Trinity

On december 5th, trinity will be deployed to the Eve Online servers ! The patch is not JUST the graphics update though, there are a lot of issues being addressed:

Patchnotes #1 Features, improvements, balance

Patchnotes #2 Changes, Fixes

CCP have stated patch deployment will take 24hrs, so make sure to set long skills :).

The time for EVE to evolve from beautiful to gorgeous is approaching! Trinity, EVE Online’s newest content expansion, will be deployed on Wednesday 5 December, commencing at 0200 GMT. Tranquility and the EVE forums will be unavailable for the length of the deployment, both are expected to return to service by 0200 GMT on Thursday 6 December.

Currently the graphics update is on the test server, I havent checked it out yet, just wanted to be surprised / awed by the released version. From the screen shots on the forums so far, some ships looked very mpressive, but a lot just meeeeeh, to be honest. Gallente had a weird baby-blue glow, Caldari Navy ships a sort of camouflage color (in space ?!?) and amarr instead of gold, brown. But I hope the ultimate released version will look better on screen than in those screenshots

Revelations 2.3

Is coming on Tues, 6 November. Set a long skill on monday night :-).

Tranquility will undergo an extended downtime on Tuesday, 6 November. The start time is 1100 GMT and the length of the downtime is expected to be 3 hours. During this time, a patch will be applied to Revelations consisting of fixes and improvements.

Eve-o Forum Link

Revelations 2.2

This patch has been deployed on August 28th. There are very extensive patch notes at the Eve-Online site. Browsed over it a little bit and didn’t see a lot that did appeal or seemed remarkable to me, though the sheer size of the list is a good thing :).

There are two things that stand out though, the NOS changes as described at this dev blog and the Capital Ore Ship.

Nosferatu Changes

In their current implementation Nosferatus not only neutralize cap of the targeted ship, but also leeches energy for your own ship. For instance a Heavy Nosferatu I gives you 8en/s and the peak recharge rate of a Megathron is about 20en/s with good skills, so a single Heavy Nosferatu I gives you about 40% increase in cap recharge rate. Even if the Nosferatu didn’t leech energy it would still be a useful module since it can neutralize a capacitor at no (energy) cost to yourself. The problem, then, is that Nosferatus allows one to both leech energy off a target and at the same time neutralize its capacitor. This makes the Nosferatus too powerful since there is no compromise involved.To address this issue we have changed the effect on Nosferatus (but not on Energy Neutralizers) in order to make the Nosferatu less powerful as an Energy Neutralizer without affecting its ability to leech energy. Under the new system, the amount transferred by a Nosferatu is based on the relative capacitor charge levels (measured in percent). Energy is only transferred while the charge percentage of the targeted ship is higher than the charge percentage of the ship that activated the Nosferatu. This means that the target is no worse off (energy wise) than the attacking ship.

For instance, if a battleship with 30% capacitor left activates a Nosferatu on a frigate, then the frigate is not drained below 30%. In other words, the Nosferatu would not drain the capacitor of the frigate completely, though an Energy Neutralizer would do the job nicely (but at an energy cost to the battleship). It is, however, still possible to use Nosferatus to drain a target if one is willing to sacrifice ones own energy to do so.

Capital Ore Ship

The ship fills this role by having the unique ability to compress ore and ice to a fraction of its original volume for transport and storage using the latest in advanced techniques. Additional abilities include:

  • Fitting capital tractor beam modules which can pull cargo containers from two hundred kilometres at a much faster velocity than normal tractors beams can,
  • Inherent bonuses to the range of survey and cargo scanners allowing it to survey asteroid belts at a glance from its position and the status of cargo cans for its mining gang and,
  • It can equip multiple gang links and provide significant bonuses to the mining foreman gang links.
  • Bonus to Capital Shield Transporter range per lvl of ship skill.
  • Like other ships in its class, the ORE Capital Ship will also:
    • Include a ship maintenance bay, corp hangar, a generous drone bay and cargohold,
    • Have the ability to fit a clone vat bay, and
    • Be propelled by its own jump drive to move between systems.

Would definitely be fun to have one in the Corporation, though I dont see that happen very soon !

Revelations Tutorial

As you might have read in the patchnotes of Revelations, the tutorial for Eve was revamped. I remember walking through the whole thing when I started out in november 2005, it was helpful, but it also left more questions that it answered ;). Then you were dropped in the rookie chat channel for the 1st 30 days of your Eve Online life. But that channel was so busy, the answers and questions scrolled by so fast, you could hardly read it.

The new tutorial seems to be a lot better and focuses more on action. The Acient Gaming Noob has taken the trouble to walk through the new tutorial and posts about it on his blog:

 Revelations Tutorial I

 Revelations Tutorial II

Revelations II

Revelations Part II will be released tomorrow !

Patch Notes

This is my favourite part, especially note the part on loyalty points now being given count for a corporation, not a specific agent :

Agent Mission Improvements

Revelations II will introduce Level 5 Agents, and with them the most challenging PVE encounters for players yet in EVE. These missions are designed for capital ships or small gangs, who will face NPC elements that include dreadnoughts, carriers, and other mammoth adversaries that require vast amounts of firepower to take down.

To encourage group participation for tackling agent missions of any difficulty, gang support for missions will also be added, splitting the bounty for success evenly between participants. As for the actual rewards, the agent offer system is being enhanced in two ways: loyalty points will now be cumulative towards the issuing corporation of the agent, not the individual agents themselves; and with the addition of a new loyalty point store, in which players can view the entire list of available corporation reward offers and select which ones to accept as determined by their affordability in loyalty points and/or merchandise.

  • Ten Level 5 agents for each Empire (nine for Caldari. Why nine? Don’t ask us, ask the Jovians!) have been placed in selected low-security systems.
  • Approximately thirty Level 5 missions are available for each Empire, focusing primarily on the growing conflicts between the four Empires.
  • Carrier-class NPCs have been created for each Empire, along with Fighter-class support.
  • Freighter-class NPCs have been created for each Empire.
  • Most factions now have access to Energy Neutralizer Towers to increase their defensive capabilities.
  • Empire Navy NPCs now drop loot as well as tags.
  • Missions now have basic gang support. Choosing the “Me and my gang have completed the mission” option at the end of a mission will cause LP, ISK and Standing rewards to be split equally between up to five people in a gang.
  • The existing LP/Offers system has been replaced with the new “LP Store” feature.
  • LPs are now attached to NPC corporations rather than individual agents; all existing LPs will be migrated from the individual agents to their parent corporations.
  • The LP Store now contains a wide variety of new offers for implants, factional hardware and blueprints. Offers vary between factions and between corporations within a faction