Hello again spaceladies and spacegentlemen. CCP Fozzie here to tell you about another of the exciting features coming your way on November 19^th in EVE Online: Rubicon.

The Rubicon expansion is all about control; taking it away from impersonal NPC systems and handing it over to you, the players. Rubicon is also the first direct steps towards our medium-term vision for the future of EVE. If you aren’t familiar with the goals we are working towards in this vision, I highly recommend checking out this update written by EVE Online’s Senior Producer, CCP Seagull. We’re not going to realize that entire vision overnight, but Rubicon is a significant first step in many ways.

One of the key ways we are working to realize our vision of engaging space colonization and shifting control into the hands of the players is through structures that can be built in space. Over the past months the programmers of Team Five 0 and Team Superfriends have been hard at work on breaking ground for a new space object framework that will be the foundation of our future space structures. This framework will open up some exciting options as we move forward, and is being used in Rubicon for the release of our first four Mobile Structures!

These structures all do very different things, but were all chosen for the same reason: to allow individual players more control over their local environment. These first four Mobile Structures also have several common features, which I will cover before going into the details of each structure’s function.

These Mobile Structures are all personally owned

Unlike Starbases, these Mobile Structures belong to individual pilots, not to corporations. This means that players need not belong to a player corporation to deploy them, and that their services generally apply either to the single character that deployed the structure or to everyone equally. It is very likely that we will add more Mobile Structures in the future that require and interact with corporation membership, but for now we’re starting from an individual perspective.

Mobile Structures are all easy to deploy

Previous structures in EVE have required several steps to fully activate in space. You would right-click on the structure in your cargo bay, launch "for corp" or "for self", right-click again to anchor the structure, right-click again to online it.

With the new Mobile Structures we have cut all the fat from the structure deployment process. You can still use the right-click menu if you prefer, but I expect most people will enjoy simply click and dragging the structures straight from their cargo bay into space.

Once in space, the structures will automatically start their activation process. The amount of time required varies depending on the structure, but all of them use the same easy to read circular display to show how much time is left in the activation. It's worth noting that this activation time is affected by time dilation, so the structures do not become more powerful in larger fleet fights than they are in other situations.

Once the activation delay has completed, that’s it! Your personal Mobile Structure is ready and working in space beside your ship. If you are using one of the modules that allows re-use, you can scoop the structure instantly whenever you want through the radial menu, or right click menu.

Attacking Mobile Structures is only punished with a suspect flag, even in high security space

The flipside of mobile structures being light, inexpensive and available to all is that they also need to be easily attacked. When a pilot shoots any of these four mobile structures, the most severe penalty they will ever receive is a crimewatch suspect flag, making them free targets for all other players for 15 minutes. CONCORD will never retaliate against a player for shooting these structures, and shooting them will never result in a security status loss. This means that Mobile Structures must be defended either by active pilots or by deploying away from the beaten path. The Mobile Depot does benefit from a special version of the reinforcement mechanic that allows a regularly active player to keep their Depot alive; more on that later.

Destroying any mobile structure will always provide a killmail and there is a chance of loot dropping from any mobile structure that has a cargo bay.

 

Now that we have the common threads covered, let’s look at each of our first four Mobile Structures in a bit more detail!

 

Mobile Depot

(Click To Enlarge)

The Mobile Depot is the most fundamental of Rubicon’s Mobile Structures. It is intended to provide a simple home base that can be placed anywhere in deep space and used for item storage and ship refitting. Depots will be the least expensive of all the Mobile Structures, falling well under 1 million isk worth of materials. They deploy with a one minute delay and require no skills to use. They also fit into almost all ships, taking only 50m3 of space when inside cargo holds.

Once deployed, the Mobile Depot provides 3000-4000m3 of cargo space and a fitting service, both of which are only accessible to the pilot that owns the structure. They can be deployed almost anywhere, with the only exceptions being too close to gates, stations or starbases. A Depot is also restricted from being deployed too close to another Depot (of any variety). This restriction on being deployed close to other item of the same group is common to all the new structures, with different ranges for each group.

Although it only has 17,500 effective hitpoints, the Depot is the only one of these four Mobile Structures to enjoy a reinforcement timer, and this reinforcement follows rules that are slightly different than other structures. When shot to 25% shield the Depot enters an invulnerable reinforced mode for exactly 48 hours, after which it once again becomes vulnerable. When it exits reinforced mode the Depot will have 0% shields. The shields will recharge naturally. As long as the shields remain below 25%, the Depot can be damaged into armor and then structure with no further reinforcement. If the shields reaches 25% charge, the Depot will once again be capable of entering reinforced mode. The twist is that at any time while reinforced the Depot can be scooped into cargo by its owner, allowing an active Depot owner to protect and move their Depot when it comes under attack. Scooping a Depot that contains items will cause those items to be first ejected in to a nearby can (this action is available regardless of the reinforcement state).

Fans of the Mobile Depot will also be enjoying two special upgraded variants available at the launch of Rubicon. Blueprints to manufacture the ‘Wetu’ Mobile Depot and ‘Yurt’ Mobile Depot will both be available only as loot in Rubicon’s new rare Ghost Sites. These variants will enjoy more cargo space and will be much harder for players to find using scan probes.

We expect the Mobile Depot will become a very common sight in New Eden after the Rubicon expansion lands, and that our industrious players will find many creative uses for refitting in space.

How will you use yours?

 

Mobile Tractor Unit

(Click To Enlarge)

The Mobile Tractor Unit is a simple device that nonetheless will have very significant implications for many EVE players. When deployed it automatically uses a built in tractor beam to retrieve wrecks and cargo containers within 125km and collect their contents into its gigantic 27,000m3 cargo hold.

The Tractor Unit only takes 10 seconds to deploy, and takes up 100m3 of space when stored in cargo. Like the Depot, it can be deployed anywhere away from Gates, Stations and Starbases, which means that it can be deployed inside missions (where NPC pirates are not interested in shooting it), asteroid belts, or on the field of your big fleet battle at the Infrastructure Hub. Like the Mobile Depot, if you scoop a Tractor Unit that contains items, those items will be placed in a temporary container in space that you can loot at your convenience.

The Tractor Unit has 50,000 hitpoints, and does drop loot when destroyed so vigilance is advised while using it. The speed of tractoring has been tuned to ensure that a friend in a Noctis or Orca is still both more effective than the structure, in addition to providing more stimulating conversation.

We’re very excited to see how people use these new Tractor Units, be it for PVE, PVP, or creative animated wreck art (I know you were thinking about it).

 

Mobile Cynosural Inhibitor

(Click To Enlarge)

The value of a disposable Mobile Cynosural Inhibitor will be immediately obvious to many pilots living in low security space. When deployed, this structure prevents all normal cynosural fields (but not covert cynosural fields) from activating within 100km. This allows groups of players to shield themselves from hotdrops, control how their opponents can deploy capital ships, and generally influence the low and nullsec battlefield in ways that have never been possible before.

The Mobile Cyno Inhibitor takes two minutes to activate, and lasts one hour in space. Unlike the previous two structures, the Cyno Inhibitor is a one-time use item that cannot be scooped back into cargo. Once it has been deployed it remains in space until either one hour has passed or someone pew pews it to death, whichever comes first.

The Cynosural Inhibitor has been tuned to be most useful to small and medium gangs, as the vast majority of its 160,000 effective hitpoints come from structure rather than shield or armor. This ensures that large fleets of logistics or capital ships cannot keep the structure alive under large scale fire. The Cyno Inhibitor also cannot be deployed in any location where its area of effect would overlap with another identical module.

The Mobile Cynosural Inhibitor is also the first of these mobile structures to require character skills in order to deploy. If you think blocking cynos is something you’d love to do after Rubicon releases, you should start training the Anchoring skill to level 3 so that you can be ready to go on day one.

 

Mobile Siphon Unit

(Click To Enlarge)

No EVE Online feature would be complete without opportunities for thievery, deception and backstabbing; and Mobile Structures are no exception. The new Mobile Siphon unit is designed to be secretly deployed near a hostile starbase tower where it will quietly intercept some of the moon minerals or reaction results heading to that starbase’s silos. The Siphon will not alert the owner of the starbase nor be automatically shot by that tower’s guns, meaning that the owners of the starbase must actively check on their territory in order to protect it.

Like the Cyno Inhibitor, the Siphon Unit is a one-time use item, and requires the Anchoring skill to deploy. Its cargo hold also has the unique feature of being accessible to all pilots, meaning that even the siphoners themselves will not be immune to theft.

CCP SoniClover has already released a separate dev blog covering the Siphon Units, so I will pass you to that blog for further reading.

 

Onwards to the Future

Sharp readers will have noticed that I have been referring to all of these Mobile Structures as the “first four”. That is because we intend this to be just the beginning of our adventures with the Mobile Structure concept and our new space object codebase. Team Five O is already hard at work on another set of Mobile Structures planned for Rubicon 1.1, and we are investigating options for converting some existing objects (such as Mobile Warp Disruptors) into the new system and expanding the kinds of functions that the new style of space structures can employ.

Over the summer we asked the Council of Stellar Management to help us brainstorm a big list of potential future Mobile Structures, and that brainstorming session produced some good ideas. Now we want to open up the floor to all of you.

I’ve created a new thread in our Features and Ideas forum where we are asking you to suggest what kinds of Mobile Structures you would like to see in the future. We will take the best ideas from that thread and add them to the list we are already working from to help produce a roadmap for the future of these structures. We don’t want to limit your imagination, but also remember that some ideas may be more or less feasible than others so we ask that you understand that we cannot promise to implement every idea in the thread, even if those ideas may be very exciting and garner much support.

Try them Today!

All of these four structures are live and working on our Singularity test server, along with the rest of the Rubicon expansion. We want to express a very special thanks to all of you who have helped us test the structures so far, as we have already made usability changes based on test server feedback. If you want to get your own sneak peek into the future of EVE, check out this page with information on how to set up your very own test server client!

I have been reading all the feedback on these structures in our Test Server forums multiple times per day and if any of you wish to let us know what you think after testing them, that is the best place to do it.

                                                                                                                                    

The first four Mobile Structures are coming your way in under a week in November 19^th’s EVE Online: Rubicon expansion. I know I speak for all of us on teams Five O and Superfriends when I say that we are extremely excited for you all to try out these new structures and to see the amazing creative uses that our players will discover for them. We believe that Mobile Structures will be a dramatic positive change to EVE Online, both in Rubicon and beyond.

Thanks and I look forward to seeing you all in our Rubicon livestream on November 14^th, in game and on the forums!

-CCP Fozzie

 

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28 Ships Later

Ship and Module Balancing in Odyssey 1.1

Ahh summertime in Reykjavik. Famous for its constant sunshine, occasionally tolerable weather, and a very empty CCP office. Many Icelanders take their summer vacations during the same period in July, which means a slow period for CCP’s Iceland office.

This year however, CCP Rise and I are taking our vacations a little later (the timing of mine ment that I could attend the August 23^rd Toronto EVE Meet!) which meant that we were left alone in the office with few distractions and lots of time to balance ships!

This blog will go over the ship and module balance changes we are releasing in the EVE Online: Odyssey 1.1 patch on September 3rd.

Like previous balance summary blogs, nothing here will be new to those of you who diligently follow the stickied threads in the Features and Ideas section of our forums, but since not everyone reads those posts we’re collecting the changes here and linking to the relevant threads for further reading.

All in all, there are 28 completely rebalanced ships in Odyssey 1.1, as well as major changes to medium weapons, nosferatu modules, gang links, armor repairers and shield boosters.

 

Space Trucking with Industrial Ships

Dev Blog

Forum Thread

Since CCP Rise has already written a Dev Blog covering the changes to the industrial ship class, I’ll keep this section brief. All 12 tech one Industrial Ships are being revamped in Odyssey 1.1 to ensure that all four races have viable options for hauling their stuff and that every industrial ship has a role.

As part of this revamp, some industrial ships are being renamed:

• Iteron to Nereus
• Iteron Mk. II to Kryos
• Iteron Mk. III to Epithal
• Iteron Mk. IV to Miasmos
• and Badger Mk. II to Tayra

The other Dev Blog has full explanations for the reasoning and flavor behind each name choice, and is definitely worth reading.

As for the actual stats, each race will have one industrial with a full-sized cargobay, in the same ballpark as the current Iteron Mark V. Each race will also have one industrial that sacrifices some of that cargo space to gain more hitpoints and faster travel, so that player can choose which type of hauling they need.

We are also converting four existing haulers into more specialized roles with dedicated bays for certain items.

• The Hoarder is gaining a dedicated ammo bay that can hold all kinds of charges, from normal ammo to cap boosters to nanite paste.
• The Kryos is getting a specialized mineral bay.
• The Epithal will have a bay dedicated to commodities produced through planetary interaction.
• The Miasmos gets a bay that can hold ore, ice and unrefined gas.

Remember, more details and explanations for all these changes can be found in the dedicated industrial ship Dev Blog as well as the official forum thread.

 

Weightier Heavy Assault Cruisers

Forum Thread

The Heavy Assault Cruiser (formerly known as Heavy Assault Ships) class was among the first classes of Tech Two ships released in EVE way back in 2004, so it is fitting that they are some of the first Tech 2 ships to get their full rebalance pass as we begin to turn our attention to the more advanced ships of EVE.

Heavy Assault Cruisers are one of the classes that fit most uncomfortably into the general guideline of T2 as more specialized ships. Both HACs and AFs fit square in the middle of the “Combat” role category, which is by its nature more generalized than most other roles. We spent quite some time investigating different options for extra specializations, but most of those would have ruined the character and value that the HAC class has developed over the years. In the end, the decision was made to focus the HAC specialization towards durability and electronics, representing the higher quality manufacturing that goes into Tech 2. HACs gain a new role bonus that reduces the damage they receive while moving at microwarp speeds, continue to sport their very strong racial resistances, and enjoy very high sensor strength, lock range, and capacitor regeneration. This is a more subtle specialization than the very obvious and direct specialization given to recon ships or covert ops, but it is an area of focus that matches the Combat category and the place that Heavy Assault Cruisers occupy in the spectrum of EVE’s ships.

The biggest across the board change to the HAC class in 1.1 is the addition of the aforementioned role bonus; a 50% reduction in the Microwarpdrive signature radius penalty that matches the bonus enjoyed by their little brothers the Assault Frigates. It can be easy to underestimate the value of a bonus like this since the tracking formula in EVE is a little obscure, but in practice a well piloted HAC will now take significantly less damage from guns and missiles while MWDing. Combined with the high damage resistances, a mobile group of Heavy Assault Cruisers will be fearsome, especially combined with remote repairing support ships.

The individual ships are also receiving significant changes and improvements, including new drone bonuses for the Ishtar, active repair bonuses for the Vagabond and Deimos, and a new missile velocity bonus for the Sacrilege. Check out the Features and Ideas thread for all the details and discussion!

 

Command Ship Changes You Can Believe In

Forum Thread

The final class of ships to receive a complete rebalance in Odyssey 1.1 is the Command Ships.

These Tech 2 Battlecruisers are intended to be the ultimate in fleet boosting vessels, combining bonuses to warfare link strength with strong defenses and excellent damage application. We are removing the old distinction between the “Fleet” Command Ships that had bonuses to links but nothing else, and “Field” Command Ships that were built for combat. Now all Command Ships will be able to simultaneously provide link bonuses as well as dive into the thick of battle. The two Command Ships for each race reflect the two main Tech 2 weapon styles for each race, and all have bonuses to two disciplines of warfare links.

Amarr: Armored and Information warfare

Caldari: Siege and Information Warfare

Gallente: Armored and Skirmish Warfare

Minmatar: Siege and Skirmish Warfare

All command ships will be able to activate three warfare links simultaneously, and will have two free highslots available to fit links without sacrificing primary weapons. The Command Ships are also all getting the higher strength Tech Two resistances that previously were only found on the “Fleet” Command Ships.

The combat capabilities of many command ships are also being upgraded, including the Claymore becoming a missile boat, the Vulture and Damnation gaining damage bonuses, and the Eos picking up dedicated drone bonuses and more bandwidth.

All in all these ships should be very attractive as bonus providers and leaders of fleets of many sizes, that can mix it up on the frontlines while boosting the effectiveness of their whole fleet.

For all the details and discussion, head over to the thread in Features and Ideas.

 

Affecting the Effects: Warfare Links

Forum Thread

In conjunction with the Command Ship changes we are also making significant changes to all of the warfare links, their bonuses and multipliers.

Warfare links are modules that increase the effectiveness of every pilot in your fleet, and are therefore highly prized force multipliers that can have a huge sway on the course of a battle.

One highly controversial aspect of warfare link mechanics is the fact that they currently apply their bonuses to everyone in the star system, no matter how far away. This means that a ship that is sitting in a safe spot on the other end of the system, or invulnerable inside the force field of a starbase, can have a huge impact on any fight that its fleet mates engage in. We do not believe that this mechanic encourages the best game experience, so we are working to remove these aspects of warfare links and replace them with more compelling gameplay. For Odyssey 1.1 we are not yet ready to force warfare links into the field of battle, but we are taking steps to bring them into better balance as we prepare for larger changes in the future.

The first major change that warfare link pilots will find after Odyssey 1.1 releases is that they can no longer activate their warfare link modules inside a starbase forcefield. To activate their boosts they will need to leave the protection of the shield and make themselves vulnerable to counterattack. We are not enforcing this change on mining links at this time (as we believe that a rebalance of the Rorqual will be needed before forcing mining links out of a force field) but all other warfare links will carry this new restriction.

Secondly, we are making a major series of changes to the bonuses and modifiers applied to each warfare link. All the details can be found in the Features and Ideas thread, but the key points are:

• Reducing the strength of defensive (Armor and Siege) warfare links and the Skirmish Warfare: Interdiction Maneuvers link to bring their effects into balance.
• Shifting more of the bonus from warfare links to the modules themselves and away from the skills and implants to ensure that the path to train gang links carries gradual benefits at each step along the way instead of presenting a learning cliff that is only useful once complete.
• Reducing the bonus provided by Strategic Cruiser Warfare Processor subsystems from 5% per level to 2% per level to ensure that Command Ships take their rightful place as the strongest boosters.
• Adding a new effect to the Information Warfare: Sensor Integrity link so that it provides extra lock range as well as sensor strength.

Finally, we are also adding new Navy Faction Mindlinks with multiple bonus types for people who wish to mix and match gang link disciplines, and adding the existing mindlinks to the CONCORD LP store so that Incursion runners can obtain them and help bring their price down to earth.

As always, all the details and discussion surrounding these changes can be found in the Features and Ideas thread.

 

Shooting for a Better Role: Medium Long Range Turrets

Forum Thread

For a long time, the medium long-range turrets have been quite underpowered compared to the options available from medium and large short range weapons. The railguns, beam lasers and artillery are quite closely tied with the Heavy Assault Ships and Command Ships, so CCP Rise took the opportunity to rebalance them at the same time as we were covering the ships.

The problem with these weapons was that they are squeezed between many other similar weapons and there were so few situations where they provided a distinct and valuable advantage over their peers. Any rebalance would need to help them find a place between the short range medium guns like pulse lasers armed with scorch ammo, and larger weapons such as the blasters and autocannons found on Talos and Tornado battlecruisers.

The solution settled upon was to push the raw damage of these turrets up at the expense of tracking, moving them a bit closer to the larger guns on the spectrum of EVE weapons. They will have a significant range (and sometimes even damage) advantage over medium short range turrets, while still having vastly better tracking than larger guns.

The exact changes are:

Medium Rails:

• +15% Rate of Fire
• +15% Damage Multiplier
• -15% Tracking Speed

Medium Beams:

• +25% Damage Multiplier
• -10% Tracking Speed

Medium Artillery:

• +10% Rate of Fire
• -5% Tracking

These changes should go a long way towards making medium long range turrets a strong and viable option with their own gameplay styles, and will partner well with the changes to Heavy Assault Ships and Command Ships.

See all the details and discussion (including example fits with all the math) at the Features and Ideas thread.

 

Tanking 1.51: Armor Repairers and Shield Boosters

Forum thread

This one is pretty simple. We are taking an opportunity provided by the warfare link changes to make the next in our ongoing series of iterations to local tanking.

We are increasing the rep amount of all local sub-capital armor repairers by 15%, and increasing the rep amount of most local shield boosters by between 5 and 15%.

All the details on which modules are affected and by how much can be found in the Features and Ideas thread.

 

The Return: Nosferatu Modules

Forum Thread

Nosferatu modules drain capacitor from your opponent and provide it to you, making them very significant modules in a game where “cap is life”. Once upon a time they were extremely powerful, able to remove all the capacitor from an opponent while also providing enough cap for the user to fuel all their power-hungry modules. When they were changed to only drain capacitor from targets with less cap than their owner the result went too far, nerfing them into near-obsolescence.

In Odyssey 1.1 we are taking steps to bring NOS back without re-creating the extremely overpowered situation from the past. Instead of only working on targets with a higher percentage of remaining cap than you have, they will now work on any target that has more absolute capacitor than you remaining. This means that NOS will work very well against any ship larger than your own, which nicely mirrors the strength that energy neutralizers have against ships smaller than you.

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

 

Under 3 Months or your Rebalance is Free: Dominix

Forum Thread

Last but not least, Odyssey 1.1 will contain one tweak to the Dominix battleship changes from Odyssey 1.0. The Dominix has become extremely powerful and popular since it was rebalanced in Odyssey, but we have determined that one of its bonuses, to drone tracking and optimal range, was more powerful than it needed to be. So in a very rapid iteration pass, we are reducing the strength of that bonus from 10% per level to 7.5% per level.

See the Features and Ideas thread for more details.

 

I hope you’ve enjoyed this walk through the ship and module balance changes coming your way on September 3^rd with Odyssey 1.1! This is just one of many areas being updated in 1.1, and we here at CCP are all now hard at work on future point releases and the big Winter Expansion coming later this year!

I want to give a special thanks to all the players that contribute to this balance process and help make EVE a better game. All of you who post your feedback in Features and Ideas, who test ships on our Singularity test server, and who vote in the CSM elections all contribute to the direction and details of these balance changes and I know we couldn’t do it without you.

Until next time, good hunting!

-CCP Fozzie

Numbers!

Hello again everyone. It feels like it was but moments ago when we last spoke.

This blog is intended as a companion to the main feature blog covering our resource balancing work in EVE Online: Odyssey. If you haven’t already read at least part of that blog this one will make little sense to you, so I highly advise you check it out here.

As I mentioned in the other blog, we are planning to make some very significant changes to resources, resource collection and industry in Odyssey. The details covered by this companion blog are focused on the changes to:

Tech Two Production and Moon Mining

Ore Composition

Ice Harvesting

Outposts

 

Tech Two Production and Moon Mining

As the main blog outlined, we are implementing Phase Two of our long term plan for Tech Two Production and Moon Mining in Odyssey.

They key goals of Phase Two are the shifting a significant portion of the value from the moon mining system away from the relatively common (and regionally concentrated) Technetium and back to the rarest mineral types (R64), spreading that value more evenly among those four rarest minerals, and providing the EVE market another avenue through which to respond to price fluctuations more gracefully.

To reach these goals we are implementing a change to several aspects of the tech two production chain. We are adding two new intermediate materials (with associated reactions and alchemy reactions), four new composites, and adjusting the composition of the Microprocessors, Capacitor Units, and Reactors.

Bellow you will find the details of these changes. Please note that all names for the new materials and composites are placeholders.

Our new Intermediate Materials are:

ThuliHaf : 100 Thulium + 100 Hafnium = 200 ThuliHaf

ProMerc : 100 Promethium + 100 Mercury = 200 ProMerc

 

Both of these reactions will have alchemy versions as well:

100 Vanadium + 100 Hafnium =  1 Unrefined ThuliHaf = 40 Thulihaf and 95 Hafnium

100 Chromium + 100 Mercury =  1 Unrefined ProMerc = 40 ProMerc and 95 Mercury

 

Our new Composites are:

Gallentium : 100 ThulHaf + 100 Crystallite Alloy = 300 Gallentium

Matarium : 100 Neo Mercurite + 100 Fernite Alloy = 300 Matarium

Amarrium : 100 ProMerc + 100 Rolled Tungsten Alloy = 300 Amarrium

Caldarium : 100 Ferrofluid + 100 Titanium Chromide = 300 Caldarium

 

Changed blueprints are:

All Non Capital Microprocessors: 15(+3) Racial Carbides, 5(+4) Phenolic Composites, 2(-3) Nanotransitors, 2(+2) New Racial Composites

All Non Capital Capacitor Units: 24 Racial Carbides, 10(-5) Fullerides, 1 Nanotransistor, 2(+2) New Racial Composites

All Non Capital Reactor Units: 8 Racial Carbides, 0(-1) Ferrogel, 2(+1) Fermionic Condensates

 

All Capital Microprocessors: 1500(+300) Racial Carbides, 50(+40) Phenolic Composites, 20(-30) Nanotransitors, 20(+20) New Racial Composites

All Capital Capacitor Units: 2000 Racial Carbides, 1000 Fullerides, 10 Nanotransistors, 20(+20) New Racial Composites

All Capital Reactor Units: 800 Racial Carbides, 0(-10) Ferrogel, 20(+10) Fermionic Condensates

As these changes will bring the total usage of each R64 mineral into much closer balance, we will be seeding R64s into 227 existing moons in lowsec and 0.0, to bring the number of minable moons for each R64 into closer alignment.

 

Ore Composition

Another major area of focus for Odyssey is the composition of the ores found asteroid belts and mining sites across low and null security space. These changes are intended to spur nullsec entities to welcome more miners into their ranks, as well as provide adequate reward for those willing to brave the game’s most dangerous mining fields.

Below is a list of the affected ore types, with the amount of minerals that they provide for each refine volume. Changes are in brackets.

Arkonor: 10000 Tritanium (+9700), 166 Zydrine, 333 Megacyte

Bistot: 12000 Pyerite (+11830), 341 Zydrine, 170 Megacyte

Crokite: 38000 Tritanium (+37669), 331 Nocxium, 663 Zydrine

Dark Ochre: 25500 Tritanium (+25250), 500 Nocxium, 250 Zydrine

Gneiss: 3700 Tritanium (+3529), 3700 Mexallon (+3529), 700 Isogen (+357), 171 Zydrine

Spodumain: 71000 Tritanium (+67810), 9000 Pyerite (+8590), 140 Megacyte

 

Ice Harvesting

As mentioned in the main blog, we are planning to make significant changes to ice harvesting, moving supply from static belts into respawning anomalies, as well as doubling the speed of ice harvesters to increase yield over time.

Most systems that currently have ice belts will contain these new ice anomalies, with the notable exception of many systems in Amarrian, Khanid, and Ammatar high security space. Below I will list all the systems in high security space that will contain spawns of Clear Icicle.

Afivad, Agal, Avada, Bashakru, Chanoun, Dantan, Dihra, Erkinen, Esteban, Gamis, Gelhan, Gosalav, Jarzalad, Jerma, Kothe, Manatirid, Miah, Moutid, Ordion, Raravoss, Riavayed, Seil, Talidal, Warouh.

These will be the only high security systems that will contain Clear Icicle. All low-security and null-security systems that currently contain static ice belts, as well as all high security systems in Caldari, Gallente and Minmatar space that contain static ice belts, will contain the new ice anomalies.

 

Outposts

As mentioned in the main blog, we are planning to increase the number of installations available in all player-built outposts, as well as increase the number of installations provided by outpost upgrades. There are no plans to change the special bonuses provided by outposts (such as manufacturing time bonuses) or the refining rates of outposts in Odyssey.

Only the changed stats are found below.

For the upgrades, listed stats are in the format of: Basic level benefit (change), Standard level benefit (change), Advanced level benefit (change).

Caldari Research Outpost

• Manufacturing: 5 (+3)
• Booster Manufacturing: 10 (+5)
• Copying: 20 (+10)
• ME Research: 20 (+10)
• PE Research: 20 (+10)
• Invention: 20 (+10)
• Reverse Engineering: 30 (+15)
• Offices: 18 (+10)

• Caldari Factory Upgrade: 5(+2), 10(+5), 15(+8) Manufacturing lines
• Caldari Lab Upgrade: 10(+5), 20(+15), 30(+21) Copying, ME, PE slots
• Caldari Research Upgrade: 10(+5), 20(+13), 30(+21) Invention slots
• Caldari Office Upgrade: 10(+7), 15(+10), 20(+13) Offices

 

Amarr Factory Outpost

• Manufacturing: 50 (+30)
• Booster Manufacturing: 20 (+10)
• Copying: 2 (+1)
• ME Research: 2 (+1)
• PE Research: 2 (+1)
• Offices: 16 (+12)

• Amarr Factory Upgrade: 20(+15), 40(+33), 60(+51) Manufacturing lines
• Amarr Plant Upgrade: 20(+17), 40(+35), 60(+53) Manufacturing lines
• Amarr Lab Upgrade: 3(+5), 5(+13), 7(+21) Copying, ME, PE slots
• Amarr Office Upgrade: 10(+7), 15(+11), 20(+13) Offices

 

Minmatar Service Outpost

• Manufacturing: 5 (+3)
• Offices: 10 (+4)

• Minmatar Plant Upgrade: 10(+7), 15(+10), 20(+13) Manufacturing lines
• Minmatar Lab Upgrade: 3(+1), 5(+2), 7(+3) Copying, ME, PE slots
• Minmatar Office Upgrade: 5(+2), 7(+2), 10(+3) Offices

 

Gallente Administrative Outpost

• Manufacturing: 10 (+6)
• Booster Manufacturing: 20 (+10)
• Copying: 4 (+3)
• ME Research: 4 (+2)
• PE Research: 4 (+2)
• Invention: 2 (+1)
• Offices: 36 (+12)

• Gallente Plant Upgrade: 5(+2), 10(+5), 15(+8) Manufacturing lines
• Gallente Lab Upgrade: 5(+3), 7(+4), 10(+6) Copying, ME, PE slots
• Gallente Office Upgrade: 12(+7), 24(+17), 36(+27) Offices

Numbers!

Hello again everyone. It feels like it was but moments ago when we last spoke.

This blog is intended as a companion to the main feature blog covering our resource balancing work in EVE Online: Odyssey. If you haven’t already read at least part of that blog this one will make little sense to you, so I highly advise you check it out here.

As I mentioned in the other blog, we are planning to make some very significant changes to resources, resource collection and industry in Odyssey. The details covered by this companion blog are focused on the changes to:

Tech Two Production and Moon Mining

Ore Composition

Ice Harvesting

Outposts

 

Tech Two Production and Moon Mining

As the main blog outlined, we are implementing Phase Two of our long term plan for Tech Two Production and Moon Mining in Odyssey.

They key goals of Phase Two are the shifting a significant portion of the value from the moon mining system away from the relatively common (and regionally concentrated) Technetium and back to the rarest mineral types (R64), spreading that value more evenly among those four rarest minerals, and providing the EVE market another avenue through which to respond to price fluctuations more gracefully.

To reach these goals we are implementing a change to several aspects of the tech two production chain. We are adding two new intermediate materials (with associated reactions and alchemy reactions), four new composites, and adjusting the composition of the Microprocessors, Capacitor Units, and Reactors.

Bellow you will find the details of these changes. Please note that all names for the new materials and composites are placeholders.

Our new Intermediate Materials are:

ThuliHaf : 100 Thulium + 100 Hafnium = 200 ThuliHaf

ProMerc : 100 Promethium + 100 Mercury = 200 ProMerc

 

Both of these reactions will have alchemy versions as well:

100 Vanadium + 100 Hafnium =  1 Unrefined ThuliHaf = 40 Thulihaf and 95 Hafnium

100 Chromium + 100 Mercury =  1 Unrefined ProMerc = 40 ProMerc and 95 Mercury

 

Our new Composites are:

Gallentium : 100 ThulHaf + 100 Crystallite Alloy = 300 Gallentium

Matarium : 100 Neo Mercurite + 100 Fernite Alloy = 300 Matarium

Amarrium : 100 ProMerc + 100 Rolled Tungsten Alloy = 300 Amarrium

Caldarium : 100 Ferrofluid + 100 Titanium Chromide = 300 Caldarium

 

Changed blueprints are:

All Non Capital Microprocessors: 15(+3) Racial Carbides, 5(+4) Phenolic Composites, 2(-3) Nanotransitors, 2(+2) New Racial Composites

All Non Capital Capacitor Units: 24 Racial Carbides, 10(-5) Fullerides, 1 Nanotransistor, 2(+2) New Racial Composites

All Non Capital Reactor Units: 8 Racial Carbides, 0(-1) Ferrogel, 2(+1) Fermionic Condensates

 

All Capital Microprocessors: 1500(+300) Racial Carbides, 50(+40) Phenolic Composites, 20(-30) Nanotransitors, 20(+20) New Racial Composites

All Capital Capacitor Units: 2000 Racial Carbides, 1000 Fullerides, 10 Nanotransistors, 20(+20) New Racial Composites

All Capital Reactor Units: 800 Racial Carbides, 0(-10) Ferrogel, 20(+10) Fermionic Condensates

As these changes will bring the total usage of each R64 mineral into much closer balance, we will be seeding R64s into 227 existing moons in lowsec and 0.0, to bring the number of minable moons for each R64 into closer alignment.

 

Ore Composition

Another major area of focus for Odyssey is the composition of the ores found asteroid belts and mining sites across low and null security space. These changes are intended to spur nullsec entities to welcome more miners into their ranks, as well as provide adequate reward for those willing to brave the game’s most dangerous mining fields.

Below is a list of the affected ore types, with the amount of minerals that they provide for each refine volume. Changes are in brackets.

Arkonor: 10000 Tritanium (+9700), 166 Zydrine, 333 Megacyte

Bistot: 12000 Pyerite (+11830), 341 Zydrine, 170 Megacyte

Crokite: 38000 Tritanium (+37669), 331 Nocxium, 663 Zydrine

Dark Ochre: 25500 Tritanium (+25250), 500 Nocxium, 250 Zydrine

Gneiss: 3700 Tritanium (+3529), 3700 Mexallon (+3529), 700 Isogen (+357), 171 Zydrine

Spodumain: 71000 Tritanium (+67810), 9000 Pyerite (+8590), 140 Megacyte

 

Ice Harvesting

As mentioned in the main blog, we are planning to make significant changes to ice harvesting, moving supply from static belts into respawning anomalies, as well as doubling the speed of ice harvesters to increase yield over time.

Most systems that currently have ice belts will contain these new ice anomalies, with the notable exception of many systems in Amarrian, Khanid, and Ammatar high security space. Below I will list all the systems in high security space that will contain spawns of Clear Icicle.

Afivad, Agal, Avada, Bashakru, Chanoun, Dantan, Dihra, Erkinen, Esteban, Gamis, Gelhan, Gosalav, Jarzalad, Jerma, Kothe, Manatirid, Miah, Moutid, Ordion, Raravoss, Riavayed, Seil, Talidal, Warouh.

These will be the only high security systems that will contain Clear Icicle. All low-security and null-security systems that currently contain static ice belts, as well as all high security systems in Caldari, Gallente and Minmatar space that contain static ice belts, will contain the new ice anomalies.

 

Outposts

As mentioned in the main blog, we are planning to increase the number of installations available in all player-built outposts, as well as increase the number of installations provided by outpost upgrades. There are no plans to change the special bonuses provided by outposts (such as manufacturing time bonuses) or the refining rates of outposts in Odyssey.

Only the changed stats are found below.

For the upgrades, listed stats are in the format of: Basic level benefit (change), Standard level benefit (change), Advanced level benefit (change).

Caldari Research Outpost

• Manufacturing: 5 (+3)
• Booster Manufacturing: 10 (+5)
• Copying: 20 (+10)
• ME Research: 20 (+10)
• PE Research: 20 (+10)
• Invention: 20 (+10)
• Reverse Engineering: 30 (+15)
• Offices: 18 (+10)

• Caldari Factory Upgrade: 5(+2), 10(+5), 15(+8) Manufacturing lines
• Caldari Lab Upgrade: 10(+5), 20(+15), 30(+21) Copying, ME, PE slots
• Caldari Research Upgrade: 10(+5), 20(+13), 30(+21) Invention slots
• Caldari Office Upgrade: 10(+7), 15(+10), 20(+13) Offices

 

Amarr Factory Outpost

• Manufacturing: 50 (+30)
• Booster Manufacturing: 20 (+10)
• Copying: 2 (+1)
• ME Research: 2 (+1)
• PE Research: 2 (+1)
• Offices: 16 (+12)

• Amarr Factory Upgrade: 20(+15), 40(+33), 60(+51) Manufacturing lines
• Amarr Plant Upgrade: 20(+17), 40(+35), 60(+53) Manufacturing lines
• Amarr Lab Upgrade: 3(+5), 5(+13), 7(+21) Copying, ME, PE slots
• Amarr Office Upgrade: 10(+7), 15(+11), 20(+13) Offices

 

Minmatar Service Outpost

• Manufacturing: 5 (+3)
• Offices: 10 (+4)

• Minmatar Plant Upgrade: 10(+7), 15(+10), 20(+13) Manufacturing lines
• Minmatar Lab Upgrade: 3(+1), 5(+2), 7(+3) Copying, ME, PE slots
• Minmatar Office Upgrade: 5(+2), 7(+2), 10(+3) Offices

 

Gallente Administrative Outpost

• Manufacturing: 10 (+6)
• Booster Manufacturing: 20 (+10)
• Copying: 4 (+3)
• ME Research: 4 (+2)
• PE Research: 4 (+2)
• Invention: 2 (+1)
• Offices: 36 (+12)

• Gallente Plant Upgrade: 5(+2), 10(+5), 15(+8) Manufacturing lines
• Gallente Lab Upgrade: 5(+3), 7(+4), 10(+6) Copying, ME, PE slots
• Gallente Office Upgrade: 12(+7), 24(+17), 36(+27) Offices

Just don't call it a cataclysm.

Speculators, start your engines.

 

Hello once again brave spacecaptains. My name is CCP Fozzie and I’m here to bring you our next Dev Blog covering EVE Online’s 19^th free expansion, Odyssey. For the expansion that arrives so close to our game’s tenth anniversary, we are turning our attention to the original promise of EVE; a universe of wonder is waiting for you and your friends to explore and exploit. As part of our focus on the adventure of exploring the many star systems of New Eden, we are planning to revamp some of the rewards that the universe itself provides to enterprising capsuleers who are willing to reach out and seize them.

We want to ensure that people in all areas of space can find themselves rewarded appropriately for undocking into their next adventure. When we decided to start down this road, we were faced with a number of tough choices about what aspects of EVE's resource landscape to focus on first.

Would we bring changes to ore mining, one of the most iconic activities in EVE's long history?

Would we revamp ice harvesting, a game mechanic that has long suffered from slow collection and nearly limitless supply?

Would we shake up the world of moon mining and tech two manufacturing to provide new spoils of war?

Would we overhaul the industrial capabilities of player-made outposts to ensure that miners and industrialists can engage in empire building as equal partners with those of a more militaristic persuasion?

Would we tweak nullsec anomaly balance to provide incentives to those willing to conquer the most valuable real estate?

When we looked at this daunting question, we knew there was only one correct answer:

 

Yes,

Yes,

Yes,

Yes

and Yes.

 

As those of you who watched today's Fanfest keynote will already know, we are going to be touching all of these areas in Odyssey. The rest of Team Five 0 and I have been working very hard on this package of changes and we are very excited to unveil it to you today.

I am going to go over each area of our high level plan in this Dev Blog, and will also be publishing another blog simultaneously which will include specific details on the areas such as T2 production and ore composition that would otherwise overflow this blog with numbers.

Without further ado, let's dig right in!

Numbers Blog

Tech Two Production and Moon Mining

Ore Mining

Ice Harvesting

Outposts

Nullsec Anomalies

 

Tech Two Production and Moon Mining

Phase Two.

If I didn't start with this you'd all skip here anyways.

Last summer we published my first Dev Blog at CCP, covering Alchemy changes we implemented in Inferno 1.2. I told you all in that blog that the extension of Alchemy was simply the first phase in our long term plans for moon mining and tech two production. I claimed then that we were going to take the time to do the job right, and we stand by that decision. Each step in the plan is designed to improve the gameplay surrounding this feature as well as pave the way for the design and implementation of subsequent phases. By those measurements the Alchemy changes from Inferno 1.2 were an unqualified success, both significantly improving the market situation over the past nine months and laying the groundwork for these next iterations. I’m happy to tell you today that we are ready for implementation of Phase Two.

The key goals of Phase Two are:

• Shifting of a significant portion of the value in the moon mining system away from the relatively common (and regionally concentrated) Technetium and back to the rarest mineral types (R64s)
• Spreading that value more evenly among those four rarest minerals
• Providing the EVE market another avenue through which to respond to price fluctuations more gracefully.

We will be achieving those goals primarily through a rework of the Tech Two production chain, adding two new intermediate materials, four new composites, and adjusting the composition of the Microprocessors, Capacitor Units, and Reactors that are built into many Tech Two items. The details of these changes have been split off into the companion blog, but the short version is that each R64 mineral will be more strongly associated with a particular empire’s Tech Two ships both to ensure that all of the minerals are used, but also to allow the market prices for each empire's ships to fluctuate somewhat along with their bottleneck minerals and relieve the pressure through shifting demand.

Since this change will be bringing the usage of the four R64 minerals into much closer balance, we will also be adding new supplies of certain R64 minerals to existing moons all over New Eden, to even out the supply levels. To remove bias from the process, these new mineral locations will be selected programmatically and randomly. We will be sourcing the random seed for this script directly from you the players, at the Fanfest 2013 Resource Rebalance roundtable tomorrow. Make sure to attend for your once in a lifetime chance to put your personal touch on the EVE universe. To ensure the integrity of this process the generation of these mineral locations will be overseen by the CCP Internal Affairs Department.

At the same time as we seed these new minerals into moons, we will also be somewhat reducing the time required to complete a moon scan, to ensure that players can find the new minerals in a reasonable time period.

Phase Two is not the end of our plans for Tech Two industry and mineral collection. We are not entirely satisfied with the mechanics of moon mining itself and would like to make changes in the future to provide more opportunities for active gameplay that can be disrupted by small groups of pilots. However we are confident that Phase Two will both improve the health of the game as a whole and lay a stronger foundation for the future iterations.

The exact numbers involved in these changes can be found in the companion dev blog, and we welcome the community's feedback and analysis of our approach this feature.

 

Ore Mining

We were asteroid mining before it was cool

Mining is perhaps the most iconic economic activity in EVE. It symbolizes the ideal of our perpetual machine principle of game design, that destruction should always provide opportunities for creation, and creation opportunities for destruction.

The focus of our Ore Mining changes in Odyssey is on ensuring that there are viable and valuable mining opportunities for players in all areas of New Eden. We want mining in low security space to be an activity worthy of the risks taken, and for Nullsec empires to rely on miners and industrialists, welcoming them into their ranks. Creating a new home for these miners also provides opportunities for pilots interested in PVP, as mining is an activity that can be both disrupted and protected by small gangs of ships.

There are several issues with the current state of mining in low and null security. The value of certain ores that populate these regions, most notably Gneiss and Spodumain, is so low (both of these ores are worth less than half the value of Scordite by volume at the time of writing) that they drag down the entire profession. The lack of profitable sources of certain common minerals such as Tritanium and Pyerite conspires with the lack of reasonable manufacturing facilities to cripple the prospects of Nullsec industry, robbing miners of a local market for their minerals, and manufacturers of a place to ply their trade in player-owned space. The incentives to use higher quality space for mining operations are currently not strong enough, leaving the best mining organizations with few available paths to improve their operations.

The cornerstone of our package of Ore Mining changes in Odyssey is the adjustment of the mineral composition of several types of ore. We will be adding more of the bulk minerals (primarily Tritanium and Pyerite) to the ores primarily found in lower security space. These changes affect Arkanor, Bistot, Crokite, Dark Ochre, Gneiss and Spodumain, with the latter two receiving the largest improvement to their mineral yields. The exact numbers can be found in our companion blog.

We believe these changes will help the game in two significant ways.

Firstly, the added minerals represent an increase in value of these ores that helps make the reward worth the risk of mining them in dangerous space. The improvements to Gneiss and Spodumain are especially significant as these minerals currently have very little value (at this time they are the two least valuable ore types in the entire game), and since you must mine all of the Gneiss and Spodumain from a sovereignty upgrade hidden belt to respawn the site, they serve as an anchor that depresses the value of the entire operation. Bringing them up to reasonable levels of value should be a very important improvement to the life of miners in nullsec.

Secondly, the influx of low-end minerals from these existing ores will help reduce the reliance of nullsec industry on imported minerals and goods. Alongside the changes to outposts later in this blog these iterations should significantly improve the prospects for true industry in player empires.

In order to encourage competition for the best mining systems and to bring adequate rewards to fully upgrading the Ore Prospecting Array, we will also be adding new variations of the Extra Large and Giant Asteroid Clusters that will only be found in locations with excellent system quality (truesec). These belts will contain improved (+5% and +10%) variations of the ore that can be found in their standard versions.

We will also be making a significant change to the way hidden asteroid belts will be found by players. We are phasing out the Gravimetric signature category, and instead pilots will be able to find all Ore Sites using their ship’s built-in anomaly scanning equipment. This change will make finding hidden belts much less difficult for both miners and for those who would prey on them, so pilots are always advised to practice vigilance.

Combined these measures are designed to increase the options for the stalwart miners of New Eden, providing them with lucrative paths to follow no matter what area of space they call home. We intend for mining to become a major plank of many financially successful nullsec empires, and we encourage those empires to begin planning how they can best integrate miners into their plans for universal domination.

 

Ice Harvesting

All right stop.

Next we turn our attention to mining of a cooler kind. Ice mining provides the materials used to fuel New Eden’s thousands of Starbases, and the movements of massive capital fleets across the stars. These materials play a crucial role in EVE’s economy, but the mechanics around ice harvesting have not created a dynamic or interesting feature until now. New Eden currently enjoys a massive oversupply of ice, which stifles competition and emergent gameplay with the notable exception of a few specific organized ice interdictions performed by some very ambitious players. At current levels of ice product usage, all of the ice needed for the entire game could be provided by only four ice belts (one of each ice type). We at CCP want ice harvesting to be a lucrative activity that encourages players to relocate and compete for a piece of the pie. However we also must be careful not to cause the price of isotopes to rise beyond the means of most Starbase operators. We put a lot of thought into how we would walk this tightrope, and we believe we have found a strong solution.

When Odyssey is released, the current static (and massive) ice belts spread throughout space will be removed from the game, and replaced by a series of Ore Anomalies that will spawn and respawn only in systems that previously contained the aforementioned static ice belts. These belts will respawn in exactly the same system four hours after they are completed, to ensure that players from all time zones will be able to partake in ice harvesting and enjoy the spoils. The amount of ice found in these sites will be tuned to ensure that most, but not all, of the ice needs of the New Eden cluster can be provided by high security belts. At our current numbers, the maximum supply of ice from highsec (assuming that each belt is mined out completely five times a day) would provide approximately 80% of the game's ice needs, ensuring that at least some of the ice mining must be undertaken in lower security space. For context, this means that highsec will still be a large exporter of ice products, being able to generate eight times the volume of isotopes used by highsec control towers.

To counterbalance this reduction in ice supply and to provide a slightly more rapid gratification from the activity of ice harvesting, we will also be reducing the cycle time of all ice harvesters by 50%, which will result in a doubling of ice yield over time.

With the exception of some systems in the territories of the Amarr Empire, Khanid Kingdom, and Ammatar Mandate, all systems that currently contain ice belts will have at least one instance of these new Ice Anomalies. Some systems, mostly those that currently contain two or three ice belts, will contain multiple instances of the Ice Anomalies. A full list of Amarrian highsec systems that will contain these new anomalies can be found in our companion blog, so that players can determine if their home will still have ice after the patch.

Combined, these changes are designed to make ice harvesting a valuable activity that players will engage in both cooperative and competitive gameplay to benefit from. We will be watching the results of these changes on the EVE market and on player activity very closely following release, and we may make tweaks to the respawn rate or ice composition of the new sites as needed in order to ensure a balanced feature that provides for the ice product needs of the game.

 

Outposts

Home is where the office is

These things are basically just really big spaceships right?.......

Outposts may seem like an unusual addition to a resource shakeup devblog, but in reality the fates of resource harvesting and industrial gameplay are too intertwined for us to improve one without improving the other.

Outposts represent the ultimate empire building gameplay available in EVE Online. For many players the moments when their organizations came together and constructed their first outpost stands out as one of their most significant EVE memories. However outposts suffer from very limited facilities compared to NPC and conquerable stations, and organizations that wish to engage in significant industrial activities in their territory are often forced to build station after station just to get enough manufacturing lines. The upgrades that are available to outposts are of very limited help, as their cost is so high and return on investment so low that refinery upgrades are the only outpost customizations most organizations can justify constructing.

For Odyssey we are planning to take a very significant first step forward for Outposts, by increasing the number of installations available at each type of outpost, as well as the number of lines that each upgrade adds. These changes will significantly increase the number of manufacturing, booster manufacturing, blueprint copying, material research, production research, invention, and reverse engineering lines available at Outposts, as well as increasing the number of offices available.

The exact numbers involved in these changes can be found in our companion blog.

EVE Online: Odyssey will not be the last expansion to iterate on Outposts, as there are many other changes we expect to make before we’re done. However the installations added in Odyssey will be a very important improvement for nullsec industry and Outpost value.

 

Nullsec Anomalies

The Rat Pack

Last but certainly not least, we come to the currently dominant income source for average nullsec residents. We are fairly happy with the Pirate Detection Array in general, but as part of our work for Odyssey we are taking the chance to make some small tweaks to the layout of the anomalies it generates.

Firstly, we are adding warp disrupting pirates into all of the high level anomalies that currently lack them. This small change will help keep the risk involved with this activity where it should be.

We are also making some small tweaks to the NPC composition of Hubs and Sanctums. Switching a few of the NPCs in Hubs to the tougher Elite Frigates and Cruisers, and switching a few of the Elites in Sanctums out for battlecruisers. The changes are still being tweaked and tuned, but the intended result is a better balance between the different anomalies, giving Sanctums the advantage in isk per hour over the easier to find Hubs.

 

For those of you currently in Reykjavik for Fanfest 2013, remember that tomorrow (Saturday April 27^th) at 13:00 GMT we will be hosting a round-table and Q&A session to discuss all of these changes with you. Due to expected high turnout we are moving the roundtable from the Roundtable Room 3 as listed on the schedule, to the Singularity presentation hall.

Remember that you can find all the numbers and details of these changes in our companion numbers blog , so head over there if you are looking to check our math for yourself.

All of these changes are scheduled to arrive in our June 4th EVE Online: Odyssey expansion. We want to thank all the players who have helped us with their expertise and ideas on the forums and elsewhere, and especially thank all the members of CSM7 who have been providing us feedback on these plans at each stage of the process. We here at team Five 0 have been working very hard to get these improvements ready for you all, and we can’t wait to hear your feedback and to see what great schemes you all create to benefit from the new resource landscape.

Just don't call it a cataclysm.

Speculators, start your engines.

 

Hello once again brave spacecaptains. My name is CCP Fozzie and I’m here to bring you our next Dev Blog covering EVE Online’s 19^th free expansion, Odyssey. For the expansion that arrives so close to our game’s tenth anniversary, we are turning our attention to the original promise of EVE; a universe of wonder is waiting for you and your friends to explore and exploit. As part of our focus on the adventure of exploring the many star systems of New Eden, we are planning to revamp some of the rewards that the universe itself provides to enterprising capsuleers who are willing to reach out and seize them.

We want to ensure that people in all areas of space can find themselves rewarded appropriately for undocking into their next adventure. When we decided to start down this road, we were faced with a number of tough choices about what aspects of EVE's resource landscape to focus on first.

Would we bring changes to ore mining, one of the most iconic activities in EVE's long history?

Would we revamp ice harvesting, a game mechanic that has long suffered from slow collection and nearly limitless supply?

Would we shake up the world of moon mining and tech two manufacturing to provide new spoils of war?

Would we overhaul the industrial capabilities of player-made outposts to ensure that miners and industrialists can engage in empire building as equal partners with those of a more militaristic persuasion?

Would we tweak nullsec anomaly balance to provide incentives to those willing to conquer the most valuable real estate?

When we looked at this daunting question, we knew there was only one correct answer:

 

Yes,

Yes,

Yes,

Yes

and Yes.

 

As those of you who watched today's Fanfest keynote will already know, we are going to be touching all of these areas in Odyssey. The rest of Team Five 0 and I have been working very hard on this package of changes and we are very excited to unveil it to you today.

I am going to go over each area of our high level plan in this Dev Blog, and will also be publishing another blog simultaneously which will include specific details on the areas such as T2 production and ore composition that would otherwise overflow this blog with numbers.

Without further ado, let's dig right in!

Numbers Blog

Tech Two Production and Moon Mining

Ore Mining

Ice Harvesting

Outposts

Nullsec Anomalies

 

Tech Two Production and Moon Mining

Phase Two.

If I didn't start with this you'd all skip here anyways.

Last summer we published my first Dev Blog at CCP, covering Alchemy changes we implemented in Inferno 1.2. I told you all in that blog that the extension of Alchemy was simply the first phase in our long term plans for moon mining and tech two production. I claimed then that we were going to take the time to do the job right, and we stand by that decision. Each step in the plan is designed to improve the gameplay surrounding this feature as well as pave the way for the design and implementation of subsequent phases. By those measurements the Alchemy changes from Inferno 1.2 were an unqualified success, both significantly improving the market situation over the past nine months and laying the groundwork for these next iterations. I’m happy to tell you today that we are ready for implementation of Phase Two.

The key goals of Phase Two are:

• Shifting of a significant portion of the value in the moon mining system away from the relatively common (and regionally concentrated) Technetium and back to the rarest mineral types (R64s)
• Spreading that value more evenly among those four rarest minerals
• Providing the EVE market another avenue through which to respond to price fluctuations more gracefully.

We will be achieving those goals primarily through a rework of the Tech Two production chain, adding two new intermediate materials, four new composites, and adjusting the composition of the Microprocessors, Capacitor Units, and Reactors that are built into many Tech Two items. The details of these changes have been split off into the companion blog, but the short version is that each R64 mineral will be more strongly associated with a particular empire’s Tech Two ships both to ensure that all of the minerals are used, but also to allow the market prices for each empire's ships to fluctuate somewhat along with their bottleneck minerals and relieve the pressure through shifting demand.

Since this change will be bringing the usage of the four R64 minerals into much closer balance, we will also be adding new supplies of certain R64 minerals to existing moons all over New Eden, to even out the supply levels. To remove bias from the process, these new mineral locations will be selected programmatically and randomly. We will be sourcing the random seed for this script directly from you the players, at the Fanfest 2013 Resource Rebalance roundtable tomorrow. Make sure to attend for your once in a lifetime chance to put your personal touch on the EVE universe. To ensure the integrity of this process the generation of these mineral locations will be overseen by the CCP Internal Affairs Department.

At the same time as we seed these new minerals into moons, we will also be somewhat reducing the time required to complete a moon scan, to ensure that players can find the new minerals in a reasonable time period.

Phase Two is not the end of our plans for Tech Two industry and mineral collection. We are not entirely satisfied with the mechanics of moon mining itself and would like to make changes in the future to provide more opportunities for active gameplay that can be disrupted by small groups of pilots. However we are confident that Phase Two will both improve the health of the game as a whole and lay a stronger foundation for the future iterations.

The exact numbers involved in these changes can be found in the companion dev blog, and we welcome the community's feedback and analysis of our approach this feature.

 

Ore Mining

We were asteroid mining before it was cool

Mining is perhaps the most iconic economic activity in EVE. It symbolizes the ideal of our perpetual machine principle of game design, that destruction should always provide opportunities for creation, and creation opportunities for destruction.

The focus of our Ore Mining changes in Odyssey is on ensuring that there are viable and valuable mining opportunities for players in all areas of New Eden. We want mining in low security space to be an activity worthy of the risks taken, and for Nullsec empires to rely on miners and industrialists, welcoming them into their ranks. Creating a new home for these miners also provides opportunities for pilots interested in PVP, as mining is an activity that can be both disrupted and protected by small gangs of ships.

There are several issues with the current state of mining in low and null security. The value of certain ores that populate these regions, most notably Gneiss and Spodumain, is so low (both of these ores are worth less than half the value of Scordite by volume at the time of writing) that they drag down the entire profession. The lack of profitable sources of certain common minerals such as Tritanium and Pyerite conspires with the lack of reasonable manufacturing facilities to cripple the prospects of Nullsec industry, robbing miners of a local market for their minerals, and manufacturers of a place to ply their trade in player-owned space. The incentives to use higher quality space for mining operations are currently not strong enough, leaving the best mining organizations with few available paths to improve their operations.

The cornerstone of our package of Ore Mining changes in Odyssey is the adjustment of the mineral composition of several types of ore. We will be adding more of the bulk minerals (primarily Tritanium and Pyerite) to the ores primarily found in lower security space. These changes affect Arkanor, Bistot, Crokite, Dark Ochre, Gneiss and Spodumain, with the latter two receiving the largest improvement to their mineral yields. The exact numbers can be found in our companion blog.

We believe these changes will help the game in two significant ways.

Firstly, the added minerals represent an increase in value of these ores that helps make the reward worth the risk of mining them in dangerous space. The improvements to Gneiss and Spodumain are especially significant as these minerals currently have very little value (at this time they are the two least valuable ore types in the entire game), and since you must mine all of the Gneiss and Spodumain from a sovereignty upgrade hidden belt to respawn the site, they serve as an anchor that depresses the value of the entire operation. Bringing them up to reasonable levels of value should be a very important improvement to the life of miners in nullsec.

Secondly, the influx of low-end minerals from these existing ores will help reduce the reliance of nullsec industry on imported minerals and goods. Alongside the changes to outposts later in this blog these iterations should significantly improve the prospects for true industry in player empires.

In order to encourage competition for the best mining systems and to bring adequate rewards to fully upgrading the Ore Prospecting Array, we will also be adding new variations of the Extra Large and Giant Asteroid Clusters that will only be found in locations with excellent system quality (truesec). These belts will contain improved (+5% and +10%) variations of the ore that can be found in their standard versions.

We will also be making a significant change to the way hidden asteroid belts will be found by players. We are phasing out the Gravimetric signature category, and instead pilots will be able to find all Ore Sites using their ship’s built-in anomaly scanning equipment. This change will make finding hidden belts much less difficult for both miners and for those who would prey on them, so pilots are always advised to practice vigilance.

Combined these measures are designed to increase the options for the stalwart miners of New Eden, providing them with lucrative paths to follow no matter what area of space they call home. We intend for mining to become a major plank of many financially successful nullsec empires, and we encourage those empires to begin planning how they can best integrate miners into their plans for universal domination.

 

Ice Harvesting

All right stop.

Next we turn our attention to mining of a cooler kind. Ice mining provides the materials used to fuel New Eden’s thousands of Starbases, and the movements of massive capital fleets across the stars. These materials play a crucial role in EVE’s economy, but the mechanics around ice harvesting have not created a dynamic or interesting feature until now. New Eden currently enjoys a massive oversupply of ice, which stifles competition and emergent gameplay with the notable exception of a few specific organized ice interdictions performed by some very ambitious players. At current levels of ice product usage, all of the ice needed for the entire game could be provided by only four ice belts (one of each ice type). We at CCP want ice harvesting to be a lucrative activity that encourages players to relocate and compete for a piece of the pie. However we also must be careful not to cause the price of isotopes to rise beyond the means of most Starbase operators. We put a lot of thought into how we would walk this tightrope, and we believe we have found a strong solution.

When Odyssey is released, the current static (and massive) ice belts spread throughout space will be removed from the game, and replaced by a series of Ore Anomalies that will spawn and respawn only in systems that previously contained the aforementioned static ice belts. These belts will respawn in exactly the same system four hours after they are completed, to ensure that players from all time zones will be able to partake in ice harvesting and enjoy the spoils. The amount of ice found in these sites will be tuned to ensure that most, but not all, of the ice needs of the New Eden cluster can be provided by high security belts. At our current numbers, the maximum supply of ice from highsec (assuming that each belt is mined out completely five times a day) would provide approximately 80% of the game's ice needs, ensuring that at least some of the ice mining must be undertaken in lower security space. For context, this means that highsec will still be a large exporter of ice products, being able to generate eight times the volume of isotopes used by highsec control towers.

To counterbalance this reduction in ice supply and to provide a slightly more rapid gratification from the activity of ice harvesting, we will also be reducing the cycle time of all ice harvesters by 50%, which will result in a doubling of ice yield over time.

With the exception of some systems in the territories of the Amarr Empire, Khanid Kingdom, and Ammatar Mandate, all systems that currently contain ice belts will have at least one instance of these new Ice Anomalies. Some systems, mostly those that currently contain two or three ice belts, will contain multiple instances of the Ice Anomalies. A full list of Amarrian highsec systems that will contain these new anomalies can be found in our companion blog, so that players can determine if their home will still have ice after the patch.

Combined, these changes are designed to make ice harvesting a valuable activity that players will engage in both cooperative and competitive gameplay to benefit from. We will be watching the results of these changes on the EVE market and on player activity very closely following release, and we may make tweaks to the respawn rate or ice composition of the new sites as needed in order to ensure a balanced feature that provides for the ice product needs of the game.

 

Outposts

Home is where the office is

These things are basically just really big spaceships right?.......

Outposts may seem like an unusual addition to a resource shakeup devblog, but in reality the fates of resource harvesting and industrial gameplay are too intertwined for us to improve one without improving the other.

Outposts represent the ultimate empire building gameplay available in EVE Online. For many players the moments when their organizations came together and constructed their first outpost stands out as one of their most significant EVE memories. However outposts suffer from very limited facilities compared to NPC and conquerable stations, and organizations that wish to engage in significant industrial activities in their territory are often forced to build station after station just to get enough manufacturing lines. The upgrades that are available to outposts are of very limited help, as their cost is so high and return on investment so low that refinery upgrades are the only outpost customizations most organizations can justify constructing.

For Odyssey we are planning to take a very significant first step forward for Outposts, by increasing the number of installations available at each type of outpost, as well as the number of lines that each upgrade adds. These changes will significantly increase the number of manufacturing, booster manufacturing, blueprint copying, material research, production research, invention, and reverse engineering lines available at Outposts, as well as increasing the number of offices available.

The exact numbers involved in these changes can be found in our companion blog.

EVE Online: Odyssey will not be the last expansion to iterate on Outposts, as there are many other changes we expect to make before we’re done. However the installations added in Odyssey will be a very important improvement for nullsec industry and Outpost value.

 

Nullsec Anomalies

The Rat Pack

Last but certainly not least, we come to the currently dominant income source for average nullsec residents. We are fairly happy with the Pirate Detection Array in general, but as part of our work for Odyssey we are taking the chance to make some small tweaks to the layout of the anomalies it generates.

Firstly, we are adding warp disrupting pirates into all of the high level anomalies that currently lack them. This small change will help keep the risk involved with this activity where it should be.

We are also making some small tweaks to the NPC composition of Hubs and Sanctums. Switching a few of the NPCs in Hubs to the tougher Elite Frigates and Cruisers, and switching a few of the Elites in Sanctums out for battlecruisers. The changes are still being tweaked and tuned, but the intended result is a better balance between the different anomalies, giving Sanctums the advantage in isk per hour over the easier to find Hubs.

 

For those of you currently in Reykjavik for Fanfest 2013, remember that tomorrow (Saturday April 27^th) at 13:00 GMT we will be hosting a round-table and Q&A session to discuss all of these changes with you. Due to expected high turnout we are moving the roundtable from the Roundtable Room 3 as listed on the schedule, to the Singularity presentation hall.

Remember that you can find all the numbers and details of these changes in our companion numbers blog , so head over there if you are looking to check our math for yourself.

All of these changes are scheduled to arrive in our June 4th EVE Online: Odyssey expansion. We want to thank all the players who have helped us with their expertise and ideas on the forums and elsewhere, and especially thank all the members of CSM7 who have been providing us feedback on these plans at each stage of the process. We here at team Five 0 have been working very hard to get these improvements ready for you all, and we can’t wait to hear your feedback and to see what great schemes you all create to benefit from the new resource landscape.

Starbase Iterations in Odyssey

Greetings once again spacefriends! CCP Fozzie here with a dev blog for you covering some of our plan for Starbase iterations in our upcoming EVE: Online Odyssey expansion on June 4^th.

The Starbase (also known as Player Owned Stations or POS) feature has been a point of some slight contention in the past months. Starbases are in need of several changes to bring them up to the usability standards of modern EVE, and our plans for them have evolved over time. Last year we made the difficult decision to step back and reevaluate our early designs for a completely new starbase system, keeping in mind that some hopes we had raised over the past year might not be fulfilled as quickly as desired. While we work on a new version of the longer term plan we have already launched an offensive against the biggest flaws of the current system.

For Odyssey’s release, teams Five-0 and SuperFriends will be working on a package of improvements to the current starbase system, hitting some of the major pain points that we have sourced from the community. We’ve scoured the net for feedback and ideas, the Council of Stellar Management (CSM) presented a detailed and prioritized list from their perspective, and CCP Bettik read every single post from start to finish in the “Small part of the community” thread to collect all the specific issues raised.

From these lists we formed and prioritized a backlog of potential changes based on community priority and technical feasibility. We’re working hard to get as much of the backlog as possible done for the June 4^th Odyssey release. This blog will go over the key parts of the backlog so we can keep you all up to date and get your feedback.

Please be aware that when we say something is planned at this stage in the process there is absolutely no guarantee that each individual item will be delivered as part of Odyssey. The starbase code is quite old and complicated; so it is quite possible we will hit road blocks when addressing some of these features, road blocks that in some cases could render one or more of them undeliverable. Since we at CCP have made mistakes with expectations management surrounding this feature in the past we want to be very clear. This is our educated estimate of what we think we can deliver based on this time period, but we cannot rule out roadblocks arising including but not limited to: unforeseen technical hurdles blocking a feature, the starbase code gaining self-awareness, seizing the building’s climate control system and roasting us all alive, and/or emergency response tasks taking developer time from feature work. Development within CCP is very fast paced, problems come up, schedules and priorities sometimes change; this is an unavoidable reality of game development. We will be working very hard to deliver these changes to you all in the Odyssey expansion, and we will keep you all up to date on our progress.

Now that we have the disclaimer out of the way, let’s get a peek at what we are working on!    

 

Private starbase hangars

The #1 item on the CSM-provided list is our #1 priority for this Odyssey backlog, and also the most complicated addition. SuperFriends are most of the way through implementation of a item storage version of the structure, and we have a separate listing for creating a ship storage version as well that we may or may not be able to get done for this release. We are aware that for wormhole residents especially the ship storage version of a personal hangar would be the most valuable addition, but we are starting with the simpler implementation task before tackling the more complicated personal version of the Ship Maintenance Array.

These structures are significantly different than existing starbase hangars so I’ll go over some of the details in our plan:

• Similar fittings to a Corporate Hangar Array, but higher build cost.
• Normal members viewing the structure only see their own items, in the same way as when someone views the contents of a planetary customs office.
• Corp directors have the ability to see what members have items in the hangar, but do not have the ability to take or place items from/in the hangars.
• No limit on the number of characters that can use the structure, but storage is limited per character. The exact per-character volume is undecided but we are currently considering a range from 10,000m3 to 40,000m3.
• If a member leaves the corp, his or her items are left in the structure but cannot be accessed unless the player rejoins.
• If the structure is destroyed, it drops some but not all of the loot contained within.
• If the structure is unanchored, all contents are destroyed. A confirmation box warns the player if the structure is not empty, and ensures that the items are not destroyed by accident.

This customs office-like structure allows us to avoid requiring complicated management of the storage within the hangar.

Again I will mention that creating a personal Ship Maintenance Array version of this structure is also something we want to do, but it has some extra technical challenges so we can’t promise anything quite yet.

 

Repackaging modules in starbase arrays

The inability to repackage modules in starbase arrays adds to clutter in starbase storage and makes people hit the stack limit far faster than they should. It is especially frustrating for those players who spend extended time periods operating out of starbases.

This change will allow you to repackage undamaged modules and drones inside a Corporate Hangar Array or Assembly Array so they can be stacked. Ships and containers cannot be repackaged since that could be used to overflow the array. If you repackage a group it works just like in station by repackaging everything it can and skipping the rest.

 

Swapping and fitting Strategic Cruiser subsystems at a starbase

Another fix that significantly affects our wormhole residents, this entails placing the Strategic Cruiser and subsystems inside a Ship Maintenance Array (adding subsystems to the allowed list for SMA storage) and then using a right click menu to access subsystem choice. The reconfigured ship can then be boarded or ejected as normal.

 

Accessing starbase arrays from anywhere within the shield

The requirement to move within range of each and every starbase structure to access their storage is a major annoyance for most starbase users, and one we are working to fix. Thanks to new advances in starbase technology, tiny drones will now carry items to and fro within the shield bubble. This changes the POS module access range to instead check that your ship is inside the shield, allowing players to access all the structures from one location.

 

Starbase setup UI improvements

Our plans here are to port over of the usability features from the probing system over to starbase setup. Plans include setting the little arrows beside the modules to scale with your zoom level the same way as the arrows in the probing interface so that they never get too small to use, and allowing you to manipulate the central cube directly for quick placement.

 

Removing the sovereignty requirement from Capital Ship Maintenance Arrays

Clarification: This change affects Capital Ship Maintenance Arrays, not the Capital Ship Assembly Array that is used to build supercapital ships. CSAAs are not being changed. This change does not in any way allow supercapital ships to be constructed in lowsec or wormholes.

Capital Ship Maintenance Arrays are giant SMAs that are currently can only be anchored in space that has been upgraded for supercapital construction. In order to reduce the number of SMAs needed to service large corps we are planning to allow CSMAs to be anchored in all lowsec, 0.0 and wormhole systems regardless of sovereignty status.

 

This is not the complete list of items in our backlog but these are the changes most likely to make it into the Odyssey release in June. We have been working with the CSM throughout this process to ensure that we are making high value changes for you all, and we’re very interested in hearing what you think as well.

Unlike the content shown in dev blogs closer to release this blog has contained many items with outstanding technical challenges to overcome so I want to repeat again that we cannot unfortunately make binding commitments that all of these items will hit the Odyssey release. We will be working hard to make all this a reality but I can’t rule out possible complications arising, so please bear with us as we work towards a better starbase system together.

I will be watching the feedback thread for this blog very closely and sending all appropriate feedback to the programmers from both teams that are in charge of implementing these changes, so please continue letting us know your perspectives on all these changes and what other tweaks you want us to make in the future.

 

 

New to EVE? Start your 14-day free trial today.
Returning pilot? Visit Account Management for the latest offers and promotions.

Starbase Iterations in Odyssey

Greetings once again spacefriends! CCP Fozzie here with a dev blog for you covering some of our plan for Starbase iterations in our upcoming EVE: Online Odyssey expansion on June 4^th.

The Starbase (also known as Player Owned Stations or POS) feature has been a point of some slight contention in the past months. Starbases are in need of several changes to bring them up to the usability standards of modern EVE, and our plans for them have evolved over time. Last year we made the difficult decision to step back and reevaluate our early designs for a completely new starbase system, keeping in mind that some hopes we had raised over the past year might not be fulfilled as quickly as desired. While we work on a new version of the longer term plan we have already launched an offensive against the biggest flaws of the current system.

For Odyssey’s release, teams Five-0 and SuperFriends will be working on a package of improvements to the current starbase system, hitting some of the major pain points that we have sourced from the community. We’ve scoured the net for feedback and ideas, the Council of Stellar Management (CSM) presented a detailed and prioritized list from their perspective, and CCP Bettik read every single post from start to finish in the “Small part of the community” thread to collect all the specific issues raised.

From these lists we formed and prioritized a backlog of potential changes based on community priority and technical feasibility. We’re working hard to get as much of the backlog as possible done for the June 4^th Odyssey release. This blog will go over the key parts of the backlog so we can keep you all up to date and get your feedback.

Please be aware that when we say something is planned at this stage in the process there is absolutely no guarantee that each individual item will be delivered as part of Odyssey. The starbase code is quite old and complicated; so it is quite possible we will hit road blocks when addressing some of these features, road blocks that in some cases could render one or more of them undeliverable. Since we at CCP have made mistakes with expectations management surrounding this feature in the past we want to be very clear. This is our educated estimate of what we think we can deliver based on this time period, but we cannot rule out roadblocks arising including but not limited to: unforeseen technical hurdles blocking a feature, the starbase code gaining self-awareness, seizing the building’s climate control system and roasting us all alive, and/or emergency response tasks taking developer time from feature work. Development within CCP is very fast paced, problems come up, schedules and priorities sometimes change; this is an unavoidable reality of game development. We will be working very hard to deliver these changes to you all in the Odyssey expansion, and we will keep you all up to date on our progress.

Now that we have the disclaimer out of the way, let’s get a peek at what we are working on!    

 

Private starbase hangars

The #1 item on the CSM-provided list is our #1 priority for this Odyssey backlog, and also the most complicated addition. SuperFriends are most of the way through implementation of a item storage version of the structure, and we have a separate listing for creating a ship storage version as well that we may or may not be able to get done for this release. We are aware that for wormhole residents especially the ship storage version of a personal hangar would be the most valuable addition, but we are starting with the simpler implementation task before tackling the more complicated personal version of the Ship Maintenance Array.

These structures are significantly different than existing starbase hangars so I’ll go over some of the details in our plan:

• Similar fittings to a Corporate Hangar Array, but higher build cost.
• Normal members viewing the structure only see their own items, in the same way as when someone views the contents of a planetary customs office.
• Corp directors have the ability to see what members have items in the hangar, but do not have the ability to take or place items from/in the hangars.
• No limit on the number of characters that can use the structure, but storage is limited per character. The exact per-character volume is undecided but we are currently considering a range from 10,000m3 to 40,000m3.
• If a member leaves the corp, his or her items are left in the structure but cannot be accessed unless the player rejoins.
• If the structure is destroyed, it drops some but not all of the loot contained within.
• If the structure is unanchored, all contents are destroyed. A confirmation box warns the player if the structure is not empty, and ensures that the items are not destroyed by accident.

This customs office-like structure allows us to avoid requiring complicated management of the storage within the hangar.

Again I will mention that creating a personal Ship Maintenance Array version of this structure is also something we want to do, but it has some extra technical challenges so we can’t promise anything quite yet.

 

Repackaging modules in starbase arrays

The inability to repackage modules in starbase arrays adds to clutter in starbase storage and makes people hit the stack limit far faster than they should. It is especially frustrating for those players who spend extended time periods operating out of starbases.

This change will allow you to repackage undamaged modules and drones inside a Corporate Hangar Array or Assembly Array so they can be stacked. Ships and containers cannot be repackaged since that could be used to overflow the array. If you repackage a group it works just like in station by repackaging everything it can and skipping the rest.

 

Swapping and fitting Strategic Cruiser subsystems at a starbase

Another fix that significantly affects our wormhole residents, this entails placing the Strategic Cruiser and subsystems inside a Ship Maintenance Array (adding subsystems to the allowed list for SMA storage) and then using a right click menu to access subsystem choice. The reconfigured ship can then be boarded or ejected as normal.

 

Accessing starbase arrays from anywhere within the shield

The requirement to move within range of each and every starbase structure to access their storage is a major annoyance for most starbase users, and one we are working to fix. Thanks to new advances in starbase technology, tiny drones will now carry items to and fro within the shield bubble. This changes the POS module access range to instead check that your ship is inside the shield, allowing players to access all the structures from one location.

 

Starbase setup UI improvements

Our plans here are to port over of the usability features from the probing system over to starbase setup. Plans include setting the little arrows beside the modules to scale with your zoom level the same way as the arrows in the probing interface so that they never get too small to use, and allowing you to manipulate the central cube directly for quick placement.

 

Removing the sovereignty requirement from Capital Ship Maintenance Arrays

Clarification: This change affects Capital Ship Maintenance Arrays, not the Capital Ship Assembly Array that is used to build supercapital ships. CSAAs are not being changed. This change does not in any way allow supercapital ships to be constructed in lowsec or wormholes.

Capital Ship Maintenance Arrays are giant SMAs that are currently can only be anchored in space that has been upgraded for supercapital construction. In order to reduce the number of SMAs needed to service large corps we are planning to allow CSMAs to be anchored in all lowsec, 0.0 and wormhole systems regardless of sovereignty status.

 

This is not the complete list of items in our backlog but these are the changes most likely to make it into the Odyssey release in June. We have been working with the CSM throughout this process to ensure that we are making high value changes for you all, and we’re very interested in hearing what you think as well.

Unlike the content shown in dev blogs closer to release this blog has contained many items with outstanding technical challenges to overcome so I want to repeat again that we cannot unfortunately make binding commitments that all of these items will hit the Odyssey release. We will be working hard to make all this a reality but I can’t rule out possible complications arising, so please bear with us as we work towards a better starbase system together.

I will be watching the feedback thread for this blog very closely and sending all appropriate feedback to the programmers from both teams that are in charge of implementing these changes, so please continue letting us know your perspectives on all these changes and what other tweaks you want us to make in the future.

 

 

New to EVE? Start your 14-day free trial today.
Returning pilot? Visit Account Management for the latest offers and promotions.

Starbase Iterations in Odyssey

Greetings once again spacefriends! CCP Fozzie here with a dev blog for you covering some of our plan for Starbase iterations in our upcoming EVE: Online Odyssey expansion on June 4^th.

The Starbase (also known as Player Owned Stations or POS) feature has been a point of some slight contention in the past months. Starbases are in need of several changes to bring them up to the usability standards of modern EVE, and our plans for them have evolved over time. Last year we made the difficult decision to step back and reevaluate our early designs for a completely new starbase system, keeping in mind that some hopes we had raised over the past year might not be fulfilled as quickly as desired. While we work on a new version of the longer term plan we have already launched an offensive against the biggest flaws of the current system.

For Odyssey’s release, teams Five-0 and SuperFriends will be working on a package of improvements to the current starbase system, hitting some of the major pain points that we have sourced from the community. We’ve scoured the net for feedback and ideas, the Council of Stellar Management (CSM) presented a detailed and prioritized list from their perspective, and CCP Bettik read every single post from start to finish in the “Small part of the community” thread to collect all the specific issues raised.

From these lists we formed and prioritized a backlog of potential changes based on community priority and technical feasibility. We’re working hard to get as much of the backlog as possible done for the June 4^th Odyssey release. This blog will go over the key parts of the backlog so we can keep you all up to date and get your feedback.

Please be aware that when we say something is planned at this stage in the process there is absolutely no guarantee that each individual item will be delivered as part of Odyssey. The starbase code is quite old and complicated; so it is quite possible we will hit road blocks when addressing some of these features, road blocks that in some cases could render one or more of them undeliverable. Since we at CCP have made mistakes with expectations management surrounding this feature in the past we want to be very clear. This is our educated estimate of what we think we can deliver based on this time period, but we cannot rule out roadblocks arising including but not limited to: unforeseen technical hurdles blocking a feature, the starbase code gaining self-awareness, seizing the building’s climate control system and roasting us all alive, and/or emergency response tasks taking developer time from feature work. Development within CCP is very fast paced, problems come up, schedules and priorities sometimes change; this is an unavoidable reality of game development. We will be working very hard to deliver these changes to you all in the Odyssey expansion, and we will keep you all up to date on our progress.

Now that we have the disclaimer out of the way, let’s get a peek at what we are working on!    

 

Private starbase hangars

The #1 item on the CSM-provided list is our #1 priority for this Odyssey backlog, and also the most complicated addition. SuperFriends are most of the way through implementation of a item storage version of the structure, and we have a separate listing for creating a ship storage version as well that we may or may not be able to get done for this release. We are aware that for wormhole residents especially the ship storage version of a personal hangar would be the most valuable addition, but we are starting with the simpler implementation task before tackling the more complicated personal version of the Ship Maintenance Array.

These structures are significantly different than existing starbase hangars so I’ll go over some of the details in our plan:

• Similar fittings to a Corporate Hangar Array, but higher build cost.
• Normal members viewing the structure only see their own items, in the same way as when someone views the contents of a planetary customs office.
• Corp directors have the ability to see what members have items in the hangar, but do not have the ability to take or place items from/in the hangars.
• No limit on the number of characters that can use the structure, but storage is limited per character. The exact per-character volume is undecided but we are currently considering a range from 10,000m3 to 40,000m3.
• If a member leaves the corp, his or her items are left in the structure but cannot be accessed unless the player rejoins.
• If the structure is destroyed, it drops some but not all of the loot contained within.
• If the structure is unanchored, all contents are destroyed. A confirmation box warns the player if the structure is not empty, and ensures that the items are not destroyed by accident.

This customs office-like structure allows us to avoid requiring complicated management of the storage within the hangar.

Again I will mention that creating a personal Ship Maintenance Array version of this structure is also something we want to do, but it has some extra technical challenges so we can’t promise anything quite yet.

 

Repackaging modules in starbase arrays

The inability to repackage modules in starbase arrays adds to clutter in starbase storage and makes people hit the stack limit far faster than they should. It is especially frustrating for those players who spend extended time periods operating out of starbases.

This change will allow you to repackage undamaged modules and drones inside a Corporate Hangar Array or Assembly Array so they can be stacked. Ships and containers cannot be repackaged since that could be used to overflow the array. If you repackage a group it works just like in station by repackaging everything it can and skipping the rest.

 

Swapping and fitting Strategic Cruiser subsystems at a starbase

Another fix that significantly affects our wormhole residents, this entails placing the Strategic Cruiser and subsystems inside a Ship Maintenance Array (adding subsystems to the allowed list for SMA storage) and then using a right click menu to access subsystem choice. The reconfigured ship can then be boarded or ejected as normal.

 

Accessing starbase arrays from anywhere within the shield

The requirement to move within range of each and every starbase structure to access their storage is a major annoyance for most starbase users, and one we are working to fix. Thanks to new advances in starbase technology, tiny drones will now carry items to and fro within the shield bubble. This changes the POS module access range to instead check that your ship is inside the shield, allowing players to access all the structures from one location.

 

Starbase setup UI improvements

Our plans here are to port over of the usability features from the probing system over to starbase setup. Plans include setting the little arrows beside the modules to scale with your zoom level the same way as the arrows in the probing interface so that they never get too small to use, and allowing you to manipulate the central cube directly for quick placement.

 

Removing the sovereignty requirement from Capital Ship Maintenance Arrays

Clarification: This change affects Capital Ship Maintenance Arrays, not the Capital Ship Assembly Array that is used to build supercapital ships. CSAAs are not being changed. This change does not in any way allow supercapital ships to be constructed in lowsec or wormholes.

Capital Ship Maintenance Arrays are giant SMAs that are currently can only be anchored in space that has been upgraded for supercapital construction. In order to reduce the number of SMAs needed to service large corps we are planning to allow CSMAs to be anchored in all lowsec, 0.0 and wormhole systems regardless of sovereignty status.

 

This is not the complete list of items in our backlog but these are the changes most likely to make it into the Odyssey release in June. We have been working with the CSM throughout this process to ensure that we are making high value changes for you all, and we’re very interested in hearing what you think as well.

Unlike the content shown in dev blogs closer to release this blog has contained many items with outstanding technical challenges to overcome so I want to repeat again that we cannot unfortunately make binding commitments that all of these items will hit the Odyssey release. We will be working hard to make all this a reality but I can’t rule out possible complications arising, so please bear with us as we work towards a better starbase system together.

I will be watching the feedback thread for this blog very closely and sending all appropriate feedback to the programmers from both teams that are in charge of implementing these changes, so please continue letting us know your perspectives on all these changes and what other tweaks you want us to make in the future.

 

 

New to EVE? Start your 14-day free trial today.
Returning pilot? Visit Account Management for the latest offers and promotions.

Starbase Iterations in Odyssey

Greetings once again spacefriends! CCP Fozzie here with a dev blog for you covering some of our plan for Starbase iterations in our upcoming EVE: Online Odyssey expansion on June 4^th.

The Starbase (also known as Player Owned Stations or POS) feature has been a point of some slight contention in the past months. Starbases are in need of several changes to bring them up to the usability standards of modern EVE, and our plans for them have evolved over time. Last year we made the difficult decision to step back and reevaluate our early designs for a completely new starbase system, keeping in mind that some hopes we had raised over the past year might not be fulfilled as quickly as desired. While we work on a new version of the longer term plan we have already launched an offensive against the biggest flaws of the current system.

For Odyssey’s release, teams Five-0 and SuperFriends will be working on a package of improvements to the current starbase system, hitting some of the major pain points that we have sourced from the community. We’ve scoured the net for feedback and ideas, the Council of Stellar Management (CSM) presented a detailed and prioritized list from their perspective, and CCP Bettik read every single post from start to finish in the “Small part of the community” thread to collect all the specific issues raised.

From these lists we formed and prioritized a backlog of potential changes based on community priority and technical feasibility. We’re working hard to get as much of the backlog as possible done for the June 4^th Odyssey release. This blog will go over the key parts of the backlog so we can keep you all up to date and get your feedback.

Please be aware that when we say something is planned at this stage in the process there is absolutely no guarantee that each individual item will be delivered as part of Odyssey. The starbase code is quite old and complicated; so it is quite possible we will hit road blocks when addressing some of these features, road blocks that in some cases could render one or more of them undeliverable. Since we at CCP have made mistakes with expectations management surrounding this feature in the past we want to be very clear. This is our educated estimate of what we think we can deliver based on this time period, but we cannot rule out roadblocks arising including but not limited to: unforeseen technical hurdles blocking a feature, the starbase code gaining self-awareness, seizing the building’s climate control system and roasting us all alive, and/or emergency response tasks taking developer time from feature work. Development within CCP is very fast paced, problems come up, schedules and priorities sometimes change; this is an unavoidable reality of game development. We will be working very hard to deliver these changes to you all in the Odyssey expansion, and we will keep you all up to date on our progress.

Now that we have the disclaimer out of the way, let’s get a peek at what we are working on!    

 

Private starbase hangars

The #1 item on the CSM-provided list is our #1 priority for this Odyssey backlog, and also the most complicated addition. SuperFriends are most of the way through implementation of a item storage version of the structure, and we have a separate listing for creating a ship storage version as well that we may or may not be able to get done for this release. We are aware that for wormhole residents especially the ship storage version of a personal hangar would be the most valuable addition, but we are starting with the simpler implementation task before tackling the more complicated personal version of the Ship Maintenance Array.

These structures are significantly different than existing starbase hangars so I’ll go over some of the details in our plan:

• Similar fittings to a Corporate Hangar Array, but higher build cost.
• Normal members viewing the structure only see their own items, in the same way as when someone views the contents of a planetary customs office.
• Corp directors have the ability to see what members have items in the hangar, but do not have the ability to take or place items from/in the hangars.
• No limit on the number of characters that can use the structure, but storage is limited per character. The exact per-character volume is undecided but we are currently considering a range from 10,000m3 to 40,000m3.
• If a member leaves the corp, his or her items are left in the structure but cannot be accessed unless the player rejoins.
• If the structure is destroyed, it drops some but not all of the loot contained within.
• If the structure is unanchored, all contents are destroyed. A confirmation box warns the player if the structure is not empty, and ensures that the items are not destroyed by accident.

This customs office-like structure allows us to avoid requiring complicated management of the storage within the hangar.

Again I will mention that creating a personal Ship Maintenance Array version of this structure is also something we want to do, but it has some extra technical challenges so we can’t promise anything quite yet.

 

Repackaging modules in starbase arrays

The inability to repackage modules in starbase arrays adds to clutter in starbase storage and makes people hit the stack limit far faster than they should. It is especially frustrating for those players who spend extended time periods operating out of starbases.

This change will allow you to repackage undamaged modules and drones inside a Corporate Hangar Array or Assembly Array so they can be stacked. Ships and containers cannot be repackaged since that could be used to overflow the array. If you repackage a group it works just like in station by repackaging everything it can and skipping the rest.

 

Swapping and fitting Strategic Cruiser subsystems at a starbase

Another fix that significantly affects our wormhole residents, this entails placing the Strategic Cruiser and subsystems inside a Ship Maintenance Array (adding subsystems to the allowed list for SMA storage) and then using a right click menu to access subsystem choice. The reconfigured ship can then be boarded or ejected as normal.

 

Accessing starbase arrays from anywhere within the shield

The requirement to move within range of each and every starbase structure to access their storage is a major annoyance for most starbase users, and one we are working to fix. Thanks to new advances in starbase technology, tiny drones will now carry items to and fro within the shield bubble. This changes the POS module access range to instead check that your ship is inside the shield, allowing players to access all the structures from one location.

 

Starbase setup UI improvements

Our plans here are to port over of the usability features from the probing system over to starbase setup. Plans include setting the little arrows beside the modules to scale with your zoom level the same way as the arrows in the probing interface so that they never get too small to use, and allowing you to manipulate the central cube directly for quick placement.

 

Removing the sovereignty requirement from Capital Ship Maintenance Arrays

Clarification: This change affects Capital Ship Maintenance Arrays, not the Capital Ship Assembly Array that is used to build supercapital ships. CSAAs are not being changed. This change does not in any way allow supercapital ships to be constructed in lowsec or wormholes.

Capital Ship Maintenance Arrays are giant SMAs that are currently can only be anchored in space that has been upgraded for supercapital construction. In order to reduce the number of SMAs needed to service large corps we are planning to allow CSMAs to be anchored in all lowsec, 0.0 and wormhole systems regardless of sovereignty status.

 

This is not the complete list of items in our backlog but these are the changes most likely to make it into the Odyssey release in June. We have been working with the CSM throughout this process to ensure that we are making high value changes for you all, and we’re very interested in hearing what you think as well.

Unlike the content shown in dev blogs closer to release this blog has contained many items with outstanding technical challenges to overcome so I want to repeat again that we cannot unfortunately make binding commitments that all of these items will hit the Odyssey release. We will be working hard to make all this a reality but I can’t rule out possible complications arising, so please bear with us as we work towards a better starbase system together.

I will be watching the feedback thread for this blog very closely and sending all appropriate feedback to the programmers from both teams that are in charge of implementing these changes, so please continue letting us know your perspectives on all these changes and what other tweaks you want us to make in the future.

 

 

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