5 security highsec systems and in any w-space systems that contain moons. The mechanics of scanning, extracting, fracturing, and mining in these systems will be exactly the same as it is for existing moon mining in lowsec and nullsec systems.

    These moons will contain a randomized selection of upgraded standard mineral ore variants, as well as some of the most common varieties of moongoo ores in lower quantities than those available in lowsec and nullsec.

    Other Upwell 2.0 Changes

    • Beyond the four main pillars, there are also many other miscellaneous improvements for Upwell structures coming in the Upwell 2.0 release. These changes cover a wide variety of topics any most of them were sourced from community requests and suggestions:
    • To provide more time for final battles (especially in high load situations), the final hull repair timer for Upwell Structures has been doubled from 15 minutes to 30 minutes.
    • The damage messages received when attacking structures will now properly display the amount of damage your weapons are inflicting even if that damage is being deflected by the structure damage cap. Instead of listing your attack as “0 damage”, you will see the potential damage with a note of how much of that damage was deflected.
    • To improve the balance around using carriers from within tether range of structures, launching fighters is now considered an aggressive action for the tethering system. This means that any carrier or supercarrier with fighters under its control will automatically break tether and remain untethered until it either recalls or abandons the fighters (or those fighters are destroyed in combat)
    • Asset safety is a major part of Upwell structures, but we have heard from many players that it provides a bit too much absolute safety in some circumstances. We are making a few tweaks to the asset safety costs to help address these concerns:
    • The formula for calculating asset safety values will now provide a more accurate estimate of the item value, and will be much less likely to value an item at 0isk
    • A new minimum asset safety recovery cost has been set at 0.5% of item value. This cost will be required to recover items from asset safety even if the recovery takes place in the same solar system
    • We are currently investigating adding asset safety costs to the killmails for structures so that attackers would be able to clearly see how much damage they inflicted. This will not be ready in time for Upwell 2.0 and we cannot guarantee it at this time, but we are hopeful that it will be possible in the future.
    • Another issue that the CSM raised at our recent summit meeting was the removal of structure rigs before destruction to deny satisfaction to the attackers. To solve this issue, destruction of fitted rigs will no longer be possible while a structure is damaged. Rigs will essentially follow the same rules as modules.
    • A new icon has been added to structure brackets in the overview and space scene to indicate whether you currently have permission to dock in that structure. This indication will make it much easier to determine which of the structures on a grid are open to you. It is however important to remember that even if one of your characters has permission to dock in a structure, that doesn’t mean that your other characters necessarily have the same permissions.

    • NPC corps may now be added to access lists in the same way that player corps can be added. This will allow ACL admins to add specific NPC corps such as rookie corps and FW militia corps to their permission lists as needed.
    • Unanchoring structures will now display the progress of their unanchoring timer in the structure browser to characters with the Station Manager role
    • When unfitting a clone bay service module, a new popup message will inform you about how many jump clones would be destroyed by that action and check to see if you’re sure
    • It is now possible to self destruct pods inside a citadel with a cloning bay service module, just like you can in a station.
    • There are also some other changes we have in progress that will not be ready for the February path but that will be coming soon after:
    • Locking of blueprints is coming soon to Upwell structures! Locked blueprints will remain locked if they enter asset safety and will need to be unlocked by vote before being recovered from the asset safety system. This is a major step towards full feature parity between station and Upwell structures and we hope that it will be very helpful for industrialists
    • We are working on increasing the set of characters allowed in the names of Upwell structures to include commonly used characters such as $, %, and ~

    Most of these changes and new features will be showing up on the test server in the near future for the community to try out and see what you think. We will be creating specific feedback threads with numbers for many of the balance changes such as the new modules and fighters, so keep an eye out on the official forums for those to appear in the coming days. We highly encourage all interested players to hop onto the Singularity public testing server and try these changes out for themselves.

    One important task to complete before the February 13th patch day is to pre-set the reinforcement hour and day for your active structures. This can be done through the structure browser in the same place where current vulnerability schedules can be changed. We will be releasing new reports as reminders between now and the Upwell 2.0 patch to ensure that everyone has a chance to prepare.

    Once again, we want to give a huge thanks to everyone who has been passing along feedback on the existing structure system and on these new proposed changes. We will be reserving space in the comments thread for a FAQ and some example scenarios and we encourage you all to ask questions and let us know what you think there.

    Thanks for joining us for this dev blog today and fly safe!

    - Team Five-0

  • A Tribute To CCP Blaze – An Incredible Community Effort

    19. January 2018 16:39

    Just before the holidays, we released a Dev Blog that detailed the devastating loss of CCP Blaze, a long serving member of our Audio & Graphics Team here at CCP Iceland.

    In the blog, we detailed a fundraiser to support his fiancée and one year old daughter here in Reykjavík that would run for a week, with a specially designed one off SKIN set to commemorate the amazing work that he was a part of during his time working on EVE Online.

    The response was astonishing, unparalleled in the history of fundraisers hosted by CCP, and incredibly humbling.

    This may actually be one of the shortest Dev blogs we’ve ever released, because it’s difficult to find the words to say thank you enough to such an amazing, and incredibly generous community.

    We’ll let the numbers speak for themselves.

    In total, between December 12th and December 19th, the EVE Community donated 3,730,320 PLEX through the purchase of “Blaze” Squadron SKINs. This is the equivalent of 620 YEARS of game time.

    More importantly, it represents a donation of $119,828.50 USD that CCP will make to CCP Blaze’s family on behalf of the EVE Online Community.

    To put the numbers into perspective, this is the second largest CCP hosted fundraiser that the EVE Community has contributed to, eclipsing all but one of the PLEX for GOOD drives in just seven days.

    It’s honestly not possible for us to find words that would accurately convey the gratitude we feel to our pilots.

    Once again, the EVE Community has shown that despite differences in game, our pilots are a formidable, and indestructible force for good.

    From all of us, to all of you, our most sincere thanks for your support.

     

    CCP Falcon
    EVE Universe Community Manager

    On Behalf of the EVE Online Dev Team

  • Monthly Economic Report - December 2017

    2. January 2018 17:36

    This is the Monthly Economic Report (MER) for December 2017.

    The raw data and graphs that make up this report, including the killmail data, can be downloaded here (21 MB).

    Click on any graph in this report for an enlarged version.

  • Updates to The Agency, Journal, and Agent Finder

    21. December 2017 14:42

    Greetings Capsuleers,

    With the January release you will notice we have made some significant changes to the following windows in EVE:

    • The Agency
    • Journal
    • Agent Finder
    Updates to The Agency

    With the January release we are going to be introducing the following features to The Agency:

    • Factional Warfare
    • Incursions
    • Expeditions

    To be able to include these systems we have had to make some changes to how dungeon archetypes in EVE are handled.

    Archetypes

    The mission objective of The Agency is to bring content to you, the Capsuleer. To do that, we need to know what types of content there are, and one system was holding us back, the sites. As you know, there are many types of sites (Relic, Data, Combat, Ghost, FW, Incursion, etc....), and the old way of distinguishing these sites from each other was to look at their scan attribute, which, when more types of sites are introduced, becomes very limited.

    For The Agency to be able to distinguish between the many different types of sites in New Eden, we have revamped and surfaced an old back end system that organizes them, but had fallen into disarray and neglect. Instead of most sites having the same archetype, each site now has an archetype that distinguishes its content type, Incursion sites in the Incursion archetype, Relic sites in the Relic Site archetype, and so on.

    Surfacing this system allows the EVE client to distinguish these sites from each other. For example, this means that Factional Warfare sites and Incursion Sites will no longer just be listed under "Combat Sites", but their own category. For now, this functionality will only be available in The Agency, but the possibilities for this separation to expand over to all systems in EVE are there.

    Factional Warfare and Incursions

    With access to the new archetype information it means we can display the Factional Warfare and Incursion content in The Agency.

    The pictures below will show some examples of what the Factional Warfare cards will look like, including a new card to host the factional warfare system and display the current owner of the system and what state it is in (Stable, Vulnerable etc)

    The updated basic card to differentiate from other combat sites.

    The pictures below will show some examples of what the Incursion cards will look like, including a new card to host the Incursion and display the Constellation, Staging System, the Stage of the Incursion (Established, Mobilized, Withdrawing), the current level of Incursion penalties and if the Mothership is active.

    Basic:

    Expanded:

    As with Factional Warfare, with the archetype system we can now display Incursion site cards as their own content. We have also moved all the relevant information into the expanded card.

    Basic:

    Expanded:

    Epic Arcs

    Epic Arcs were included with the initial release of The Agency but with the disjointed nature of the Agent being in the Agency and the lore text being in the Journal we thought it was worth looking at if we could make a more immersive experience for players on the Epic Arcs.

    Let us introduce the new and improved Epic Arc cards for The Agency.

    You will now be able to track the story through the Expanded cards and see how far into Epic Arc you are and when you will unlock the next chapter.

    The Journal

    The Journal is a bit of a different beast, and has served as an outlet for a lot of in game content over the years.  We wanted to make sure that we kept our efforts focused while overhauling it, so we hooked up some metric tracking to the Journal window.

    As it currently stands on TQ we have the following tabs in the journal and the % of how often they are opened compared to all windows in EVE:

    • Agents – 10%
    • Expeditions – 5%
    • Contracts - 0.84%
    • Planetary Launches – 0.26%
    • Epic Journal – 0.25 %
    • Incursions – 0.5%

    None of the numbers were too surprising. Some of the only access or information about these features is in the Journal or through external 3rd party information.

    So, with these numbers in mind we started looking at what we could do to better represent this information or make it more discoverable.

    Let’s run through the above tabs and break down what we will be doing for January

    Agents:

    This tab will remain untouched in the January release. We feel the amount of people currently using it means we should leave this as it is for the time being.

    Expeditions:

    These will be moving over to the Agency where you will be able to track your expeditions. To see your current Expeditions just open the Agency and select either the Suggested tab or filter for combat sites and remember to adjust the distance.

    Contracts:

    This tab is going to be removed and the contracts window should be able to handle everything this tab does.

    For this to work we are adding a "Requires Attention" filter to the "Status" dropdown in the "My Contracts" tab of the "Contracts" window.

    Clicking any of the Contracts window front page messages like "You have x contracts that require attention" or "Your corp has y contracts in progress" will now take you to the "My Contracts" tab within the "Contracts" window.

    We are also reorganizing the order of the buttons in this window to make more sense. Contract Type will now be the first dropdown box in the "My Contracts" tab.

    Planetary Launches:

    The "Planetary Launches" tab will be moved to become a new tab in the "Planetary Colonies" window. Functionally this tab and window will remain the same and PI interaction will now be accessed in one location.

    Epic Journal:

    The Epic Journal will be removed completely and will be handled entirely by the Agency. See The Agency updates above for more information and pictures.

    Incursions:

    We are also moving almost all the Incursion tab to the Agency, however we have not found a good home for the loyalty point log, so with the January release we will keep this in the Journal and everything else will move to The Agency.

    We would like to know what you use the Loyalty Point Log for, so please provide us some feedback in the comments thread for this devblog. For Example: Do you only use this to see your current pool of LP?

    Agent Finder

    In addition to all these changes, we are removing the Agent Finder as it is currently known.

    With the introduction of The Agency, we effectively introduced a new Agent Finder and we felt this was an opportunity to encourage people to use The Agency, while simplifying the process of finding an Agent to work with.

    If you filter the Agency to "Specify" for "Agents" you will basically get all the filters that were in the Agent Finder.

     

    All pictures included in this dev blog are works in progress and subject to change.

    Thanks for reading! All these changes are currently available on our test server, Singularity, and we look forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback.

    - Team Psycho Sisters

  • Monthly Economic Report - November 2017

    13. December 2017 14:48

    This is the Monthly Economic Report (MER) for November 2017.

    The raw data and graphs that make up this report, including the killmail data, can be downloaded here (28 MB).

    Click on any graph in this report for an enlarged version.

  • A new SKIN, and a tribute to a fallen wingman

    12. December 2017 12:25

    Approximately four weeks ago on November 14th, CCP received the devastating news of the passing of a member of our staff.

    CCP Blaze, one of our Senior Software Engineers with our Audio & Graphics team, passed away suddenly at the age of just 35, while on vacation in London celebrating his recent engagement.

    He is survived by his fiancée and one year old daughter here in Reykjavík, and leaves behind an amazing legacy at CCP from his 8 years at our headquarters working on EVE Online.

    As an incredibly skilled graphics programmer, Blaze was involved in almost every aspect of Team TriLambda’s work over the course of the last 8 years, and contributed extensively to projects that pilots interact with daily in New Eden, including the warp tunnel, the tactical overlay, temporal anti-aliasing, and a whole host of other projects.

    Over the course of the last three weeks, the development team here at CCP have said goodbye to Blaze in our own way, hosting our own internal fundraiser and supporting his family, friends and co-workers as best as possible at this difficult time.

    Alongside supporting those left behind, we feel that’s it’s also incredibly important to honor those lost and the incredible work and creativity they share with us.

    To help us do this, we’ve decided to release a new SKIN set today in honor of CCP Blaze.

    All profits from the sale of this set will be donated directly to his fiancée and daughter by CCP Games, on behalf of the EVE Online Community.

    Available from today, we’d like to introduce you to the “Blaze” Squadron SKIN set.






     

    This SKIN will only be made available as a one off, between today and downtime on December 19th. After that, it will be retired from the New Eden Store, and will never be sold again.

    It will be available for the following hulls, in a bundle for 495 PLEX:

    • Barghest
    • Cerberus
    • Hurricane
    • Ishtar
    • Oracle

    Additionally, it will be made available separately for the Armageddon, CCP Blaze’s favourite ship, for 110 PLEX.

    We would like to reiterate that all profits from the sale of these SKINs will be donated directly to CCP Blaze’s fiancée and daughter on behalf of the EVE Online Community.

    To honor CCP Blaze’s love for EVE Online and his many years as an EVE player, we’ve also chosen to write him into backstory as an immortalized part of New Eden’s history.

    The description for this SKIN will read as follows:

     

    “Blaze” Squadron SKIN (Permanent)

    Designed by Angel Cartel engineers, and released as a tribute to the leader of the Dominations notorious “Blaze” hit and run squadron who was lost in battle in late YC119, this nanocoating was made available in very limited numbers for only six hulls.

    Known only as “Blaze”, a name earned from both the trail of burning wreckage usually left in his wake and his appearance with a golden red beard, his squadron became his namesake after hundreds of daring raids against Republic Fleet assets.

    Today, they wear his colors in honor of his legacy as one of the Angel Cartel’s most successful and notorious pirates.

    “Gone, but never forgotten. His name lives on in all of you. Hoist his colors, and decimate anything that stands in your way.” Trald Vukenda – CEO, Dominations.

  • New Alpha Training Option!

    14. November 2017 16:23

    We recently announced a massive upgrade to Alphas in this Dev Blog, where we described plans to make an additional 15 million skill points available for Alphas on top of the 5 million they already have. We also told you that we were going to offer a new way for Alphas to train all those added skill points and that’s what we’re here to tell you about today.

    As we locked down the list of new Alpha skills, we realized that we really wanted a more affordable option that Alphas could use to train a little at a time. Saving up enough ISK to PLEX your way to Omega or buy a Skill Injector is difficult for new players and in many cases an Alpha may only need a small addition to their training to unlock a new ship class or weapon system, not 30 whole days of training.

    The problem is that we can’t offer smaller portions of Omega time without running into issues like one day Cyno alts. We also faced a lot of messy tech and usability issues when trying to figure out how to offer smaller portions of training time (the entire skill and training system needs a refactor which we are currently investigating).

    So, we approached the design with the following requirements:

    • Alphas must be able to acquire training in small chunks (one day's worth ideally)
    • Training rate from new option must not be faster than Omega
    • Must not activate Omega state or put character in a new Clone State
    • New option must be easily traded and available on market

    With those in mind, we decided that we can use an item to deliver the skill points and use a daily limit on using the item to make sure the training rate never exceeds Omega.

    This bite-size training will take the form of a ‘Daily Alpha Injector’.

    Here are the basic rules for the Daily Alpha Injector:

    • Only one Daily Alpha Injector may be used per day, per character (resets at downtime)
    • May only be used by characters in the Alpha Clone State
    • Can be purchased in the NES for PLEX or purchased for your regions real money currency via secure.eveonline.com
    • Can be activated to immediately to add 50,000 skill points to your character's unallocated skill pool (roughly one day worth of Omega training)
    • Can be traded on the in-game market
    • Does not award Omega Status

    Pretty simple! we're sure you have questions though, so we'll try and answer some of the most obvious and then we can follow up in discussion threads for the blog:

    Why call it an injector, even though it’s different?

    This question was hotly debated and we settled on injector because the basic function of an activated item which gives you unallocated skill points is the same, even though the source of the skill points and the daily limit are different. We think naming it a booster or training item would have been confusing and potentially sent the message that it would unlock Omega time.

    How much will they cost?

    We are planning to sell Daily Alpha Injectors for 20 PLEX each in the New Eden Store and directly on secure.eveonline.com in a range of packages with pricing to come at release. They will also be available on the in-game market where we expect ISK prices to be well within reach of an active Alpha.

    Can every character on an Alpha Account use one per day?

    Yes. The one-day limit is per character, not per account.

    Can I use skill points from an Alpha Injector on Omega skills?

    Yes and no. Alpha Injectors add skills to your unallocated pool where they stay until they are spent. As an Alpha you cannot apply those points to Omega skills, but, if you become Omega at some point with unallocated points in your pool they can be spent on any skill. The CSM was trying to find a way to abuse this but so far has not succeeded, please let us know if you do 😊

    Can I use Alpha Injectors while I still have free training available before I've reached five million skill points?

    Yes, and we realize this may actually mean that in some cases an Alpha under five million skill points would train faster than an Omega with a sub-optimal attribute layout (we still need to deal with attributes in general). We are looking into new bonuses for first time Omegas to balance this out and will keep you up to date as we progress on those.

     

    December is coming up fast and we can’t wait to see what our free players will do with all their new power. Let us know what you think in the comment section and we’ll see you in space!

    Fly Free,

    Team Size Matters

  • Monthly Economic Report - October 2017

    10. November 2017 15:02

    This is the Monthly Economic Report (MER) for October 2017.

    The raw data and graphs that make up this report, including the killmail data, can be downloaded here (29 MB).

    Click on any graph in this report for an enlarged version.

     

    Some of you may think those region graphs are pretty much useless graphical representations that could easily be replaced by simple bar charts. I absolutely agree with that, they were initially made as presentation material for EVE Vegas and not really suitable here, but now by popular demand, as you can see above, bar chart versions have been added to each of the regional graphs.

    I've also been looking for interesting ways to visualize regional data, and came upon this reddit post one evening, that had this graph showing the population in Europe, bar Iceland of course (there's even a subreddit for this):

     

    I thought this was a really interesting way to visualize data on a 2D map and wanted to see if I could apply this to the EVE Starmap. The first issue I had was that I couldn't, because to make a map like this you need a lot of datapoints (lat/long) to make the maps to begin with, then use the lat/long of cities to raise the lines relative to some number like population. I solved this issue by smearing out the starmap with a centered moving average filter, with some interesting results:

  • Clone States - The next steps

    2. November 2017 16:38

      Читать на русском

    Hi Clone People!

    If you were with us at EVE Vegas or watching it from home, you should know by now that we have some big plans for Clone States coming up. It’s time to start sharing the details of that plan so you can begin preparing for the release later this year and so that we can gather more feedback in time to make any last-minute changes.

    Let’s start by going over the results from the introduction of Clone States in 2016’s EVE Online: Ascension expansion and then talk about why we want to make changes at all.

    The Good

    All in all, our results have been very positive. Introducing Alpha clones increased day-to-day activity in EVE, increased new player numbers, and encouraged many former players to come back. Clone States improved the discussion around joining EVE for the first time, both in the media and in our community, where Clone States is supported and advertised as a great option for trying EVE for free at your own pace. And, importantly, EVE’s economy and gameplay ecosystem are intact and healthy despite some concerns before launch about potential abuse by free accounts (with Ghost Training as a speed bump:/ ).

    The Could be Better

    We have these great signs that Alpha access to EVE is something the world wants, but, on the other hand, we also see evidence that the current Alpha experience is too restricted to hold players long term. Being an Alpha is often described more like an infinite trial period than a true free experience, and our data seems to back that up. New players decide if the game is right for them very quickly, then either leave or subscribe rather than playing as an Alpha long term. Of course, more Omegas is fantastic but we think many of the players who leave might be willing to stay around if subscription didn’t feel like a requirement.

    Expanded Alpha Set

    That’s where the new skill list comes in. By expanding the amount of skills available to Alphas, the free experience will be much deeper and more powerful. We hope that with a stronger free experience, we see more players staying around to play as Alphas even if they can’t subscribe right away. This makes EVE even stronger for all pilots, for as we know players are the content in New Eden.

    Let’s go over some of the highlights from the new Alpha skill set and talk about why we chose this list, then you can find the complete list at the bottom of the blog.

    Tech II Small and Medium Weapons

    Comparing Alpha ships to their Omega counterparts can look pretty brutal right now due to the lack of Tech II weapons. By adding them to the Alpha set, not only will DPS potential be much closer between Alphas and Omegas, Alphas will also pick up the extremely important utility granted by certain Tech II ammo variations.

    Battlecruisers

    The most obvious restriction that Alphas face is ship size. Even though EVE is unique in its design to allow even a frigate pilot to make a difference in any battle, the reality is that big ships offer capabilities and experiences that can be hard to get in Frigates and Cruisers. With Battlecruisers and Tech II Medium weapons available, Alphas should be able to make a big difference in any part of the game.

    Battleships

    Yes, Battleships! Battleships are some of EVE’s most iconic ships and the most common aspiration for new players. We see them as an essential part of a deep EVE experience and so we want everyone to be train to fly them. We’ve also heard loud and clear from the CSM and from the discussions surrounding the announcement at EVE Vegas that Battleships are widely considered powerful and this might be scary territory for existing players. That’s why we’re holding back on Tech II Large weapons for now, and it’s also why we will watch behavior post release very carefully. If we see negative effects, we will make changes. We hope that isn’t necessary though and we believe that granting access to Battleships for Alphas will be exciting for everyone in New Eden.

    All Factions

    Being restricted to one faction had some important goals at release, but it also had some big drawbacks and we’re going to let it go. Alphas will now be able to train Ship Command skills from all four factions and will also be able to train all weapon systems. Not only does this open up cross training, a key component of EVE progression, it also opens up pirate faction ships which are some of the most powerful ships in the Tech I arsenal.

    Supporting Changes

    We are making one other very important change to the way Alpha Clones work in this release to support the expanded skill set: Free Alpha Skill Training will stop when a character reaches 5 million total skill points.

    Training after 5 million skill points works normally, that is, you can train skills with Omega time or Skill Injectors. Any skills you’ve previously trained which fall under the Alpha set can be used at any time, regardless of Clone State. It looks like this:

    As we looked at adding more skills to the Alpha set we realized that bringing along free passive training up to the new Alpha cap, like we did the first time around, would cause problems. The more free training we give away the less valuable skill points become, which is not good for existing players, scary for CCP, and inevitably harmful to game balance and the game economy.

    By stopping training below the current skill extraction limit, skill points keep their value and new players can invest in them at their own pace without being required to subscribe every month to use the skills they’ve already trained.

    And that’s it for today! Look below for the complete list of new skills and please let us know if you think it’s missing something or if there’s something that doesn’t belong!

    Thanks for reading,

    Fly Free
    Team Size Matters

     

    Revised Alpha Clone Skill Set for the December 2017 Release

    Total SP:  20,443,989

    Skill Name

    Skill Level

    Skill Group

    Skill Rank

    Skill Points

    Armor Layering

    1

    Armor

    3

                                                    750

    EM Armor Compensation

    2

    Armor

    2

                                                2,828

    Explosive Armor Compensation

    2

    Armor

    2

                                                2,828

    Hull Upgrades

    5

    Armor

    2

                                            512,000

    Kinetic Armor Compensation

    2

    Armor

    2

                                                2,828

    Mechanics

    5

    Armor

    1

                                            256,000

    Remote Armor Repair Systems

    3

    Armor

    2

                                              16,000

    Remote Hull Repair Systems

    2

    Armor

    2

                                                2,828

    Repair Systems

    5

    Armor

    1

                                            256,000

    Thermal Armor Compensation

    2

    Armor

    2

                                                2,828

    Corporation Management

    1

    Corporation Management

    1

                                                    250

    Drone Avionics

    4

    Drones

    1

                                              45,255

    Drone Durability

    4

    Drones

    5

                                            226,274

    Drone Interfacing

    4

    Drones

    5

                                            226,274

    Drone Navigation

    4

    Drones

    1

                                              45,255

    Drone Sharpshooting

    4

    Drones

    1

                                              45,255

    Drones

    5

    Drones

    1

                                            256,000

    Light Drone Operation

    5

    Drones

    1

                                            256,000

    Medium Drone Operation

    5

    Drones

    2

                                            512,000

    Repair Drone Operation

    2

    Drones

    3

                                                4,243

    Heavy Drone Operation

    4

    Drones

    5

                                            226,274

    Amarr Drone Specialization

    2

    Drones

    5

                                                7,071

    Caldari Drone Specialization

    2

    Drones

    5

                                                7,071

    Gallente Drone Specialization

    2

    Drones

    5

                                                7,071

    Minmatar Drone Specialization

    2

    Drones

    5

                                                7,071

    Electronic Warfare

    4

    Electronic Systems

    2

                                              90,510

    Propulsion Jamming

    4

    Electronic Systems

    3

                                            135,765

    Weapon Disruption

    4

    Electronic Systems

    3

                                            135,765

    Sensor Linking

    3

    Electronic Systems

    3

                                              24,000

    Target Painting

    3

    Electronic Systems

    3

                                              24,000

    Advanced Weapon Upgrades

    3

    Engineering

    6

                                              48,000

    CPU Management

    5

    Engineering

    1

                                            256,000

    Capacitor Emission Systems

    4

    Engineering

    2

                                              90,510

    Capacitor Management

    4

    Engineering

    3

                                            135,765

    Capacitor Systems Operation

    3

    Engineering

    1

                                                8,000

    Electronics Upgrades

    5

    Engineering

    2

                                            512,000

    Energy Grid Upgrades

    5

    Engineering

    2

                                            512,000

    Energy Pulse Weapons

    2

    Engineering

    2

                                              2,828

    Power Grid Management

    5

    Engineering

    1

                                            256,000

    Thermodynamics

    4

    Engineering

    3

                                            135,765

    Weapon Upgrades

    5

    Engineering

    2

                                            512,000

    Controlled Bursts

    4

    Gunnery

    2

                                              90,510

    Gunnery

    5

    Gunnery

    1

                                            256,000

    Medium Energy Turret

    5

    Gunnery

    3

                                            768,000

    Motion Prediction

    4

    Gunnery

    2

                                              90,510

    Rapid Firing

    4

    Gunnery

    2

                                              90,510

    Sharpshooter

    4

    Gunnery

    2

                                              90,510

    Small Energy Turret

    5

    Gunnery

    1

                                            256,000

    Surgical Strike

    4

    Gunnery

    4

                                            181,019

    Trajectory Analysis

    4

    Gunnery

    5

                                            226,274

    Small Pulse Laser Specialization

    3

    Gunnery

    3

                                              24,000

    Medium Pulse Laser Specialization

    3

    Gunnery

    5

                                              40,000

    Small Beam Laser Specialization

    3

    Gunnery

    3

                                              24,000

    Medium Beam Laser Specialization

    3

    Gunnery

    5

                                              40,000

    Large Energy Turret

    4

    Gunnery

    5

                                            226,274

    Small Blaster Specialization

    3

    Gunnery

    3

                                              24,000

    Medium Blaster Specialization

    3

    Gunnery

    5

                                              40,000

    Small Rail Specialization

    3

    Gunnery

    3

                                              24,000

    Medium Rail Specializatoin

    3

    Gunnery

    5

                                              40,000

    Large Hybrid Turret

    4

    Gunnery

    5

                                            226,274

    Small Autocannon Specialization

    3

    Gunnery

    3

                                              24,000

    Medium Autocannon Specialization

    3

    Gunnery

    5

                                              40,000

    Small Artillery Specialization

    3

    Gunnery

    3

                                              24,000

    Medium Artillery Specialization

    3

    Gunnery

    5

                                              40,000

    Large Projectile Turret

    4

    Gunnery

    5

                                            226,274

    Rocket Specialization

    3

    Gunnery

    3

                                              24,000

    Heavy Missile Specialization

    3

    Gunnery

    5

                                              40,000

    Light Missile Specialization

    3

    Gunnery

    3

                                              24,000

    Heavy Assault Missile Specialization

    3

    Gunnery

    5

                                              40,000

    Medium Hybrid Turret

    5

    Gunnery

    3

                                            768,000

    Small Hybrid Turret

    5

    Gunnery

    1

                                            256,000

    Medium Projectile Turret

    5

    Gunnery

    3

                                            768,000

    Small Projectile Turret

    5

    Gunnery

    1

                                            256,000

    Leadership

    3

    Leadership

    1

                                                8,000

    Torpedoes

    4

    Missiles

    5

                                            226,274

    Cruise Missiles

    4

    Missiles

    5

                                            226,274

    Guided Missile Precision

    3

    Missiles

    5

                                              40,000

    Missile Launcher Operation

    5

    Missiles

    1

                                            256,000

    Light Missiles

    5

    Missiles

    2

                                            512,000

    Heavy Assault Missiles

    5

    Missiles

    3

                                            768,000

    Heavy Missiles

    5

    Missiles

    3

                                            768,000

    Missile Bombardment

    4

    Missiles

    2

                                              90,510

    Missile Projection

    2

    Missiles

    4

                                                5,657

    Rapid Launch

    4

    Missiles

    2

                                              90,510

    Rockets

    5

    Missiles

    1

                                            256,000

    Target Navigation Prediction

    3

    Missiles

    2

                                              16,000

    Warhead Upgrades

    3

    Missiles

    5

                                              40,000

    Acceleration Control

    3

    Navigation

    4

                                              32,000

    Afterburner

    3

    Navigation

    1

                                                8,000

    Evasive Maneuvering

    3

    Navigation

    2

                                              16,000

    High Speed Maneuvering

    3

    Navigation

    5

                                              40,000

    Navigation

    4

    Navigation

    1

                                              45,255

    Warp Drive Operation

    3

    Navigation

    1

                                                8,000

    Biology

    3

    Neural Enhancement

    1

                                                8,000

    Cybernetics

    3

    Neural Enhancement

    3

                                              24,000

    Infomorph Psychology

    1

    Neural Enhancement

    1

                                                    250

    Industry

    5

    Production

    1

                                            256,000

    Mass Production

    3

    Production

    2

                                              16,000

    Mining

    4

    Resource Processing

    1

                                              45,255

    Ice Harvesting

    2

    Resource processing

    1

    1414

    Mining Upgrades

    4

    Resource Processing

    4

                                            181,019

    Reprocessing

    3

    Resource Processing

    1

                                                8,000

    Gas Cloud Harvesting

    2

    Resource Processing

    1

                                                1,414

    Salvaging

    3

    Resource Processing

    3

                                              24,000

    Armor Rigging

    3

    Rigging

    3

                                              24,000

    Astronautics Rigging

    3

    Rigging

    3

                                              24,000

    Hybrid Weapon Rigging

    3

    Rigging

    3

                                              24,000

    Launcher Rigging

    3

    Rigging

    3

                                              24,000

    Shield Rigging

    3

    Rigging

    3

                                              24,000

    Projectile Weapon Rigging

    3

    Rigging

    3

                                              24,000

    Drones Rigging

    3

    Rigging

    3

                                              24,000

    Electronic Superiority Rigging

    3

    Rigging

    3

                                              24,000

    Energy Weapon Rigging

    3

    Rigging

    3

                                              24,000

    Jury Rigging

    3

    Rigging

    2

                                              16,000

    Archaeology

    3

    Scanning

    3

                                              24,000

    Astrometric Acquisition

    2

    Scanning

    5

                                                7,071

    Astrometric Rangefinding

    2

    Scanning

    8

                                              11,314

    Astrometrics

    3

    Scanning

    3

                                              24,000

    Hacking

    3

    Scanning

    3

                                              24,000

    Survey

    3

    Scanning

    1

                                                8,000

    Science

    4

    Science

    1

                                              45,255

    EM Shield Compensation

    2

    Shields

    2

                                                2,828

    Explosive Shield Compensation

    2

    Shields

    2

                                                2,828

    Kinetic Shield Compensation

    2

    Shields

    2

                                                2,828

    Shield Emission Systems

    3

    Shields

    2

                                              16,000

    Shield Compensation

    4

    Shields

    2

                                              90,510

    Shield Management

    4

    Shields

    3

                                            135,765

    Shield Operation

    4

    Shields

    1

                                              45,255

    Shield Upgrades

    4

    Shields

    2

                                              90,510

    Tactical Shield Manipulation

    4

    Shields

    4

                                            181,019

    Thermal Shield Compensation

    2

    Shields

    2

                                                2,828

    Connections

    2

    Social

    3

                                                4,243

    Criminal Connections

    2

    Social

    3

                                                4,243

    Diplomacy

    3

    Social

    1

                                                8,000

    Distribution Connections

    2

    Social

    2

                                                2,828

    Mining Connections

    2

    Social

    2

                                                2,828

    Negotiation

    2

    Social

    2

                                                2,828

    Security Connections

    2

    Social

    2

                                                2,828

    Social

    3

    Social

    1

                                                8,000

    Amarr Battlecruiser

    4

    Spaceship Command

    6

                                            271,529

    Amarr Battleship

    4

    Spaceship Command

    8

                                            362,039

    Caldari Battlecruiser

    4

    Spaceship Command

    6

                                            271,529

    Caldari Battleship

    4

    Spaceship Command

    8

                                            362,039

    Minmatar Battlecruiser

    4

    Spaceship Command

    6

                                            271,529

    Minmatar Battleship

    4

    Spaceship Command

    8

                                            362,039

    Gallente Battlecruiser

    4

    Spaceship Command

    6

                                            271,529

    Gallente Battleship

    4

    Spaceship Command

    8

                                            362,039

    Amarr Cruiser

    4

    Spaceship Command

    5

                                            226,274

    Amarr Destroyer

    4

    Spaceship Command

    2

                                              90,510

    Amarr Frigate

    4

    Spaceship Command

    2

                                              90,510

    Amarr Industrial

    1

    Spaceship Command

    4

                                                1,000

    Mining Frigate

    4

    Spaceship Command

    2

                                              90,510

    Spaceship Command

    4

    Spaceship Command

    1

                                                8,000

    Caldari Cruiser

    4

    Spaceship Command

    5

                                            226,274

    Caldari Destroyer

    4

    Spaceship Command

    2

                                              90,510

    Caldari Frigate

    4

    Spaceship Command

    2

                                              90,510

    Caldari Industrial

    1

    Spaceship Command

    4

                                                1,000

    Gallente Cruiser

    4

    Spaceship Command

    5

                                            226,274

    Gallente Destroyer

    4

    Spaceship Command

    2

                                              90,510

    Gallente Frigate

    4

    Spaceship Command

    2

                                              90,510

    Gallente Industrial

    1

    Spaceship Command

    4

                                                1,000

    Minmatar Cruiser

    4

    Spaceship Command

    5

                                            226,274

    Minmatar Destroyer

    4

    Spaceship Command

    2

                                              90,510

    Minmatar Frigate

    4

    Spaceship Command

    2

                                              90,510

    Minmatar Industrial

    1

    Spaceship Command

    4

                                                1,000

    Anchoring

    1

    Structure Management

    3

                                                    750

    Long Range Targeting

    3

    Targeting

    2

                                              16,000

    Signature Analysis

    3

    Targeting

    1

                                                8,000

    Target Management

    4

    Targeting

    1

                                              45,255

    Broker Relations

    2

    Trade

    2

                                                2,828

    Marketing

    2

    Trade

    3

                                                4,243

    Trade

    3

    Trade

    1

                                                8,000
               

     

     

  • The Agency - Helping you find PVE content in New Eden

    23. October 2017 19:15

     

    Greetings capsuleers,

    We're coming up on EVE Online's fifteenth anniversary and that means fifteen years of content being added to the game. With so much to do in New Eden it is sometimes very difficult to find exactly what you're looking for. In fact, for new players it can be overwhelming.

    To help you narrow down your content search within EVE’s various gameplay systems, we've come up with a feature so you can view lots of content in one place. Introducing The Agency

    But don’t we already have a feature called The Agency?

    We do, and it will be assimilated to this new and improved version of The Agency so that we have one UI that will be a hub for all PVE content. Industry, Planetary Interaction and other “non versus” gameplay will still be housed in their particular UIs.

    Supported Content

    The new version of The Agency connects you to all the PVE content in the game and provides you with access to this content in a manner that should fit any play style or time allowance. For the initial release coming in the October 24th Lifeblood expansion, the following content will be included:

    • Events (The previous Agency)
    • Agents
    • Resource Wars (new in Lifeblood!)
    • Asteroid Belts
    • Epic Arc Agents
    • Signatures and Anomalies

    I am sure some of you are reading this list thinking that we are killing exploration by including Anomalies and Signatures. Worry not, these items will only appear for the system that you are currently in and you will still have to scan down signatures to know exactly what they are. Once you have scanned them they will appear in your list of available cards.

    We have our sights set on adding the following systems to the Agency in the future:

    • Incursions
    • Landmarks
    • Factional Warfare
    • Escalations from exploration sites

    Filtering The Agency

    You can imagine with 15 years of EVE content, it all amounts to A LOT of cards for players to sift through! We want you to find content that's both accessible and interesting to you, but with all this possible content and information available, how will you be able to find the content you want and make sense of The Agency?

    We will be providing some filters so you can discover the content you want to run and where you want to run it. The goal here is to give enough control over your search without burdening you with too much clicking.

    On release we will have two top level, user configurable filters to narrow down to the content you want. The first filter is "Range", which lets you to select your current system, 2 jumps, 5 jumps, 10 jumps or any distance to indicate the maximum distance you're willing to travel.

    The second filter is “Content Type”, which breaks down in the following way:

    • Suggested - This will be a mix of all the available content to you
    • Combat - This will be a mix of all available combat content, such as Security Agents and combat sites
    • Mining - A mix of all available mining content, such as Mining Agents and Asteroid Belts
    • Specify - One specific type of content. In some cases, this comes with content type specific filtering, such as, faction, corp, level and type for agents, to give players more precise control:
      • Agents
      • Sites
      • Asteroid Belts
      • Signatures
      • Epic Arc Agents

    At this point, the Agency will provide a shortlist of the most suitable content based on the user selected filters, location, standings, skillpoints and other relevant parameters. The details of how we come up with the shortlist would probably require a blog of its own, but the mantra is that we always give you the best, nearest content you can actually participate in right now, while avoiding redundant choice.

    Interacting with The Agency

    Once you have filtered down to the content you want, how do you go about finding out more information?

    Each piece of content is going to have a basic card that will appear as a list on the left of the window.

    Clicking on the basic card will open an expanded card offering more details about the content.

    With these expanded cards we are going to try and expose all the relevant information that will be required for participation in the content and the possible rewards that can be received. The expanded card should be clearly explaining what the content is, how to participate if you cannot already (ship restrictions), what progression mechanics it ties into (standings), and how to get to it based on your current location (Set Destination, Warp to).

    Some examples of extra information that will be included:

    1. We will show you the potential asteroids that can appear Asteroid Belts, Ore Sites, and Ice Belts.
    2. The hostiles that may appear in the sites. We are also looking at including NPC damage types in future iterations of The Agency so that should free up some space in all your bios.
    3. If any content requires special modules to participate, we would like to let you know this in advance

    This is just the first iteration of The (new) Agency, so we look forward to hearing your feedback on what other filters, content or information you would like to see included.

    The Agency will be released with the Lifeblood expansion on October 24th.

    Fly safe,
    Team Psycho Sisters