Size Matters: Introducing Burner Missions
Hello again indomitable capsuleers! This is CCP Fozzie bringing you another dev blog with more features coming in our August 26th Hyperion release.
Today we’ll be talking about a new type of level 4 security mission that we’ll be bringing you in the Hyperion release. We anticipate that these new so-called “Burner Missions” will provide an exciting twist on the normal level 4 mission experience.
These missions pit you against pirate “Burners”, pilots trained by the five major pirate factions that have set off on their own and become a seemingly omnipresent danger to shipping in the cluster’s shipping. The leadership of the pirate factions are not taking responsibility for these violent activities, but rumors are spreading throughout the seedy underbelly of New Eden that suggest these pilots may not be quite as independent as their former employers would suggest.
Whatever their motives, it has become abundantly clear that these Burners are much more dangerous than the average pirate. They are frigate specialists, making use of modified capsuleer-grade technology and tactics as they strike out from their hidden bases across New Eden. They have nimbly evaded all of CONCORD’s attempts to root them out, and now security agents all across the universe are requesting the aid of capsuleers who are willing to fly the small but powerful vessels that can infiltrate their bases and bring an end to the Burners’ killing sprees.
Burner Missions will be available from the normal level 4 security mission pool, issued by agents across highsec, lowsec and nullsec space. There are a few unique features that set Burner Missions apart from the ones you may be used to:
- Burner Missions are 100% optional. There will be no standings penalty for turning down or failing these missions. Your friendly neighborhood security agent knows that not every capsuleer will have the equipment or skills to take on these missions and won’t be offended if you decline.
- Burner Missions can only be completed in frigate-sized ships. The pirate Burners operate from bases protected by acceleration gates that only allow access for frigates. All types of frigates (Tech One, Tech Two and Faction) can enter the bases.
- Burner Missions pit you against a single enemy NPC. This NPC is an extremely powerful frigate with stats based on those of a player flying a pirate frigate with officer/deadspace gear, pirate implants, and command links. All of these NPCs use warp disruption, and most of them use scramblers that turn off microwarpdrives the same way player scramblers do.
When agents give you one of these missions, they will provide you with extensive information about what you can expect to face. These instructions allow you to design and build a ship fitting that effectively counters the Burner. An example of the information provided could look something like this:
"This pirate will be flying a shield boosted Dramiel frigate, with an extremely small signature radius. He tends to deal most of his damage with Domination Fusion ammo, supplemented with Mjolnir rockets. Survivors of his previous attacks claim that he likes to orbit his opponents at very close range at high speed to make himself hard to hit. He always flies with a Stasis Webifier and Warp Scrambler fit."
From this information you might decide to find a frigate fit that has high resists to explosive damage, decent resists for kinetic and EM damage, and that can effectively track small fast targets.
All of these missions will feature rewards that are quite lucrative, particularly considering the short time investment required to complete the mission, making the risk and difficulty very worthwhile. The Burners also have a very small chance to drop valuable faction modules.
Players are welcome to bring a friend to help them out in these missions, or to discuss and share tactics with the rest of the community. The fact that these missions can only be received as part of the random level 4 security mission pool should prevent them from being too farmable.
In the Hyperion release we expect to deploy five Burner Missions, one for each of the major pirate factions. Here’s a taste of the opponents that you can expect in each of them.
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If this initial wave of Burner Missions is successful, we will consider expanding the concept with more frigate enemies (EAFs anyone?) and possibly even cruiser sized versions.
We expect that these missions will provide a fun and engaging bit of variety to the lives of mission runners in EVE, and that they will allow players to make use of some ships and tactics that otherwise wouldn’t be part of their everyday EVE experience.
We look forward to hearing your feedback on these mission in the feedback thread. What are you looking forward to most about these Burner Missions? What do you think could be improved about the concept? What kinds of new mission types would you like to see us add next?
These Burner Missions will be showing up in your agent offers starting with the Hyperion release on August 26th. To see even more about all the improvements that are coming with Hyperion, check out CCP Seagull’s dev blog here.
Fly safe!
-CCP Fozzie
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