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As many of you may have seen, the elections for the Fourth Council of Stellar Management are currently in the voting stage. For those who are not aware, the CSM is a group of EVE players who are elected by the EVE community to represent their views and raise the issues they and those they represent have. Many changes have come into effect because of the efforts of those elected, some of which you can read about in previous blogs by CCP Xhagen.
So far since the CSM began, 146 campaigns have been run and 72,611 votes have been cast. The candidates elected through these elections have raised many issues with CCP (a list can be found on the EVElopedia here), and provide a vital additional path of communication between the EVE playerbase and CCP.
Voice your opinions on where EVE should or indeed should not be headed by making sure you vote in the elections. Head on over to the Jita Park Speakers Corner section of the EVE forums to read the campaign threads and ongoing discussions regarding the current elections. When you are ready to cast your vote, the voting page can be found here.
Don't let your vote go to waste!
-- CCP Diagoras
Every ship needs its niche, a specialized role at which it excels without too much overlap from its closest relatives. With multitasking behemoths like the Capital ships, such balancing becomes a very delicate matter considering the sheer scale of their power. The differences must lie in how and under which circumstances they best project that power - our aim for Dominion is to sharpen distinctions by emphasizing or introducing unique abilities in that regard.
In this blog we will briefly explain the upcoming changes to capital ships, their weapon systems and the intended effects of these.
Motherships still on the drawing board
During the development of Dominion we have been looking at the whole of capital ship warfare and in particular the Motherships--reviewing their place on the battlefield and our goals for them as designers. We're unhappy with the role they currently occupy in practice and after much deliberation and testing we aren't happier with the direction we were taking them as anti-capital Supercarriers. In too short a time we've redesigned a ship class that doesn't have a unique enough role or serve a diverse enough purpose. These are massive ships that require amazing amounts resources to produce. They are part of the power equation of EVE's unique and important Alliance Warfare. As designers we need to do is take a few steps back, deliberate more (with your help), go through more testing (also with your help) and really perfect the Mothership redesign.
Regrettably, we've come to the point where we can no longer commit to making Motherships the monsters they're supposed to be for Dominion. However, we are going to continue refining their schematics, keep our welding torches hot and you should see them undocking from the shipyards again once we and the community are happy with their balancing.
This means NO CHANGES WILL BE MADE TO MOTHERSHIPS IN DOMINION. Since they are part of the original rebalancing effort, the DEPLOYMENT OF FIGHTER BOMBERS WILL ALSO BE POSTPONED.
XL Turret Balancing
Currently on Tranquility, XL Turrets are balanced around Dreadnoughts. The tracking speed, damage output and performance of XL Turrets in general are modified significantly by the siege module as well as ship bonuses. In order to allow the XL Turrets to be viable on other ship classes, aside from the Dreadnoughts, various tweaks were required.
Base tracking speed values of the XL Turrets will be decreased greatly to reflect their role as heavy weaponry. Massive, hull-breaking guns just don't turn as quickly. This does affect Dreadnoughts out of siege mode quite a bit, as they're not able to track sub-Capitals as well. The siege module tracking penalty will be reduced to -50%, which allows Dreadnoughts to track a lot better while in siege mode compared to their current Tranquility incarnations.
The difference in DPS between variations of the XL Turrets has been reduced, since the huge damage bonuses (625% with a siege module, 500% on a Titan) made the difference in DPS too large.
Short-range XL Turrets have been reworked. Currently on Tranquility their range restrictions prevent them from being used against starbases. Capital ship fights rarely if ever happen at short distances. We decided that the short-range XL Turrets needed to have better range and a higher damage output to make them a viable choice for the combat situations pilots actually engage in.
Tranquility - Siege mode tracking, 1.0 ammo range modifier. Target - Signature Radius: Dreadnought, Velocity: 1
As you can see from this graph, the old Dual Giga Pulse Laser excelled in range and overall performance.
Tranquility - Siege mode tracking, 1.0 ammo range modifier. Target - Signature Radius: Dreadnought, Velocity: 50
When the target starts moving the advantage became even more apparent.
New Values - Siege mode tracking, 1.0 ammo range modifier. Target - Dreadnought, Velocity: 1
The new values give each weapon type a unique advantage. The Ion Siege blaster has the highest amount of damage, while lacking in optimal and falloff. The Dual Giga Pulse Laser has a range advantage. While the 6x2500mm Repeating artillery might look poor, the fact that it doesn't consume any capacitor must be taken into consideration. With a single Gyrostabilizer it overtakes the Ion Siege blaster in damage and has excellent falloff.
New Values - Siege mode tracking, 1.0 ammo range modifier. Target - Dreadnought, Velocity: 50
The altered picture of XL Turrets in action against a moving target looks a lot better. The Dual Giga Pulse Laser is no longer the obvious choice.
The long-range XL Turrets have also been tweaked to give each turret type an advantage of its own.
Tranquility - Siege mode tracking, 1.0 ammo range modifier. Target - Dreadnought, Velocity: 1
The graph above shows the current status of long-range XL Turrets on Tranquility. The difference in damage is quite substantial, and the Quad 3500mm Siege Artillery seems to have no advantage (apart from the obvious capacitor consumption).
New Values - Siege mode tracking, 1.0 ammo range modifier. Target - Signature Radius: 1500, Velocity: 1
The new and altered picture shows the difference in damage has been decreased, as well as a clear siege artillery falloff advantage.
Due to the changes made to XL Turrets, Citadel Missiles/Torpedoes and projectile turrets, the Naglfar became an absolute monster, not in a good way. The weapon bonuses on the Naglfar had to be adjusted to keep the balance intact.
Citadel Cruise / Torpedoes
A second capital missile weapon system is being introduced in Dominion, the Citadel Cruise Missile Launcher. The Citadel Cruise Missiles will not differ greatly from the Citadel Torpedoes that currently exist on Tranquility, offering the long-range choice for damage. We adjusted the Citadel Torpedoes to fill the role of a close range bombardment weapon better.
The new version of the Citadel Torpedo follows the same trend as other unguided missiles. The explosion velocity is slightly higher than that of the Citadel Cruise Missiles (or 2250) which means target painters will have to be utilized in many situations to achieve full damage potential. They do considerably more damage than their missile counterparts, with reduced range and velocity.
The explosion radius of Citadel Cruise Missiles will be set to 1500, which differs from the current 1000 explosion radius of Citadel Torpedoes on Tranquility. This value has remained the same throughout many capital ship changes since capital ships were introduced with a signature radius of 1000, causing imbalances with the weapon system.
The increased explosion radius also affects starbase structure hit quality, to counter that we're increasing the signature radius of the larger structures.
New Values - Target - Dreadnought
This graph shows the difference in damage and range between the newly balanced Citadel Torpedo Missiles and the newly introduced Citadel Cruise Missiles.
Titans
The Titans primary value should be as a fleet's logistical backbone. Although this vision has not been fully realized, it continues to be the goal. They shouldn't become the ultimate choice when it comes to direct damage, a seat already occupied by Dreadnoughts. Many might argue that due to their price and availability they never will be. There is some truth in that, but history has taught us that balancing by price is never a good idea.
As announced in previous blogs, the Titan superweapons are being changed from being a field-cleaning anti-subcapital weapon, to a more reasonable "death-ray" type of weapon. This undoubtedly changes under what circumstances Titans are utilized and hopefully results in a more enjoyable experience for all participants in the capital battlefield (except, you know, for those hit by the death-ray...).
Along with the new superweapons, Titans receive a 100% damage bonus to either the XL turrets or the Citadel Missiles/Torpedoes per skill level. With a full rack of weapons, their damage potential becomes slightly more than that of a Dreadnought in siege mode. Together with the fact that they don't receive a penalty towards tracking nor missile explosion velocity, the XL/Citadel fitted Titan becomes very effective. We feel that the advantage is not so pronounced as to threaten the Dreadnought as a direct damage-dealer when all factors are taken into consideration.
Titans will also receive a massive hit point boost, allowing them to wreak havoc on the capital battlefield for longer periods of time.
fin
As we said, roles are what matter. With these changes we hope to achieve a more balanced battlefield and synergy between the capital ship classes. The changes to XL turrets mean that the Dreadnoughts become more versatile in dealing the direct damage they're meant to. The Titans with their new superweapons and bonuses to XL turrets will hopefully promote more enjoyable fleet engagements. And once again, we will continue to scrutinize the role of Motherships and how best to achieve that, through continued testing and balancing.
CCP Chronotis' previous blog on Dominion's new Sovereignty system gave you a broad overview of the available upgrades and the system that enables them. Today we are going to delve a little deeper into the inner workings of the upgrades of space available to you through the new Infrastructure system in Dominion and the various factors surrounding them. Let's start with answering a few of the more common concerns that have arisen from your feedback so far.
I thought you were getting rid of ‘Sov levels' but now I see there are five of them?
Think of them less as Sov levels and more as time-based indices. These are needed in order to preserve the game play centered on your commitment to your space. Another point to be clear on is that these time indices are applicable only toward Strategic upgrades. They have no bearing on your Military or Industrial upgrades.
I want to take my enemy's upgrades but I'm forced to destroy the Infrastructure Hub. *sadface*
Here is a screenshot of the Infrastructure Hub:
Originally we considered allowing the I-Hub to be capturable but the more we discussed the idea the more we agreed that it would be a bad idea to allow an invader to capture a Hub and then be able to deploy a cyno jammer five minutes later. However, we did want to preserve a sense of "I want to take their stuff!" so what we've done is disconnect the activity-based indices from the Hub.
Let's say your bloodthirsty hordes want to take a break from marauding and decide you would like to mine for a couple of months (totally happens). A nearby alliance has developed one of their systems to have the most awesome mining available (Level 5 Industry). You mobilize, move in and take over their system as detailed in my previous blog. In the process of this you have to destroy the Infrastructure Hub and the upgrades, but fear not!
Once the evil care bears have been driven from your new home, you can online your own TCU and Infrastructure Hub. Once that is done you will notice that while you do not have the upgrade installed that allows you to use the developed space, depending on how long your conquest took (and Industry-related activity ceased), the actual Industry Index has gone down only slightly. Move quickly to install the proper upgrade in your I-Hub and you now have immediate access to all those lovely rocks.
How do these Decay rates work?
The decay of indices takes place gradually, but if all of a particular activity-based index completely stops, you can expect to lose one level of an index approximately every four days.
Upkeep Costs
Let's talk about money for a minute. We have adjusted the upkeep costs from the initial blog and this is an up to date snapshot of where they have settled.
TCU: 6m ISK / day
Jump Bridge: 10m ISK / day
Cyno Generators: 2m ISK / day
Cyno Jammers: 20m ISK / day
Capital Ship Assembly Arrays: 1m ISK / day
There are no upkeep costs for your isk-generating upgrades, just the Strategic / structure-based ones. We feel this is a fair way of doing things and allows us a good base from which to move forward as we consider what other features we might add in the future.
Upgrade Facts
We got a lot of feedback on the upgrades so let me delve into that for a bit. Many comments have been made about the number of players that these upgrades can support. Please bear in mind that any estimates made on this are just that. What we would like to do now is walk you through the various upgrades that will be available in Dominion and explain what they are and what benefits they will provide you.
Note - Not all of the names of the upgrades are final.
Industry Upgrades
"These upgrades allow your systems to have additional hidden asteroid belts and mini-profession sites."
Ore Prospecting Arrays
These are hidden asteroid belts and you get one site guaranteed for every level of upgrade to a maximum of five. These are not the typical hidden belts though. If you've ever been into wormhole space and seen some of the riches there, then you have an idea of what to expect. Within these hidden belts reside mythical beasts such as ‘King Arkonor' and many of his closest friends.
These sites will re-spawn every downtime, so even if you do not mine out every rock, there will be fresh ones waiting for you the next day.
Survey Networks
This upgrade provides a variety of salvage & archaeology sites to explore. Every level of upgrade will give you an increasing chance per level increase in being able to find one. These sites run on a 12 hour re-spawn delay.
Military Upgrades
"These upgrades allow your systems to have additional anomalies and other exploration dungeons within your space such as encounters and complexes and wormholes."
Pirate Detection Arrays
Each level of this upgrade gives you four anomalies per level, each of which re-spawns instantly upon completion. This mean that at Level 5 you are guaranteed to have twenty anomalies at all times in a system. These are basically dungeons which spawn waves of NPC's for you to happily shoot. The top level anomalies in terms of ISK per hour are among some of the most profitable content in the game.
These anomalies are awesome because there is a constant supply of them and there are no skill requirements to scan them down. They can be found by anyone using the onboard scanner with a 100% success rate. Basically, if you are in a system that's small enough to be covered by one probe, you will get the full list of available sites instantly and you can warp to them.
These anomalies also have a percentage chance to spawn NPC faction commanders, as well as escalate to other dungeons.
Entrapment
These are chance-based on signatures to gain access to DED complexes. Every level of upgrade increases your chances of finding both a signature and a higher level DED complex. Upon completion of running the site, there is the possibility of finding another one (no waiting until next downtime).
Quantum Flux Generator
This one is simple and every level increases your percentage chances to discover a wormhole in the system.
Strategic Upgrades
"These upgrades allow the anchoring and on-lining of the current and any future sovereignty dependant structures like Jump Bridges and Cyno Jammers."
These are the most familiar already to you, so I won't waste time detailing what each one of them does again. What I will say though is that there is great room for expansion in this area and we are going to try to make future strategic upgrades both interesting and dynamic.
Outpost Upgrades
One update to an old feature that we've revisited is that of being able to upgrade your player built outposts with expanded or additional functionality. Some of these upgrades are very useful but due to their past costs were deemed uneconomical. So, while the mechanic and feature itself will remain the same, we have greatly reduced the costs associated with the Pedestal and Monument Upgrade Platforms as well as the actual upgrades themselves.
Things we have changed based on your feedback
Your comments do make a difference so, in review, here is what we have done so far:
The Future
We realize that expectations for Dominion are high and we want to again say that the new sovereignty system we are introducing is a very big first step in what we want to be a continual iteration process. The upgrades we are making available in Dominion are just the beginnings of a system that we plan to expand upon in order to enable players to turn their sovereign space into hubs of economic activity or military fortresses.
- Abathur
So you want to be a pirate, eh? You want to work for those crusty dogs roaming the high seas of nullsec? You want to turn your back on the Empires – or at least get yours at their expense? Say no more! Now's your chance to earn some cred with those scalliwags of space: the NPC pirate factions.
We have two new epic arcs on the way for Dominion, both centered on pirate factions, namely the Guristas and the Angel Cartel. With these arcs, you can fly with the 'rats in 0.0, looting and plundering and fighting like only they know how. But first, I'll give you a brief description of both arcs:
Guristas arc, "Smash and Grab"
Not all is well in Venal, the home of the Guristas pirates. The Caldari Navy have slowly infiltrated the region, setting up small outposts and fleet bunkers in pirate territory, hoping to bring some sense of peace and order to the lawless area. But the Guristas have a plan, and they are enlisting you to aid in the pushback. Using guerilla tactics and stealthy maneuvers, you will assist the pirates as they engage the Navy in widespread sabotage. From the theft of secret ship design, to traversing Navy minefields, kamikaze warfare, double-crossing agents, and sadistic spies, you will aid the Guristas in their ongoing turf war in the outer limits of space.
Angels arc, "Angel Sound"
For years the Angel Cartel has been the undisputed master of both advanced and ancient technology among the pirate factions. But with the appearance of wormholes and the discovery of Sleeper technology, that advantage is at risk of disappearing. Cartel agents are recruiting capsuleers for missions of sabotage and destruction aimed at preserving the technological edge of the Angels. You will travel through Angel and Serpentis space, along the way destroying Sansha exploration teams, fighting off Gurista raids, and showing the Empires the dangers of encroaching into pirate space.
Because these arcs are predominantly based in nullsec, we have designed them to account for the play style and dangers that can be found in 0.0. Dubbing these arcs "speed boat arcs," we decided to focus the missions to be playable by and for Interceptors, although other frigate- and destroyer-sized ships can do these missions as well. Why Interceptors? Mainly, we wanted mission runners to be able to do these missions and avoid bubbles, gate camps, and the other hazards of 0.0 space. We can control the environment you experience in the missions, but we can't control the environment en route to those missions. Thus, we're making it so that these missions are still challenging yet playable with a PVP-fit Interceptor, but with a reduced risk of losing your ship. However, this is not to say that there is no risk in these missions; you are still in 0.0, after all. Fit your ship accordingly. The pirate's life is a dangerous one.
A few questions that are probably popping into your head (complete with answers!):
1. What are the standings requirements for these arcs? What if I don't have the proper standings to run it? I tanked my standings pretty bad, but I really want to play these! Can I?
he starting agents for this arc arcs are all Level 3, Quality 7. However, keep in mind that these missions are designed to be flown with Interceptors, so this is the relative difficulty measured in relation to Interceptors and other T2 Frigates, not (Battle)Cruisers or Battleships.
We understand that your pirate faction standings may be bad, and we've designed around that. Each pirate arc has four starting points for you to begin your swashbuckling adventure. There are multiple agents you can go to for each arc in order to start these epic arcs, including both empire agents and pirate agents. Thus, if you don't have Guristas standings, for example, but you do have high Caldari or Gallente standings, you can still run the Guristas arc. All you have to do is find the right initial agent to let you in the door.
Oh yeah, here are the agents:
Angel Sound
Starting Agents/Location:
| Agent | Faction | Corporation | System | Region |
| Aton Hordnert | Minmatar | Republic Security Services | Egbinger | Molden Heath (lowsec) |
| Arajna Ashia | Amarr | Amarr Navy | Sendaya | Derelik (lowsec) |
| Ellar Stin | Angel Cartel | Dominations | Konora | Metropolis (lowsec) |
| Abdiel Verat | Angel Cartel | Archangels | K-QWHE (Archangels Assembly Plant) | Curse (nullsec) |
Smash and Grab
Starting Agents/Location:
| Agent | Faction | Corporation | System | Region |
| Atma Aulato | Caldari | Ytiri | Obe | The Forge (lowsec) |
| Arment Caute | Gallente | Federal Intelligence Office | Orvolle | Placid (hisec) |
| Yada Vinjivas | Guristas Pirates | Guristas | Taisy | Lonetrek (lowsec) |
| Kori Latamaki | Guristas Pirates | Guristas | H-PA29 (M2 - Guristas Assembly Plant) | Venal (nullsec) |
2 Is it possible for me to lose standing with an Empire faction by running this arc?
Yes, it is certainly possible. You are running with the pirates, after all. Don't expect to curry any favors with the Caldari State by flying for the Guristas, for example. But, will we reward you with other booty? Yes, including increased standing with certain pirate factions. Pirates protect their own, you know.
3. Should I bring my faction Battleship to these missions? I have it really tricked out and ready for any level 4 mission.
I would not recommend this action. First, you will not be able to enter some of the deadspace pockets in the arc with your Battleship. (Though you can with your Interceptor.) Second, you are going to be a prime target for certain players in 0.0 space. Third, enter these arcs at your own risk. Nullsec is a much different beast than empire space, so don't treat these arcs like you would with other missions.
4. What about loot? Is there sweet loot to be had?
Absolutely. You'll get a pirate faction Cruiser BPC, along with tons of ISK and whatnot. Perhaps even a cool mod, like a Dread Guristas ECM Mulispectral Jammer or a Domination Target Painter.
5. What about standings? Will this arc repair my standings with the pirates?
Yep. Each pirate arc will give you a 30% standings gain as part of the reward. Consider it a sort of “redemption” mechanic: Running this arc will put you rather favorably in the eyes of the pirates, and you’ll be able to redeem yourself anew with those salty dogs. Even if you’ve tanked your standings to the point of no return, well, this may be your road to redemption.
6. Will you enjoy these arcs?
Yes. We most certainly believe you will.
-- CCP Jasonitas
The Slartibartfast team has been hard at work, both on our tans and on the new In-Game Browser (IGB). This is rather tough, as you might imagine: there's little sunlight in Iceland at this time of year, and the demands of web development are ever-changing. However, we wanted to recap some developments over the past couple weeks and describe the path that Moondoggie is currently on.
FanFest
We had a really great time meeting a number of IGB site developers and IGB users at FanFest 2009! It was very exciting to see some of the technology being developed for Moondoggie, and we had a number of frank and enlightening discussions with the developers of those sites.
For those who weren't able to attend, we gave a brief talk on the browser's technology stack, which you can view here.
JavaScript Gets Into Swimsuit Shape
One of the things that struck us at FanFest was the level of interest in the JavaScript capabilities of Moondoggie. I'm rather sad that we had to break a few hearts when we informed people that we weren't going to be able to offer synchronous, call-and-respond methods to site authors via JavaScript. However, we did take several suggestions under our wing and they should now be on SiSi for all to play with.
First, we were reminded that the JavaScript coding standard dictates that all method calls be camelCased with a lowercase first letter. This was a pretty simple change for us, but does require that sites change any backend JavaScript code they've written. A quick example: CCPEVE.ShowInfo(...) is now CCPEVE.showInfo(...).
We also added five new callbacks requested through various channels. One of the first we did was CCPEVE.requestTrust, which simulates the way the old IGB would prompt the user to trust a website that required it. The remaining four are CCPEVE.setDestination, CCPEVE.addWaypoint, CCPEVE.joinChannel andCCPEVE.joinMailingList. All four of these methods, as they materially affect the player's game experience, require that the user trust any websites attempting to call them. Without trust, they do nothing.
We switched out five of the JavaScript callbacks to not require trust, but have stricter restrictions on their input data and usage frequency. Included among these is CCPEVE.showInfo, which was rightly pointed out as essential for any EVE informational site.
You Trust Me, Baby, Don't'cha?
We've also changed the trust system a bit. We've cleaned up the management window, for one, which should make dealing with your trusted sites less confusing. We've also fixed up the ability to ignore sites which have requested, and been denied, trust before . The new Trust Request popup has an 'ignore forever' button - use that, and the website will never bother you again.
Clean Up Your Act
We've heard a number of concerns from power users who want to shut off plug-ins, cookies, caching and other various functions in Moondoggie.
Plug-ins are all disabled in Moondoggie, at the moment. They'll remain disabled for launch. And when I say "disabled" I do mean that they cannot run at all, and are not loaded into the browser. Yes, this includes Flash. We do want to enable them in the future, but if that happens, we will include options to shut them right back off.
We also recently added the ability to change the path to which you save your cache or cookies. At the moment, you can manually clear this out as often as you'd like. We'll soon be adding an option to disable caching to disk entirely. In either case, the browser will maintain an in-memory session history and a collection of session cookies, but these will be cleared when you close EVE.
In the future, we're considering creating a full-on "private browsing" feature, which would entirely prohibit Moondoggie from caching anything, cookies or otherwise, and would explicitly clear any history data that may exist upon closing the browser. Precisely when you can expect such a thing, I can't say.
Here Comes the Beach
At this point, we're leaving the wild, wild phase of feature development and moving on to the more measured, staid pace of release polishing. We know about a number of hairy problems with the browser, especially ones where pages flicker or flash. Now's the time to buckle all those under - and we could use your help. If you've tried Moondoggie on one of the latest SiSi builds and experienced some kind of graphical problem, please file a bug report and attach your DXDiag file; without that information, it's much more difficult for us to pinpoint these problems.
Thank you for your time, and, please, tip your waitresses!
- CCP Pleognost
Of the many changes being introduced in Dominion, there was none more thoroughly subjected to scrutiny than how ownership of star systems will change hands.
While the basic mechanics have remained the same, the actual flow of how conquest works has been under constant revision for weeks. This speaks highly of the solid work done on the Infrastructure system and how it will allow us to continue improving this aspect of the game in future releases.
To arrive at this point we have walked the design past all of our designers and discussed the various aspects at great length. Most importantly, we delayed finalizing this part of the design because we wanted to maximize our interactions with the EVE community. By reading your forum feedback, speaking with the CSM and listening to you at FanFest, it is reasonable to say that this feature of Dominion has had more influence from the players than any other we've done.
As I said earlier, there have been numerous iterations on this process. The whole idea is for the null-sec battlefield to be much more dynamic and force both attackers and defenders to make choices. To summarize the design at its most basic level, here are the primary goals we set out to achieve:
We have removed starbases from their previous role of being sovereignty structures. The old game of spamming towers and waiting seven days for them to negate another alliance's territorial claim are gone. In Dominion if you want to take someone else's land, you are going to have to fight tooth and nail for it.
Before we look at the actual path of conquest, there are a few new structures we need to introduce you to and explain their functionality.
Territorial Claim Units (TCUs)
This is your TCU:
When you enter an unclaimed system, you plant your TCU in order to establish a link with the stargates present and claim the system as your own. Your own alliance logo will be proudly displayed for all to see. Once your TCU is online, you will be responsible for the monetary upkeep of the system and your TCU will become an invalid target in the local data net. TCUs are the symbolic representation of your commitment to a star system in EVE. When your TCU falls, so does your control of the system.
Sovereignty Blockade Units (SBUs)
Depending on your approach to how you live in nul-sec, meet your new best friend / worst enemy. SBU(s) represent an attacker's intent to take away what is yours. They are the battering rams pounding on your doors... erm, stargates. When a SBU is onlined at a stargate, it disrupts the connection linking your TCU to them. If this is done at 51% of the gates in a system, your sovereignty control is in jeopardy and you've got some work to do (killing these things).
Infrastructure Hubs (I-Hubs)
Infrastructure Hubs are what allow you to develop your sovereign space. They are the key to making sure you can do everything from anchor Jump Bridges and Cyno Jammers to improving the spawn rates of certain types of anomalies and even affect the appearance of wormholes. Another blog will go into more detail about the upgrades and how the Hubs work but for now you need to know that the Infrastructure Hub is also one of the key defensive structures of your sovereignty.
New Reinforcement Mechanic
In Dominion, both Outposts and Infrastructure Hubs will have a dual reinforcement timer, one for shields and one for armor. Owners of the structures will be able to set a preferred time that they wish for them to come out of reinforced mode and then a random variable will be applied that determines the exact time they will exit reinforced.
This mechanic serves two purposes in that we do not want to see station ping pong return and we also want to try to mitigate ‘time zone warfare'.
How does all of this work?
Flowchart time!
As you can see, both Outposts and Infrastructure Hubs play a part in how a battle might play out. What is not immediately obvious is how SBU(s) can affect this dynamic. It is easiest to explain this by detailing the various conditions which can exist in a system and the different structures interdependencies. You can consider these the ‘rules' by which the chart above works.
Sovereignty
Capturing an Outpost, destroying an Infrastructure Hub or TCU does not grant the attacker sovereignty. Destroying the defender's TCU resets the system, opening it to TCU placement by either side. An Outpost can be taken, an Infrastructure Hub and the defender's TCU can be destroyed, but gaining sovereignty is entirely reliant on the attacker placing their own TCU.
Defensive structures (Outpost / Infrastructure Hub)
Both structures have dual reinforcement timers to avoid being blitzed by an attacking force.
The Outpost has 2x 48 hour reinforcement timers to ensure at least 4 days between it switching hands.
The Infrastructure Hub has 2x 24 hour reinforcement timers to ensure at least 2 days before it can be destroyed.
Offensive structures (SBUs)
Vulnerability states
SBU(s) are vulnerable while being anchored and onlining.
Once an Outpost and/or Infrastructure Hub is reinforced, the SBU(s) enter a parallel reinforcement cycle. That means that the SBU(s) are invulnerable as long as there are no vulnerable structures in system.
If the Outpost and Infrastructure Hub are vulnerable, so is the SBU(s). If the Infrastructure Hub is vulnerable and the outpost is not, then the SBU(s) are vulnerable. If the Outpost and Infrastructure Hub are vulnerable, so is the SBU(s).
Controlling the Gates
Should the attacker at any point lose control of a number of SBU(s) that makes the total number of gates covered less than 51%, the siege is considered over. The Outpost / Infrastructure Hub will revert to an invulnerable state until a time where the attacker re-establishes onlined SBU(s) at more than 51% of the system gates.
Systems with no Sovereignty but with an Outpost
Systems with Sovereignty but no Outpost or Infrastructure Hub
Systems with Sovereignty
Choices
As the attacker, do you go for your enemy's Outpost or his Hub? How much force do you commit to each objective, knowing that you also have to prevent the defender from eliminating your SBU(s) that are making his structures vulnerable?
As the defender, do you try to prevent your opponent from advancing further with an active defense of your structures? Or do you mount an all out counter-offensive against their SBU(s), risking your fleets to bring the siege to an early conclusion?
Transition from Apocrypha to Dominion
What's going to happen to my stuff?!
When Dominion launches on December 1st, your Cyno Jammers, Jump Bridges, Cyno Beacons and Capital Ship Assembly Arrays will all keep running. During downtime of Dominion patch day, we will run a script that checks to see if a system is held by an alliance. If it is, a TCU will be automatically anchored and onlined.
We are going to back-date each Alliance's sovereign claims into the new system so that they properly reflect the amount of time each system has been held. This allows you to meet any of the time requirements needed for certain structures.
You will then have seven days, until December 8th, to set up your Infrastructure Hubs and install the upgrades you wish to have. Essentially, there will be a week-long grace period before the new rules of the Infrastructure system apply to any structures which require an Infrastructure upgrade. This will allow you the time to do some shopping, build and install your desired upgrades and get your defenses in order.
When the grace period is turned off on December 8th, you will need to have the appropriate upgrades active in your systems, otherwise the structures which require them will go offline.
Future Iterations
From the beginning we wanted to ensure the new design would be able to incorporate new content or changes with minimal disruption to the day to day goings on of alliances in EVE. The choices above indicate only the beginning of what we can do with this new system. Once the dust settles and we see how the new system performs, we will begin to look at adding additional elements for both the attacker and defender to use.
There were many ideas we had to drop from Dominion or push back to a future release. The main reason for this is that when making changes on this scale we felt it best to ensure everything currently in game now worked properly before adding additional elements or layers.
Tweaking & Testing
We are working hard to get every bit of this into your hands on the test server so please watch the Test Server Forum for event announcements. We are monitoring your feedback on this feature very closely and will continue to refine it right up until Dominion launch day.
- Abathur
The 3rd Quarterly Economic Newsletter for EVE Online is now available. This issue has the standard economic indicator of population, ships flown in space, price level reports and market snapshots. The specific topic this time around is the latest news on "Unholy Rage," the Anti-RMT operation that has been ongoing for several months now.
The EVE economy is doing well with constant growth throughout 2009. As we see in this issue, the biggest changes to the economy have come either from operations against Real Money Traders in EVE or due to game design changes. When large external events like these happen they of course impact relative prices within EVE but the robustness of the market quickly allows prices to reflect these changes or shocks to the market. This might be a good lesson regarding our real life economies, showing that if we allow markets to adjust without intervention from governments they correct much quicker than when we try to steer prices to the "correct" level - given that the rules of the market are clear and that information flows relatively freely between agents on the market.
There are a lot of people that contribute to the QEN. The research and statistics team does most of the data mining and data analysis. The graphics team does the entire layout and provides us with the beautiful EVE pictures that are included in this volume. In addition, we get input from different units for our special session, this time around from the Law and Order unit within customer support. That unit has been in the trenches during operation Unholy Rage, fighting off the Real Money Traders.
Please enjoy this QEN and looking forward to the following discussion.
Dr.EyjoG
This blog will provide an overview and details on two parts of the new sovereignty system in Dominion. The upgrade system which unlocks resources or the ability to anchor strategic structures and the upkeep system which is the fortnightly bill your corporation will need to pay for each solar system you are managing on behalf of your alliance.
The Upkeep system is the fortnightly (14 days) sovereignty bill each corporation will receive for every solar system they are managing and replaces the role of starbase fuel costs in our new sovereignty system. The base cost is currently 20 million ISK a day and mirrors the approximate current daily operational fuel cost of five starbases fuel cost. On top of this base fee is an additional fee for the infrastructure hub and any strategic upgrade (the upgrades which allow you to anchor the current or future sovereignty limited structures).
This boils down to the table below when projecting your future bills:
These values including the names are very much open to further changes!
You must pay your first bill whilst the Territorial Claim Unit structure is being brought online. If the first bill is not paid during this period, the Territorial Claim Unit will not come online. You will then need to pay for each solar system every 14 days after that which will be listed as the 'sovereignty bill' for each solar system in your corporation wallet.
Your Territorial Claim Unit structure and Infrastructure Hub will go offline and therefore all your upgrades as you will effectively have lost sovereignty. It should be noted that assembly array jobs will pause, not cancel, if the starbase or capital ship assembly array goes offline now and any sovereignty dependant structures will similarly go offline like cynosural jammers and the like.
Many of you are aware of this addition on Singularity but to draw attention to this enhancement to the rest of you since it is appropriate we mention it whilst talking about bills. It will be possible with Dominion to have your regular rental bills of various sorts (office rental, alliance maintenance, sovereignty bills, war bills etc) automatically paid if you choose. This is setup in your corporation wallet > Bills tab. There you will see two new tabs: Automatically Paid and Automatic Pay Settings. In the latter tab, you can select which bills you would like to be automatically paid and for all bills which wallet division you would like it paid from.
Any current or future bills which you have setup to be automatically paid will then appear in the Automatically Paid tab as opposed to the regular Payable tab you are used to. In there you can see which are queued for payment and opt to manually pay them anyway if you desire.
The new system will try to pay the bill two days before the due date and then every four hours after this point. A notification mail will be sent to the accountants in the corp that you do not have the funds available to make payment with each failed payment attempt so that you have a chance to transfer money between divisions for example in time.
Figure 1: Screenshot of the new corporation wallet tabs for autopayment
If you have an infrastructure hub online in your solar system, you have the potential to install new infrastructure upgrades for that system. The upgrade interface is accessed through the context menu of the infrastructure hub when in range. There you will see a window detailing all the possible upgrades there are - the ones you have unlocked and can install if you so choose, the upgrades you have already installed and the upgrades you have not unlocked yet.
Installing the upgrades is easy, if it is unlocked, you can install it by being a station manager and dropping the upgrade from your cargo onto the upgrade in the menu as directed. You will get a classic "are you sure" confirmation and then it will be installed. If the upgrade is online, then it is providing the appropriate effects. If the installed upgrade is offline for whatever reason then it will have a red offline indicator.
Figure 2: Screenshot of the Infrastructure Hub Management window showing where you can monitor and install upgrades to your solar system
There are three types of upgrade linked to the index which forms the biggest part of their pre-requisites to unlock them:
- Strategic - allow the anchoring and onlining of the current and any future sovereignty dependant structures like jump bridges and cyno jammers
- Military - allow your systems to have additional anomalies and other exploration dungeons within your space such as encounters and complexes and wormholes
- Industry - allow your systems to have additional hidden asteroid belts and mini-profession sites
You can see in the sovereignty dashboard and infrastructure hub that the three indices all have five levels. The pre-requisites to installing any upgrade require that you have some level in one of these indices much like how the skill system works.
The sovereignty index is one you should all be familiar with which is identical to the current sovereignty level system you have now and is based on days you have held sovereignty for according to the following scheme
Lvl 1 = sov held for 7 days
Lvl 2 = sov held for 21 days
Lvl 3 = sov held for 35 days
Lvl 4 = sov held for 65 days
Lvl 5 = sov held for 100 days
The levels at which each strategic upgrade is unlocked is the same as the current sovereignty level limited structures.
The industry and military indices are activity based, where the level you reach and the rate you reach it at are based upon maintaining a certain activity level within your solar system. It does not matter who performs the activities in your space though we do show in the sovereignty dashboard who the top contributors are. These index levels are required for the Military and Industrial upgrades so if you are looking to increase the resource levels within your solar system then you need to be performing the related activity to begin with.
If your activity rate decreases or stops then the activity indices may decay to the point where some of your upgrades may go offline as you no longer meet the prerequisite activity level. In that case you will find fewer resources in your space but if you are consequently not utilising the existing resources anyway due to whatever reason, this may not be a bad thing.
The industrial index is based upon two activities taking place within your solar system. These are mining and mini-professions are based around the volume of ore mined and the successful use of hacking or archaeology modules within your space.
The military index is based upon killing NPCs, a favourite past time of many of you and you get more points, the bigger the NPC is. Simple and straightforward!
Note the names for the upgrades are not final!
Pirate Magnets - add two additional guaranteed anomalies per level to your solar system
Ore Prospecting Array - adds one additional guaranteed hidden asteroid site per level to your solar system
Entrapment - increase the chance significantly of a DED complex being located in the depths of your solar system
Survey Networks - increase the chance significantly of mini-profession sites being located within your solar system
Quantum Flux Generator - increase the chance significantly of a wormhole being discovered within your solar system to w-space.
Resource upgrades cost a relatively small amount of ISK (we are looking at a range of 50-500 million ISK) to purchase and require a certain existing appropriate activity level. The last and important cost is the effort to utilise the resource once it is unlocked and that is up to you to match the resource levels to your required solar system activity levels and how concentrated you want your space to be.
With Dominion, you will have the power to improve your space as you choose and gain increasing power over these choices. In the future we are looking to add more upgrades as new content is developed and to create even more options and paths to upgrade your system along.
As with anything in development, the final figures may change before release to Tranquillity. Your feedback and questions are welcome as always.
Ave - Chronotis
The election of the fourth CSM in EVE has drawn to a close, and the application period has now been concluded.
Following are the results from the candidacy application period.
The statistics.
Like with CSM1, CSM2 and CSM3 candidacy applications, the main reasons for rejections were passport issues (either not supplied or expired), EULA violations and Internet lolsters.
The list of applicants will be published Friday, October 30, 2009 and will be viewable from this section.
We are truly looking forward to the campaign and we wish the best of luck to the candidates in the upcoming elections which will be open November 12 through November 26, 2009.
One of the features that I am personally most excited about for the upcoming Dominion expansion (well, not counting the new browser, the sovereignty changes, the awesome new graphics...).
Let me try that again: A thing that I'm reasonably excited about is a cute little feature that we call the Fleet Finder.
What's even cooler is that we took the opportunity and worked on the overall fleet UI and some of the basic fleet functionality like the broadcasts.
This is something we've been iterating on for a while and it‘s running on Singularity as we speak. If I were you I‘d stop reading right now and go play with it!
Still here? Okay, fine, let's go through the highlights then.
One of the things you'll notice straight away is the new "Fleet" button on your NeoCom. This will allow you to access everything fleet related in a single window. We've combined the broadcast and the fleet window in one and added the Fleet Finder into it as well. This approach is much more user-friendly and should be helpful to newer pilots who are finding their footing in Eve.
You are able to completely close the Fleet window without exiting your fleet. I'm pretty sure that this will come in handy for people in large, 200+ man person fleets because updating the fleet member list is a bit laggy with that many people (this is something we're looking into).
The Fleet Finder allows you to advertise your fleet to your friends and allies. They can then join the fleet without requiring an invitation, or you can set up your advert in such a way that you will need to approve each application to the fleet, whichever way you prefer.
The Fleet Finder will be extremely useful for alliances and corporations as a way to gather people up for a war. No more "x up in corp channel" messages. :-)
You can set up your Fleet Advert to allow people in your corporation, alliance or even those outside your alliance to join (providing you have set their standing to positive). You can also use the standing constraint along with the scope constraint. This will allow you to open up your fleet to people in your alliance, but only those above a certain standing, for example.
Another play style which will benefit from the Fleet Finder is Factional Warfare. Few things are as frustrating as waiting a whole evening for someone to invite you into a FW fleet when you know there's pew pew'ing all around you but no one answers your 'x me up plz, lolz!' cries.
People looking for fleets can filter by distance to fleet boss, scope (corp, alliance, etc), and their standing to the fleet boss, making it easy to find a fleet in your vicinity. Not to worry though. For the paranoid out there the boss can hide his location and the size of the fleet.
The Fleet Finder usurps the old "Open fleet" functionality where you would set your fleet to be "open" to your corporation or alliance and could then paste a link into chat for people to join your fleet. This feature has now been removed.
However, if you register your fleet in the Fleet Finder you can drag it (either from the advert list or from the 'my advert' tab) into the chat window to achieve the same functionality that you're used to with the old open fleets. This is one of the many things that we added to this feature after getting feedback from you, the players.
We're changing the way that broadcasts work. Previously the type of broadcast would dictate who would be able to receive it. Despite making perfect sense to us at the time the rules turned out to be extremely convoluted and no one really understood them. This time around, as CCP Greyscale so eloquently put it, "we're taking advantage of the fact that our players are not morons."
So, with that in mind we're putting the power into your hands. When you send any type of Fleet Broadcast you decide who should receive it. You can choose between superiors, subordinates and everyone. Your current broadcast mode is displayed prominently in the UI and you can assign a shortcut key to cycle between them.
Here is how the recipient rules will work for squad members for example:
In addition, the type of broadcast dictates the range of the broadcast like before. The possible ranges are Proximity, Solar System and Global.
If you open up the broadcast settings window or look at received broadcasts in your history tab you will see the range of each broadcast type.
Since the broadcasts have been revamped in such a way that the broadcast sender chooses his/her recipients the scout role is no longer needed since all it did was allow a fleet member to send the "enemy spotted" broadcast to everyone. Therefore we have removed that role.
As before, the recipient can choose which broadcasts to listen to and it's much easier to manage your broadcasts than it was previously. All in all, the broadcasts should be much more useful than before.
This is a pretty handy little feature that we're adding into Dominion. When you create your fleet you can set it up in Loot Logging mode. When this is active all loot events are sent to members of the fleet making it very easy to divide the spoils after that trip into wormhole space.
You can even export the loot log to disk so that you can collect all the info in excel and make pretty graphs of all the money you're making.
This is a completely optional feature and is something that the Fleet Creator specifies when the fleet is created. People don't have to use this feature if they don't want to but chances are that a lot of pilots will find this useful since trust isn't exactly something that New Eden is brimming with ;-)
We have spent a lot of time tying the fleet feature together as a useful tool to manage in-space relationships. It should be much more user-friendly than before.
For example, every entry has a relevant right click menu and there are context-sensitive tooltips with additional information on many of the elements. In addition, we've added a new "Member History" tab which shows you the history of joins, leaves and role changes (added because of player feedback).
We are also working on the welcome page and will provide new wiki pages on how to use the feature from a-ö (a weird Icelandic letter at the end of our alphabet).
There is a lot of little things here and there that you might not necessarily realize when you're using the feature but all in all it's a smoother ride.
As I said, we've received some marvellous feedback on the forums for the fleet feature and much of it has been incorporated into the system already.
Some of the things which you have asked for that haven't made it in yet include the ability for fleet members to see the location of the Fleet Commander or Boss, the ability for commanders to see the location and ship types of their subordinates and more usability tweaks here and there.
Another important addition is to allow people to quickly rejoin a fleet if they get disconnected (or try to activate an easter egg by holding down the control key and typing QWERTY).
These all seem very fair to us and is something that we are considering along with possibly new broadcasts and more usability tweaks.
We have been working on these new Fleet features based very much on player feedback. A lot of the usability tweaks that we did was done because you asked us to. This is one of those features that's there to make your lives easier. If there is something you want to add or change please let us know.
All this is either on Singularity now or on its way there in the next few days. Go there and play around with it, and give us feedback on the forums. Together we can make this feature better and better with each iteration.
So, step one: Go to Singularity and try it out.
Step two: Forum rage, and we'll see what we can do. :-)
Jon Bjarnason
Technical Director
EVE Online, CCP Games