All posts by CCP Fozzie

EVE

Ship and Module Balancing in Kronos

The Meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything

Ship and Module Balancing in Kronos

 

Greetings and salutations gallant capsuleers. This is CCP Fozzie bringing you another in our continuous series of balance summary dev blogs.

For the Kronos release next Tuesday we are extremely proud to be bringing you four new ships and thirty eight rebalanced ships. That’s on top of a heap of new modules and rigs and a complete rebuilding of the drone weapon system.

This blog will summarize all the ship and module balancing goodness that you will find waiting for you on June 3rd, and link to all the other applicable dev blogs and forum posts to ensure you get all the juicy details you could ever dream of. As usual for these balance summary blogs nothing here will be completely new to those of you who have been following each and every one of our threads on the forums, but this blog will provide the one stop shop for collecting the Kronos changes.

I want to give a special thanks to all of the players who have provided useful feedback in our many forum threads so far, as well as to your elected CSM representatives who have been working with us at every step of this process. We are building this amazing universe in partnership with all of you and your participation is what sets EVE Online apart.

There are two major themes to be found in the Kronos release’s ship balancing. Most of the ship changes in this release fall into one or the other category, and these two tracks connect strongly to what’s happening in the rest of EVE Online’s ongoing development.

The first theme is the ascendancy of pirates and mercenaries. As the established empires of New Eden continue their decline, capsuleers haven’t been the only beneficiaries. The organizations once pushed to the fringes of society are filling the power vacuum and seizing new opportunities with traditional outlaw resourcefulness. The Guristas Pirates in particular are thriving in this new environment; buoyed by forward-thinking leadership, supreme self-confidence and some “outside the box” recruitment methods.

The surging Guristas represent both challenges and opportunities for other factions, most notably the mercenary forces of Mordu’s Legion. The Legion’s base of operations is situated in lawless nullsec space at the border of Guristas and Serpentis territories, and they have endeavored to keep up with their neighbors in a growing arms race. The Kronos release will see Mordu’s Legion release a new line of advanced combat ships usable by capsuleers. At the same time they are also launching a series of targeted operations in low security space. The goals of these attacks remain clouded in secrecy, but military experts agree that the when the Legion begins an operation there is always a deliberate purpose behind their actions.

The second theme visible in the ship balancing of the Kronos release is advancements in industrial technology. EVE Online is rapidly approaching the Crius release and with it the most significant set of improvements to Industry gameplay in a decade. To compliment these Industry changes, many of the ships involved in Industrial activity are receiving significant upgrades in Kronos. Hauling and mining are two absolutely foundational activities for the EVE Online economy, and both are seeing their options expanded in Kronos.

Now let’s get to all the changes!

 

Soldiers of Fortune: Mordu’s Legion Ships


(click to enlarge)

Dev Blog

Forum Thread

Three of the most exciting ships in the Kronos release are being introduced by Mordu’s Legion. These ships fill the need for a set of dedicated pirate-level missile ships. They are specialized in long range high speed missile warfare, and make ideal skirmishers.

The Garmur frigate, Orthrus cruiser and Barghest battleship all share bonuses to missile damage, warp disruptor and scrambler range, and a special supercharged bonus to missile velocity. They also enjoy some of the best mobility in their classes, allowing them to use range and speed to engage against overwhelming odds. Their raw missile damage bonuses to all damage types also make them perfectly suited to using the deadly burst damage of Rapid Missile Launchers.

These ships will be available from the Mordu’s Legion LP store in their nullsec station, but most blueprints that make it to player hands will come from new Mordu’s Legion faction NPCs that will appear as rare spawns in all low security asteroid belts. More information on these ships and the other activities of Mordu’s Legion in Kronos will be coming in upcoming dev blogs. You can find all the applicable stats and provide feedback in this forum thread in our Features and Ideas subforum.

 

The Rise of Cheesy Devname Puns: Pirate Faction Ships

Frigate Forum Thread

Cruiser Forum Thread

Battleship Forum Thread

Pirate faction ships represent some of the most powerful and unique combat ships in EVE Online, and in the Kronos release they’ll be getting even better. All fifteen ships from the main pirate factions are receiving a rebalance and the end result is some of the most exciting ships the game has ever seen.

Each of the pirate factions has a unique way that their ships “break the rules” that other ships follow. These unique and powerful abilities represent the resourcefulness and disregard for convention shared by successful outlaw organizations. In Kronos we are reinforcing this theme of rule breaking and ensuring that all of the pirate factions have an exciting and identifiable trait that sets them apart from the pack.

Serpentis

The Serpentis ships provided the example of what other pirate ships should and could be. They already had their unique game changer feature in the form of a 10% per level bonus to Stasis Webifier effectiveness. This bonus allows Serpentis ships to show their target down to 10% speed with one module and make escaping their brutal close range particle blasters nearly impossible.

Since the Serpentis theme was working so well, the changes to their ships in Kronos are more subtle than the other pirate factions. The Vigilant cruiser needed the most help and is receiving significantly more targeting range and speed. The Daredevil frigate and Vindicator battleship are already in a very good place and will be receiving smaller tweaks.

Guristas

The Guristas ships are receiving a new and unique trait, the ability to field small numbers of superpowered drones. Each ship receives a gigantic role bonus to the damage and hitpoints for drones of a specific size: light drones for the Worm frigate, medium drones for the Gila cruiser, and both heavy and sentry drones for the Rattlesnake battleship. These bonuses allow the Guristas ships to field two superpowered drones that fight with the ferocity and durability of much larger drone swarms.

The Guristas ships also enjoy impressive shield defenses through a resistance bonus and punishing missile damage with either kinetic or thermal damage.

Angel

The Angel Cartel ships have always been very strong, enjoying impressive speed, agility and long range damage enabled by projectile falloff bonuses. Before Kronos, however, they lacked that special something that breaks the normal ship patterns and set them apart.

In Kronos the Dramiel frigate, Cynabal cruiser and Macheriel battleship will be gaining a special role bonus that increases their warp speed and acceleration by 50% above and beyond the other ships in their classes. This will help reinforce the Angel role as supreme fast attack vessels that can hit and run with ease.

Blood Raiders

The Blood Raiders vessels have long enjoyed the strongest energy warfare in New Eden, and their Bhaalgorn battleship enjoys a venerable role in group PVP. However before Kronos the Cruor frigate and Ashimmu cruiser had languished in relative mediocrity.

In the Kronos release all of the Blood Raider ships will be gaining a new “rule breaking” bonus to Nosferatu modules that ensures they will always drain enemy capacitor no matter what your own capacitor level is. The Blood Raider stasis webifier bonus is also being unified to a range bonus across the whole line of ships and the Cruor and Ashimmu are receiving significant upgrades to their speed and slot layouts.

Sansha’s Nation

The Sansha’s Nation ships are some of the most iconic pirate vessels in EVE, and their Nightmare battleship has long served as a staple of high-end PVE gameplay. On the other hand, the Succubus frigate and Phantasm cruiser have suffered from poor performance relative to their costs.

In the Kronos release all of the Sansha’s Nation ships will be receiving a huge new bonus to Afterburner velocity bonuses. This will enable them to travel extremely quickly while using less capacitor, enjoying lower signature profiles, and shrugging off scramblers.

For more information on all of these pirate faction ships and to provide your feedback, check out our Features and Ideas forum threads for the frigates, cruisers, and battleships.

 

There's Morphite in them thar ‘roids!: The Prospect


(click to enlarge)

Dev Blog

When the Venture mining frigate was introduced in late 2013 it quickly became one of the most popular ships in EVE Online history. The combination of a low barrier of entry, excellent mobility and decent mining yield attracted many pilots. In the Kronos release we are introducing a tech two progression path from the Venture, with the Prospect.

The Prospect is the first in a new class of Expedition Frigates, designed for exploiting the deepest and most remote stretches of space. It sports improved ore mining capability, gas mining yield that matches its predecessor, a larger ore bay, improved defenses and most importantly, the ability to fit Covert Ops Cloaking Devices. This allows the Prospect to get to and from asteroid fields in the most dangerous areas of space, as well as take advantage of covert jump bridges from Black Ops Battleships to bypass deadly chokepoints.

For more information on the Prospect’s stats, as well as other improvements to mining in dangerous space, check out our recent dev blog.

 

Roid Rage: Mining Barges and Exhumers

Forum thread

Mining Barges and Exhumers are the backbone of large scale mining in EVE Online. They provide the greatest possible yields over time and can be seen in many asteroid belts across the New Eden cluster, satisfying the universe’s insatiable appetite for minerals.

In 2012 we rebalanced these ships to remove the old tier system and provide three distinct roles for players to choose from. In the Kronos release we are focusing and strengthening these roles to ensure that all pilots in EVE have the tools to meet their mining needs.

The Procurer and Skiff are the defensive barges and enjoy extremely strong tanks. In Kronos they will also be gaining a drone damage bonus so that miners can choose to punch back at anyone who would threaten their industrial operations.

The Retriever and Mackinaw continue to enjoy the greatest ore holds of any mining ships and are receiving smaller changes since they are already the most popular barges by far.

The Covetor and Hulk will be gaining even more yield to strengthen their position as the most profitable mining ship in all of EVE Online. They are also gaining a completely new bonus to strip miner and ice harvester range that will allow them to more efficiently clear their asteroid belts, especially when working in teams.

For all the juicy details on these barge and exhumer changes, as well as connected changes to mining crystals and gang links, check out this forum thread.

 

Space Truckin’: Freighters and Jump Freighters

Forum thread

Freighters and Jump Freighters are the most heavy duty haulers in New Eden, and serve as the life blood of EVE Online’s living economy. These ships have always been very powerful and effective movers of freight, but before Kronos they have lacked any choice or customization gameplay. Player freedom is at the core of everything we do at CCP and we are always striving to ensure that every aspect of EVE provides interesting choices for players to make.

We have worked through several different approaches for providing this crucial player choice to Freighters and Jump Freighters. After discussion with you and with the CSM we have settled on low-power fitting slots as the best method. In Kronos, each Freighter and Jump Freighter will have three low power slots that can be used to customize your ship to meet your specific needs at any given time.

The stats of each freighter and jump freighter are being changed to work with the new low slots, so for all the details and to provide feedback go check our forum thread in the Features and Ideas section.

 

The Transporters: Blockade Runners and Deep Space Transports


(click to enlarge)

Blockade Runner forum thread

Deep Space Transport forum thread

Transport Ships are the advanced tech two versions of the ubiquitous Industrial Ships, and fall into two classes each with their unique specializations.

Blockade Runners are designed to carry smaller amounts of cargo quickly and securely through all kinds of space. Their access to Covert Ops Cloaking Devices has given them a strong and useful role, and in Kronos we are reinforcing that role through slightly increased cargo, improved slot layouts and a new bonus to warp velocity.

Deep Space Transports are heavier duty haulers designed to take a beating and keep on rolling. They have not been compelling choices for most pilots before Kronos, so we are giving them some very significant improvements. All Deep Space Transports will be gaining a large fleet hangar that allows the carrying of significant loads without sacrificing defenses and provides new opportunities for group gameplay. These ships also sport extremely strong defenses and a unique bonus to the benefits of overheating defensive and propulsion modules. This allows a clever Deep Space Transport pilot to shrug off attack until help can arrive or until it makes its way to safety.

All of the details on these changes can be found in our Features and Ideas forum threads for Blockade Runners and Deep Space Transports.

 

The Real Torpedo of Truth: Phoenix and Citadel Missiles


(click to enlarge)

Forum thread

The Phoenix dreadnaught has been in need of a revitalization for quite some time and we are giving it the love it needs in the Kronos release. We are giving this capital ship a new shield resistance bonus, as well as allowing it to hit just as hard with all damage types.

We’re also vastly increasing the speed of the citadel missiles themselves and making some changes to their damage application so that pilots using them will find their damage more generally consistent.

All the details and feedback can be found in this forum thread in Features and Ideas.

 

Capsuleers’ Best Friend: Combat Drones Rebalance


(click to enlarge)

Dev Blog

Drones are one of the most popular weapon systems in EVE and are used on a huge variety of ships in a huge variety of situations. In the Kronos release we are introducing a huge set of changes to all kinds of combat drones in order to improve the experience for all drone users.

We are balancing drones between different factions (meaning that Amarr and Caldari drones should now be much more useful), rarity levels and sizes, we are making drones easier and more consistent for new players to train for, and we are adding new low slot Omnidirectional Tracking Enhancers.

We are also increasing the engagement range and optimal ranges of most drones to reduce the negative effects of a drone’s own orbit velocity on its tracking.

All the details of these changes can be found in this Dev Blog.

 

If The Mod Fits: New Modules and Module balance

Medium Micro Jump Drive Thread

Hyperspatial Accelerator Thread

Transverse Bulkhead Thread

Nosferatu Thread

As most of you will have come to expect from us by now, we are also introducing a collection of new modules and module rebalances in the Kronos release to ensure that every player has an excellent variety of interesting choices to make when fitting their ships.

We are adding a new Medium Micro Jump Drive module, which is similar to the Large variant but can be fit to Combat Battlecruisers, Command Ships and Deep Space Transports. More details in this thread.

We are also introducing a new set of low slot warp speed modules called Hyperspatial Accelerators. These modules provide a flat bonus to a ship’s warp speed and will be especially popular with slow ships like Freighters. All the details can be found in this thread.

We are also adding new rigs in the Kronos release. Known as Transverse Bulkhead rigs, they add hull hitpoints at the expense of cargo capacity and will open up new options for effective honor tanking. All the details can be found in this thread.

We are also making improvements to Nosferatu modules in Kronos. All Nosferatu modules will cycle faster than before, increasing their effectiveness over time and making them even more useful for keeping other modules alive under extreme capacitor pressure. These changes pair especially well with the revamped Blood Raider ships that we have already discussed. All the details can be found in this thread.

 

I hope you have all enjoyed this walk through the ship and module balance changes of the Kronos release. We are very happy to be releasing all of these new and rebalanced ships and modules for your personal enjoyment this upcoming Tuesday June 3rd.

Until next time, this is @CCP_ Fozzie signing off.

Fly safe!

EVE

Ship and Module Balancing in Kronos

The Meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything

Ship and Module Balancing in Kronos

 

Greetings and salutations gallant capsuleers. This is CCP Fozzie bringing you another in our continuous series of balance summary dev blogs.

For the Kronos release next Tuesday we are extremely proud to be bringing you four new ships and thirty eight rebalanced ships. That’s on top of a heap of new modules and rigs and a complete rebuilding of the drone weapon system.

This blog will summarize all the ship and module balancing goodness that you will find waiting for you on June 3rd, and link to all the other applicable dev blogs and forum posts to ensure you get all the juicy details you could ever dream of. As usual for these balance summary blogs nothing here will be completely new to those of you who have been following each and every one of our threads on the forums, but this blog will provide the one stop shop for collecting the Kronos changes.

I want to give a special thanks to all of the players who have provided useful feedback in our many forum threads so far, as well as to your elected CSM representatives who have been working with us at every step of this process. We are building this amazing universe in partnership with all of you and your participation is what sets EVE Online apart.

There are two major themes to be found in the Kronos release’s ship balancing. Most of the ship changes in this release fall into one or the other category, and these two tracks connect strongly to what’s happening in the rest of EVE Online’s ongoing development.

The first theme is the ascendancy of pirates and mercenaries. As the established empires of New Eden continue their decline, capsuleers haven’t been the only beneficiaries. The organizations once pushed to the fringes of society are filling the power vacuum and seizing new opportunities with traditional outlaw resourcefulness. The Guristas Pirates in particular are thriving in this new environment; buoyed by forward-thinking leadership, supreme self-confidence and some “outside the box” recruitment methods.

The surging Guristas represent both challenges and opportunities for other factions, most notably the mercenary forces of Mordu’s Legion. The Legion’s base of operations is situated in lawless nullsec space at the border of Guristas and Serpentis territories, and they have endeavored to keep up with their neighbors in a growing arms race. The Kronos release will see Mordu’s Legion release a new line of advanced combat ships usable by capsuleers. At the same time they are also launching a series of targeted operations in low security space. The goals of these attacks remain clouded in secrecy, but military experts agree that the when the Legion begins an operation there is always a deliberate purpose behind their actions.

The second theme visible in the ship balancing of the Kronos release is advancements in industrial technology. EVE Online is rapidly approaching the Crius release and with it the most significant set of improvements to Industry gameplay in a decade. To compliment these Industry changes, many of the ships involved in Industrial activity are receiving significant upgrades in Kronos. Hauling and mining are two absolutely foundational activities for the EVE Online economy, and both are seeing their options expanded in Kronos.

Now let’s get to all the changes!

 

Soldiers of Fortune: Mordu’s Legion Ships


(click to enlarge)

Dev Blog

Forum Thread

Three of the most exciting ships in the Kronos release are being introduced by Mordu’s Legion. These ships fill the need for a set of dedicated pirate-level missile ships. They are specialized in long range high speed missile warfare, and make ideal skirmishers.

The Garmur frigate, Orthrus cruiser and Barghest battleship all share bonuses to missile damage, warp disruptor and scrambler range, and a special supercharged bonus to missile velocity. They also enjoy some of the best mobility in their classes, allowing them to use range and speed to engage against overwhelming odds. Their raw missile damage bonuses to all damage types also make them perfectly suited to using the deadly burst damage of Rapid Missile Launchers.

These ships will be available from the Mordu’s Legion LP store in their nullsec station, but most blueprints that make it to player hands will come from new Mordu’s Legion faction NPCs that will appear as rare spawns in all low security asteroid belts. More information on these ships and the other activities of Mordu’s Legion in Kronos will be coming in upcoming dev blogs. You can find all the applicable stats and provide feedback in this forum thread in our Features and Ideas subforum.

 

The Rise of Cheesy Devname Puns: Pirate Faction Ships

Frigate Forum Thread

Cruiser Forum Thread

Battleship Forum Thread

Pirate faction ships represent some of the most powerful and unique combat ships in EVE Online, and in the Kronos release they’ll be getting even better. All fifteen ships from the main pirate factions are receiving a rebalance and the end result is some of the most exciting ships the game has ever seen.

Each of the pirate factions has a unique way that their ships “break the rules” that other ships follow. These unique and powerful abilities represent the resourcefulness and disregard for convention shared by successful outlaw organizations. In Kronos we are reinforcing this theme of rule breaking and ensuring that all of the pirate factions have an exciting and identifiable trait that sets them apart from the pack.

Serpentis

The Serpentis ships provided the example of what other pirate ships should and could be. They already had their unique game changer feature in the form of a 10% per level bonus to Stasis Webifier effectiveness. This bonus allows Serpentis ships to show their target down to 10% speed with one module and make escaping their brutal close range particle blasters nearly impossible.

Since the Serpentis theme was working so well, the changes to their ships in Kronos are more subtle than the other pirate factions. The Vigilant cruiser needed the most help and is receiving significantly more targeting range and speed. The Daredevil frigate and Vindicator battleship are already in a very good place and will be receiving smaller tweaks.

Guristas

The Guristas ships are receiving a new and unique trait, the ability to field small numbers of superpowered drones. Each ship receives a gigantic role bonus to the damage and hitpoints for drones of a specific size: light drones for the Worm frigate, medium drones for the Gila cruiser, and both heavy and sentry drones for the Rattlesnake battleship. These bonuses allow the Guristas ships to field two superpowered drones that fight with the ferocity and durability of much larger drone swarms.

The Guristas ships also enjoy impressive shield defenses through a resistance bonus and punishing missile damage with either kinetic or thermal damage.

Angel

The Angel Cartel ships have always been very strong, enjoying impressive speed, agility and long range damage enabled by projectile falloff bonuses. Before Kronos, however, they lacked that special something that breaks the normal ship patterns and set them apart.

In Kronos the Dramiel frigate, Cynabal cruiser and Macheriel battleship will be gaining a special role bonus that increases their warp speed and acceleration by 50% above and beyond the other ships in their classes. This will help reinforce the Angel role as supreme fast attack vessels that can hit and run with ease.

Blood Raiders

The Blood Raiders vessels have long enjoyed the strongest energy warfare in New Eden, and their Bhaalgorn battleship enjoys a venerable role in group PVP. However before Kronos the Cruor frigate and Ashimmu cruiser had languished in relative mediocrity.

In the Kronos release all of the Blood Raider ships will be gaining a new “rule breaking” bonus to Nosferatu modules that ensures they will always drain enemy capacitor no matter what your own capacitor level is. The Blood Raider stasis webifier bonus is also being unified to a range bonus across the whole line of ships and the Cruor and Ashimmu are receiving significant upgrades to their speed and slot layouts.

Sansha’s Nation

The Sansha’s Nation ships are some of the most iconic pirate vessels in EVE, and their Nightmare battleship has long served as a staple of high-end PVE gameplay. On the other hand, the Succubus frigate and Phantasm cruiser have suffered from poor performance relative to their costs.

In the Kronos release all of the Sansha’s Nation ships will be receiving a huge new bonus to Afterburner velocity bonuses. This will enable them to travel extremely quickly while using less capacitor, enjoying lower signature profiles, and shrugging off scramblers.

For more information on all of these pirate faction ships and to provide your feedback, check out our Features and Ideas forum threads for the frigates, cruisers, and battleships.

 

There's Morphite in them thar ‘roids!: The Prospect


(click to enlarge)

Dev Blog

When the Venture mining frigate was introduced in late 2013 it quickly became one of the most popular ships in EVE Online history. The combination of a low barrier of entry, excellent mobility and decent mining yield attracted many pilots. In the Kronos release we are introducing a tech two progression path from the Venture, with the Prospect.

The Prospect is the first in a new class of Expedition Frigates, designed for exploiting the deepest and most remote stretches of space. It sports improved ore mining capability, gas mining yield that matches its predecessor, a larger ore bay, improved defenses and most importantly, the ability to fit Covert Ops Cloaking Devices. This allows the Prospect to get to and from asteroid fields in the most dangerous areas of space, as well as take advantage of covert jump bridges from Black Ops Battleships to bypass deadly chokepoints.

For more information on the Prospect’s stats, as well as other improvements to mining in dangerous space, check out our recent dev blog.

 

Roid Rage: Mining Barges and Exhumers

Forum thread

Mining Barges and Exhumers are the backbone of large scale mining in EVE Online. They provide the greatest possible yields over time and can be seen in many asteroid belts across the New Eden cluster, satisfying the universe’s insatiable appetite for minerals.

In 2012 we rebalanced these ships to remove the old tier system and provide three distinct roles for players to choose from. In the Kronos release we are focusing and strengthening these roles to ensure that all pilots in EVE have the tools to meet their mining needs.

The Procurer and Skiff are the defensive barges and enjoy extremely strong tanks. In Kronos they will also be gaining a drone damage bonus so that miners can choose to punch back at anyone who would threaten their industrial operations.

The Retriever and Mackinaw continue to enjoy the greatest ore holds of any mining ships and are receiving smaller changes since they are already the most popular barges by far.

The Covetor and Hulk will be gaining even more yield to strengthen their position as the most profitable mining ship in all of EVE Online. They are also gaining a completely new bonus to strip miner and ice harvester range that will allow them to more efficiently clear their asteroid belts, especially when working in teams.

For all the juicy details on these barge and exhumer changes, as well as connected changes to mining crystals and gang links, check out this forum thread.

 

Space Truckin’: Freighters and Jump Freighters

Forum thread

Freighters and Jump Freighters are the most heavy duty haulers in New Eden, and serve as the life blood of EVE Online’s living economy. These ships have always been very powerful and effective movers of freight, but before Kronos they have lacked any choice or customization gameplay. Player freedom is at the core of everything we do at CCP and we are always striving to ensure that every aspect of EVE provides interesting choices for players to make.

We have worked through several different approaches for providing this crucial player choice to Freighters and Jump Freighters. After discussion with you and with the CSM we have settled on low-power fitting slots as the best method. In Kronos, each Freighter and Jump Freighter will have three low power slots that can be used to customize your ship to meet your specific needs at any given time.

The stats of each freighter and jump freighter are being changed to work with the new low slots, so for all the details and to provide feedback go check our forum thread in the Features and Ideas section.

 

The Transporters: Blockade Runners and Deep Space Transports


(click to enlarge)

Blockade Runner forum thread

Deep Space Transport forum thread

Transport Ships are the advanced tech two versions of the ubiquitous Industrial Ships, and fall into two classes each with their unique specializations.

Blockade Runners are designed to carry smaller amounts of cargo quickly and securely through all kinds of space. Their access to Covert Ops Cloaking Devices has given them a strong and useful role, and in Kronos we are reinforcing that role through slightly increased cargo, improved slot layouts and a new bonus to warp velocity.

Deep Space Transports are heavier duty haulers designed to take a beating and keep on rolling. They have not been compelling choices for most pilots before Kronos, so we are giving them some very significant improvements. All Deep Space Transports will be gaining a large fleet hangar that allows the carrying of significant loads without sacrificing defenses and provides new opportunities for group gameplay. These ships also sport extremely strong defenses and a unique bonus to the benefits of overheating defensive and propulsion modules. This allows a clever Deep Space Transport pilot to shrug off attack until help can arrive or until it makes its way to safety.

All of the details on these changes can be found in our Features and Ideas forum threads for Blockade Runners and Deep Space Transports.

 

The Real Torpedo of Truth: Phoenix and Citadel Missiles


(click to enlarge)

Forum thread

The Phoenix dreadnaught has been in need of a revitalization for quite some time and we are giving it the love it needs in the Kronos release. We are giving this capital ship a new shield resistance bonus, as well as allowing it to hit just as hard with all damage types.

We’re also vastly increasing the speed of the citadel missiles themselves and making some changes to their damage application so that pilots using them will find their damage more generally consistent.

All the details and feedback can be found in this forum thread in Features and Ideas.

 

Capsuleers’ Best Friend: Combat Drones Rebalance


(click to enlarge)

Dev Blog

Drones are one of the most popular weapon systems in EVE and are used on a huge variety of ships in a huge variety of situations. In the Kronos release we are introducing a huge set of changes to all kinds of combat drones in order to improve the experience for all drone users.

We are balancing drones between different factions (meaning that Amarr and Caldari drones should now be much more useful), rarity levels and sizes, we are making drones easier and more consistent for new players to train for, and we are adding new low slot Omnidirectional Tracking Enhancers.

We are also increasing the engagement range and optimal ranges of most drones to reduce the negative effects of a drone’s own orbit velocity on its tracking.

All the details of these changes can be found in this Dev Blog.

 

If The Mod Fits: New Modules and Module balance

Medium Micro Jump Drive Thread

Hyperspatial Accelerator Thread

Transverse Bulkhead Thread

Nosferatu Thread

As most of you will have come to expect from us by now, we are also introducing a collection of new modules and module rebalances in the Kronos release to ensure that every player has an excellent variety of interesting choices to make when fitting their ships.

We are adding a new Medium Micro Jump Drive module, which is similar to the Large variant but can be fit to Combat Battlecruisers, Command Ships and Deep Space Transports. More details in this thread.

We are also introducing a new set of low slot warp speed modules called Hyperspatial Accelerators. These modules provide a flat bonus to a ship’s warp speed and will be especially popular with slow ships like Freighters. All the details can be found in this thread.

We are also adding new rigs in the Kronos release. Known as Transverse Bulkhead rigs, they add hull hitpoints at the expense of cargo capacity and will open up new options for effective honor tanking. All the details can be found in this thread.

We are also making improvements to Nosferatu modules in Kronos. All Nosferatu modules will cycle faster than before, increasing their effectiveness over time and making them even more useful for keeping other modules alive under extreme capacitor pressure. These changes pair especially well with the revamped Blood Raider ships that we have already discussed. All the details can be found in this thread.

 

I hope you have all enjoyed this walk through the ship and module balance changes of the Kronos release. We are very happy to be releasing all of these new and rebalanced ships and modules for your personal enjoyment this upcoming Tuesday June 3rd.

Until next time, this is @CCP_ Fozzie signing off.

Fly safe!

EVE

Giving drones an assist

Giving drones an assist (Updated)

Hello once again, spacefriends. CCP Fozzie here, bringing your our next dev blog covering some of the exciting changes coming your way in the EVE Online Summer 2014 release.

We have updated the thread with the latest information, namely changes to the range and tracking of combat drones and changes to the plan for converting skills on patch day. This blog is now fully up to date as of May 30, 2014.

This blog will discuss our constant companions in the darkness of space, the loyal drones. Drones have received many improvements in recent years that have increased their stature to that of a main weapon system and expanded the options available to drone users immensely. However there are several aspects of drone balance that are not yet up to our current standards. In the summer release we will be implementing a wide ranging balance rework for drones of all sizes. This will affect drone skills, modules and ship bonuses as well as the attributes of the drones themselves.

I will include a link to a spreadsheet with the new drone attributes at the end of the blog, but first we’ll cover the changes at a higher level. This revamp includes over a thousand separate behind-the-scenes changes, but it’s simpler to look at each category of problems we are trying to solve and how we intend to address them one by one.

 

Balance between drones from different empires

One of the most obvious issues facing drones in EVE Online is the balance between the drones built by the four Empires. In theory the factional split should provide variety and interesting choices for players to make. Each faction of drones have their own damage type and should have their own distinctive attributes.

In practice this is currently only working for two varieties of drones, Gallente and Minmatar. Gallente drones deal the highest damage at the expense of speed and tracking, and provide an excellent option when pilots wish to deal thermal damage. Minmatar drones have the best speed and tracking at the expense of damage per second, and deal explosive damage.

Caldari drones are barely passable, only truly standing out from the crowd when a pilot really wants to deal kinetic damage. Amarrian drones are in dire straits, dealing the lowest damage of all drone types and not excelling in any area.

None of this will be a surprise to most players, since the relative weakness of Caldari and Amarrian drones has been well known for years. However it can still be interesting to see just how little these drones are used. The following graph shows the number of shots fired in PvP by combat drones (not counting sentry drones) from each of the four races in the last year.

As you can see, Amarrian and Caldari drones might as well not exist in their current form. They are in need of a significant revamp to make them competitive with Gallente and Minmatar drones.

In the Summer 2014 release, we will be solving this issue by placing each of the four racial varieties of drones on a continuous spectrum of speed and damage. The already effective Gallente and Minmatar drones will remain in their places at the ends of the spectrum, while the attributes of the Amarrian and Caldari drones will be adjusted to place them in between the two extremes: Amarrian drones will be slightly slower and more damaging than Minmatar drones, while Caldari drones will be slightly faster and less damaging than Gallente drones. Their distinct damage types will remain intact.

We are also making some new changes to the ranges that drones attack and orbit in, that affect the balance between drones from different factions:

All combat drones will now orbit and attack at longer ranges than before. Light drones will be orbit between 40% and 60% farther than before, medium drones between 180% and 220% farther, and heavy drones will see their orbit range increased by between 1300% and 1500%. Optimal ranges and attack ranges are rising accordingly. Tracking speed values are decreasing to compensate, but all drones will track better than before when at their optimal ranges.

This change will have a couple important benefits:

  • It will mean that drones lose less damage from the transversal caused by their own orbit velocity. Drones simply orbit with no concern for transversal management and that can often cause unintitive reductions in DPS, especially against small and slow targets. With this change the negative effects of a drone's own velocity will be reduced.
  • It means that drones will be less likely to overshoot their targets. Drones approaching a target with their MWD on can sometimes overshoot their target by a large margin, preventing them from applying their damage early in an engagement. With this change, the area in which a drone will deactivate its MWD and start orbitting is much larger and a drone is more likely to hit it on the first approach.
  • This also gives us another method through which to differentiate drones from the different factions. Amarr and Caldari drones will recieve a larger range increase than Minmatar and Gallente drones. This provides these middle drones a new way to shine and gives players another set of interesting choices to make when choosing their combat drones.

Due to the changes in range and tracking, heavy drones will do more damage than before against small and slow targets, but will have a harder time hitting fast moving targets that spend most of their time at suboptimal ranges.

Finally, we are also adjusting the hitpoints of combat drones to better reflect their racial tanking styles and provide a slight hitpoint advantage to the Amarr and Caldari drones.

We believe that this change will provide players with many more interesting choices when deciding what drones to load onto their ships and use in combat.

 

Balance between quality levels of drones

Another area of imbalance in the current drone attributes is the different quality levels, or meta-levels, of drones available. Combat drones currently fall into one of five distinct quality levels (sentry drones are addressed below):

  • Basic Tech One drones are the most plentiful, cheap and easy-to-use drones in the game. They remain the baseline against which every other type of drone is compared.
  • Tech Two drones are more powerful drones that are produced by players, mainly through the advanced Invention process. They are more expensive to produce than Tech One drones, and have the highest skill requirements of any variety of drones. To make up for this added difficulty and expense, Tech Two combat drones gain a 20% advantage in hitpoints, speed, tracking and damage compared to the basic Tech One versions. They can also gain an extra 2% damage for each level of their racial Drone Specialization skill that is trained. These bonuses are already quite balanced and provide a valuable progression for drone users, so they are not changing.
  • Faction Navy drones are advanced drones that are only available from each Empire’s Factional Warfare loyalty point stores. They are notable for their excellent hitpoints and tracking, as well as low skill requirements. However their low speed and underwhelming 15% damage bonus over Tech One leave them without enough value to justify their cost for most players. We will be keeping their HP and tracking intact, while also giving them speed and damage on-par with Tech Two drones -- although the Navy Drones will still not gain the extra 2% bonus per level from the drone specialization skills.
  • “Integrated” and “Augmented” drones are both built from components and blueprints looted from the remains of deadly rogue drones in the drone regions of nullsec space. Currently they receive some bonuses above and beyond Tech One drones, but their cost is mainly due to rarity and they are not powerful enough to encourage common use. We will be upgrading the “Integrated” drones to have 15% more damage and 10% more HP, tracking and speed than Tech One drones. “Augmented” drones will keep their current significant bonuses to HP, tracking and speed, and will see their damage bonus increased to 32% above Tech One drones, putting their damage on par with a fully skilled Tech Two drone.

 

Balance between sizes of drones

Travel time is a constant issue for combat drones, as the delay between ordering your drones to attack and their arrival at their target often cripples the effectiveness of drones over moderate ranges. This is also one of the major reasons that Heavy Drones have trouble competing with the stationary Sentry Drones.

Currently each size of combat drones (Light, Medium and Heavy) has only half the MWD approach velocity of the size below it. This means that Heavy Drones take 4x as long to get to their targets as Light Drones do.

In the Summer 2014 expansion, we will be changing the scaling so that each size of combat drones has 60% of the MWD speed of the size below it. This equals a 20% increase to the MWD speed of Medium Drones, and a 43% increase in Heavy Drone MWD speed. These increases only effect the MWD speed of the drones, so they will reach their distant targets faster but they may still struggle to keep up with a fast moving target, as intended.

 

Balance for drone skills

Congratulations for reading all the way to the middle of a dev blog! The reward for your perseverance is some extremely important information about changes to skills coming in the Summer 2014 expansion!

Currently drones are a very skill-intensive weapon system, thanks to the legacy of the original drone implementation years ago. The Drone Interfacing skill currently provides a 20% increase in drone damage per level, which makes it one of the most powerful skills in the game but also means that to be competitive with drones it is usually necessary to train this rank-5 skill all the way to level 5. The result is that drones have earned a reputation as a weapon system that is not suitable for new players.

We will be minimizing this problem by reducing the bonus from the Drone Interfacing skill to 10% per level, and building the extra damage into the base stats of the drones. That means that on average, all drones will be gaining about 33% more base damage and a character with Drone Interfacing trained to level 5 will see their damage remain constant (ignoring for a moment all the other drone changes being made in this release). We believe that 10% per level is still a very suitable bonus for a rank 5 skill, and the Drone Interfacing skill will remain very desirable. Level 5 Drone Interfacing should, however, cease to be the absolute necessity that it is today.

We are also splitting the current Combat Drone Operation skill into two new skills, Light Drone Operation and Medium Drone Operation. This means that all light combat drones will now be unlocked and bonused from the Light Drone Operation skill, and medium combat drones will be unlocked and bonused from the Medium Drone Operation skill. During the patch downtime, existing players with the Combat Drone Operation and/or Scout Drone Operation skills trained will receive both new skills trained to a level equal to the highest level that they have in either Combat Drone Operation or Scout Drone Operation.

We initially announced that we would reimburse only from the Combat Drone Operation skill but after recieving some excellent feedback from the community on our forums we decided to reimburse based on the highest of these two skills so that we could ensure that pilots who could use these drones before don't lose any capability after the patch.

This change makes light and medium drones consistent with heavy and sentry drones in their skill paths. It also allows us to create new ships and modules with bonuses that only affect light or medium drones separately, such as the newly rebalanced Guristas Worm faction frigate.

Finally, we are renaming two drone skills to clarify their roles. The Scout Drone Operation skill is being renamed “Drone Avionics”; the Electronic Warfare Drone Interfacing skill is being renamed “Advanced Drone Avionics” to better represent their roles. The effects, prerequisites and unlocks provided by these skills will not be changing.

The other major change we will be making to drone skills in the summer release will be the expansion of drone skills to affect all drone types consistently. This means that the racial Drone Specialization skills will now provide their damage bonus to Tech Two sentry drones as well as the normal combat drones, and that the Drone Interfacing, Drone Sharpshooting, Drone Durability, and Drone Navigation skills will all provide their bonuses to Fighters and Fighter Bombers. More details about these changes can be found in the following sections.

 

Balance for sentry drones

Sentry drones are among the most popular drones in EVE Online, for good reason: They allow drone ships to project instant damage across long distances. But the balance between the four different racial varieties and three quality levels of Sentry drones could use some work.

For quality levels, Tech Two sentry drones are currently massive upgrades over their Tech One equivalents since range, tracking and damage are all such important attributes for sentries. We will be keeping the 20% bonuses to hitpoints, tracking, optimal, and falloff that Tech Two enjoys over Tech One; but instead of the current 20% increase in damage over T1, we will be increasing the base damage multiplier of Tech One sentries and limiting the Tech Two advantage to the 2% per level gained from the racial Drone Specialization skills that will now be required to use T2 sentries.

We will also provide Faction navy sentry drones with the same 20% increase in optimal and falloff that T2 enjoys.

This will serve to reduce the gulf between T1 and T2 sentries and ensure that players have a clear progression path as they advance in skills and riches.

We are also adjusting the balance between the racial flavors of sentries to provide the best possible set of choices for players when they decide which to use.

We are swapping the position of the Bouncer and Curator sentries in the damage ranking, and adding tracking to the Bouncers to compensate. This means that the spectrum between the Gallente Garde sentries (with the shortest range, highest damage and highest tracking) and the Caldari Warden sentries (with the highest range, but lowest damage and lowest tracking) will be consistent all the way across.

We are also swapping some optimal range to falloff on the Bouncers, adding falloff to the Wardens and Gardes, and removing falloff from the Curator sentries, these help ensure a good spread of range profiles while also helping the drones more closely match the weapon systems used by their races.

 

Changes to fighters, fighter bombers and supercarriers

Now we turn to the largest “drones” in the game, the fighters and fighter bombers used by capital ships. These are piloted vessels in the backstory of EVE, but they receive their instructions from their home ship just like automated drones, and they are controlled with the same interface.

To provide consistency between all the drone systems in EVE Online, and to provide more options to capital and supercapital pilots in fitting and training, we are expanding all universal drone bonuses from skills and modules to Fighters and Fighter Bombers. This means that the drone skills, including Drone Interfacing, and modules such as Drone Damage Amplifiers will all apply their bonuses to Fighters and Fighter Bombers.

To compensate for these changes, the base damage of Fighters and Fighter Bombers is being reduced. Fighters will find that with Drone Interfacing trained to five their basic damage returns to normal and all the other skills and bonuses from Drone Damage Amplifiers are pure additions. Fighter Bombers will need Drone Interfacing 5 and two Tech Two Drone Damage Amplifiers to slightly surpass their current damage rates, and any additional or higher quality Drone Damage Amplifiers will increase their damage above and beyond current maximums.

We are also reducing the maximum number of drones available to Supercarriers from the current 20 to 10. To compensate, all Supercarriers will receive a 100% damage bonus to Fighter and Fighter Bomber damage, and the hitpoints and volume of Fighter Bombers will be doubled. Fighter Bomber shield recharge rates will also be cut in half to ensure that they do not regain high passive tank rates. This change allows Supercarriers to deal the same damage as they currently enjoy while causing less server load. It also makes their Fighter Bombers much more durable and should allow a vigilant Supercarrier pilot to more effectively keep their drones alive. At the same time, we will be increasing the materials required to build Fighter Bombers by a little over 50%.

We are also taking this opportunity to provide a small buff to the Shadow Fighter Bomber, a special advanced Sansha variant that is obtained by fighting off incursions. The Shadow will be gaining a 7% damage increase over normal Fighter Bombers to encourage the richest Supercarrier pilots to try it out.

It is important for current Supercarrier pilots to be prepared for the change in Fighter Bomber volume. Any Supercarrier drone bay that is full of Fighter Bombers before the patch will be overloaded after downtime. In this case the drones will automatically move to the Supercarrier’s cargo bay where they will prevent the ship from warping or jumping until they have been jettisoned or otherwise removed.

 

New drone modules

Finally, we are rounding out the collection of drone upgrade modules by introducing low slot Omnidirectional Tracking Enhancers and faction versions of the Drone Damage Amplifier and Drone Navigation Computer modules, and adding more faction versions of the Omnidirectional Tracking Link module. The faction modules will be available in Gallente Navy and Amarr Navy variants (available in both normal and FW LP stores) as well as Guristas and Rogue Drone variants available as loot drops. More details about these modules will be available at a later date.

 

I scream, you scream, we all scream for spreadsheets!

For the Kadesh Priestesses and Gripens of the world, as well as anyone else interested in diving into all the numbers, here is the spreadsheet (now updated with the range, tracking and hitpoint changes) that lists the newly updated attributes of the Combat Drones, Sentries, Fighters and Fighter Bombers. Enjoy!

#

Thanks for taking the time to read this blog all the way through. We are happy to be able to announce these wide-ranging changes and begin gathering your feedback.

All of these changes are currently planned for release in the EVE Online Summer 2014 release. We will be providing access to them on our test servers as soon as possible to allow you all to try them out for yourself.

We encourage you to post feedback on these changes in the discussion thread for this blog, and keep an eye out for more announcements about the summer release in the coming weeks.

Good hunting!

-CCP Fozzie

EVE

Fortune Favors the Bold

Mining, Ore and the New Prospect

Hello space pioneers, this is CCP Fozzie! I’m happy to be introducing one of the new ships coming to EVE Online in our upcoming June 3rd release, Kronos.

I really hope that you have all been enjoying Fanfest so far, whether in person here in beautiful Reykjavik or through our free live stream coverage. Many of you will have just watched the EVE Online keynote where we demonstrated some of the exciting updates coming in June and beyond. One of these reveals was the first in a new class of advanced mining frigates, the ORE Prospect.

The Prospect is the first Expedition Frigate, a new class of ships designed by Outer Ring Excavations and their subsidiaries that enable brave capsuleers to chase riches in the frontiers of space.

After the runaway success of the Venture mining frigate, ORE spun up their growing frontier exploration and exploitation division into a new subsidiary called Outer Ring Prospecting. This team was tasked with developing new and improved technologies for resource collection in the most hazardous parts of known space, wormhole space, and beyond.

The first fruits of this endeavor came in the form of a new Tech II mining frigate, based on the Venture hull. The Prospect is the first ORE ship capable of using Covert Ops Cloaking Devices, allowing it to warp while cloaked and move securely through many dangerous situations. The Prospect is small, fast and agile enough to avoid most hostile fire, but manages to pack an upgraded mining fit and larger ore bay into its compact frame. The larger cargo hold is sufficient to comfortably carry a Mobile Depot, greatly expanding its options once it arrives at its destination.

The key stats of the Prospect are:

Mining Frigate Bonus per level:
+5% Mining Laser yield
-5% Gas Harvester duration

Expedition Frigate Bonus per level:
+5% Mining Laser yield
-5% signature radius

Role Bonuses:
+100% Bonus to Mining Laser and Gas Harvester Yield
-100% Cloaking Device CPU use
Can fit Covert Ops Cloaking Devices and Covert Cynos. Cloak reactivation delay reduced to 5 seconds.

Slot layout: 3H, 3M, 4L; 2 Turrets
Fittings: 45 PWG, 290 CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull): 800 / 600 / 600
Capacitor (amount / recharge / cap per second): 300 / 125s / 2.4
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 380 / 3 / 1,400,000 / 5.82s
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 0 / 0
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 20km / 750 / 6
Sensor strength: 10
Signature radius: 40
Cargo Bay: 150m3
Ore Bay: 10,000m3

 

The process and cost of building a Prospect is similar to other Tech II frigates, with Blueprint Copies (BPCs) invented from a Venture.

This ship opens up many options for enterprising pilots.

It mines gas at the same class-leading rate as a Venture, with the added advantages of a much larger ore hold, covert ops cloaking and the ability to carry a Mobile Depot for improved Fulleride expeditions thanks to the ability to switch out modules with a deployed mobile depot.

Blessed with a small signature radius and extra hitpoints, a Prospect equipped with a Medium Shield Extender and a 1MN Afterburner can easily tank nullsec asteroid belt NPCs.

The same technology that allows the Prospect to use Covert Ops Cloaking Devices also allows it to light Covert Ops Cynosural Fields and jump through covert portals opened by Black Ops Battleships.

 

More Mining Changes!

At the same time that the Prospect is released, we will also be making a series of changes to some ores and mining sites designed to increase the viability of mining in dangerous space—especially low security space.

First, we will be expanding anomalies full of Hedbergite, Hemorphite and Jaspet into low security space. These sites are currently only available as very rare spawns in high security space, and with Kronos they will also appear in low security space. The current price of Nocxium means that at this time these are the most valuable mining sites in the entire game in ISK/hr.

With the Kronos release we are also expanding some of the formerly nullsec-only sites, namely the small Arkonor and Bistot sites, into low security space. The Hedbergite, Hemorphite and Jaspet will be on the more common end of the lowsec spectrum, while the Arkonor and Bistot sites will be on the rarer side.

We are also making some adjustments to the composition of three key high end ores. Arkonor, Bistot and Crokite (known as ABC ores) are three of the rarer ores in New Eden, and will be enjoying increased yields this summer.

We are adding Mexallon to Arkonor, increasing the Pyerite in Bistot, and increasing the Nocxium in Crokite. These changes should help cover some of the holes in mineral supply for local producers in nullsec, as well as increasing the return for “ninja” miners taking trips into lowsec and nullsec space.

The following values are per batch, using the new unified batch sizes of 100 that were announced in our recent reprocessing dev blog. All other mineral values remain constant.

 

Arkonor – Mexallon: 1278
Crimson Arkonor – Mexallon: 1342
Prime Arkonor – Mexallon: 1406

Bistot – Pyerite: 16572
Triclinic Bistot – Pyerite: 17402
Monoclinic Bistot – Pyerite: 18230

Crokite – Nocxium: 275
Sharp Crokite – Nocxium: 290
Crystalline Crokite – Nocxium: 304

 

We hope that these changes will add some excitement for the pilots interested in trying out frontier mining, and that they will pair especially well with the new ORE Prospect frigate in the Kronos release.

We look forward to your feedback on these changes and hope that you will take the opportunity to give this new ship a spin when we make it available on our Singularity test server soon.

I hope you enjoy our final day of Fanfest live-stream coverage on May 3 and that you’re as excited as I am to welcome the newest addition to EVE’s fleet of mining vessels: decloaking soon in an asteroid belt near you.

 

-CCP Fozzie

EVE

Fortune Favors the Bold

Mining, Ore and the New Prospect

Hello space pioneers, this is CCP Fozzie! I’m happy to be introducing one of the new ships coming to EVE Online in our upcoming June 3rd release, Kronos.

I really hope that you have all been enjoying Fanfest so far, whether in person here in beautiful Reykjavik or through our free live stream coverage. Many of you will have just watched the EVE Online keynote where we demonstrated some of the exciting updates coming in June and beyond. One of these reveals was the first in a new class of advanced mining frigates, the ORE Prospect.

The Prospect is the first Expedition Frigate, a new class of ships designed by Outer Ring Excavations and their subsidiaries that enable brave capsuleers to chase riches in the frontiers of space.

After the runaway success of the Venture mining frigate, ORE spun up their growing frontier exploration and exploitation division into a new subsidiary called Outer Ring Prospecting. This team was tasked with developing new and improved technologies for resource collection in the most hazardous parts of known space, wormhole space, and beyond.

The first fruits of this endeavor came in the form of a new Tech II mining frigate, based on the Venture hull. The Prospect is the first ORE ship capable of using Covert Ops Cloaking Devices, allowing it to warp while cloaked and move securely through many dangerous situations. The Prospect is small, fast and agile enough to avoid most hostile fire, but manages to pack an upgraded mining fit and larger ore bay into its compact frame. The larger cargo hold is sufficient to comfortably carry a Mobile Depot, greatly expanding its options once it arrives at its destination.

The key stats of the Prospect are:

Mining Frigate Bonus per level:
+5% Mining Laser yield
-5% Gas Harvester duration

Expedition Frigate Bonus per level:
+5% Mining Laser yield
-5% signature radius

Role Bonuses:
+100% Bonus to Mining Laser and Gas Harvester Yield
-100% Cloaking Device CPU use
Can fit Covert Ops Cloaking Devices and Covert Cynos. Cloak reactivation delay reduced to 5 seconds.

Slot layout: 3H, 3M, 4L; 2 Turrets
Fittings: 45 PWG, 290 CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull): 800 / 600 / 600
Capacitor (amount / recharge / cap per second): 300 / 125s / 2.4
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 380 / 3 / 1,400,000 / 5.82s
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 0 / 0
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 20km / 750 / 6
Sensor strength: 10
Signature radius: 40
Cargo Bay: 150m3
Ore Bay: 10,000m3

 

The process and cost of building a Prospect is similar to other Tech II frigates, with Blueprint Copies (BPCs) invented from a Venture.

This ship opens up many options for enterprising pilots.

It mines gas at the same class-leading rate as a Venture, with the added advantages of a much larger ore hold, covert ops cloaking and the ability to carry a Mobile Depot for improved Fulleride expeditions thanks to the ability to switch out modules with a deployed mobile depot.

Blessed with a small signature radius and extra hitpoints, a Prospect equipped with a Medium Shield Extender and a 1MN Afterburner can easily tank nullsec asteroid belt NPCs.

The same technology that allows the Prospect to use Covert Ops Cloaking Devices also allows it to light Covert Ops Cynosural Fields and jump through covert portals opened by Black Ops Battleships.

 

More Mining Changes!

At the same time that the Prospect is released, we will also be making a series of changes to some ores and mining sites designed to increase the viability of mining in dangerous space—especially low security space.

First, we will be expanding anomalies full of Hedbergite, Hemorphite and Jaspet into low security space. These sites are currently only available as very rare spawns in high security space, and with Kronos they will also appear in low security space. The current price of Nocxium means that at this time these are the most valuable mining sites in the entire game in ISK/hr.

With the Kronos release we are also expanding some of the formerly nullsec-only sites, namely the small Arkonor and Bistot sites, into low security space. The Hedbergite, Hemorphite and Jaspet will be on the more common end of the lowsec spectrum, while the Arkonor and Bistot sites will be on the rarer side.

We are also making some adjustments to the composition of three key high end ores. Arkonor, Bistot and Crokite (known as ABC ores) are three of the rarer ores in New Eden, and will be enjoying increased yields this summer.

We are adding Mexallon to Arkonor, increasing the Pyerite in Bistot, and increasing the Nocxium in Crokite. These changes should help cover some of the holes in mineral supply for local producers in nullsec, as well as increasing the return for “ninja” miners taking trips into lowsec and nullsec space.

The following values are per batch, using the new unified batch sizes of 100 that were announced in our recent reprocessing dev blog. All other mineral values remain constant.

 

Arkonor – Mexallon: 1278
Crimson Arkonor – Mexallon: 1342
Prime Arkonor – Mexallon: 1406

Bistot – Pyerite: 16572
Triclinic Bistot – Pyerite: 17402
Monoclinic Bistot – Pyerite: 18230

Crokite – Nocxium: 275
Sharp Crokite – Nocxium: 290
Crystalline Crokite – Nocxium: 304

 

We hope that these changes will add some excitement for the pilots interested in trying out frontier mining, and that they will pair especially well with the new ORE Prospect frigate in the Kronos release.

We look forward to your feedback on these changes and hope that you will take the opportunity to give this new ship a spin when we make it available on our Singularity test server soon.

I hope you enjoy our final day of Fanfest live-stream coverage on May 3 and that you’re as excited as I am to welcome the newest addition to EVE’s fleet of mining vessels: decloaking soon in an asteroid belt near you.

 

-CCP Fozzie

EVE

Fortune Favors the Bold

Mining, Ore and the New Prospect

Hello space pioneers, this is CCP Fozzie! I’m happy to be introducing one of the new ships coming to EVE Online in our upcoming June 3rd release, Kronos.

I really hope that you have all been enjoying Fanfest so far, whether in person here in beautiful Reykjavik or through our free live stream coverage. Many of you will have just watched the EVE Online keynote where we demonstrated some of the exciting updates coming in June and beyond. One of these reveals was the first in a new class of advanced mining frigates, the ORE Prospect.

The Prospect is the first Expedition Frigate, a new class of ships designed by Outer Ring Excavations and their subsidiaries that enable brave capsuleers to chase riches in the frontiers of space.

After the runaway success of the Venture mining frigate, ORE spun up their growing frontier exploration and exploitation division into a new subsidiary called Outer Ring Prospecting. This team was tasked with developing new and improved technologies for resource collection in the most hazardous parts of known space, wormhole space, and beyond.

The first fruits of this endeavor came in the form of a new Tech II mining frigate, based on the Venture hull. The Prospect is the first ORE ship capable of using Covert Ops Cloaking Devices, allowing it to warp while cloaked and move securely through many dangerous situations. The Prospect is small, fast and agile enough to avoid most hostile fire, but manages to pack an upgraded mining fit and larger ore bay into its compact frame. The larger cargo hold is sufficient to comfortably carry a Mobile Depot, greatly expanding its options once it arrives at its destination.

The key stats of the Prospect are:

Mining Frigate Bonus per level:
+5% Mining Laser yield
-5% Gas Harvester duration

Expedition Frigate Bonus per level:
+5% Mining Laser yield
-5% signature radius

Role Bonuses:
+100% Bonus to Mining Laser and Gas Harvester Yield
-100% Cloaking Device CPU use
Can fit Covert Ops Cloaking Devices and Covert Cynos. Cloak reactivation delay reduced to 5 seconds.

Slot layout: 3H, 3M, 4L; 2 Turrets
Fittings: 45 PWG, 290 CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull): 800 / 600 / 600
Capacitor (amount / recharge / cap per second): 300 / 125s / 2.4
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 380 / 3 / 1,400,000 / 5.82s
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 0 / 0
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 20km / 750 / 6
Sensor strength: 10
Signature radius: 40
Cargo Bay: 150m3
Ore Bay: 10,000m3

 

The process and cost of building a Prospect is similar to other Tech II frigates, with Blueprint Copies (BPCs) invented from a Venture.

This ship opens up many options for enterprising pilots.

It mines gas at the same class-leading rate as a Venture, with the added advantages of a much larger ore hold, covert ops cloaking and the ability to carry a Mobile Depot for improved Fulleride expeditions thanks to the ability to switch out modules with a deployed mobile depot.

Blessed with a small signature radius and extra hitpoints, a Prospect equipped with a Medium Shield Extender and a 1MN Afterburner can easily tank nullsec asteroid belt NPCs.

The same technology that allows the Prospect to use Covert Ops Cloaking Devices also allows it to light Covert Ops Cynosural Fields and jump through covert portals opened by Black Ops Battleships.

 

More Mining Changes!

At the same time that the Prospect is released, we will also be making a series of changes to some ores and mining sites designed to increase the viability of mining in dangerous space—especially low security space.

First, we will be expanding anomalies full of Hedbergite, Hemorphite and Jaspet into low security space. These sites are currently only available as very rare spawns in high security space, and with Kronos they will also appear in low security space. The current price of Nocxium means that at this time these are the most valuable mining sites in the entire game in ISK/hr.

With the Kronos release we are also expanding some of the formerly nullsec-only sites, namely the small Arkonor and Bistot sites, into low security space. The Hedbergite, Hemorphite and Jaspet will be on the more common end of the lowsec spectrum, while the Arkonor and Bistot sites will be on the rarer side.

We are also making some adjustments to the composition of three key high end ores. Arkonor, Bistot and Crokite (known as ABC ores) are three of the rarer ores in New Eden, and will be enjoying increased yields this summer.

We are adding Mexallon to Arkonor, increasing the Pyerite in Bistot, and increasing the Nocxium in Crokite. These changes should help cover some of the holes in mineral supply for local producers in nullsec, as well as increasing the return for “ninja” miners taking trips into lowsec and nullsec space.

The following values are per batch, using the new unified batch sizes of 100 that were announced in our recent reprocessing dev blog. All other mineral values remain constant.

 

Arkonor – Mexallon: 1278
Crimson Arkonor – Mexallon: 1342
Prime Arkonor – Mexallon: 1406

Bistot – Pyerite: 16572
Triclinic Bistot – Pyerite: 17402
Monoclinic Bistot – Pyerite: 18230

Crokite – Nocxium: 275
Sharp Crokite – Nocxium: 290
Crystalline Crokite – Nocxium: 304

 

We hope that these changes will add some excitement for the pilots interested in trying out frontier mining, and that they will pair especially well with the new ORE Prospect frigate in the Kronos release.

We look forward to your feedback on these changes and hope that you will take the opportunity to give this new ship a spin when we make it available on our Singularity test server soon.

I hope you enjoy our final day of Fanfest live-stream coverage on May 3 and that you’re as excited as I am to welcome the newest addition to EVE’s fleet of mining vessels: decloaking soon in an asteroid belt near you.

 

-CCP Fozzie

EVE

Giving drones an assist

Giving drones an assist

Hello once again, spacefriends. CCP Fozzie here, bringing your our next dev blog covering some of the exciting changes coming your way in the EVE Online Summer 2014 release.

This blog will discuss our constant companions in the darkness of space, the loyal drones. Drones have received many improvements in recent years that have increased their stature to that of a main weapon system and expanded the options available to drone users immensely. However there are several aspects of drone balance that are not yet up to our current standards. In the summer release we will be implementing a wide ranging balance rework for drones of all sizes. This will affect drone skills, modules and ship bonuses as well as the attributes of the drones themselves.

I will include a link to a spreadsheet with the new drone attributes at the end of the blog, but first we’ll cover the changes at a higher level. This revamp includes over a thousand separate behind-the-scenes changes, but it’s simpler to look at each category of problems we are trying to solve and how we intend to address them one by one.

 

Balance between drones from different empires

One of the most obvious issues facing drones in EVE Online is the balance between the drones built by the four Empires. In theory the factional split should provide variety and interesting choices for players to make. Each faction of drones have their own damage type and should have their own distinctive attributes.

In practice this is currently only working for two varieties of drones, Gallente and Minmatar. Gallente drones deal the highest damage at the expense of speed and tracking, and provide an excellent option when pilots wish to deal thermal damage. Minmatar drones have the best speed and tracking at the expense of damage per second, and deal explosive damage.

Caldari drones are barely passable, only truly standing out from the crowd when a pilot really wants to deal kinetic damage. Amarrian drones are in dire straits, dealing the lowest damage of all drone types and not excelling in any area.

None of this will be a surprise to most players, since the relative weakness of Caldari and Amarrian drones has been well known for years. However it can still be interesting to see just how little these drones are used. The following graph shows the number of shots fired in PvP by combat drones (not counting sentry drones) from each of the four races in the last year.

As you can see, Amarrian and Caldari drones might as well not exist in their current form. They are in need of a significant revamp to make them competitive with Gallente and Minmatar drones.

In the Summer 2014 release, we will be solving this issue by placing each of the four racial varieties of drones on a continuous spectrum of speed and damage. The already effective Gallente and Minmatar drones will remain in their places at the ends of the spectrum, while the attributes of the Amarrian and Caldari drones will be adjusted to place them in between the two extremes: Amarrian drones will be slightly slower and more damaging than Minmatar drones, while Caldari drones will be slightly faster and less damaging than Gallente drones. Their distinct damage types will remain intact.

We believe that this change will provide players with many more interesting choices when deciding what drones to load onto their ships and use in combat.

 

Balance between quality levels of drones

Another area of imbalance in the current drone attributes is the different quality levels, or meta-levels, of drones available. Combat drones currently fall into one of five distinct quality levels (sentry drones are addressed below):

  • Basic Tech One drones are the most plentiful, cheap and easy-to-use drones in the game. They remain the baseline against which every other type of drone is compared.
  • Tech Two drones are more powerful drones that are produced by players, mainly through the advanced Invention process. They are more expensive to produce than Tech One drones, and have the highest skill requirements of any variety of drones. To make up for this added difficulty and expense, Tech Two combat drones gain a 20% advantage in hitpoints, speed, tracking and damage compared to the basic Tech One versions. They can also gain an extra 2% damage for each level of their racial Drone Specialization skill that is trained. These bonuses are already quite balanced and provide a valuable progression for drone users, so they are not changing.
  • Faction Navy drones are advanced drones that are only available from each Empire’s Factional Warfare loyalty point stores. They are notable for their excellent hitpoints and tracking, as well as low skill requirements. However their low speed and underwhelming 15% damage bonus over Tech One leave them without enough value to justify their cost for most players. We will be keeping their HP and tracking intact, while also giving them speed and damage on-par with Tech Two drones -- although the Navy Drones will still not gain the extra 2% bonus per level from the drone specialization skills.
  • “Integrated” and “Augmented” drones are both built from components and blueprints looted from the remains of deadly rogue drones in the drone regions of nullsec space. Currently they receive some bonuses above and beyond Tech One drones, but their cost is mainly due to rarity and they are not powerful enough to encourage common use. We will be upgrading the “Integrated” drones to have 15% more damage and 10% more HP, tracking and speed than Tech One drones. “Augmented” drones will keep their current significant bonuses to HP, tracking and speed, and will see their damage bonus increased to 32% above Tech One drones, putting their damage on par with a fully skilled Tech Two drone.

 

Balance between sizes of drones

Travel time is a constant issue for combat drones, as the delay between ordering your drones to attack and their arrival at their target often cripples the effectiveness of drones over moderate ranges. This is also one of the major reasons that Heavy Drones have trouble competing with the stationary Sentry Drones.

Currently each size of combat drones (Light, Medium and Heavy) has only half the MWD approach velocity of the size below it. This means that Heavy Drones take 4x as long to get to their targets as Light Drones do.

In the Summer 2014 expansion, we will be changing the scaling so that each size of combat drones has 60% of the MWD speed of the size below it. This equals a 20% increase to the MWD speed of Medium Drones, and a 43% increase in Heavy Drone MWD speed. These increases only effect the MWD speed of the drones, so they will reach their distant targets faster but they may still struggle to keep up with a fast moving target, as intended.

 

Balance for drone skills

Congratulations for reading all the way to the middle of a dev blog! The reward for your perseverance is some extremely important information about changes to skills coming in the Summer 2014 expansion!

Currently drones are a very skill-intensive weapon system, thanks to the legacy of the original drone implementation years ago. The Drone Interfacing skill currently provides a 20% increase in drone damage per level, which makes it one of the most powerful skills in the game but also means that to be competitive with drones it is usually necessary to train this rank-5 skill all the way to level 5. The result is that drones have earned a reputation as a weapon system that is not suitable for new players.

We will be minimizing this problem by reducing the bonus from the Drone Interfacing skill to 10% per level, and building the extra damage into the base stats of the drones. That means that on average, all drones will be gaining about 33% more base damage and a character with Drone Interfacing trained to level 5 will see their damage remain constant (ignoring for a moment all the other drone changes being made in this release). We believe that 10% per level is still a very suitable bonus for a rank 5 skill, and the Drone Interfacing skill will remain very desirable. Level 5 Drone Interfacing should, however, cease to be the absolute necessity that it is today.

We are also splitting the current Combat Drone Operation skill into two new skills, Light Drone Operation and Medium Drone Operation. This means that all light combat drones will now be unlocked and bonused from the Light Drone Operation skill, and medium combat drones will be unlocked and bonused from the Medium Drone Operation skill. During the patch downtime, existing players with the Combat Drone Operation skill trained will receive both new skills trained to the same level that their Combat Drone Operation skill was trained to.

This change makes light and medium drones consistent with heavy and sentry drones in their skill paths. It also allows us to create new ships and modules with bonuses that only affect light or medium drones separately, such as the newly rebalanced Guristas Worm faction frigate.

Finally, we are renaming two drone skills to clarify their roles. The Scout Drone Operation skill is being renamed “Drone Avionics”; the Electronic Warfare Drone Interfacing skill is being renamed “Advanced Drone Avionics” to better represent their roles. The effects, prerequisites and unlocks provided by these skills will not be changing.

The other major change we will be making to drone skills in the summer release will be the expansion of drone skills to affect all drone types consistently. This means that the racial Drone Specialization skills will now provide their damage bonus to Tech Two sentry drones as well as the normal combat drones, and that the Drone Interfacing, Drone Sharpshooting, Drone Durability, and Drone Navigation skills will all provide their bonuses to Fighters and Fighter Bombers. More details about these changes can be found in the following sections.

 

Balance for sentry drones

Sentry drones are among the most popular drones in EVE Online, for good reason: They allow drone ships to project instant damage across long distances. But the balance between the four different racial varieties and three quality levels of Sentry drones could use some work.

For quality levels, Tech Two sentry drones are currently massive upgrades over their Tech One equivalents since range, tracking and damage are all such important attributes for sentries. We will be keeping the 20% bonuses to hitpoints, tracking, optimal, and falloff that Tech Two enjoys over Tech One; but instead of the current 20% increase in damage over T1, we will be increasing the base damage multiplier of Tech One sentries and limiting the Tech Two advantage to the 2% per level gained from the racial Drone Specialization skills that will now be required to use T2 sentries.

We will also provide Faction navy sentry drones with the same 20% increase in optimal and falloff that T2 enjoys.

This will serve to reduce the gulf between T1 and T2 sentries and ensure that players have a clear progression path as they advance in skills and riches.

We are also adjusting the balance between the racial flavors of sentries to provide the best possible set of choices for players when they decide which to use.

We are swapping the position of the Bouncer and Curator sentries in the damage ranking, and adding tracking to the Bouncers to compensate. This means that the spectrum between the Gallente Garde sentries (with the shortest range, highest damage and highest tracking) and the Caldari Warden sentries (with the highest range, but lowest damage and lowest tracking) will be consistent all the way across.

We are also swapping some optimal range to falloff on the Bouncers, adding falloff to the Wardens and Gardes, and removing falloff from the Curator sentries, these help ensure a good spread of range profiles while also helping the drones more closely match the weapon systems used by their races.

 

Changes to fighters, fighter bombers and supercarriers

Now we turn to the largest “drones” in the game, the fighters and fighter bombers used by capital ships. These are piloted vessels in the backstory of EVE, but they receive their instructions from their home ship just like automated drones, and they are controlled with the same interface.

To provide consistency between all the drone systems in EVE Online, and to provide more options to capital and supercapital pilots in fitting and training, we are expanding all universal drone bonuses from skills and modules to Fighters and Fighter Bombers. This means that the drone skills, including Drone Interfacing, and modules such as Drone Damage Amplifiers will all apply their bonuses to Fighters and Fighter Bombers.

To compensate for these changes, the base damage of Fighters and Fighter Bombers is being reduced. Fighters will find that with Drone Interfacing trained to five their basic damage returns to normal and all the other skills and bonuses from Drone Damage Amplifiers are pure additions. Fighter Bombers will need Drone Interfacing 5 and two Tech Two Drone Damage Amplifiers to slightly surpass their current damage rates, and any additional or higher quality Drone Damage Amplifiers will increase their damage above and beyond current maximums.

We are also reducing the maximum number of drones available to Supercarriers from the current 20 to 10. To compensate, all Supercarriers will receive a 100% damage bonus to Fighter and Fighter Bomber damage, and the hitpoints and volume of Fighter Bombers will be doubled. Fighter Bomber shield recharge rates will also be cut in half to ensure that they do not regain high passive tank rates. This change allows Supercarriers to deal the same damage as they currently enjoy while causing less server load. It also makes their Fighter Bombers much more durable and should allow a vigilant Supercarrier pilot to more effectively keep their drones alive. At the same time, we will be increasing the materials required to build Fighter Bombers by a little over 50%.

We are also taking this opportunity to provide a small buff to the Shadow Fighter Bomber, a special advanced Sansha variant that is obtained by fighting off incursions. The Shadow will be gaining a 7% damage increase over normal Fighter Bombers to encourage the richest Supercarrier pilots to try it out.

It is important for current Supercarrier pilots to be prepared for the change in Fighter Bomber volume. Any Supercarrier drone bay that is full of Fighter Bombers before the patch will be overloaded after downtime. In this case the drones will automatically move to the Supercarrier’s cargo bay where they will prevent the ship from warping or jumping until they have been jettisoned or otherwise removed.

 

New drone modules

Finally, we are rounding out the collection of drone upgrade modules by introducing low slot Omnidirectional Tracking Enhancers and faction versions of the Drone Damage Amplifier and Drone Navigation Computer modules, and adding more faction versions of the Omnidirectional Tracking Link module. The faction modules will be available in Gallente Navy and Amarr Navy variants (available in both normal and FW LP stores) as well as Guristas and Rogue Drone variants available as loot drops. More details about these modules will be available at a later date.

 

I scream, you scream, we all scream for spreadsheets!

For the Kadesh Priestesses and Gripens of the world, as well as anyone else interested in diving into all the numbers, here is the spreadsheet that lists the newly updated attributes of the Combat Drones, Sentries, Fighters and Fighter Bombers. Enjoy!

#

Thanks for taking the time to read this blog all the way through. We are happy to be able to announce these wide-ranging changes and begin gathering your feedback.

All of these changes are currently planned for release in the EVE Online Summer 2014 release. We will be providing access to them on our test servers as soon as possible to allow you all to try them out for yourself.

We encourage you to post feedback on these changes in the discussion thread for this blog, and keep an eye out for more announcements about the summer release in the coming weeks.

Good hunting!

-CCP Fozzie

EVE

The Next Generation of Mobile Structures

Hello once again intrepid capsuleers! This is CCP Fozzie bringing you another Dev Blog about a few of the new Mobile Structures that will be available to you with the upcoming release of Rubicon 1.1!

When we released Rubicon two months ago we introduced the concept of Mobile Structures, a set of deployable objects that allow players to have more control over their local environment and that represent the first applications of our completely new space structure codebase. We have enjoyed watching as our players took advantage of these structures and explored the new options available to them.

Rubicon 1.1 will contain five new Mobile Structures, three of which are aimed at “farms and fields” gameplay and have already been covered in CCP SoniClover’s recent dev blog. The other two are more open ended in their goals, intended to provide flexible tools that creative players can use in a variety of ways. Open ended tools are one of my favorite things about sandbox games like EVE, where being among the first to come up with a completely new non-obvious strategy is extremely rewarding.

This blog will contain a quick status report with statistics about the original Rubicon structures, coverage of these two new 1.1 mobile structures, as well as an update to the plan for the previously announced Encounter Surveillance System that we are implementing based on the valuable feedback we have received from the player community so far.

Last time, in EVE Online: Rubicon

In our Rubicon 1.0 release last November we introduced our first four Mobile Structures. These structures were based on completely new space structure code and were far simpler to deploy and use than any previous EVE structures. We have been very happy to see how quickly players have embraced these new tools and started using them to improve their gameplay.

In the slightly over two months since Rubicon launched, we have seen a flurry of mobile structure activity, led by very rapid adoption of the Mobile Tractor Unit.

In this time period, Mobile Tractor Units have been deployed into space a staggering three million times, with an average of about 10,000 unique characters deploying MTUs each day.

Mobile Depots have also been incredibly popular, with over 200,000 Depots deployed since Rubicon’s launch.

The more advanced and specialized Mobile Cynosural Inhibitor has seen much more modest usage as expected, with a total of just over 500 separate Cynosural Inhibitors launched into space so far.

Interestingly, the biggest users of the Mobile Structures by far are those of you running missions for the Sisters of EVE corporation. This may be a sign that those players who switched to Sisters of EVE missions to take advantage of the new SoE faction ships are among the pilots most responsive to new opportunities in the game.  An amazing 11% of all Mobile Tractor Unit deployments and 5% of all Mobile Depot deployments have taken place in constellations that are known for their Sisters of EVE agents.

We have even noticed different preferences between the groups of mission runners in different constellations. Those of you running SoE missions out of Osmon are the universe’s most avid users of Mobile Tractor Units, while those of you living in Apanake are the biggest users of Mobile Depots. Lanngisi residents fall into the middle, using both structures to a great degree.

I haven’t yet mentioned statistics for the Siphons introduced in Rubicon, because we are endeavoring to be very careful with what information we release about the usage of these strategically significant devices. We do feel comfortable sharing that siphons are being deployed on Starbases all over EVE, and have been extremely successful at liberating the precious moon materials found within.

In the two months since Rubicon, over 245 billion isk of moon minerals have been siphoned from the mining towers of New Eden. That’s enough moon minerals to produce over 20,000 Interceptors!

From the start, the development of our new space structure code base was intended to enable a wide variety of additions to EVE Online, and more types of personal mobile structures are a significant part of that plan. As the minutes from last summer’s CSM summit mentioned, we had designs for twelve deployable structures in place as of last summer. We won’t necessarily implement all of these designs (and of course we have added to our collection of potential Mobile Structures with help from our creative community), but two more of those original twelve structures are going to be available to you for the first time in Rubicon 1.1!

Mobile Micro Jump Unit

The Mobile Micro Jump Unit is the first mobility enhancer that we are implementing within the Mobile Structure system. Its functionality will be very familiar to those of you who have used the Large Micro Jump Drive ship module. When active, any player within range can use it to launch their ship 100km in any direction. It has no cooldown between uses or limit to how many ships can use it at once, but it does have a spoolup time of 12 seconds just like the MJD module.

The Mobile Micro Jump Unit can be used by any ship that is smaller than a carrier, and does not discriminate between its owner and any other player that tries to use it. It is a one-time use disposable structure with an affordable manufacturing cost of about one million isk and a lifetime of two days.

We expect this structure will be especially useful for players who choose to take the time to strategically place them in areas where they will be needed in the future, as well as any player who wishes to take advantage of the power Micro Jump effect on a ship other than the battleships that previously had access to the Large Micro Jump Drive module.

To find all the details about the Mobile Micro Jump Unit as well as provide your feedback on the structure, check out this thread in our Features and Ideas forum.

 

Mobile Scan Inhibitor

The new Mobile Scan Inhibitor is all about control of information. This tool will for the first time allow players to limit the information available to their opponents over a specific area. When active, the Mobile Scan Inhibitor will prevent the operation of both combat probes and directional scanners by or against anything within its 30km radius. The structure itself is always visible to both probes and directional scans, and is extremely easy to pinpoint using probes. This means that any other players in system will be able to easily tell where something might be hiding, but will not know what that something might be.

Players that are inside the radius of the Scan Inhibitor will also find their own probes and directional scanners disabled by the structure’s interference, so those hiding behind the Scan Inhibitor will be blinded by the same fog of war as their opponents.

The Mobile Scan Inhibitor is another one-time use disposable structure, costs about fifteen million ISK to build, and lasts one hour.

The Mobile Scan Inhibitor allows players to wield the power of uncertainty against their enemies, either dissuading a timid opponent from approaching or goading an overconfident one into a carefully laid trap. Information weapons are inherently flexible in their use, and we expect to see many great EVE stories arise from the creative use of these new structures.

All the details and discussion about the Mobile Scan Inhibitor you could hope for can be found in this thread in our Features and Ideas forum.

 

Encounter Surveillance System: Now with improvements thanks to your feedback!

CCP SoniClover announced the new Encounter Surveillance System in this previous Dev Blog, and he has been working hard to incorporate the excellent feedback our community has provided into improvements to the structure’s design.

The Encounter Surveillance System is a structure that allows nullsec pirate hunters to optionally increase the rewards of their efforts in exchange for increased risk. This has the effect of giving players more control over their risks and rewards they encounter, as well as providing engaging player interaction as small groups of players can roam through hostile space and attempt to steal riches from the ESS modules deployed throughout nullsec space.

When we announced the last iteration of the ESS structure, many players indicated to us that they believed that the risk/reward balance of the structure was out of whack. It was too easy for fast ships to steal ISK from the ESS before the local residents would be able to scramble their defenses, and the potential benefits would not be worth the increased risk to player’s wealth generation.

Taking this feedback to heart, SoniClover and our team have improved the ESS with several tweaks that should make usage much more attractive for Nullsec residents and therefore provide a rich target environment for skilled raiders.

The biggest changes relate to the rewards for using the ESS and the length of time for which a potential thief must remain vulnerable:

  • With an active ESS in system, bounties pay out Loyalty Points in addition to the ISK reward. LP reward starts at 0.15 LP per 1000 ISK and can increase to 0.2 LP per 1000 ISK as the bonus payout increases. This LP reward is given directly to the pilots who collected the bounties and is not stored in the ESS pool. These loyalty points can be redeemed at any station belonging to the Navy corporation belonging to the empire that produced the ESS being used (for example a Caldari Encounter Surveillance System will provide Loyalty Points for the Caldari Navy).
  • There is now no timer to open the ESS window where the player gets to choose to Share or Take all, but both options now have separate timers on them. Share requires 30 seconds, Take all requires 210 seconds. Moving out of range while the timer is ongoing resets the timer. This prevents players from safely leaving an alt on the ESS and sharing as soon as a hostile enters local.
  • Interacting with the ESS now puts a warp disruption effect on the ship interacting with it. Ships immune to bubbles are not immune to this effect.

There are also several smaller changes being made to the ESS attributes:

  • A decrease in build cost from 30 million isk to 25 million isk
  • Hit points increased from 150,000 to 250,000
  • Volume increased from 150m3 to 200m3
  • Increased minimum range to stargates and stations from 300km to 3000km.
  • Activation time increased from 60 seconds to 120 seconds.

All the same basic functionality of the ESS from the original version remains intact in this iteration, and the extra LP rewards are added on top of the potential increased ISK gain.

We want to give a special thanks to all the players who provided valuable feedback to the original ESS proposal and have helped improve the design significantly. The invaluable player-elected representatives in the Council of Stellar Management have also been extremely helpful by collecting and focusing feedback in discussions with our development team.

To further discuss these changes to the ESS plan, check out this thread!

 

All of these Mobile Structures are coming your way on Tuesday, January 28th with our Rubicon 1.1 point release. We are very happy to be able to bring you this rapid follow-up to the Rubicon expansion and we hope you enjoy taking advantage of these new tools as much as we have enjoyed making them for you!

Thanks for reading, and good hunting!

-CCP Fozzie

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EVE

We Can’t Stop Here – Ship and Module Balancing in Rubicon

Hello again daring capsuleers. If we keep meeting like this I’m going to start to think the universe wants us to live happily ever after together.

This is CCP Fozzie once again bringing you a dev blog covering our oh-so-close at hand EVE Online: Rubicon expansion which releases tomorrow (!) November 19th. This blog goes over the large variety of ship and module rebalances that will be hitting your hard drives tomorrow.

Like the similar blogs we produced for Retribution, Retribution 1.1, Odyssey, and Odyssey 1.1, this will be a summary blog that covers all the balance changes in the expansion. All of these changes have been discussed extensively on the forums over the past few months and if you have been reading Features and Ideas every day and/or flying on our Singularity test server nothing here will be a surprise to you.

As most of you know, rebalancing is a constant project in our development of EVE Online. We rebalance ships and modules every expansion for a variety of reasons.

  • We rebalance to improve the variety of ships and modules that are viable for our players to both fly and produce.
  • We rebalance to shake up the combat meta and give smart players opportunities to show off their abilities by becoming the first to find new powerful tactics.
  • We rebalance to keep different tactics and systems in check and prevent overpowered mechanics from ruining enjoyment for everyone.

We have been very happy with the results of our rebalancing initiative over the past year and a half, and we know many of you have enjoyed the results as well. We’re hoping that with your help we can continue this success well into the future.

And now without further ado, let’s look at Rubicon’s changes!

 

Warp Speeds

Dev Blog

Discussion Thread

I’m mentioning these changes briefly here because they affect much of the ship balancing in Rubicon, but you should read CCP Masterplan’s recent dev blog to get the whole picture.

In Rubicon we are changing the way ships accelerate and decelerate while in warp, which will have the significant effect of making warp speed matter much more. The result is that small fast ships will warp faster, larger slower ships will warp more slowly, and tech one cruisers and large hold industrial ships stay the same. Like I said, nobody explains these changes with as much style as CCP Masterplan does.

Interceptors

Discussion Thread

The Interceptor class is receiving some very significant changes in Rubicon, the first and foremost being the large advantage they gain from the warp speed changes. All eight Interceptors are also receiving a role bonus that makes them immune to warp disruption bubbles in nullsec space. Combined these two changes make Interceptors the undisputed champions at their core role: mobility. Interceptors can screen and scout for fleets, hunt down and catch fleeting enemies, or dive deep into the vulnerable underbelly of a sprawling nullsec empire before the defenders can respond in force.

Beyond the class-wide changes, each individual Interceptor has also received a complete balance pass, with several of them getting dramatic updates.

  • The Amarr Crusader's changes mainly revolve around fittings. Lots more powergrid and CPU allows a lot of options for more damage and tank. We're shaving a bit of HP off the top but the Crusader remains one of the beefiest interceptors (for all that's worth).
  • The Amarr Malediction is getting some big changes, with one highslot being moved to a lowslot, providing a lot more options for damage modules, tank or fitting modules. It is also receiving a more flexible damage bonus and extra armor hitpoints.
  • The Caldari Raptor is receiving a major role rework, being moved from the fleet focused line to a more combat heavy role. It gets a new shield resistance bonus as well as upgrades across the board to hitpoints, fittings, capacitor, speed and agility.
  • The Caldari Crow is also being shifted in role, moving from the combat line to the fleet focused line. It receives the very significant upgrade of a fourth midslot (in exchange for its excess highslot) and gains the scrambler and disruptor range bonus that the fleet interceptors share.
  • As one of the healthiest current Interceptors, the Gallente Taranis is remaining mostly the same. It benefits from slightly lighter mass and of course, the bubble immunity and warp speed upgrades common to the whole class.
  • The Gallente Ares is first of the new and improved line of Roden Shipyards Tech Two Gallente ships. As such, it is gaining a new bonus to small hybrid turret optimal range alongside its tracking bonus. With three turret slots, it will be effective with both blasters and small railguns.
  • The Minmatar Claw is getting a small increase in projectile turret damage, significantly higher powergrid and CPU, more speed and agility and the extra lock range that it has been crying out for.
  • The poster boy for fleet interceptors that are already working, the Minmatar Stiletto doesn't need all that much work. A good bit less mass helps it keep some distinct areas of advantage over the new Crow.

Overall we’re very excited to see the new and improved Interceptors in your hands tomorrow with Rubicon, and we hope you are too. Zoom zoom.

Electronic Attack Ships

Discussion Thread

Electronic Attack Ships have been underutilized since their introduction years ago and in Rubicon we wanted to give them a much needed shot in the arm. The whole class is receiving significant upgrades, especially in the range at which they can operate.

  • The Amarr Sentinel is seeing its energy vampire and neutralizer range bonus doubled from the previous 40% per level to the new 80% per level. This will allow it to use its signature capacitor warfare modules at ranges of up to 31km!
  • The Caldari Kitsune’s ECM optimal range bonus is being increased to 15% per level, and most importantly it is also receiving a strong boost to base lock range to allow it to take advantage of its range.
  • The Gallente Keres will be receiving a larger 15% per level bonus to warp disruptor and scrambler range, giving it significantly better options as a powerful tackler in small fleets.
  • The Minmatar Hyena is getting two upgraded bonuses in Rubicon, with its old MWD capacitor use bonus being swapped for a 10% per level bonus to Target Painter optimal range. It is also seeing its stasis webifier range bonus doubled to 40% per level, making the Hyena a powerhouse for mobile fleets with 30km webifiers.

Every Electronic Attack Frigate gets a bit of extra hitpoints, some higher lock range and a very significant increase in capacitor recharge rate. We expect these ships will see much more use after Rubicon releases, and we can’t wait to see how you players make use of their new strengths.

Interdictors

Discussion Thread

Interdictors are a crucial class of ships for nullsec warfare, as they drop the warp disruption spheres that prevent enemies from fleeing the field of battle en masse. They are receiving significant changes in Rubicon, with vastly increased survivability, improved damage output, and a new mechanic for using their namesake interdiction sphere launchers. All four interdictors will also arrive on their targets much faster thanks to the Rubicon warp speed changes.

The Interdiction Sphere Launcher is having its reactivation delay removed, and replaced with a three bubble magazine, five second cycle time and a long 60 second reload time. The launcher will also be limited to one fit per ship. This change provides new fitting options for Interdictor pilots who no longer need to shoehorn on as many bubble launchers as possible and allows new interesting tactics involving the three bubble magazine separated by the reload time.

All four Interdictors are receiving upgraded resistances and a new 10% per level reduction in Microwarpdrive signature radius penalty to significantly increase their survivability and begin to change their reputation as flying coffins.

  • The Amarr Heretic gets its missile bonuses applied to lights as well as rockets, and gains an extra launcher for people who want to fit it with damage in mind. It also receives an armor resistance bonus that helps it compete with the Eris for armor tanked dictoring. The combination of the mass decrease and the base speed increase lead to MWD speeds much faster than it currently enjoys and much quicker turns.
  • The Caldari Flycatcher sees its kinetic damage and missile precision bonuses increased significantly in strength, as well as picking up some fittings and shield hitpoints. It also enjoys a big mass decrease which improves MWD speeds quite a bit.
  • The Gallente Eris is the next in the new Roden Shipyards designs. Switching away from the split weapons and giving Roden a focus on hybrid turret optimal and tracking lends itself especially well to railguns but also works well with blasters. However for most normal fleet uses the most significant Eris changes are the huge amount of mass it lost (leading to vastly improved speed and agility) and the extra fittings.
  • The Minmatar Sabre is the baseline for these ships and is seeing the smallest changes. We're taking away a bit of its agility to put it in line with the others, but giving it some more shield hitpoints and a significant drop in sig to compensate.

As an interdictor pilot myself, I know firsthand how good it can feel to drop a perfectly placed bubble on your horrified opponents. We hope these changes will help many more of you enjoy that feeling in the weeks and months after Rubicon.

Marauders

Discussion Thread

The Marauders are some of the most dramatic changes were are making for Rubicon, and so it’s fitting that these are the changes that have garnered the most passionate feedback from our community and the changes where our designers have made the most adjustments to the plan to ensure that we send you the best possible result.

Marauders are seeing their role reimagined, with the new ship split into two roles that it can change between at will.

In normal operation the Marauders gain a new bonus to Micro Jump Drive reactivation delay, allowing them to jump about once a minute. They keep their old active tanking bonuses, and the Kronos and Paladin swap their stasis webifier bonuses for damage projection bonuses.

The most visible and dramatic change comes when the Marauder pilot activates their new Bastion Module. When in Bastion Mode, the Marauder cannot move. However in exchange it receives a catalogue of new advantages including immunity to electronic warfare, vastly improved defenses, and further increased damage projection to hit hard at long ranges. The Bastion Module has a cycle time of only one minute, but the Marauder cannot use stargates or dock for a full minute after the Bastion cycle ends.

The result is a ship that can quickly jump 100km in any direction, enter a special mode for increased range and tank, and then jump again a minute later. The new Golem, Kronos, Paladin and Vargur will excel even more at their old role in player vs. environment content, as well as being open to whatever other creative uses we know you players will find for these open ended mechanics.

New Sisters of EVE Faction Ships

Dev Blog

Discussion Thread

These new ship additions in Rubicon have been thoroughly covered in CCP Rise’s recent dev blog, so I’ll be brief here and heartily recommend that you read his blog for all the details.

In Rubicon we are proud to release two special new ships, the Astero frigate and Stratios cruiser. These ships are produced by the Sisters of EVE faction and are built with exploration and long-term deployments in mind. They can both use covert ops cloaks, they both use drones as their primary damage method and they both sport stout armor tanks. They also have bonuses to scan probing and hacking. All in all they are excellently well rounded ships that can engage in many kinds of activities, including being perfectly suited for the new Ghost Sites that are also releasing in Rubicon.

These ships are available only from loyalty point stores from the Sisters of EVE faction and we know that many of you are eager to get your hands on them. Only one day left!

Rapid Missile Launchers

Discussion Thread

Another hotly discussed set of changes are our new series of Rapid Missile Launchers. We are releasing the new Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher in Rubicon, and at the same time introducing a rebalance and refocus to the Rapid Light Missile Launchers. These launchers shoot missiles that are one size smaller than the ships that use them and are therefore especially well-suited to targeting smaller ships with precision.

The new paradigm for Rapid Missile Launchers is the ability to deal large amounts of damage to a wide variety of targets in a very short period, followed by an extended pause to reload. They essentially provide the option to frontload damage, which should be especially useful for clearing smaller ships as part of a mixed fleet.

Check the discussion thread for all the numbers and details, and let us know what you think once you try out these launchers for yourself!

Command Ship Model Changes

Discussion Thread

As a follow-up to the successful Command Ship balance changes made in last summer’s Odyssey 1.1 release, we are also making a cosmetic change to four of our eight Command Ships. The goal is to move them over to hulls that match the Tech One combat BC that shares their weapon type, creating some more variety, opening up options for our art team in the future, and making the differences between the command ships more intuitive.

As part of these changes:

  • The Absolution now has a Carthum Harbinger hull
  • The Eos now has a CreoDron Myrmidon hull.
  • The Nighthawk now has a Kaalakiota Drake hull.
  • The Sleipnir now has a Boundless Creations Hurricane hull.

These changes do not affect the performance of the ships in any way, although they do change the base tech one blueprint used to invent them.

Until Next Time

Thank you all for journeying with me through our Rubicon ship and module balance changes. We are very happy to be able to release these updates to you as part of the expansion tomorrow, and we hope you will enjoy using these ships and modules as much as we enjoyed designing them.

This marks the end of my pre-Rubicon dev blogs, so I wish you all a wonderful last evening of Odyssey, and I’ll see you ingame tomorrow as we welcome Eve Online: Rubicon together!

 

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EVE

A Tale of Two Reasonable Things – Ship Maintenance Array Loot and Tech 3 Subsystem Refitting In Space

Hello once again fellow brothers and sisters of New Eden! It feels like our last chat was only yesterday. How time flies.

My name is CCP Fozzie and I’m here to bring you another dev blog covering our fast approaching EVE Online: Rubicon expansion, landing in just a few days on November 19th! Today I’ll be discussing two of the numerous medium sized changes that will be gracing our patch notes for Rubicon. These two changes are near and dear to my heart, as well as the hearts of many of you, our most passionate players. Both these changes are linked through a connection to Starbases, as well as by the role that our player-elected Council of Stellar Management played in helping us prepare them for you all.

Our most dedicated forum-watchers will probably already have guessed the two changes I am talking about:

New Ship Maintenance Array wreck and loot mechanics

and

Strategic Cruiser subsystem refitting in space.

I will be discussing the details of both of these changes, as well as providing some insight into the processes and journeys that led to where we are today. Firstly however I want to quickly discuss the Council of Stellar Management and their crowdsourcing efforts in particular.

The Council of Stellar Management (CSM) is our player-elected council that represents the needs and desires of our player community to CCP and advises us with the shared goal of making the best possible decisions for the quality of EVE Online. They are elected every year and we fly them out to our Reykjavik headquarters twice a year as well as constantly discussing the future of the game with them over forums and online chat.

The CSM undertakes a number of initiatives to help collect your feedback and convey it to us here at CCP. These range from actively reading the forums and passing us notable threads, to running live town halls like the one being hosted this upcoming Saturday, and organized crowdsourcing efforts like their “Reasonable Things” initiative.

The “Reasonable Things” initiative this last summer was intended to source a prioritized list of changes that are desired by the EVE community. CCP could then do an internal pass to determine how feasible the items were and incorporate the list into our expansion plans. The crowdsourcing used the same Wright-STV voting system that is used for the CSM elections to allow players to vote for more than one item and list their preferences in order. A total of 4090 votes were cast and the results were published this last August.

CCP has been looking for opportunities to incorporate this feedback into our expansion plans, and although some of the suggestions have proven infeasible, several will be reaching the EVE client in Rubicon and beyond.

Several of the items on the “Reasonable Things” list were already strongly on the radar of our gameplay teams, including the two changes this blog is covering.

 

Ship Maintenance Array Looting


(Click To Enlarge)

Feedback thread

Ship Maintenance Arrays (SMA) are Starbase structures that allow players to store and refit their ships. They are common sights in many starbases, especially in uncharted wormhole space where stations are not available as a ship storage alternative.

The saga of the SMA loot drop starts a little over a year ago, in late 2012. At that time a destroyed SMA would eject all the ships it contained into space where they could be easily boarded or picked up by an Orca or Carrier. This provided a valuable conflict driver as players could expect the possibility of obtaining valuable ships as a reward for the effort expended attacking their neighbors.

This system however had one fatal flaw, in that ejecting the contents of a SMA into space separately could potentially mean hundreds or even thousands of ships entering space at one moment. Evidence from related situations had demonstrated that this kind of rapid ship ejection could cause extreme server load and even threaten crashes, which was completely unacceptable. A programmer was tasked with quickly correcting this defect to ensure that it did not cause any harm. The solution reached at the time was to simply delete all ships contained in a SMA when the structure is destroyed, therefore preventing them from ejecting and causing instability. It was acknowledged as an extremely suboptimal solution but it was deemed far better than the potential alternative.

When players (especially those living in wormhole space) noticed the change there was a fair bit of consternation displayed on the forums. We knew internally that we wanted to develop a more complete solution but fitting in the design and implementation of that solution into our busy release schedule was easier said than done.

The CSM was a key ally in this regard. Several CSM members (including but not limited to the wormhole dwelling delegates) were proactive in filtering and communicating the player feedback on this issue. They helped lobby to ensure that a good chunk of development time was dedicated to implementing a complete solution to the issue, in the earliest possible time slot. They also helped us validate our designs as they progressed, giving us valuable player feedback during stages of the process when we were not ready to announce the project in public.

In the end, the solution that has been implemented and will be releasing next week in Rubicon is as follows:

When a SMA is destroyed after Rubicon, it will drop a wreck. The wreck will contain ships dropped from the destroyed SMA, with each ship having the same 50% chance to drop that governs normal loot drop mechanics. That wreck will have special functionality that allows players to eject the intact ships out into space, where anyone can board them. You will also be able to fly up with a carrier or orca and drag ships directly into your ship hangar.

The act of destroying a SMA will now also provide a full killmail listing what ships and modules dropped and were destroyed.

It will not be possible to add ships to the wreck, and you can't board ships directly from the wreck since that would mean placing your current ship into it. We have also removed the multi-eject options from all SMAs and SMA wrecks to avoid node crushing volumes of ships entering space. You must eject ships one at a time.

The SMA and X-L SMA wrecks will have much higher hitpoints than normal wrecks, but can be destroyed, in which case their content disappears just like a normal wreck. They can only be salvaged if there are no ships left inside them.

This solution provides a far better user experience than the original behavior while also preventing any adverse effects from large numbers if ejected ships entering space at once.

We had been working on the design since earlier this year and it was an official part of the Rubicon release plan since August. This may cause some of you to ask the following question: why did we choose to keep the project a secret for so long? I want to address this question and hopefully provide some insight into our ongoing communications in the process.

The most important step in keeping your promises is to be careful what you promise.

It may seem like a truism, but this simple fact is very easy to forget and ignore. When most people break their word it’s not caused by a desire to maliciously deceive, but by recklessly overcommitting.

In game design this challenge is especially difficult, as player are just as passionate about the game as we are, and therefore can easily misinterpret a discussion of future ideas and options as commitments. As Devs we see the benefit of bouncing ideas off our community and sharing exciting (and often unproven) ideas for the future, but the nature of the game development means that priorities must be able to rapidly adjust to new realities and to bypass unforeseen roadblocks. This means that we must be careful not only what we promise, but also how early we share our plans with the community. If we had run into an unforeseen problem that blocked the implementation of this SMA change after announcing our designs it would have caused unnecessary anger and distress among segments of the community. This is why we elected to keep the plans away from the public eye until they were completed and to rely on the CSM with their non-disclosure agreements to provide player feedback.

Many of you will have already noticed that CCP developers tend to be very tight lipped about our plans for specific features and issues. This does not mean we are not working on those areas or that we don’t have an internal plan. It simply means that we are endeavoring to be responsible with how we set expectations. For issues that have especially strong emotional connections to segments of the community we will tend to wait until very late in the process before making announcements.

 

Strategic Cruiser Subsystem Refitting in Space


(Click To Enlarge)

Feedback thread

Strategic Cruisers (Tech 3 Cruisers) are a special class of ships that can be customized by switching any of their five types of subsystems for alternatives with different bonuses. Introduced in the Apocrypha expansion, these ships have proven extremely popular. One of the most common player requests we have received over the years has been for T3 Cruisers to gain the ability to switch their subsystems while outside of a station hangar.

This has been a change we have desired to implement for a long time, but it faced a number of challenges along the way. Originally the idea of allowing subsystems to be switched directly on a piloted ship in space (when within range of a fitting service) was investigated and eventually discarded as infeasible due to issues updating the ship model dynamically.

During the development of the summer expansion, EVE Online: Odyssey, we once again attacked the problem, this time as part of a package of Starbase usability improvements. The design that was attempted for Odyssey was intended to bypass the original problem by allowing pilots to store their T3 Cruiser inside a ship maintenance bay and switch subsystems through a right click menu in that location while the ship was unpiloted and out of open space. This implementation was not only suboptimal from a user experience perspective, but also ran into its own hurdles and was eventually bumped from the Odyssey release.

During the development period of Rubicon, we took another crack at the problem, this time attempting to solve the original challenge of letting T3s refit while piloted and all the associated side effects. I’m happy to say they were successful and this functionality will be releasing on November 19th with the rest of the Rubicon expansion.

Below I will include CCP Paradox’s explanation the details from the feedback thread:

I'm happy to announce that with Rubicon, you will be able to refit your subsystems on your Tech 3 cruiser in space.

This change will apply to any fitting service in space, supplied by SMA, a capital ship with a fitting service (like the Orca) or even the new deployable the Mobile Depot.

Fitting the subsystems works just like in station, you can drag and drop to the fitting window to refit. Any modules that need to be unfitted will be returned to your cargo hangar. The replaced subsystem will return to the destination that the new subsystem was taken from. For example if you decide to use a new engineering subsystem from an Orca fleet hangar, the subsystem you currently have fitted will be placed inside the Orca fleet hangar.

While we are placing modules from your ship into your cargo hold, you can overload your cargo this way. It is important to remember this, and make sure you can safely store away the modules which were removed.

These changes should be especially advantageous to wormhole dwellers who had previously needed to travel to known space just to swap their subsystems. It is also an excellent change to release alongside Rubicon’s new Mobile Depots that will make refitting in space much more accessible to the masses. There are still more changes to Strategic Cruisers that will make their customizability really shine (dealing with the interaction between subsystem refitting and static rigs for example), but those will need to wait for our more comprehensive Strategic Cruiser rebalance at a later point.

 

Action Points

We want to give a very special thanks to all the players who discussed these issues with us, and to the CSM for their continued work to help make EVE Online the best possible version of itself.

If you want to help make your voice heard through the CSM process, there are a number of ways to do so. The first and most important is to vote in the CSM elections. We run CSM elections once per year and they are open to all subscribing accounts. When it comes to having your say on how CCP gets advised nothing is more important than casting your vote. Never trust anyone who tells you your vote won’t matter, as they’re usually just trying to prevent you from voting to increase their own power (this kind of deception is both clever and within the spirit and rules of EVE, but that doesn’t mean you need to fall for it).

You can also communicate with the CSM directly through events such as this weekend’s CSM town hall that will be hosted on EVE University’s public mumble server and broadcast live over EVE Radio.

 

We here at CCP are very happy to be releasing EVE Online: Rubicon to all of you in just a few days on November 19th. We hope you enjoy these two changes as well as all the other hundreds of changes and features that combine to make an EVE expansion.

If you want to find out more about what’s coming your way in Rubicon, make sure to tune into the CCP live stream at 19:00 UTC tonight broadcast on our twitch.tv page. We’ll be discussing and demoing new features as well as hosting the world premiere of our new Rubicon trailer. I can’t wait to see you all in stream chat!

 

Thanks as always for everything you all do to make working on this game universe such a rewarding job.

-CCP Fozzie

 

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