Winter Expansion - Desperate times

[Pezzle]

Remove the very notion that Dust pvp has an impact on Eve sov.  Instead, you add drops or purchases to each game that would benefit the other.  These should not be essential items or overpowered items, simply different.  You gain the freedom to exert creativity and expand on ideas without totally pissing off everyone in both communities.  At least you can concentrate on making a decent shooter.

[Sir T]

The combination of very idea of trying to integrate 2 systems like that real time and what little I know of network code makes my brain want to Penelope Pitstop scream in horror.

The very most I would go for is using peoples PI layouts as battlefields for Dust PVP matches. But what happens when the battle destroys someones PI chain...

[Kageru]

They've already emphasized the integration of Eve and Dust as one of the foundations of the game, they admitted a couple of months ago they were still working on the details and, yes, lolccp. That said any integration would be at a strategic level I suspect. PI installations, customs offices and ships in "planet siege" mode all become resources and potentially victims of the Dust match and Eve players get informed of the outcome. Maybe the only sov result is getting planetary resources denied makes holding sov more expensive or it could be something more direct like a system becoming invulnerable.

It's going to be fascinating to watch though.

[Phred]

It's going to be fascinating to watch though.

Much like a train wreck.

[Simond]

Caveat lector: http://pastebin.com/TkY3rY6q

[Sir T]

So smaller ships are becoming faster and more agile, capitals bar carriers are losing their drone bays (because you know those drones are always what I feared facing a titan and Dreads) Caps losing a lot of health, Motherships losing a lot of their dronebay sise.

[eldaec]

Also hybrids will now miss continually for more slightly more damage and the Diemos is 6% more agile.

[JWIV]

Also hybrids will now miss continually for more slightly more damage and the Diemos is 6% more agile.

Destroyers are also getting a nice upgrade which is sorta exciting.

[Lantyssa]

No changes to Rifters or Jaguars.

[Yoru]

Huh. Buried in among the new T2 items...

Code:

[+] Data Subverter I
  [+|n] hackOrbital
  [+|n] medPower
  [+|n] online
  [+] accessDifficultyBonus: 15.0
  [+] capacitorNeed: 20.0
  [+] capacity: 0
  [+] cpu: 20.0
  [+] duration: 10000.0
  [+] hp: 40.0
  [+] mass: 0
  [+] maxRange: 5000.0
  [+] metaLevel: 0
  [+] power: 1.0
  [+] requiredSkill2: 21718.0
  [+] requiredSkill2Level: 1.0
  [+] techLevel: 1.0
  [+] volume: 5.0

[calapine]

the Diemos is 6% more agile.

Haha...no! That would be overpowered, can't have that! Diemost is getting a bit higher top speed, at the price of higher inertia. Whenever it says in that document "Agility" what is actually meant is "Inertia Modifier". A higher number is NOT good.

Code:

 Deimos
  agility: 0.558 => 0.5859
  maxVelocity: 198.0 => 208.0

[Nevermore]

No changes to Rifters or Jaguars.

They should be buffing all the assault frigates.

What did they do to buff hybrids?  As long as blaster range is so terrible and rails hit like marshmallows I really don't see anyone ever using them.

[calapine]

10% DPS increase for railguns.
Blasters get a bit more tracking, easier fitting requirements. No damage buff.  

[Nevermore]

Sounds like there's still no reason to use either one.

[Sir T]

the Diemos is 6% more agile.

Haha...no! That would be overpowered, can't have that! Diemost is getting a bit higher top speed, at the price of higher inertia. Whenever it says in that document "Agility" what is actually meant is "Inertia Modifier". A higher number is NOT good.

Code:

 Deimos
  agility: 0.558 => 0.5859
  maxVelocity: 198.0 => 208.0

In that case nearly every bloody ship in the game bar Caps is getting nerfed and will be sliding around like in ice scater. Hell I remember the Mastodon turned from a great hauler to a crappy ship that took over a minute to get into warp because they altered that. Do they even know what the variables in their own damn game even do anymore.

It's CCP. That was a rhetorical question.

[ajax34i]

10% DPS increase for railguns.
Blasters get a bit more tracking, easier fitting requirements. No damage buff.  

Actually, scrolling down the list, cruiser- and battleship-sized railguns get a powergrid fittings boost too (13%), which just happens to be the number that lets you fit 8 for the PG of 7 on a battleship.  You're gaining 300 powergrid per rail fitted, so that's about 2000 or so extra power grid available compared to previously.  Which can be used for something else, maybe another repairer or remote repairer.  This is all before compounded bonuses from skills and modules.

All hybrids are also getting what looks like a 40% reduction in cap juice required for shooting, which means Gallente and Caldari ships suddenly are closer to Minmatar than to Amarr in how vulnerable they are to neuts.  That seems to be a pretty big boost.  Not that their active tanks won't die if neuted, but at least there's a bit less effort required to keep POS-shooting (now, just bring enough ammo).

I think agility is agility.  I think the Inertia Modifier is a per-ship-class modifier they use.  Like, they can give custom agility to individual ships, and then they blanket-nerf battleships at 0.5 modifier, for example.  Of course, I may be wrong, but it just seems dumb to double-nerf all the small ships in this manner:  higher maxVelocity means it takes longer to align for warp, and then they make the ship even slower to align?  Seems dumb.

[Sir T]

Email from CCP

Himo Amasacia,

Reactivate before October 31st, and jump back into EVE Online for only 4.95 for your first 30 days.

"Ship spinning" has returned in the October 18th patch as Hangar View is now back in station environments. Additionally, graphical and visual enhancements have been made to upgrade the lighting and performance of both ship and avatar environments. Speaking of which, the Amarr, Caldari and Gallente quarters are being fine-tuned for release this expansion.

The best part, though, is that the Winter 2011 Expansion is set to deliver some great new features and updates for the "Flying in Space" crowd, including:

   The Minmatar Tornado and its three factional counterparts introduce a new tier of battlecruiser.to the battlefield.
   Time Dilation and improved fleet combat
   New Font and UI Improvements
   Player Owned Customs Offices
   Capital Ship Balancing
   New Tech 2 modules
   New Electronic Warfare Drones


CCP Games is refocusing its efforts to deliver more content, more engaging gameplay features and more enhancements to live up to EVE Online's long-standing reputation as the premier virtual universe and sci-fi MMORPG.

Minmatar tornado?

http://www.eveonline.com/en/winter2011/article/3002/ship-troduction-the-minmatar-tornado?utm_source=reactivation2011Oct5r&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=reactivation2011Oct5&sp_rid=MTA3MDI5NDg2NTQS1&sp_mid=37291610

Ship-troduction: The Minmatar Tornado
Reported by CCP Guard | 2011.10.21 15:22:05

As we have hinted at, the Tornado is warping into the 2011 winter expansion...and it‘s bringing friends.

 We couldn‘t just give the Minmatar a new ship and leave the other factions out (NPC military escalation doesn’t work like that), so, in the spirit of mutually assured destruction,  each of the factions have sent their best engineers and scientists to the drafting boards and will also be rolling out a new tier 3 battlecruiser.

„But isn‘t the Tornado a battleship?“

According to the original concept it was, yes. But when reviewing the armadas of existing ships we came to the conclusion that it would make much more sense to add another tier of battlecruisers instead of a fourth battleship, and that the accessibility of bc skills would mean more of these ships might be in the hands of younger, brasher pilots. That means more pew pew pew overall.

What sets these new battlecruisers apart from their lower tier cousins?

The most unique thing about them is that they will be able to fit battleship-sized weapons. Yes, you heard correctly... battlecruisers with oversized guns.

They will be capable of similar damage output as a battleship but obviously all that damage comes at a price.They won‘t be able to tank like a battleship, but what they lack in the tanking department the right pilot should be able to somewhat make up for  with speed and distance management. Those looking to start minmaxing fleets of TÖTALHELLDEATH will have to wait a bit for the stats.

The concept is; Violent, fast and fun.

In the following weeks we will be introducing the Tornado‘s three counterparts. Stay tuned!

Oh Christ... 

[eldaec]

Helps out with high sec ganking, fucks all drakes, has historical parallels (eve is like ww2 you see), and is a neat gimmick. I don't see any downside.

All patches to eve should be adding spaceships to a game about spaceships.

[MahrinSkel]

Now *that* looks like a proper Minmatar ship: Somebody dropped a giant magnet into a scrapyard and strapped engines to what stuck together.

--Dave

[tgr]

It's going to be fun to fly that thing in a fleet somewhere.

I wonder how much that's going to kick ass and chew bubblegum in a redesigned welpfleet.

[SurfD]

FUCK YOU CCP.  WHERE THE FUCK IS MY T2 HURRICANE FAME!!!!

[Phildo]

The one concern I have is that CCP said they're making it a battlecruiser so lower-SP pilots can get into them, but still forcing them to use BS weapons which still take a long time to train into.

[tmp]

Now *that* looks like a proper Minmatar ship: Somebody dropped a giant magnet into a scrapyard and strapped engines to what stuck together.

Agreed. Can't even tell with 100% certainty which side is the front until you see the engines running.

[Simond]

The one concern I have is that CCP said they're making it a battlecruiser so lower-SP pilots can get into them, but still forcing them to use BS weapons which still take a long time to train into.

Counterpoint: They're going to be the tier 3 BC so you're probably going to be looking towards a BS by that point anyway. So just start with racial_BS_guns 1 first instead of racial_bs_command 1

[JWIV]

The one concern I have is that CCP said they're making it a battlecruiser so lower-SP pilots can get into them, but still forcing them to use BS weapons which still take a long time to train into.

Counterpoint: They're going to be the tier 3 BC so you're probably going to be looking towards a BS by that point anyway. So just start with racial_BS_guns 1 first instead of racial_bs_command 1

I dunno, CCP could manage to screw this up by adding racial Battlecruiser skills or something.

[Kageru]

I don't really get it either. The T2 gun grind is much more work than getting into a battlecruiser.

I assume they want "zerg" fleets so there's more dying, killing and consumption of resources. That effectively levels the playing field a little in that it becomes more risky to field expensive ships when there's so much DPS flying around.

[Kitsune]

The problem being, BS guns can't hit a goddamn thing.  Especially without significant investment in gunnery skills.  So they've invented a wonder ship that has a battleship's sig and can't hit anything smaller than a battleship but has much worse tank than a battleship.  Where do I sign up?  Anyone who can fly a battleship should definitely be in one rather than one of these things, unless they have some amazing bonus we haven't been made aware of yet, or cost like 10 mil.

[eldaec]

Still faster than a BS, better scan res, cheaper, and some of them have tracking bonii, and cheaper.

Pretty awesome for killing people abusing blue ice in high sec, but not as good as a hurricane for defending against bombers.

[Gets]

The new battlecruisers will need support to be fully effective. It won't make them worse in what they can do. Fleets already try their best to deploy webifiers and target painters, much like solo suicide gankers.

Which reminds me, will they finally remove insurance for getting Concordokken'd? You hear this topic come up during every pre-expansion related discussion, but it's more topical this time around.

[eldaec]

I don't think you'll see them in fleet scale work much, tier 2 BCs or BSes would be better in all roles.

But for roaming enforcement gangs, or for empire nbsi ops they will be much more effective than a BS.

I haven't heard of any serious plan to remove insurance. And it would have only a very limited impact on hisec asteroid liberation campaigns if they did it.

[Phred]

Which reminds me, will they finally remove insurance for getting Concordokken'd? You hear this topic come up during every pre-expansion related discussion, but it's more topical this time around.

Much like removing local from 0.0 this topic tends to come up any time CCP shows the slightest sign of changing anything in the game.

[Furiously]

I see a great new ship for suiciding with.

[Pezzle]

Which reminds me, will they finally remove insurance for getting Concordokken'd? You hear this topic come up during every pre-expansion related discussion, but it's more topical this time around.

Much like removing local from 0.0 this topic tends to come up any time CCP shows the slightest sign of changing anything in the game.

There are good changes and bad changes.  Removing local is face possum.  Removing insurance from high sec gankers?  Sensible.  What we get?   :CCP: 

[Simond]

Why is it sensible?

[Comstar]

The person attacked is defenceless and cannot do nothing to prevent it, except to rely on concord to make the attackers lose more than they might make. Removing insurance payouts makes it cost more for an attacker who otherwise may risk nothing.