EVE Online: EXODUS | EVE Online

EVE Online: EXODUS

2004-11-24 - By CCP CAPSLOCK

EVE Online : EXODUS Launch Features

  • Starbase Structures
    Starbases are anchored at moons and can be deployed in systems with up to 0.3 security rating. Tech Level 2 Construction Component blueprints require moon materials for production. These materials are harvested from moons and made by Reactors and Reactions. Control Towers of Starbase consume various commodities and Ice products gathered from Ice mining. Moon survey scanning is done by launching a moon survey probe in the direction of the moon and waiting for the results, which shows up in a separate moon survey result window. Starbase structures will be sold on the market (No blueprints, ORE are monopolistic bastards). Tech Level 2 Components Blueprints, Reaction Blueprints and XL ammo blueprints are also available on the market.
  • System Sovereignty
    Starbases count towards Alliance sovereignty of a system. To gain sovereignty of a system, an Alliance must own the majority of Starbases in a system. Sovereignty is displayed in the current location information and on the star map.
  • Deadspace Complexes
    Major pirate factions now have their first Deadspace Complexes, trying to expand their grip on deep space. Complexes usually have ship limitations and some rooms require keys to get into which are usually gathered from Deadspace pocket overseers. Defenders of Complexes generally have less loot drops but overseers have adequate rewards. These are usually the best ways to get new faction technology.
  • New Ships
    Blueprints for Battlecruisers, Destroyers and Mining Barges are available on the market. NPC corporations will sell the Barges and Destroyers but Battlecruisers will be fully player manufactured. Faction ship can acquired through special offers your agent gives you for your loyalty to him and will be added to high level Complexes when they become available.
  • Mining Improvements
    Ice fields and new qualities of ores can be seen all over the universe. Mining crystals are available for use in the Modulated Deep Core Miner II's and Modulated Strip Miner II's. These crystals and advanced Mining Lasers will come through Research Agents. Ice Harvester I and Strip Miner I's are available on the market in addition to the Mining Barges.
  • System Scanning
    System Scanning Modules (Tech Level I) are available through the market. Tech Level 2 variants and at least one specialized ship will be added later (Recon Frigate most likely). System scanning requires 3 probes to be launched for successful triangulation. Lesser range probes are then used to narrow down the location and increase accuracy. Probes can be destroyed, this is one of the counter-measures to system scanning.
  • New Environments
    Ice fields, new nebula and planetary effects are in. Fly around and you should see them in most constellation.
  • Rogue Drones
    First rogue drone Complexes are available in Empire. Their influence will expand and they will generate far more difficult Complexes.
  • New Ship UI and User Interface Improvements
    Ship UI and user interface has gotten a general improvement in most areas. Some of the UI has moved to the new UI framework, which is much lighter. This has resulted in some of the framerate increase. All items in space now had a Quick Action menu which can be accessed by holding down the left mouse button on an item.
  • Contraband (Illegal Items)
    NPC Customs Officers are scanning players in Empire space. Agents in deep space offer illegal items based on loyalty and agents in Empire ask for illegal items through special offers. Customs police may be found at stargates in empire space. They will scan a random selection of the passersby and if they discover contraband, depending on what the contraband is, they will react in a range of ways. Discovery of any contraband results in a fine and a faction standing penalty - where the amount of each is determined by how much is found, the more items and wider variety of types, the higher the fine. Then, each illegal type has a confiscation security level and attack security level, where if the solar system you are found with it in has equal to or higher than that security level, they will engage you in the relevant action. If just confiscate applies, the Customs officers will confiscate it. If attack applies, they will attack you.
  • Agent UI Improvements and Level 4 missions.
    The Agent UI has had a number of improvements. Level 4 missions have started to use the pirates from Complexes. Level 4 kill missions will eventually feature Complexes as locations. The agent mission journal also offers more help with locations and describing mission goals.
  • Agent Offers (AKA Black Market Services)
    Agents now offer their loyal agent runners special offers with faction loot, faction ships, demand and supply for illegal items and manufacturing missions where they offer to manufacture various named items for ingredients and perhaps some less than lawful items.
  • Tactical View and Fleet Command
    Tactical view now shows range intersection, optimal and falloff ranges when hovering the mouse over turrets. Fleet command is limited to "Set Target" for gangs which can then be seen in the "Tag" column in the overview. This allows for better coordination in targeting both for fleet battles as well as smaller gangs.
  • Corporation Improvements
    Corporations Improvements with new specific hangar access roles, in addition to base assignment. Title assignment provide group roles and blueprint lockdown. Both Directors and CEO's can now propose votes.
  • New Alliances
    Alliances can now be formally created. Remember to send your Alliance logo to the SCC if you want it in-game (SCC@ccpgames.com). These will be added to the Alliance database via the monthly patches.
  • New War Declaration
    The biggest change to normal corporation warfare is a war declaration now costs ISK. The amount of this charge is dependant upon how many existing wars the aggressor is currently fighting/ There is also a weekly maintenance fee and for sustaining each war. Corporations within an alliance can't declare war on, or have war declared on them by, other corporations or alliances. War must be declared on or by the parent alliance.
  • Market Improvements
    Market is now accessible from space, allowing remote selling. Commodity market now works on endless supplies with volatile price fluctuations.
  • Helper Applications
    Notepad and Calculator are available through the Neocom.
  • In-game Browser
    The In-game browser now offers HTML 3.2 and CSS support
  • Core Optimizations
    Press Ctrl-F to get a framerate counter. A lot of improvements have been done to address fleet battles, client framerate, bandwidth utilization and server performance. Improvements will continue to be made in the future.

Further information on EXODUS features are available here.

Other Changes, Fixes and Modifications

  • The tutorial has been upgraded and given a facelift to address EXODUS features. A set of new training Complexes have been added. Spawn rates for training grounds have been increased.
  • New racial posters are present in the character creation process.
  • The "Stargate jump in progress" issue, where a message prevents the player from jumping (known as the jump bug) has been resolved. In addition, a notify message is now being sent to players affected by a special set of circumstances. This message features a countdown timer.
  • Repackaging can now be done remotely via Assets.
  • You now only use one Micro WarpDrive at a time. MWDs cannot be used within Deadspace Complexes.
  • Lights are now prioritized. Hardware has a limit on the number of active lights. A new light manager now prioritizes lights, and replaces active lights with higher priority lights as needed.
  • All player market orders were ported to EXODUS regardless of player skill, however market order duration on these orders has been set to 2 weeks.
  • Changing corporation via voting or other manners when the pilot is in space causes the corporation of the pilot to be visibly updated.
  • Changes to the old system scanner have been made. The name search location has moved to the new Overview, where customizable templates are available. Direction and range have been combined and added alongside the probe scanning interface.
  • Market groups have been overhauled and reorganized.
  • Changes to missile visual behavior have been made and should now explode closer to target.
  • Known issue: Items taken from a log container are not logged.
  • Why are you reading this far?
  • Bugfix: HQ change restriction. You can only change the HQ of a corporation once per hour, unless all the members of the corporation log out.
  • New explosions for most items in space have been added.
  • Formerly, missiles would prevent ships from warping by preventing aligning. This was caused by “bounce” and this has been resolved.
  • Kill mission are being integrated into the Deadspace Complex system. All kill missions will eventually involve Deadspace Complexes.
  • Fixed problems with switching from windowed to full screen.
  • You can now control all your drones by right clicking on the folders in the new drone interface.
  • Corporation "Transfer" Funds. It is now possible to move ISK from the corp. account directly to a player account or player corp. account. There is a button in the wallet marked "Transfer". After that is clicked, you can select the character or corporation and then enter the amount to transfer.
  • You can now set default "orbit" and "keep at range" distances.
  • Alliances have been added to the map palette list, filtering the sovereignty map by Alliance can now be done.
  • Pathfinding is now more lenient in finding safe and unsafe routes.
  • Activating a module no longer breaks your ship's cloak and will give an error message. A pilot will have to move to break the cloak. Gang regroup will de-cloak everyone in a gang at once after holding cloak after passing through a gate (a better alternative to everyone activating a module on cue).
  • Fix for temporary capacitor charge visual errors in the client. You can see that these are happening when you do something that uses capacitor and suddenly your capacitor charge is completely changed - perhaps nearly empty where it was full before. This is because the client had a cached charge value which was wrong (the server is always right) and when the ship used capacitor, it changed the server-side value and resulted in the client being told the new correct value.
  • If you click on the info window you should get the menu entries that you would get for the item if it were in a list view. This is a quick fix and will be properly optimized in the future.
  • You can now configure the CSPA fee on your inbox, through the mailbox settings, located by right clicking on the Inbox tab. Likewise, CSPA fees can be configured on all other mailboxes.
  • Fake loot containers with fake items that change into real items have been added. This has been done to decrease server load. All cargo containers and contents that are created by NPC's are generated as fake items. When the fake items are moved/duplicated/merged into real locations (like a real cargo container, cargo of a ship etc.) real items are created to replace the fake items and the fake items destroyed. Real items cannot be moved back to fake containers. This means that all loot containers and items inside them will be lost after downtime, even though the NPC was killed 1 minute before downtime. Jettisoned cargo containers are still real items.
  • All cargo containers of the simple type "Cargo Container" will explode after 2 hours (maximum of 2 hours and 23 minutes).
  • Added region and constellation system channels. You can join Region channel through the Channels list, but Constellation is always shown. Both channels only show recent speakers and cannot be utilized as a tactical tool. This is for mingling only.

Scheduled EXODUS features deployed in monthly patch or next major EXODUS patch.

  • New Environments
    Gas Clouds and Comets and the mining in these environments
  • Formal Contract System
    Delayed
  • Tactical View and Fleet Command
    Further additions to Tactical View with Gang hierarchy (grouping) and Gang group commands delayed.
  • Starbase Manufacturing and Research
    Need tender loving and care.
  • Corporation Improvements
    Improved password support on secure container, 7 ISK Accounts, Stock as currency, Improved Taxes
  • Stolen Items / Stealing form container
    Delayed
  • You really should be playing EXODUS now, there is nothing left to read.