Changes on the way for EVE's planetary interaction feature
When EVE Online's Empyrean Age expansion brought us faction warfare, thousands of would-be PvP-addicts rejoiced. When Apocrypha brought us wormholes, I could talk about nothing else for at least six months. With the Tyrannis expansion, however, there was no such giddiness. Tyrannis, with its main planetary interaction feature, was clearly not one of EVE's most popular expansions. Even the developers at CCP said they weren't happy with it, and further work was promised after launch.
In a new devblog, CCP Omen has explained some of the changes that are on their way for planetary interaction. Command centres will be upgradeable in-place, eliminating the need to tear down an entire industrial network just to upgrade to the next command centre. The biggest changes are coming to the cumbersome surveying and extracting processes. It will be possible to move extractors around to find new mineral deposits rather than deleting and rebuilding them. The new survey mechanic will also show a graph on which the duration of an extractor cycle can be adjusted. Extractors can now feasibly be left for up to 14 days without needing to be moved or reset, which is good news for pilots risking RSI under the current mechanics. Most of the upcoming changes have been taken from talks with the Council of Stellar Management, which has published a clear list of changes its members would like to see implemented.
