Equinox: Expansion Notes | EVE Online

Equinox: Expansion Notes

2024-06-07 - Von EVE Online Team

Hello spacefriends! 

The Equinox expansion is just around the corner, arriving at 11:00 UTC 11 June! As with previous expansions, we are delivering the patch notes early so you can absorb everything that's coming. We invite you to join the player discussion about the content of this release on the EVE Online Discord and the EVE Online Forums

Expansion Notes 22.01 - EVE Online: Equinox

Nullsec Sov ChangesOrbital SkyhookSovereignty HubTerritorial Claim Unit Sov UpgradesSovereignty Hub TransitionMetenox Moon DrillNew Upwell Haulers and FreighterBalance ChangesGraphicsSKINR Ship PersonalizationCorporation ProjectsImproved AIR Daily GoalsShip EmphasisHomefront OperationsPvEManufacturing

Nullsec Sov Changes

The Equinox expansion introduces significant updates to nullsec sovereign space, with Upwell structures, notably the Orbital Skyhook, Sovereignty Hub, and Metenox Moon Drill.

Orbital Skyhooks, replacing Customs Offices, will be essential for extracting new resources like Power, Workforce, and Reagents from planets. However, this also introduces a new vulnerability as some of these structures can be hacked, and all of them can be destroyed by players, creating new opportunities for conflict and resource theft. Furthermore, their presence attracts pirate attention, adding another layer of risk.

The Sovereignty Hub replaces existing territorial structures and introduces upgrades to enhance player-controlled nullsec systems. These upgrades offer strategic choices for specializing controlled systems, leading to territorial conflicts and dynamic gameplay. For instance, the Pirate Detection Array upgrade can reveal high-value combat sites with escalation potential, while other upgrades unlock hidden ore deposits. Additionally, the Metenox Moon Drill, a new deployable structure, allows automated moon mining in lowsec, nullsec, and wormhole space, opening up resource opportunities for smaller groups and creating new targets for aggressors.

Orbital Skyhook

Replacing the Customs Office, the Orbital Skyhook takes the form of an anchor, and will be required to extract resources from planets. It not only replaces but retains the functionality of the Customs Office as a resource interface for planetary industry, but also enables the extraction of new colony resources introduced with Equinox. Skyhooks can be attached to all planet types, but only within player-owned sovereign nullsec space, and only one can be placed in orbit of each planet.

  • Power - Power is provided by the sun, with larger blue suns giving the most power, and small orange suns giving the least power, it is also provided by gas, storm and plasma planets. Power cannot be moved and is local to the solar system.

  • Workforce - Workforce is provided by the working population available on suitable planets, which are barren, oceanic and temperate planets. Workforce can be imported and exported via the Sov Hub through different solar systems that the same alliance controls, as long as the systems are directly connected together.

  • Reagents - Reagents come from ice and lava planets and have to be manually collected and moved.

    • Magmatic Gas - Is provided by lava planets and is used to fuel the Metenox moon drill, as well as the Cynosural Navigation (Pharolux cyno beacon) and the Cynosural Suppression (Tenebrex cyno jammer) upgrades.

    • Superionic Ice - Is provided by ice planets and is used to fuel the Advanced Logistics Network (Ansiblex Jump Gate) and the Supercapital Construction Facilities upgrades.

  • Take Access to the Reagent Bay is governed by an ACL on the Skyhook, which can be set by players with the Station Config Manager role, Directors or the CEO of a corporation.

  • Immature Reagents will be produced over time from Skyhooks anchored at lava and ice planets, and will slowly become mature, at which point they can be extracted by players. Skyhook maturation yield will gradually improve over time as their immature bay fills up. If a Skyhook is stolen from, then the thief will steal 40% of both the immature and mature bay contents and will destroy the rest. This loss resets the improved ramping maturation yield, making defending Skyhooks important.

  • Reagents can be stolen by linking to the Skyhook Reagent Silo which is present at Skyhooks that are harvesting reagents from ice and lava planets. To link to a Silo, players will need to shoot it to below 10% Shield HP first, and then will need to link to it using a ship which is cruiser sized or larger including Capital ships but excluding Freighters and Jump Freighters. While linked, players cannot warp, use micro jump drives, cloak or tether, and their maximum velocity is capped at 1000m/s. Additionally, starting a theft on a Skyhook Silo will send a notification to all players in the solar system, and after 2 minutes, all pilots 1 jump away, and finally, after 5 minutes, an additional notification to all pilots within 2 jumps. After 10 minutes have passed, the theft will succeed, and a cargo bay will eject loot from the Silo for anyone to collect.

  • The Orbital Skyhook has a single reinforcement cycle, with similar hitpoints, resistances and damage cap to existing upwell medium structures, such as the Raitaru and Athanor.

  • Corporations who own a Customs Office at a planet can replace it with a Skyhook by going to their Customs Office and deploying a Skyhook. The Customs Office will then be replaced with a Skyhook and all the PI commodities inside the custom office will automatically be transferred into the Skyhook.

  • If a corporation wants to deploy a Skyhook at a planet which contains another corporations Customs Office, they will need to destroy the Customs Office before they can deploy a Skyhook.

  • Pirate Asteroid Belt NPCs can show up at Skyhooks.

  • Blueprint Originals for the Skyhook can be obtained from all Upwell Consortium corporation member NPC stations for an ISK cost of 5.5 billion ISK.

For those interested in seeing the values for Power, Workforce and Reagents for all the nullsec systems in New Eden + SOV upgrade costs, you can download a spreadsheet with all that juicy info here: Equinox System Resource Data!

Orbital Skyhook Input Material Requirements:

Structure Construction Parts

1

Structure Storage Bay

2

Structure Reprocessing Plant

1

Structure Office Center

1

Structure Acceleration Coils

2


Sovereignty Hub

A new modular structure that is dedicated to governing a star system and the colonies and infrastructure it contains. The Sovereignty Hub will be the center of operations for capsuleer alliances for the control of nullsec systems.

  • The Sovereignty Hub is placed around the star in a system and is the central location for installing and managing sovereignty upgrades. Authorized capsuleers can interact with the Sovereignty Hub to allocate colony resources to installed upgrades.

    • On expansion day, all existing Infrastructure Hubs will be replaced with the new SovHubs graphics, name and description, and their location will automatically be moved 2,000,000km from the sun.

Territorial Claim Unit

  • TCUs will continue to represent the legacy claim in a system that hasn't yet had a Sovereignty Hub deployed, or where the IHub hasn't yet transitioned.

  • New TCUs can no longer be deployed or captured if they were previously deployed but not captured.

  • Any ongoing TCU campaigns will be cancelled.

  • TCUs can no longer be targeted by entosis and so cannot be used to remove a claim.

  • Instead, an attacker must usurp the claim by capturing the Sovereignty Hub in the system.

Sov Upgrades

  • Sovereignty Upgrades provide the primary use for the new Colony Resources: Power, Workforce, and Reagents, as Colony Resources are required to online these upgrades.

  • All of the Sov Upgrades BPOs for the Sov Hub in the new Sovereignty mode will be available for purchase on the market on expansion day and can be built ahead of time.

    • They will not, however, be able to be installed or functional until the Sov Transition is enabled on 20 June 2024. - more on that later in the blog.

List of Sov Upgrades

  • Supercapital Construction Facilities - Allows construction of super-capital ships.

  • Advanced Logistics Network - Allows Ansiblex Jump Gate service module to be put online.

  • Cynosural Suppression - Allows Tenebrex Cyno Jammer service module to be put online.

  • Cynosural Navigation - Allows Pharolux Cyno Beacon service module to be put online.


New Mining sites that the Prospecting Arrays can provide

  • Veldspar Deposit - Contains an abundance of Veldspar.

  • Mordunium Deposit - Contains a new ore Mordunium that is abundant in Pyerite.

  • Kylixium Deposit - Contains a new ore Kylixium that is abundant in Mexallon and contains amounts of Tritanium and Pyerite.

  • Griemeer Deposit - Contains a new ore Griemeer that is abundant in Isogen and Tritanium.

  • Nocxite Deposit - Contains a new ore Nocxite that is abundant in Nocxium and contains amounts of Tritanium and Pyerite.

  • Hezorime Deposit - Contains a new ore Hezorime that is abundant in Zydrine and contains amounts of Tritanium and Isogen.

  • Ueganite Deposit - Contains a new ore Ueganite that is abundant in Megacyte and Tritanium.

These new Ore Deposits will not require new skills to mine.

Undiscovered Asteroid Belt Escalation

  • Additionally, players completing any of the above asteroid belts have a small chance to get the first ever mining escalation! This site contains a massive amount of all types of Ore.


Forsaken Sanctum

A set of new more challenging and rewarding combat anomalies have been added and are exclusively available through the new Major Threat Detection Array upgrades at the Sovereignty Hub. These sites are known as Forsaken Sanctums for the main pirate factions, and Teeming Drone Hordes for the Rogue Drones.

  • These new sites include larger numbers of higher difficulty NPCs than the existing Sanctum and Drone Horde anomalies, and some of the new NPCs will shoot at drones and fighters more readily than the NPCs in existing nullsec combat anomalies. These sites are especially well suited to be defeated by capsuleers flying battleships and marauders.

New Escalation sites that can spawn from combat anomalies

"A combat site where the player will encounter a.."

  • Angel Shielded Starbase

  • Blood Shielded Starbase

  • Guristas Shielded Starbase

  • Sansha Shielded Starbase

  • Serpentis Shielded Starbase

  • Drone Infested Starbase


Sovereignty Hub Transition

For an in-depth explanation of the SovHub transition, you can visit the Sovereignty, Structures & Transition devblog.

(Planned for 20 June 2024)

The Sovereignty Hub’s capabilities grow as upgrades are added for coordinating defense, industry, resources, and logistics. Each dedicated upgrade requires a mix of colony resources in the form of workforce, power, and reagents, and apart from the base power generated from the stellar flux, these must be provided by planetary exploitation through the new Orbital Skyhooks.

  • The Sovereignty Hub will generate some amount of energy for the system. The amount of energy generated by this structure is determined by an attribute on the star.

  • When a SovHub registers the claim (either a new one, or due to transition) any TCU in the system will be destroyed.

Upgrades

(Planned for 20 June 2024)

  • Once an alliance has deployed a new Sov Hub in Sov Hub mode or chosen to transition their Sov Hub from IHub Mode to Sov Hub Mode, they are then able to install the new upgrades listed above.

  • Upgrades cannot be installed if the energy cost of installed upgrades (regardless of state) would exceed the potential energy which the system could produce (assuming all planets had skyhooks installed).

  • Upgrades cannot be uninstalled once installed. They can be turned offline, but the only way to remove them is to destroy them like a ship rig, which is only doable by capsuleers with the appropriate roles to do.

  • Upgrades can be prioritized, capsuleers with the appropriate roles can do this. Higher priority upgrades are served first for available colony resources (energy, population and consumables). This gives the player control over which upgrades go offline first in case of resource shortfall where all installed upgrades do not have the necessary resources to run. An example of where a shortfall could happen would be a skyhook being destroyed.

Metenox Moon Drill

(Planned for 13 June 2024)

Another deployable structure being introduced is the Metenox Moon Drill. Fueled in part by fuel blocks and also by Magmatic Gas harvested from lava planets. This structure can be deployed at moon mining points in lowsec, nullsec, and wormhole space. The Metenox will be less efficient than manual extraction by players using an Athanor or Tatara, but instead, it slowly collects the resources obtained from mining and refining moon ores over time at a rate of 40% efficiency. Players can control who has access to take the moon materials it harvests with an ACL.

  • The Metenox Moon Drill features a unique reinforcement flow. Once it has been deployed, the Metenox will not have automatic repairs like other Upwell Structures, instead, players will need to manually repair the shield and armor if it gets attacked. The Metenox has a single reinforcement cycle in Hull, once it leaves reinforcement, it will need to be repaired to 100% Shield OR 100% Armor HP in order to fully repair itself and gain the reinforcement cycle back and be able to have the service module turned on again, the Metenox does not have a damage cap like other Upwell Structures, and instead behaves a lot more like an old moon mining POS prior to the Lifeblood expansion.

  • Shield HP: 1,000,000 (4,000,000 when high power), 75% resists.

  • Armor HP: 1,000,000 (4,000,000 high power), 75% resists.

  • Hull HP: 24,000,000, 0% resists

  • The Metenox provides no defenses, weaponry or tether ability.

  • Only a single Metenox, Athanor or Tatara can be at the same moon mining location at any time.

  • If a Metenox is reinforced, the moon materials it has in the Moon Mineral hangar are trapped and will be dropped as loot when it is destroyed.

  • Metenox moon Drills will require an Integrated Moon Drill Armature to be built, and will always drop it at a 100% rate, this functions as a built in Upwell Quantum Core. The cost of the core is 300 million ISK in Upwell Consortium member stations.

  • The Metenox Moon Drill blueprint is available from Upwell member NPC stations for 6 billion ISK.

Metenox Moon Drill Blueprint Manufacturing Input Materials:

Structure Construction Parts

3

Structure Storage Bay

1

Structure Reprocessing Plant

1

Structure Office Center

1

Integrated Moon Drill Armature

1


New Upwell Haulers and Freighter

As part of the Equinox expansion, 4 brand new upwell themed industrial ships are being released. These include a Hauler, two additional tech II hauler variations for a blockade runner and deep space transport, as well as a capital-sized Freighter. These ships feature the brand-new Infrastructure hold, high amounts of missile firepower for their size and above average speeds.

Squall

Upwell Hauler:

  • 10% bonus to ship infrastructure hold capacity

  • 20% bonus to missile damage

Role bonus:

  • 90% reduction to effective distance traveled for jump fatigue

  • Can link to Orbital Skyhook reagent silos bypassing the normal ship restrictions


Deluge

Upwell Hauler:

  • 10% bonus to ship infrastructure hold capacity

  • 15% bonus to missile damage

Transport Ships:

  • 5% bonus to warp speed and warp acceleration

  • 20% reduction in Cloaking Devices CPU requirement

Role Bonus:

  • 90% reduction to effective distance traveled for jump fatigue

  • Can fit Covert Ops Cloaking Device and Covert Cynosural Field Generator

  • Cloak reactivation delay reduced to 5 seconds

  • Immune to all Cargo Scanners

  • Can link to Orbital Skyhook reagent silos bypassing the normal ship restrictions


Torrent

Upwell Hauler:

  • 10% bonus to ship infrastructure hold capacity

  • 25% bonus to missile damage

Transport Ships:

  • 5% bonus to fleet hangar capacity

  • 4% bonus to all shield resistances

Role Bonus:

  • 2.0 + bonus to ship warp core strength

  • 100 % bonus to the benefits of overheating Afterburners, Microwarpdrives, Local Repair Modules, Resistance Modules, Nosferatu Modules and Energy Neutralizer Modules

  • 90% reduction to effective distance traveled for jump fatigue

  • Can link to Orbital Skyhook reagent silos bypassing the normal ship restrictions


Avalanche

Upwell Freighter:

  • 10% bonus to ship infrastructure hold capacity

  • 10% bonus to Missile Damage

  • 20% bonus to auto-targeting missile damage

Role bonuses:

  • 10 % bonus to kinetic and thermal missile damage

  • 90% reduction to effective distance traveled for jump fatigue.
    90% reduction in Capital Flex Shield Hardener capacitor activation cost and powergrid requirements

  • Unable to use cloaking modules

  • Can link to Orbital Skyhook reagent silos bypassing the normal ship restrictions


Infrastructure Hold

The Infrastructure hold is a brand-new type of specialized cargo hangar which is capable of carrying a large number of infrastructure related items. This includes upwell related structures such as citadels and flex structures, structure modules, service modules, fuel related items, sovereignty infrastructure, sovereignty upgrades, reagents, moon materials, planetary commodities and more.

Skill Requirements

We are adding 3 new skills related to the Upwell Hauling ships, this includes one skill for flying the medium sized hauler and the tech 2 variations, one skill for the Upwell Freighter, and an additional skill for inventing and building the Tech II Variations.

  • Upwell Haulers [x4]: 2,000,000 ISK at all Upwell Consortium member corporation stations.

  • Upwell Freighters [x10]: 80,000,000 ISK at all Upwell Consortium member corporation stations.

  • Upwell Starship Engineering [x5]: 10,000,000 ISK and 15,000 LP at Factional Warfare Empire Militia LP Stores.

  • Upwell Haulers is required to fly the Squall Tech 1 Hauler at level 1 and needs to be trained to level 5 in order to fly the Deluge and Torrent Tech II Transport Ships.

  • Upwell Freighters is required to fly the Avalanche Freighter.

  • Upwell Starship Engineering is required to run an invention job on a Squall blueprint copy and needed to manufacture tech II blueprint copies of the Deluge and Torrent Transport Ships.


Balance Changes

Carriers

Carriers have been struggling to find a healthy spot in the ecosystem for quite a while now. They were incredibly powerful in the past when they had godlike application that made them the best option to always bring even over other sub-capital counters, and it was often better to bring a Carrier to counter a group of a frigates rather than destroyers or rapid light cruisers etc. After the application nerf, and adjustments to the cost of capital ships they’ve struggled because they don’t have a well-defined role. Revamped Marauders and Dreadnoughts have made those the superior PVE options for CRAB beacons and Haven/Sanctum ratting and the better choice for PVP when it comes to fighting both sub-capitals and capitals, pushing carriers out of the meta.

Our aim here is to give them a more defined role as a platform that specializes in fleet/troop transport and shaping the battlefield through powerful positioning tools.

Carrier Conduit Jump

  • Carriers will now have the capability of using a Conduit jump to take 5-30 players in the jump tunnel with them. The Number of players which are passengers for the jump is increased by a new skill, Capital Jump Portal Generation, which increases the limit by 5 per level. This is built into Carriers and does not require a module to be fitted.

    • Prerequisite will be Jump Portal Generation V, with a training multiplier of 14x. Purchase location will be in the standard empire schools for the price of 250m.

  • Ships which can be passengers for a conduit jump include all variations (Including Faction, T2, T3 etc.) of Corvettes, Frigates, Destroyers, Cruisers, Battlecruisers and Battleships.

Capital Micro Jump Drives and Capital Micro Jump Field Generators

  • Carriers will gain the ability to fit new capital sized versions of the Micro Jump Drive and the Micro Jump Drive Field Generator, both of these modules will require a new skill, Capital Micro Jump Drive Operation.

  • The Capital Micro Jump Drive jumps a Carrier 250km in whatever direction it is facing.

  • The Capital Micro Jump Field Generator will jump a Carrier, 50 extra sub-capitals, and up to 4 capitals around it (Capitals are counted separately to sub-capitals) 250km in whatever direction it is facing.

    • This can move ships which are in siege! Such as Sieged Dreads, Triage mode FAX and Rorquals with cores active!

    • After the jump completes, all ships moved by the jump are scrammed for 5 seconds and unable to be moved again by MJD / MJFG until the effect expires.

    • Both modules can be stopped by warp scramblers and scripted Heavy Interdictor Warp Disruption Field Generators.

  • The Networked Sensor Array will block the activation of a CMJD / CMJFG module by the ship it is activated on. A carrier may still be moved by another ship activating a CMJFG while its NSA is active.

  • The skill books are located in all empire school stations and can be purchased from the character sheet directly.

    • Cost: 250 million ISK from an empire school stations, or 325 million ISK from the character sheet.

    • Blueprints for both new modules will be found in Data sites.

Only one of these modules can be fit on a Carrier at any given time.

12 New Faction Light and Support Fighters have been added to the game. Navy Faction fighters feature significantly higher hitpoints than Tech 1 and Tech II fighters, but have slightly lower firepower and ewar strength than tech II fighters. Blueprint copies for the fighters can be found exclusively in empire Factional Warfare militia LP stores.

  • Imperial Navy Templar Blueprint (10x runs), 150,000 LP, 150,000,000 ISK / 24th Imperial Crusade

  • Caldari Navy Dragonfly Blueprint (10x runs), 150,000 LP, 150,000,000 ISK / State Protectorate

  • Federation Navy Firbolg Blueprint (10x runs), 150,000 LP, 150,000,000 ISK / Federation Defense Union

  • Republic Fleet Einherji Blueprint (10x runs), 150,000 LP, 150,000,000 ISK / Tribal Liberation Force

  • Imperial Navy Equite Blueprint (15x runs), 180,000 LP, 180,000,000 ISK / 24th Imperial Crusade

  • Caldari Navy Locust Blueprint (15x runs), 180,000 LP, 180,000,000 ISK / State Protectorate

  • Federation Navy Satyr Blueprint (15x runs), 180,000 LP, 180,000,000 ISK / Federation Defense Union

  • Republic Fleet Gram Blueprint (15x runs),180,000 LP, 180,000,000 ISK / Tribal Liberation Force

  • Imperial Navy Cenobite Blueprint (5x runs), 100,000 LP, 100,000,000 ISK / 24th Imperial Crusade

  • Caldari Navy Scarab Blueprint (5x runs), 100,000 LP, 100,000,000 ISK / State Protectorate

  • Federation Navy Siren Blueprint (5x runs), 100,000 LP, 100,000,000 ISK / Federation Defense Union

  • Republic Fleet Dromi Blueprint (5x runs), 100,000 LP, 100,000,000 ISK / Tribal Liberation Force


Targeted Doomsday Weapons

  • Damage increased from 1 million to 2 million.

    • This means that a max skilled Titan Doomsday goes from 1.5m to 3m damage.

As capital ship EHP values have increased in recent years, particularly with the addition of navy faction dreadnoughts, we want to bring the doomsday damage back up to a state where it can remain respected and feared.

Victorious Luxury Yacht

The Yacht has seen some abuse as a nigh uncatchable Wormhole rolling ship. We aim to remove it as a viable roller with the following changes.

  • PG reduced from 300 to 100.

  • Mass reduced from 10,000,000 to 1,000,000.

  • Agility adjusted from 0.4 to 4.0 to keep align time the same after these changes.

Auto-Targeting Missiles

With the Avalanche having a heavy focus on Auto-Targeting Missiles, faction variations of existing Auto-Targeting Missiles have been renamed to ‘Legion’ Auto-Targeting Missiles and are now obtainable in the Mordu’s Legion LP Store for LP and ISK costs of existing missiles of the same size.

Factional Warfare and Insurgency Balance

  • The FOB Spawning rules have been adjusted so that the FOBs are far more likely to be placed in Command Operation Systems, Adjacent to Frontlines, rather than in the rearguard solar systems of winning factions.

    • The Aim of this change is to try and promote more fighting and less farming in the backlines by having the chosen location of the FOB be in a location where current factional warfare militias are duking it out, it’ll also make the FOB solar system more relevant to current militia group campaigns and concentrate the PVP opportunities in factional warfare lowsec.

  • Small NVY-1 complexes are no longer “Static” guaranteed respawns in Rearguard, Command Operations and Frontline solar systems and will now roam instead. In their place Medium ADV-1 complexes will now be static and there will always be 1 guaranteed assuming it hasn’t been completed recently.

    • The aim here is to promote a little more diversity and help make bigger ship types be more relevant to factional warfare system control over time. It also makes it a bit easier to de-contest rearguard solarsystems.

  • FW Battlefield NPCs will now spawn more slowly between waves and will now orbit the capture points much closer than before.

    • Our intention here is to make killing the NPCs the optimal path for progress on the capture points, rather than keeping a single battlecruiser NPC alive outside of the capture point.

  • Added a new faction command mindlink which gives a bonus to Information and Skirmish command bursts - Guri Malakim Command Mindlink. It is available in the Commando Guri and Malakim Zealot LP stores, which are located in Zarzakh or the insurgency FOBs. Cost is identical to other faction command mindlinks : 100,000 LP, 100,000,000 ISK and 1x Skirmish Command Mindlink, 1x Information Command Mindlink.

  • Added new faction and officer variants for the Signature Radius Suppression modules. Blueprints for these modules are exclusively obtained as rare drops from the pirate laundering center reward crates.

    • Domination Signature Radius Suppressor

    • Dread Guristas Signature Radius Suppressor

    • Zohar’s Modified Signature Radius Suppressor

    • Hakuzosu’s Modified Signature Radius Suppressor

Vendetta and Vehement

  • Blueprints for the Vehement and Vendetta have been updated to reduce their build material requirements and be closer to other pirate faction capitals.

Updated build costs will be:

5 x Capital Propulsion Engine
10 x Capital Turret Hardpoint
4 x Capital Sensor Cluster
5 x Capital Armor Plates
2 x Capital Capacitor Battery
5 x Capital Power Generator
5 x Capital Shield Emitter
5 x Capital Jump Drive
4 x Capital Computer System
5 x Capital Construction Parts
10 x Capital Siege Array
5 x Capital Ship Maintenance Bay
5 x Capital Corporate Hangar Bay
8 x S-R Trigger Neurolink Conduit
8 x G-O Trigger Neurolink Conduit
2 x Magnetometric-FTL Interlink Communicator
2 x Ladar-FTL Interlink Communicator
400 x Auto-Integrity Preservation Seal
200 x Life Support Backup Unit
1 x Capital Core Temperature Regulator
1 x Neurolink Protection Cell
50 x Serpentis Modified Capital Microprocessor


Graphics

  • Graphical renovation to bomb impact VFX, increasing graphical fidelity to the different types to better present game play effects and readability.

  • Upwell Citadels, namely Athanor, Tatara, Raitaru, Azbel, Sotiyo, Ansiblex Jump Gate, Pharalux Cyno Beacon and Tenerex Cyno Jammer, have undergone an FX and lighting pass. Lights and effects have been added to enhance the visual appeal of these structures.

    • Structure explosions have also been made more visually enjoyable in Tidi!

  • All planets have received a considerable graphics overhaul. Included in this pass, is a resolution increase and rework of all planetary textures. Planet shader parameters have received updates, adding more vibrancy, variation and detail to planet surfaces. Furthermore different new effects and details, have been added to specific planet types. Planets with workforce capacity, will start to visually reflect this, with orbiting traffic visuals.


SKINR Ship Personalization

Paragon is proud to announce that capsuleers can now create fully customized SKINs for their ships using SKINR. Express your identity in New Eden like never before, as a new extension to SKINR unleashes a universe of possibilities by empowering creative capsuleers to design their own ship SKINs. Make each ship or fleet a declaration of your identity, explore a new career path, and strengthen the collective identity of your corporation or fleet. Through SKINR, the art of war takes on a new hue, allowing for unparalleled expression of identity in the theater of space.

Design at Your Fingertips

The new SKINR interface can be accessed from anywhere in Space! Getting bored while gate camping? Sequence a new SKIN! Does your FC have you sitting in staging for too long? Design a new masterpiece!
With the new SKINR Paragon introduces a robust palette of Design Elements, consisting of Basic and Metallic Nanocoatings as well as Patterns to Pilots across the Universe. Each SKIN design includes five customization slots: four for Nanocoatings and one for Patterns. Patterns also have a slot nested in them to add a Nanocoating onto the Pattern. Each Design Element comes in 2 flavors: Unlimited or Limited usage. The Unlimited Design Elements will require new Sequencing Binder items to be in your current Inventory. New Design Elements can be bought and sold on the Local Market, acquired in Events, Daily Goals, and through Loot Drops in various locations in game.

Naming Custom SKINs and SKIN Lines

Players name their custom skins during the design process, including the option to add them to a SKIN line. Use your creations to express your unique identity and share them with other capsuleers. Players can also save up to 5 designs for future manufacturing.

Sequencing

Gathering design elements and sequence binders allows capsuleers to sequence ship SKINs for themselves or to sell to other pilots. Sequencing costs are based on a tier system and calculated in PLEX based on the rarity of design elements and complexity of the SKIN. Sequence Binders can be bought and sold on the local market, acquired in events, daily goals, and through loot drops in various locations in game just like their design element counterparts.

If you have the new skill Mass Sequencing trained up, you will be able to sequence multiple copies of the same SKIN at once. Skill levels determine the quantity allowed. You will also need to have enough Design Elements and/or Sequencing Binders for the amount of SKINs being sequenced.

What if you want to sequence a few different SKINs at once? Look no further than the new skill Parallel Sequencing and Multi-Thread Sequencing: These allow the sequencing of multiple SKIN designs simultaneously. Skill levels determine the number of simultaneous jobs.

There are a total of 11 new skills for those interested in specializing as SKIN builders. While having a build time for an item is nothing new for New Eden, we recognize that this represents a new paradigm for cosmetic items. To cater to those seeking instant delivery for ships SKINs, we've added an option to speed up the sequencing for an additional cost, varying on how much time remains, regardless of how many skins are in the sequencing job. This system is designed such that SKINs created with the additional cost remain balanced and do not disrupt market dynamics for those who specialize in the field of SKIN creation.

New Skills

There is a new set of Skills that will elevate your SKIN Sequencing playstyle. These are all found under the new Category called “SEQUENCING”.

  • Sequencing Time Modifier Skills:

    • Basic Induction: Reduces sequencing time. First-tier skill with a 1x training multiplier and costs 5m.

    • Induction Efficiency: Reduces sequencing time. Second-tier skill with a 3x training multiplier of and costs 15m.

    • Advanced Induction Efficiency: Reduces sequencing time. Third-tier skill with a 5x training multiplier and costs 25m.

    • Peak Induction Acceleration: Reduces sequencing time. Fourth-tier skill with an 8x training multiplier of and costs 45m.

  • Mass Sequencing Skills:

    • Batch Sequencing: Allows sequencing of multiple copies of a design. First-tier skill with a 3x training multiplier and costs 1m.

    • Mass Sequencing: Allows sequencing of multiple copies of a design. Second-tier skill with a 6x training multiplier and costs 20m.

    • Industrial Sequencing: Allows sequencing of multiple copies of a design. Third-tier skill with a 9x training multiplier and costs 250m.

  • Multi-SKIN Sequencing Skills

    • Parallel Sequencing: Allows the sequencing of multiple different designs at once. First-tier skill with a 2x training multiplier and costs 40m.

    • Multi-thread Sequencing: Allows the sequencing of multiple different designs at once. Second-tier skill with a 6x training multiplier and costs 200m.

  • SKIN Selling Skills:

    • Hub Promotion: Allows the listing of more SKINs on the Hub. First-tier skill with a 1x training multiplier and costs 30m.

    • Hub Algorithm Optimization: Allows the listing of more SKINs on the Hub. Second-tier skill with a 5x training multiplier and costs 75m.

Each of these skills can be purchased straight from the Skill Window and needs to be trained to level 4 before being able to train the next tier.

Sequencing Binders

These are new items that are required when using Unlimited use Design Elements.

  • Kerr Sequencer: Consumed by basic Nanocoatings when sequencing a SKIN.

  • Fermionic Sequencer: Consumed by Metallic Nanocoatings when sequencing a SKIN.

  • Alignment Sequencer: Consumed by Patterns when sequencing a SKIN.

Collection

A new cosmetics collection makes it simple to keep track of SKINR Made SKINs, Nanocoating's, and Patterns where you can apply SKINR made SKINs and filter through your collection.

Paragon Hub

Players can buy Basic Nanocoatings, Metallic Nanocoatings, and Patterns at the Paragon Hub. Soon after the expansion, players can choose to sell their created SKINs in the Paragon Hub. Listing options include duration (day, 3 days, week, etc.). HUB Listing Costs are charged in ISK, and the SKINR Service Fee apply to sales and are charged in the currency chosen for the sale of the SKIN.

Omega Perks

Alpha accounts can sequence SKINs for all hulls that an Alpha account can pilot. Omega accounts however can sequence skins for any hull that is currently supported by the SKINR tool.

The Ship SKINR is located in the Utilities section in the NEOCOM. But we are sure you will want to put a shortcut to it in the main NEOCOM Bar!

Ship Info and Preview Windows

  • Show Info now displays Ship Preview with your applied skin.

  • Clicking the Ship Preview in Show Info will open the Ship Preview Window with your applied skin.

  • Until June 17th a special set of expansion login rewards will be available for players who log on. Rewards include Sequence Binder Welcome package and components for SKINR Ship Personalization, up to 200K skill points, and boosters.


Corporation Projects

With Equinox, we will continue to build out the library of player activities that Corporations can author Corporation Projects for.

  • Introduced three new contribution methods to the Corporation Projects:

    • Ship Loss

    • Earn LP

    • Salvage Wreck

This update increases the total number of contribution methods available to 15.

These new contribution methods empower Corporations to:

  • Create Automated Ship Replacement programs:

    • Corporations can now automate SRPs using the Ship Loss contribution method in their projects, streamlining a previously manual process that often had to be handled outside of the game.

  • Incentivize Loyalty Point activities:

    • Corporations can incentivize activities that earn LP, particularly valuable for Factional Warfare (FW) corporations and their pilots.

  • LP Buyback Programs:

    • Corporations can set up LP buyback programs with ISK payouts by creating Earn LP projects and setting the LP tax to 100%.

  • Incentive Salvaging:

    • Corporations can now incentivize salvaging activities, offering a valuable income source for new players and promoting cooperation.

Overhauled Corp Window UI Navigation

  • The UI navigation pattern has been updated to follow the navigational pattern established by the AIR Opportunities Window.

  • Tooltips have been added to each section describing its purpose and listing the roles required to access it


Improved AIR Daily Goals

We have received a lot of positive sentiment on how the AIR Daily Goals improved on the, now deprecated, Daily Challenges system last December. For Equinox we will continue building out its capabilities and make it more engaging through a monthly reward track and improved interface in AIR Opportunities.

New AIR Daily Goals:

  • Earn 50 LP (Enforcer/Industrialist/Soldier of Fortune lines)

  • Salvage 15 Wrecks (Industrialist/Enforcer lines)

Monthly Progress Rewards: Progress by earning daily SP bonuses. There are four milestones in your monthly progress, and new rewards are unlocked at each one. Rewards include extra SP, PLEX, SKINR design elements and sequence binders, and EverMarks. Collect twelve daily SP bonuses and earn all your monthly rewards. Omega players earn an additional superior award at every milestone.

Daily SP Bonus Reward Changes: Completing two distinct goals daily will now grant 5000 SP, with additional SP rewards available through your Monthly Progress.

Evergreen DLI

The standard DLI campaign at Character Selection has been replaced by the new AIR Daily Goals.


Ship Emphasis

We want to make interacting with and progressing through ships in New Eden more digestible and inspiring. To that end we have implemented a variety of improvements for Equinox:

  • Assemble and Board action: The new default action when double-clicking on a packaged ship, which makes taking your new ship out for a spin just a bit easier.

  • Ship Unlock notifications: A new section in the Ship Tree shows off the ships you’ve recently managed to unlock, with badges indicating new entries until they are viewed.

  • Default Ship Naming: The rename ship popup now appears when assembling a ship, and default names are restructured to show the ship type name first.

  • Ship Card view: A new inventory view that displays the ship group, characteristics, and type name of your ships more clearly.

  • Skill Requirement Panel: Allows players to add skills to the queue, create skill plans, allocate skill points, and buy missing skillbooks. The component appears in the Fitting Window, Show Info, Ship Tree and Hangar views.

Ship Tree

  • Added pages for the Society of Conscious Thought and CONCORD ship lines to the Ship Tree.

  • Faction logos shown within the Ship Tree have been updated.

Overhauled Ship Restrictions Windows

We want to make it more digestible for players before they head out to space what type of restrictions are on dungeons.

  • Ships are now sorted into collapsable sections by their group.

  • Ship icons are now shown alongside ships' names.

  • Ship entries can now be interacted with (e.g. right-click to open the Information window or Market details).

  • Only ships within the Ship Tree will be listed.

  • Added an option to search for a specific ship from those listed.

  • Added a filter option to show only ships that the current character can fly.

  • Added an option to show restricted ships but highlight them as unusable.

  • A Ship Restrictions warning will now appear in the Info Panel objectives of relevant sites or missions tracked via AIR Opportunities:

    • Double-clicking this warning will open the Ship Restrictions window.

    • The warning will appear when en-route to a site or when within a site’s lobby area.


Homefront Operations

We aim to make some of the less popular sites more attractive while addressing common pain points.

Acceleration Gates within these sites will now become partially restricted when activated:

  • The character that first activates the gate will be considered the “owner” of that site.

  • Anyone outside the owner’s current fleet will receive a suspect timer when activating the gate.

  • If the current owner leaves the combat area of a site, another character within their fleet and the combat area will be selected as the new owner.

  • If no fleet member is present within the combat area, another character within the combat area will be selected as the owner instead.

    • If no owner is found, the gate will be reset and become unrestricted until it is next activated.

  • Emergency Aid payouts have been reworked.

    • The additional payouts received at 5 and 10 minutes have been removed.

    • The sites will now complete and grant their main payout after 10 minutes, reduced from 15 minutes.

  • All sites, excluding Abyssal Artifact Recovery, have had their payouts reduced.

    • All payout values based on the number of contributors have been adjusted.

    • For example, with a group of 5, the payout will now be 15.49 million ISK each, reduced from 17.14 million.

  • The overall bounty values of NPCs within these sites have been greatly increased.

  • Only characters within the combat area of a site will be eligible for payouts.

  • Empire Faction Cruisers are no longer permitted to enter the combat area of these sites.

  • NPC combat fleet compositions, excluding those in Abyssal Artifact Recovery sites, have been adjusted.

    • Less EWAR NPCs now appear on average, instead replaced with DPS NPCs.

    • Some extreme cases at both ends of the difficulty curve are no longer possible.

  • Combat fleet NPCs within all sites will now take longer to respawn when destroyed.

  • Dedicated ECM using NPCs within Dread Assault sites will now take significantly longer to respawn when destroyed.

  • Site failure timers in all applicable sites have been reduced to 20 minutes.

  • The average DPS of NPCs using missiles has been decreased.

  • The repair amounts of logistics NPCs have been decreased.

  • Drifter NPCs within Abyssal Artifact Recovery sites will now show their piloting characters.

  • When a site ends unsuccessfully, the relevant conversation will appear even if it has been viewed before.

  • When arriving at a site that has been completed, the relevant conversation will appear even if it has been viewed before.

  • An Info Panel objective will now appear when the character is in warp.

  • Improved consistency for when conversations and Info Panel objectives are displayed.


PvE

Paragon Missions

  • Added new Paragon Missions to request additional Frigates, Navy Frigates, additional Destroyers, Navy Destroyers, T1 Cruisers and Faction Ammo.

Incursions

  • Mothership sites within High and Low Security space now have a minimum amount of time before they can appear. Null Security space is unaffected by this change.

    • High-Security space: the Mothership will not appear until at least 3 days have passed.

    • Low-Security space: the Mothership will not appear until at least 1 day has passed.

Observatory Flashpoints in Pochven

  • Activation range for the gate to the observatory has been increased to 25KM.

  • Players present in the first pocket of the site when the site pays out will not receive a share of the rewards.

  • NPCs will now take into account the presence of drones and prioritize them as targets.

C5 & C6 Cosmic Anomalies and Signatures

  • A capital ship must be present in sites prior to the appearance of the Decloaked Transmission Relay to trigger the Arithmos Tyrannos spawn in C5/6 Cosmic Anomalies.

  • Any escalation waves, including the Arithmos Tyrannos, will despawn if capital ships leave the site, or strays further than 100KM of a site’s warp-in point.

  • Lancer Dreadnoughts will now trigger escalation waves in Cosmic Anomalies and Cosmic Signatures.

Triglavian Minor Victory Systems

  • Entropic Disintegrator Werposts and their deployment fleets will no longer consider players with 0 standing with The Triglavian Collective as hostile.

  • Weapon damage ramp-up time for Entropic Disintegrator Werposts has been lengthened.

  • Entropic Disintegrator Werposts now feature a bounty upon destruction

  • Reinforcement fleets for Entropic Disintegrator Werposts have been scaled back in difficulty.

  • The interval at which new Werposts will be deployed has been increased.

  • The Triglavian Collective will no longer deploy Entropic Disintegrator Werposts at Stargates, Stations and Upwell structures in Minor Victory systems.


Manufacturing

Concord Rogue Analysis Beacon

  • Reduced amount of Megacyte required for manufacturing by 50%

LP Stores

  • Removed all Ship Hulls from LP Stores.

  • Added new manufacturing component, NET Resonator, for each Pirate Faction for the manufacture of sub-capital hulls.

  • Changed LP Offers for pirate hull BPCs.

  • Sub-capital Pirate Hulls

    • Removed Neurolink Conduits from sub-capital pirate ship manufacturing.

    • Added new component, NET Resonators, to sub-capital pirate ship manufacturing.

  • T2 Capital Guns

    • Reduced amount of Morphite or Robotics required for manufacturing T2 Capital Guns by 50%.

  • Genetic Mutation Inhibitors

    • A new skill, Mutagenic Stabilization, has been added as a requirement to build Genetic Mutation Inhibitors. The skill gives a 2% reduction in manufacturing time for all items requiring it per level. The skillbook has a training multiplier of 2x and can be found in the standard empire schools for the price of 15m.


That about sums it up!

We're excited to see what you do with the updates coming in the Equinox expansion, and we'd love for you to get involved with the discussion on the EVE Online Discord and the EVE Online Forums.

o7