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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.
EVE alliance circumvents factional warfare restrictions
Factional warfare became a part of EVE Online in the Empyrean Age expansion, which ushered in a time of backstory-driven militia conflict for players aligned with one of the four races of New Eden. What promised to be a new avenue for EVE's roleplaying community ended up being inaccessible to roleplaying alliances. CCP stipulated that alliances cannot enlist with factional militias, as their sheer numbers could streamroll their opposition and create overwhelming odds for the disadvantaged side in the conflict. The only recourse EVE's alliances have is to form splinter corporations outside of the alliance, for the sole purpose of allying with a given racial faction. That is, until recently. An article from ISD Magnus Balteus, one of EVE Online's in-game reporters, states the Star Fraction alliance "has openly declared war on corporations that have joined the Caldari milita; the State Protectorate. For over a month, Star Fraction has been selectively targeting the corporations of fleet commanders in the Caldari militia."
Speed kills
EVE Online has evolved into a game where being fast and agile allows you to choose your fights, dictate range and thus control the course of the battle, disengage whenever you choose, and often move so quickly that you're largely unassailable. However, the era of the nano craze will soon be coming to a close, according to EVE Online developer CCP Nozh. His latest dev blog addresses the insane velocities achievable, even by previously lumbering battleships, with combinations of speed modules, rigs, pirate implants and performance-boosting drugs. (For those less familiar with EVE or its more deviant aspects, you can in fact use and sell drugs in the game.) CCP Nozh outlined the dev team's design goals in stemming the speed crisis:
