ship-rebalancing
Latest
CCP outlines EVE Online's upcoming industrial ship rebalancing
CCP loves tweaking EVE Online's internet spaceships. And according to a new dev blog by CCP Rise, the guy behind the Odyssey battleship rebalance, industrials are about to get a major makeover. Not only are a bunch of them getting new names, but many are seeing their core performance shifted in other, more tangible ways. Here's the nitty-gritty: Industrials have been divided by roles instead of tiers. Every race will now have one cargo-focused industrial and one focused on travel time. Specialized bays have also been added, with dedicated bays for minerals, planetary commodities, and charges (ammunition, nanite paste, etc.) now available on specific ships. Every industrial has been given a special feature to make it more appealing. For instance, the Wreathe offers the fastest travel time, while the Badger gained slots for missile launchers. Along with all of these changes come new names for some ships: Nereus (Iteron), Kryos (Iteron Mk. II), Epithal (Iteron Mk. III), Miasmos (Iteron Mk. IV), and Tayra (Badger Mk. II). The industrial ship update is set to go live with the Odyssey 1.1 patch due later this summer.
EVE Online details Odyssey ship rebalancing
When Odyssey hits for EVE Online, it's going to be a whole new ballgame for many of its ships. CCP is planning to revamp and restructure its Navy faction ships across the board and has written up a nice fat post about the upcoming changes. Odyssey will feature 40 revamped hulls, including four brand-new ones. This is being done to fit in with the ongoing ship balancing project that's seeking to kill tiers off in a brutal and uncompromising fashion. It also bring the hulls in line with a "Navy" theme that will be featured in the expansion. There are a lot of changes to absorb, including a change-up to 23 ship skills, a division of cruisers into attack and combat categories, and a rebalancing of Tech 1 battleships.
EVE dev blog details overhaul of navy ships in Odyssey
According to the latest dev blog, the last time navy ships saw any real developer attention in EVE Online was way back in 2009. Some ship specs, like the cruisers, haven't been dusted off in even longer. But fans can finally look forward to some of the rebalancing and retrofitting that other groups of ships have enjoyed in recent expansions; with Odyssey, navy vessels are getting an overhaul. The blog details the incoming changes, from a light once-over of the various frigates to a boat-load of changes for the cruisers and battlecruisers. Check out the full blog for specifics on your favorite ships.
EVE Evolved: Fitting Amarr cruisers for PvP in Retribution
EVE Online's recent Retribution expansion overhauled many of the game's old PvP mechanics and rebalanced all of the tech 1 frigates and cruisers. These are the first ships new players get into when they start playing, and many found they just couldn't compete with more expensive ships in combat. In Retribution, the basic tech 1 cruisers have been buffed beyond all recognition and now stand a serious chance against battlecruisers and tech 2 ships. New players and veterans alike have found the updated tech 1 cruisers to be a lot more fun to fly and more effective in solo PvP and small fleet warfare. Two weeks ago, I started a new series of ship fitting guides with effective PvP setups for each of the four Gallente tech 1 cruisers. In between hilarious sessions of baiting gankers with my ECM Vexor, I've recently been been getting to grips with the updated Amarr cruisers. The Omen is now a fast tackler that can project damage over 25km, the Maller is a fantastic support DPS platform for fleet warfare, and the Arbitrator has become a great anti-frigate platform. Even the humble Augoror should now be a welcome sight in PvP fleets, repairing almost as much as a Guardian at only a fraction of the cost. In this week's EVE Evolved, I give new PvP ship setups for EVE's recently buffed Amarr tech 1 cruisers.
EVE Evolved: Retribution is freaking awesome!
Shortly after the Retribution expansion's deployment, a thread popped up on the EVE Online forums that proved to me that the expansion had been a massive success. In the thread titled So that's what victory in this game feels like, miner Tiberius StarGazer explained that he has always felt like he had no way to get back at people who wronged him. After losing millions of ISK in ships to pirate attacks, he was almost ready to give up on EVE. But when Retribution landed, he was able to sell his kill rights to the public so that every player vigilante who crossed his attacker's path could try to take him down without warning. After just a few hours, Tiberius got a notification that put a smile on his face: He had his first taste of revenge. He'd dealt more damage back to his attacker by clicking a button than had ever been done to him, and the attacker wasn't happy about it. He threatened to find Tiberius and kill him again, and that simple miner's reply said all I needed to know about how successful Retribution has been: "I have deep pockets. Every kill you make on me, I will add as a bounty on your corp; every kill right, I will sell. I can't fight you but others can and you will have to lose five times my loss for wronging me." Retribution has finally given industrialists a reliable way to get revenge and use their wealth as a weapon! In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the PvP that's springing up in empire space, how the new flagging mechanics affect baiting, and what the ship revamp means for new players.
EVE Online prepares to roll out Retribution ship rebalancing
With EVE Online's newest expansion, Retribution, only a couple of weeks away, the devs are all abuzz over the features and changes coming with it. One of the biggest of these is a widespread effort to rebalance ships and put them in line with each other. CCP Fozzie reports that 40 new and existing spaceships are slated for the expansion overhaul, with more on the way after that. Even though change can be a scary prospect, Fozzie sees the rebalancing as a boon to the community: "Every time EVE's balance changes, it creates new opportunities for clever players to demonstrate their creativity and separate themselves from the pack. We know that our customers are amazingly creative with ship fittings and tactics and that if we give them a new set of tools they'll do things better than we could have imagined with them." The post goes on to detail the changes being made to frigates, destroyers, cruisers, weapons, and mods when Retribution goes live.
CCP rebalancing EVE mining barges, exhumers
CCP is revamping EVE Online's mining barges and exhumers this summer, and the latest company dev blog features a bit of behind-the-scenes info on how the process is going. In a nutshell, there's a new mining frigate on the way, and current mining frigates will no longer be mining frigates. "The goal here is to allow players to choose a barge that fits their specific play style rather than lead them on a journey from the worst barge to the best one," CCP says. Other changes include reduced skill requirements for both barges and exhumers. This "might not make [mining] any more exciting, but at least miners will have to make some meaningful decisions before they undock," according to the devs. That's just the tip of the iceberg, of course, so head to the official EVE Online website for more.
