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EVE Evolved: How to fix nullsec territorial warfare
If you've been playing EVE Online lately or just following the major events in the game, it can't have escaped your notice that nullsec has become a bit stagnant. The lawless nullsec regions are supposed to be politically unstable territories claimed by hundreds of warring player-run alliances, but today they're dominated primarily by just two or three mega-coalitions. Individual alliances can no longer hold out against the combined forces of the coalitions and must either pick a side or be annihilated. The coalitions have even signed agreements not to take space from each other by force, and players are being bored to death as a result. Two weeks ago, I examined the history of force projection in EVE Online and made the argument that capital ships and jump drives ultimately created today's nullsec problems. Increases in mobility have led to alliances teaming up over vast distances, making mega-coalitions an inevitable outcome. It's obviously too late to remove capital ships or jump logistics, but there are plenty of other ways to potentially fix the nullsec problem. We had some great discussions in the comments of the previous article about how this complex problem could be solved without making warfare the painful slog it was back in 2004, and I believe it's possible. In this edition of EVE Evolved, I lay out some ideas for new game mechanics that could solve the current nullsec crisis and may meet CCP's goals for the eventual sovereignty revamp that's on the way.
EVE Evolved: Capital ships ruined nullsec
All throughout EVE Online's lifetime, compelling stories of incredible events, daring heists, and colossal battles with thousands of players have periodically surfaced and spread across the gaming media like wildfire. Most of the recent stories have been about record-breaking battles between huge alliances of players in the lawless depths of null-security space, and each one has been met with an influx of new players who want to participate. The surprising truth behind nullsec warfare, however, is that many of those on the front lines are simply fed up with the political state of the game. In EVE's early years, the map was split between hundreds of small alliances, each of which slowly expanded its influence by conquering the star systems bordering its space. Skirmishes and pirate incursions were brief and commonplace, while border wars over territory were long and protracted affairs. Today's nullsec is a different animal entirely, with nearly the entire map carved up between two colossal mega-coalitions of alliances (N3/PL and CFC), each one internally held in a state of perpetually monotonous peace. No alliance in a coalition can break away and stand on its own for fear of being demolished by the others, and so all of nullsec is at peace with its neighbours and bored to tears by it. In this edition of EVE Evolved, I examine how nullsec got to the state it's in now and why it's badly in need of an overhaul.
EVE Evolved: Anatomy of a mining op
When EVE Online was first released in 2003, it was designed as a massive universe of competition and conflict between space-faring megacorporations in the distant future. Players bought into the premise completely and soon set about building their own empires and waging wars with neighbours. Corporations ran regular mining operations for resources to build frigates and cruisers for their members, and some of the larger corps co-operatively mined to build the first ever battleships in the game. The mining op has been a staple activity in the game ever since, providing a way for groups to work together on large manufacturing projects or just make some ISK during their down-time. Mining gets a lot of flak for being one of the most boring and least profitable professions in the game, but that's not exactly true. Solo mining can be a great way to spend your downtime while doing other activities, and it ensures that you're online when something exciting happens like a live event, your wormhole system being invaded, or a titan being tackled by your alliance. Co-operative mining ops also offer the social value of bonding with your corpmates when there's nothing else going on. Some players even run dozens of accounts at the same time to turn this ordinarily placid activity into an intensive profit-making activity focused on efficiency and organisation skills. With mining due to make a resurgence in the summer expansion, this edition of EVE Evolved is dedicated to the humble mining operation. I'll take a look at the various options for mining ships, the different haulers available, and the four different areas you can mine in.
EVE Evolved: Top five tips for new EVE players
I often hear people say that EVE Online is a lot more fun to read about than actually play, and I've even caught myself saying it jokingly to friends and writing it in articles. But the truth is that amazing stories like the recent world record-breaking Bloodbath of B-R5RB are a hell of a lot better when you're a part of the action or have the first-hand experience to put the event into a wider context. All of EVE was impacted by that battle, with its effects rippling through the in-game markets and reshaping the political landscape of New Eden. But to read about it, you'd think the carnage in B-R5RB ended when $310,000 US worth of titans went up in smoke. EVE has seen a huge influx of fresh faces since that colossal battle at the end of January, with thousands of new characters being created and the Rookie Help channel bursting at the seams. Whether you've always been a closet fan of EVE who has finally been convinced to take the plunge or you just want to join the ranks of the warring alliances you've read so much about, starting out can be a daunting experience. The sheer amount of information there is out there to absorb and sort through is overwhelming, and not all of it is up to date. CCP released a great new player guide recently to help newcomers assimilate, but I've still received several emails asking for advice on getting started. In this week's EVE Evolved, I delve into the new-player experience with a 14-day free trial and reveal my top tips for starting out on the road to creating your own sandbox story.
EVE Evolved: The top five most dangerous solar systems
EVE Online is a PvP game at its core, with conflict built in at a fundamental level. Pirates lurk around key trade routes and stand ready to pounce on unsuspecting victims, while vast nullsec alliances protect their territories with watchful vigilance and never-ending bloodlust. Wander into the wrong solar system as a new player and your precious ship and cargo will be turned into molten slag and a few points on a killboard quicker than you can say, "Hello, new friend, and what does that red square on your ship mean?" The original map of EVE was generated one evening by an Icelandic developer who could scarcely have known he was deciding the fates of thousands of gamers for years to come. New systems have been added to the game over the years, and a few manual changes have been made to the stargate network, but most of the universe has remained the same for over a decade. In all that time, a few solar systems have stood out as brazen bastions of bastardly behaviour and made their marks on EVE's history. In this week's EVE Evolved, I run down a list of the top five most dangerous solar systems in EVE's long history and delve into why each has earned its reputation as a no-fly-zone for newbies.
EVE Evolved: The Bloodbath of B-R5RB
To the vast majority of gamers, EVE Online is an unforgiving sci-fi dystopia that's one part epic sandbox stories and nine parts spreadsheet. Once or twice per year, the gaming masses get a glimpse of the game's true depth when stories of incredible wars, political corruption, and record-breaking heists spread across the internet like wildfire. From the 2005 Guiding Hand Social Club heist that was plastered over the pages of gaming magazines to last year's infamous Battle of Asakai, tales of big events from EVE have always managed to grab the gaming media's attention. This week saw the largest record-breaking battle to date as a total of 7,548 players belonging to EVE's two largest megacoalitions fought for control of an innocuous dead-end solar system in the Immensea region. A total of 11 trillion ISK in damage worth over $310,000 USD was inflicted during what has now become known as The Bloodbath of B-R5RB and is allegedly the largest PvP battle in gaming history. The odd story of how the fight started and its record-breaking destructive scale are both big news, but the unsung heroes of B-R5RB are the people who work behind the scenes to ensure that the server can remain online during major battles. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at how one player forgetting to check a box on a form sparked this immense battle and how technologies like Time Dilation help to keep the server online when the ship hits the fan.
EVE Evolved: Has colonisation been forgotten?
At last year's EVE Online Fanfest, CCP revealed its ambitious plan to take the game where no sandbox MMO has ever gone before: full deep space colonisation. The plan will be delivered over the next five years and will end with the incredibly exciting vision of players building their own stargates and colonising brand-new solar systems that lie off the grid. Rubicon was intended as the first step toward this glorious plan, and its new focus on deployable sandbox structures certainly seemed to be introducing a more player-directed form of colonisation. I've been cautiously optimistic about the whole endeavour so far, but five years is hell of a long time to wait for that vision to come to fruition. Rubicon's Mobile Depot structure was a great first step toward player-run empires on all scales, but none of the recently announced Rubicon 1.1 deployables has continued along the same theme of colonisation and exploration. The Mobile Micro Jump Drive and Mobile Scan Inhibitor structures I looked at last week provide extra tactical options in PvP, and the three new structures revealed this week are all designed to steal money and resources from nullsec corporations. In this week's EVE Evolved, I ask whether the newly revealed Encounter Surveillance System and alternate Siphon Units are a step in the wrong direction. With games like Star Citizen and Elite: Dangerous on the way, CCP may not have five years to deliver the promise of colonisation.
EVE Evolved: Lowsec isn't impenetrable
When EVE Online was created, one of its core design philosophies was the idea of risk vs. reward -- that higher-value activities should expose the player to greater risk of loss. This rule naturally follows from how the world of business and competition works in real life, and I think it will always arise organically from sandbox MMOs with limited resources. If something's risk-free and easy to do, you can bet there are countless other people already doing it and squeezing the profit margins. This idea was also built into EVE at a fundamental level, with the galaxy split into police-protected high-security systems, the pirate-infested low-security borders between nations, and the chaotic uncolonised wilderness of nullsec. The steep step up in risk when transitioning from high- to low-security space has always been a major point of contention with gamers, as those who don't know any better often charge straight into deep space to their deaths. The story of the newbie working his way up to get his first cruiser or battlecruiser and then losing it to pirates is repeated so often on forums and in the comments sections of articles that it's almost become a cliche. While the idea that pirates wait around every corner lingers on, this impenetrable barrier hiding all the best content from new players no longer really exists. Through the addition of wormholes and the changes made in Rubicon, no star system is now off limits to a pilot with just a few months of skill training under his belt. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at what you can do to safely travel and operate in EVE's dangerous areas, why the barrier into low-security space needs to remain low for new players, and how CCP has expanded the EVE universe through the introduction of riskier areas of space.
EVE Evolved: The Siphon Unit in Rubicon
EVE Online will soon let players steal valuable resources from each other, and not everyone is happy with it. The upcoming Rubicon expansion will add a new Siphon Unit structure that can literally siphon off materials from a starbase's moon harvesters and simple reactors. Preliminary details on the structure were released in a new devblog this week, sparking debate over whether the new item will be a useful tool for disrupting entrenched nullsec alliances. Many expected the siphon to be a minor annoyance to starbase owners, with the presence of a siphon being easily discovered and a limit of one siphon per starbase established. In reality, one siphon unit can rob a starbase of 60% of the output from a moon harvester or 12.5% from a simple reactor, and there's no limit to how many can be stacked on an individual starbase. It'll take only two of these to completely shut down a single moon-mining operation, and the owner will get no warning whatsoever that it's happening. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at how the Siphon Unit will work, its stats, various ways to protect your starbase from it, and what the long-term implications may be for EVE.
EVE Evolved: Strategic resources for everyone!
The past four EVE Online expansions have mostly focused on adding small features and overhauling old game mechanics and content that were beginning to show their age. Crucible delivered dozens of small but highly-requested features and gameplay improvements, and Inferno and Retribution continued with overhauls of several aging PvP systems. Even Odyssey contained mostly small features and revamps, its biggest gameplay features being a new hacking minigame and a streamlined scanning interface. It's been several years since EVE has received a truly massive and game-changing feature like wormholes or a sovereignty revamp, but that may all be about to change! CCP recently announced its intention to start reaching for big ideas again, but this time set over a more realistic timeframe. If everything goes according to plan, the next five years could see the introduction of player-built stargates and true deep space colonisation. I wrote about the potential of this concept last week and looked at some of the big features we'd need to make it a reality, but I didn't really delve into my personal favourite idea for a potential future expansion: New strategic resources and player-created deadspace complexes. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at how strategic resources could be used to get even individual players invested in something worth fighting for, and how player-created deadspace dungeons could be a great way to introduce them.
EVE Evolved: Colonising deep space
If you were watching the news coming out of this year's EVE Online Fanfest, you no doubt heard Senior Producer Andie Nordgren's incredibly ambitious five year vision. The past few expansions have been mostly filled with bug fixes and improvements to existing gameplay, but the goal is now to begin delivering an epic vision of deep space exploration, colonisation, and PvP raids on enemy infrastructure. The five year roadmap toward this goal includes the addition of player-built stargates and completely uncharted solar systems to locate, explore and build an empire in. If the very idea of that doesn't make shivers go down your spine, something may be wrong with your central nervous system. CCP has opened new space before with the addition of the drone regions in nullsec and some new lowsec systems for faction warfare, but it wasn't until 2009's Apocrypha expansion that we saw a true exploration and long-term colonisation effort get underway. I think the intoxicating draw of wormhole exploration was primarily due to the fact that the new systems were hidden and the information on them wasn't public. Just adding new solar systems to the existing stargate network wouldn't have had the same effect. Nordgren's vision may take up to 10 expansions to fully realise, but what kinds of features will we need in those expansions to recreate true exploration and deep space colonisation? In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at some of the challenges CCP will have to overcome to make deep space colonisation a reality and what small steps could be taken in each expansion to get us there.
EVE Evolved: The battle of Z9PP-H caught on camera
If you're the kind of person who loves reading about the political shenanigans that go on inside EVE Online, you should be aware that a colossal war has erupted in the wake of the Odyssey expansion. The expansion redistributed the value of nullsec moons and gave the two largest alliances in the game, the Reddit-based TEST Alliance and Something Awful-spawned GoonSwarm Federation, a good excuse to go to full-scale war. Allies have piled in on either side, and nullsec has erupted into full-scale region takedowns, spy-jacking, and more of the lovely political tomfoolery we love to hear about. EVE News 24 has been doing a good job of keeping players up to date on what's happening in nullsec, and its reporters are not the only ones keeping tabs on the war. Streamer Mad Ani has been setting up cameras in strategically important locations throughout the contested regions and providing live coverage of huge battles whenever they happen. A few days ago, the war came to a head in what could have been the deciding battle of the entire Fountain invasion. Over 4,000 people watched the stream as TEST's entire capital fleet of over 100 carriers was taking a pounding in Z9PP-H, when suddenly the server crashed and disconnected everyone in the fight. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at what happened in the battle of Z9PP-H, how CCP crashed its biggest piece of PR in months, and how player livestreams are changing the face of EVE Online for the better.
EVE Evolved: Fitting battleships for PvP in Odyssey
Tech 1 ships in EVE Online used to be arranged in tiers that determined the cost and power of the ship and what level of the appropriate skill was required to fly it. This gave a sense of progression back in 2004 when all we had was frigates, cruisers, and battleships, but developers have since filled in the gaps between ship classes with destroyers, battlecruisers, strategic cruisers, and tech 2 ships of all shapes and sizes. In a recent game design initiative, CCP has been removing the tiers from within each tech 1 ship class by buffing the lower-tier ships up to the same rough power level as the largest ship in its class. The recent Odyssey expansion saw the humble battleship buffed beyond all recognition. The Megathron, Raven, Tempest, and Apocalypse all became extreme damage-dealing powerhouses, but the Dominix, Scorpion, Typhoon, and Armageddon were buffed the most. Each of them can now fit several monster setups, dealing upward of 1,000 damage per second or completely disabling enemy ships with energy neutralisers and electronic warfare. The build costs of these tier one battleships were more than doubled in the expansion, but prices are only slowly rising due to the existing stock on the market. That makes the tier one battleships incredibly cost-effective PvP powerhouses at the moment, and players are beginning to take advantage of it. In this week's EVE Evolved, I experiment with PvP setups for the newly revamped Typhoon, Armageddon, Scorpion, and Dominix battleships.
EVE Evolved: Get ready for Odyssey
With just two days to go until EVE Online's exploration-focused Odyssey expansion goes live, players have been scouring the test server for information that can give them an edge. Some have been practicing moon surveying techniques for the upcoming redistribution of tech 2 minerals, and others are hoping to get rich quick by speculating on battleship price changes. Explorers are kitting out new exploration ships, theorycrafters are working on new setups for rebalanced ships, and pirates are setting up base in lowsec areas that are about to become fertile hunting grounds. Odyssey isn't quite the Apocrypha-level expansion I've been hoping for, but it certainly seems set to shake things up. Changes to moon minerals will throw nullsec into chaos and hopefully ignite some big territorial wars, and battleship buffs may change EVE's popular fleet compositions. The Discovery Scanner Overlay will make exploration much easier for new players to get into, but will also give pirates another tool with which to hunt down explorers. A new co-operative hacking minigame will also make exploration more of a team sport. But how can you make the most of the expansion from day one, and what can you do today to prepare for it? In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the new exploration system and other changes you can expect when you log in on Tuesday, and what you can do now to make the most of them.
EVE Evolved: EVE's Odyssey expansion could be incredible
When EVE Online's upcoming Odyssey expansion was officially announced last week at PAX East, the anticipation from players was almost palpable. Odyssey aims to follow in the footsteps of 2009's blockbuster Apocrypha expansion by revamping the exploration system and filling the void of space with thousands of new hidden treasures. We've been promised new ships, a new scanner mechanic with sleek new UI and additional functionality, and a rebalancing of industrial resources across the game. Though CCP is saving most of the expansion reveals for next month's EVE Fanfest and beyond, we can make some fairly educated guesses on what the expansion will contain from the press release and teaser site. It's pretty much a given that we'll get some kind of new exploration ship, and there's pretty strong evidence that moon minerals will be changing somehow. We're also almost guaranteed to get new faction battlecruisers, and the evidence is mounting that Jove space may finally be about to open for exploration. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the evidence for Jove space finally opening, explain why we desperately need a new scanning system, and make some educated guesses on what else the Odyssey expansion might contain.
EVE Online $6,000 ship kill may be a hoax
EVE Online player "stewie Zanjoahir" made history yesterday when he reportedly lost a tiny ship with cargo worth over $6,000 US. Now it appears that the value of the kill may not have been accurate or that the kill could even be a hoax. Evidence that the kill may not be authentic surfaced last night as players found that three Hulk blueprints listed on the kill were marked as originals. That would make them priceless items that change hands for over 500 billion ISK each, which would raise the kill's value to a ludicrous 1.71 trillion ISK ($51,685 US). It's believed that many of the original blueprints in the kill were actually cheaper blueprint copies. One possible explanation for the aberration is that there was an error in the EVE API that supplied the original kill data to third-party killboard websites. It's also possible that the kill was marked as API Verified without actually being checked, in which case the kill may have never even happened. An alternative version of the kill valued at only 34 billion ISK ($1,024 US) has also surfaced, but this was manually uploaded and so isn't verified at all. CCP Games posted the kill on its Facebook page and Twitter feed, but didn't officially confirm the kill or its value. We reached CCP for comment, but privacy concerns prevented the company from confirming or denying the kill's authenticity. If this monumental kill turns out to be an error or a hoax, the next-highest value confirmed EVE kill would be Bjoern's Avatar class titan destroyed in March 2011. The titan was kitted out with expensive officer modules and came to a total value of over 128 billion ISK. As the price of PLEX was much lower in 2011, this would have bought 355 PLEX worth a total of $6,212.50 US.
EVE Online player loses tiny ship worth over $6,000 [UPDATED]
EVE Online is well known for its sandbox gameplay and ruthless citizens, with monumental kills and record-breaking scams popping up year after year. In 2010, one player lost over $1,000 US worth of 30-day game time codes (PLEX) when he transported them in the cargo hold of a tiny, fragile frigate. Thinking his ship too fast to be caught, that player lost his entire alliance's budget in a single mishap. That record was thoroughly eradicated today by player "stewie Zanjoahir," who reportedly lost over 213,000,000,000 ISK when he tried to transport a huge cache of valuable blueprints through nullsec in a tiny, unfitted frigate. That much ISK could currently buy around 367 30-day game time codes (PLEX) at around 580 million ISK each, for a combined total of over 30 years of game time. To put that into perspective, 367 PLEX bought with real cash would cost about $6,422.50 US. Some players doubt the authenticity of the kill report, but the killboard it was posted on claims to have verified it with EVE's automated API service, and CCP Games itself posted about the kill on Facebook. Kills of this scale may have happened before, but it was previously impossible to tell whether a destroyed blueprint was a cheap copy or an expensive original. The value of this kill may even be higher than the reported figure, as several of the blueprint copies that weren't counted are actually worth billions of ISK. Today's kill may be the largest confirmed kill of any ship in EVE's history and could even be the most expensive character death in any MMO to date. [UPDATE: Evidence has emerged that the kill might not be authentic. EVE-Kill has since updated its report with a revised value of 5.3 billion ISK]
EVE Evolved: Player justice in Retribution
This week CCP released a new devblog on upcoming piracy and PvP changes heading to EVE Online with this winter's Retribution expansion. In addition to new ships and an as-yet unrevealed bounty hunter revamp, Retribution completely redesigns the Crimewatch system that decides whom you can legally shoot and stops players from docking or jumping out of the system in the middle of combat. EVE's aggression mechanics are notoriously complicated and buggy, but Retribution aims to simplify the system and put players in the driving seat of criminal justice. The new Crimewatch system not only gets rid of old, undocumented code that was written when dinosaurs roamed the earth but also has far-reaching consequences for pirates, people engaging in PvE and the upcoming bounty hunting revamp. Pirates will now be able to escape into high-security space without police intervention, loot thieves will be subjected to mob justice, nullsec ratters won't be as safe as they think, and neutral remote repairing will be a thing of the past. In this week's EVE Evolved, I delve into Crimewatch 2.0 and how the Retribution expansion will change the game for pirates, ratters, and people engaging in PvP across New Eden.
EVE Evolved: A game of cat and mouse
Outside of the annual Alliance Tournament, it's rare to find a fair fight in EVE Online with both sides being evenly matched in numbers or odds of success. On the actual battlefields of EVE, lone pilots and fleets alike hunt for fights they can win and tend to shy away from fights that aren't stacked in their favour. A bold few will intentionally engage when they're outmatched or outgunned in the hopes of getting a lucky and impressive-looking kill, but most of the time, that kind of fight is the result of a poor judgment call or misreading the situation. Something new EVE players tend to have trouble accepting is that the outcome of a fight is often decided before the guns even start firing. EVE PvP is a massive game of tactics in which the goal is to catch weaker enemies at a disadvantage, so the fight could already be lost the moment you're caught by a superior foe. A lot of PvP is psychological; you trick enemies into thinking they have the upper hand, and you hide your true intentions and abilities until it's too late. Fleets of all sizes roam around EVE appraising the smaller fish while avoiding the sharks, and I wouldn't trade that cat-and-mouse gameplay for any level of pre-arranged fairness. But what motivates people to fight or flee, and how can we win the psychological battle to gain an upper hand? In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at three tricks you can use to catch targets off-guard.
EVE Evolved: Risk vs. reward in lowsec
In EVE Online's early years, one of its core design philosophies was adherence to a strict risk vs. reward balance scheme. There were riches out there to be found, but to get them, you had to put yourself in the firing line. Police ships patrolled high-security space to keep players safe from piracy, but the only resources available there were low-bounty frigate NPCs and inexpensive ores like Veldspar, Scordite and Omber. In the lawless far-reaches of nullsec, huge NPC bounties and rare ores containing Megacyte and Zydrine tempted hundreds of pilots to head out and make their fortunes. Nullsec offered absolutely no protection against player attacks, and the only safety to be found was in sheer military force. The biggest and best corporations hoarded these gold mines for themselves, locking down the few entrances into the regions and patrolling the skies for unwanted visitors. Low-security space offered a middle-ground between these two extremes, a place where the everyday pilot could enjoy increased income and pirates were easier to spot. At some time in the past nine years, lowsec lost its place in the game and became simply not worth the effort. But how did that happen, and what can be done to fix it? In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at why lowsec systems are now ghost towns and suggest an alternative design philosophy that I think could revitalise these under-used areas.
