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EVE Evolved: First impressions of Rubicon
For years I've been writing that EVE Online needs more deployable sandbox structures that any player can use, so I was naturally pretty excited to hear that this was to be one of the key features of the Rubicon expansion. The Mobile Depot sounded like a great freeform sandbox tool when it was announced, but I didn't understand quite how awesome it was until I started setting up my own. While the depot is ostensibly a fancy item container with a ship fitting service, anchoring one feels almost like planting your flag in space, and spotting another depot on the directional scanner means war. I've spent this week exploring low-security space in the new Stratios Sisters of EVE faction cruiser, stealing rare moon minerals with a Siphon Unit, and desperately searching for the elusive but valuable ghost sites. As expected, players have already found some creative uses for the new personal deployable structures: Mobile Depots are being used as advertising billboards in Jita and to bait aggressive players into becoming flagged as criminal suspects, Mobile Tractor Units have seen some unorthodox usage outside of missions, and the Siphon Unit will literally print money if you find an unsecured moon-mining operation tucked away in space. In this week's EVE Evolved, I test-drive the Rubicon expansion's new structures to find out if they live up to expectations.
EVE Evolved: Everything we know about Rubicon
Back in April, EVE Online Senior Producer Andie Nordgren delivered an incredible long-term vision for the game's future that included deep space colonisation, player-built stargates, and players controlling practically everything that's currently run by NPC empires. This vision sets the tone and direction for development over the next ten expansions, each of which will introduce a small component of the overall goal. In a live interview session earlier this week, CCP revealed the first steps it will take toward space colonisation in its upcoming winter expansion. Named Rubicon, the expansion will be in players' hands on November 19th and promises to give individuals and small groups unprecedented control over the sandbox. It will let players fight over planetary customs offices in high security space, significantly buff the ability of small ships to participate in hit-and-run style warfare, and even introduce a new set of personal deployable structures that can be hidden anywhere in space. All this comes alongside two new Sisters of EVE ships, twitch livestream integration, and significant balance changes to Marauders, Interceptors, Interdictors, and Electronic Attack Frigates. In this week's EVE Evolved, I run down all of the new features and changes announced so far for EVE Online's Rubicon expansion.
Latest Ask Cryptic explains space combat tactics in Star Trek Online
A nice thing Cryptic Studios has been doing across their MMO titles in development is "Ask Cryptic", where fans of Star Trek Online (and Champions Online) pose questions to the developers and get answers. The latest (and tenth) Ask Cryptic for Star Trek Online covers a wide variety of topics. Cryptic explains a bit about space navigation in Star Trek Online, done via three levels of maps -- sector space maps (planets, solar systems, space stations, nebulas, anomalies), system maps (3D), and ground maps which include the surface of planets for away missions as well as space station interiors. They also address a strength of Star Trek Online that not all MMOs have -- entity into entity collision. What does this mean for STO players? Ramming speed! In fact, that will be one of the skills players can select. Cryptic explains the advantage to this, with one caveat: "Keep in mind, if your ship is already badly damaged, you may not want to ram into a fully intact Borg cube, for example. That would be a bad idea. On the other hand, if you know you're going to lose, you could ram into them, hit the self destruct and take them out with you."
