sanshas-nation
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One Shots: I'm walking into spiderwebs
New Eden, even on a good day, is a place that is rife with dangers galore for pilots -- wardecs, pirates, scammers, liars, and more, all ready to make your life hell. With the addition of Incursion to EVE Online, you can add Sansha's Nation to the deadly mix as well. Unlike players, who might consider sparing you if you can offer a sweet enough bribe, these AI forces are only out for one thing: total destruction. It's not all doom and gloom, though. There are sweet rewards for pilots willing to risk their hulls in the fight against Sansha's invading forces. This exciting EVE Online One Shots was sent in to us by Lopsy Lu, who snapped the image in the heat of battle. Lopsy writes in: "Captured here is the final assault on a Sansha mothership in the Yulai system during an Incursion." In the mood to show off the large fleet battle you've been part of recently? Get a particularly sweet kill-shot? We'd love to see it. Just email your screenshot to us here at oneshots@massively.com along with your name, the name of the game, and a note telling us about what we're seeing in the picture and why you chose that image. Your picture could be the next one we showcase here on Massively! %Gallery-112285%
EVE Evolved: Incursion guide -- Combat strategies
With the final release of EVE Online's Incursion expansion, Sansha fleets began invading constellations across New Eden. Hell-bent on revenge against the empire nations that rejected him, Sansha's unholy army of borg-like cybernetic soldiers is united in a singular goal -- to bring his disturbing brand of order to the galaxy. The incursions have been running for several weeks now, and players are quickly adapting to EVE's latest group PvE challenge. In last week's EVE Evolved, I began a series of guides to tackling incursions with an article on fleet composition and group tanking strategies. Even with a well-composed group, it's still possible to fail encounters if the fleet doesn't exercise good target-calling and combat strategies. With some Sansha ships fielding remote repairers and others throwing ECM, energy neutralisers, and massive torpedoes at players, taking on an encounter isn't just a matter of tanking it and flinging missiles in all directions. Fleet commanders must be able prioritise the enemy ships in order of the danger they present to the fleet. Clear target-calling will help a fleet to focus fire and get targets down quickly, and good prioritisation of targets can mean the difference between victory and defeat. In this week's second part of the EVE Evolved guide to incursions, I explain two popular target-calling strategies and look into prioritising targets in order to minimise the risk to your fleet. I end with a list of high-priority NPCs with special abilities that you'll need to keep an eye on.
EVE Evolved: Incursion in progress
In a blaze of fire and glory, Sansha Kuvakei's fleet clashed with players in a major offensive in Yulai. Although his AI-controlled Sansha battleships numbered in the hundreds, the sheer force of capsuleer defense initiatives was brought down on Kuvakei's fleet like a hammer. With the Sansha ships under heavy fire, the fleet opened additional wormholes to call in reinforcements. Amidst the busy buzz of lasers scorching hulls, capsuleers hurling missiles, and CONCORD rescue operations, space itself warped as several massive Sansha supercarriers emerged from the incoming wormholes. Sansha Kuvakei played his biggest and most fearsome card as a show of the incredible forces he now commands. And capsuleers burned them to ashes in defiance. Since the battle in Yulai, Sansha's Nation has begun launching full-scale occupations of constellations across New Eden. Many players dove straight into the fray without adequate preparation, and Sansha's forces were not forgiving. While most NPC pirate ships found in EVE Online are weak with a very basic AI, the new Sansha ships are both smart and deadly. They use everything from ECM and energy neutralisers to stealth bomber technology and logistic support. Thousands of player ships were destroyed in the first day of fighting as people worked out, through a system of trial and error, how best to tackle EVE's latest supervillain. As the dust settled, I began to get a solid impression of how well the feature is working and whether it really is the breath of fresh air EVE's PvE has been sorely lacking all these years. In this week's EVE Evolved, I give my first impressions of the Sansha incursions in an attempt to demystify some of the discussion surrounding them and share some basic tips for getting involved.
Sansha incursions have begun in EVE Online
The moment EVE Online players have been waiting for has finally arrived. Sansha's Nation has begun its plan of regular incursions into known space. Using terrifying advanced technology suspected to be of Sleeper or Jovian origin, the Nation has begun sending masses of troops through controlled wormholes into constellations across New Eden. The powerful new Sansha ships found in these sites are controlled by a borg-like hive mind composed of the millions of citizens abducted from planets during last year's Sansha raid events. The Sansha ships are even named after the system their crews were abducted from, an eerie reminder that we could do nothing to prevent the Sansha raids. To find out where the nearest incursion to you is, open your mission journal and go to the incursions tab. If you can't see any incursions in the global report after refreshing it several times, you may need to clear your cache. To do this, press the escape key to open up the game options, go into the "Reset Settings" tab and click the button next to the text "clear all cache files." This will restart your game and the incursions will be visible. Once you arrive at a constellation that's under siege, a new chat channel will automatically open to help coordinate resistance efforts in that constellation. Players who are thinking of getting into the incursions are urged to proceed with caution and use only ships they would be willing to lose, as these upgraded Sansha ships are deceptively powerful for their size classes. If you'd like to take part in the incursions with other Massively readers, join the Massively channel in-game for instructions on how to get involved with the official Massively Mob corporation. To give some background to the events taking place right now all over EVE, CCP has released a new video trailer putting the Sansha threat in context. Skip past the cut to watch the video, embedded in HD.
Massively's EVE Online Incursion video devblog roundup
Having progressed from being a small independent studio in Iceland to a successful multinational industry leader, EVE Online's developer CCP Games has always had a reputation for being very close to the game's playerbase. Back in July, this view was soured when information from devblogs and the June CSM summit seemed to suggest that EVE would receive no bug-fixes or iterations on old gameplay features for at least 18 months. Players were in an uproar, and a growing perception began to spread that CCP was selling current EVE players short in order to focus on Incarna. In the past six months, things at CCP have take a complete 180-degree turn. Planetary Interaction has received the iteration players were promised, with gameplay tweaks and user interface fixes being deployed at a rapid pace. CCP also instituted team GridLock, whose purpose was to wage an all-out war on lag and fleet issues. In a refreshing and extremely welcome turn of affairs, CCP has been making a gargantuan effort lately to communicate with the players about upcoming changes and collect feedback. Though regular technical devblogs and pre-released test-server patches, players have been kept more informed than ever about what's going on behind the scenes at CCP HQ. Most recently, a series of 18 developer videos was released leading up to the Incursion expansion's final release today. Topics covered include battle reports from the ongoing war on lag, information on server optimisations that have been made recently, updates to planetary interaction, and other interesting topics. Skip past the cut for a detailed roundup of all 18 videos, all hosted on CCP's official YouTube page.
EVE's incursions go live on Tuesday, Sansha events to follow
The first two stages of EVE Online's new Incursion expansion were released in November and December, bringing us some much-needed UI fixes and removing learning skills from the game. Citing a commitment to polishing the expansion's main features before publishing them, CCP delayed most of the expansion until a third major patch. Scheduled for release on Tuesday, January 18th, the third phase of Incursion will include the extremely impressive new Incarna character builder and periodic Sansha invasions into constellations across EVE. In a new devblog, CCP has revealed that the Sansha incursions will be starting with some well-deserved build-up events. In previous expansions, new content was simply present as soon as players logged in, with little more than a few lines in the patch notes and a devblog or two to describe the new additions. The fact that the incursions are being heralded in with live events is sure to be popular with players, and it may represent a change in the way CCP delivers new major features. When the final Incursion patch goes live on Tuesday, players may begin to see some odd occurrences that seem very out of place. Events will build up to Sansha's Nation inevitably beginning its crusade against all the systems of New Eden and the incursions going into full swing.
EVE trailer debuts in selected cinemas before showing of Tron
Earlier this month, we heard the news that a few selected US cinema theaters would be showing a new EVE Online trailer. On the EVE forum, CCP Manifest published a list of the participating theaters and told players that the trailer would be aired between eight and fifteen minutes before the main movie showing. The new trailer is essentially a re-cut of the impressive and very cinematic Incursion trailer released last month, adapted for the big screen and the general cinema audience. With Tron's release last week, the EVE trailer has already been seen at several theaters on CCP's list. This is the first time CCP has tried to advertise via cinema, and if things go well, we could see more trailers on the big screen in the near future. This showing is the first of a series of small-scale tests designed to see how effective cinema can be as an advertising venue. If you'd like to see your local theater featured in future test-showings, post its name and location in the thread for CCP's marketing department to look into it. For those unable to attend one of the participating theaters, the short 30-second cinema trailer has been published as promised on CCP's YouTube page. Skip past the cut to watch the cinema trailer, embedded in high definition.
Second part of EVE Christmas present revealed -- the Echelon
Two weeks ago, we learned of CCP's plans to remove learning skills from EVE Online. Learning skills have always been a problem for new players, and their removal has been an issue supported by players for years. As the first part of a two-part Christmas present to players, CCP announced that the skills would be removed with the Incursion expansion's December release. Speculation on what the second part of that present could be has run wild on the forums, with many older players even wishing lost features would make a come-back. CCP has just announced that the second part of EVE's Christmas patch will be a new ship called the Echelon. As with previous presents, Every subscribed player will have one of these ships delivered to them through the item-redeeming system. The Echelon is a unique CONCORD design aimed at fighting the oncoming Sansha menace. The ship boasts impressive hacking capabilities, with a bonus to the operation of specialised Sansha codebreakers. A limited-edition Sansha codebreaker will also be included with the ship. Until now, hacking has been restricted solely to a mini-profession for the gathering of invention materials and completion of static COSMOS missions. This announcement is the first hint we've seen that the Sansha incursions we're looking forward to in January will include an element of hacking.
EVE Evolved: Preparing for Incursion
Several months ago, pirate faction Sansha's Nation began invading the populated systems of New Eden in force and abducting colonists from the defenseless planets. Using a frightening new technology, Sansha's forces have been able to open controlled wormholes directly in orbit of their target planets. CONCORD and the local faction navies have been unable to defend against the incursions, leaving the fate of EVE Online's planets solely in the hands of capsuleers. EVE players immediately began to organise intelligence networks and corporations dedicated to detecting and fighting the Sansha threat. In the upcoming Incursion expansion, Sansha's Nation will be stepping up its attacks to full-scale invasions of entire constellations. Having converted the millions of colonists they've abducted to mindless drones of the Nation and even having moved a conquered Jovian space station into their hidden wormhole home, Sansha's forces have never been stronger. When the Incursion expansion's main feature goes live in January of next year, players will find themselves on the front-lines of a war. We'll group up in fleets of 5-10, 10-20 or 20-40 players to tackle the various incursion sites and ultimately destroy each invasion wave's mothership. With the first Incursion release scheduled for this month and less than two months to go until the constellation-wide Sansha attacks begin, now is the perfect time to prepare for the expansion. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at some of the ways you can benefit from the upcoming expansion and what players can do to prepare for the war against Sansha's Nation.
EVE Incursion trailer fortells Sansha's revenge
Tweet Fueled by his dreams of creating a utopian society, a young Sansha Kuvakei took to the stars. He sought to establish a new universal order among the citizens of New Eden and create a better future for everyone. His dream quickly turned to New Eden's nightmare, as Sansha's followers grew and began arming themselves for a war. While the public saw him as a glorious messiah and leader of a prosperous new kingdom, Sansha had begun experimenting in secret on the most unholy of creations. Combining Jovian pod technology with the then-illegal brain implants, Sansha found a way to control not just the economic activity of his empire but also the actions of his followers. Millions were converted into mindless slaves of Sansha's twisted Nation before the empires took notice. It wasn't long before Sansha's empire crumbled, left with only a handful of fanatical followers and a small army of true slaves. Sansha's influence in the empires waned, and his empire was scattered to a small section of the lawless outer regions. Out of sight, but not out of action, it's here that Sansha has been building his forces and biding his time. It's from here that the Nation launched expeditions into the unstable wormholes appearing throughout space. In the unseen depths of wormhole space, Sansha has been building an armada, its purpose to impose his unholy order on every citizen of New Eden. Having captured a Jovian space station and learned the secrets of controlling wormholes, the Nation has already abducted millions from their home planets and converted them to serve the Nation. Soon Sansha's plans will come into focus and nobody, not even miners in the relative safety of the empire's strongholds, will be safe from his terrible revenge. Skip past the cut to watch the new Incursion trailer, embedded in HD.
E-ON Magazine issue 21 round-up
We regularly spend money on our favourite MMOs, be it in the form of a monthly subscription fee or a microtransaction purchase. We often spend more time and money on our favourite online retreats than we spend on other hobbies, and yet few MMOs have their own dedicated magazine the way other hobbies do. EVE Online players are fortunate enough to have the quarterly EVE magazine E-ON to spread out across their coffee tables. Produced by MMM Publishing, E-ON is guaranteed to be 100% EVE from cover to cover. Even the advertisements in it are for EVE corporations and services rather than paid ads for other games. I've been slowly reading my way through Issue 21 since it popped through my letterbox and have definitely enjoyed it. This issue focuses on live events and the upcoming Incursion expansion, with a special feature on EVE's annual fanfest event in Iceland. The issue also contains guides to faction warfare militia fleets, EVE's various communication tools and the first of a series on Drones. Interviews this time around include CCP's video producer Stevie Ward and Technical Director in the fight against lag, Derek Wise. As usual, the magazine contains the latest war reports from nullsec, an awesome new piece of EVE fiction and the impressive layouts and graphics that readers have come to expect. Skip past the cut for a breakdown of what you can expect from E-ON issue 21 and my impressions of the issue.
CCP delaying Incursion to ensure excellence
With the Sansha set to descend on EVE Online en masse, a new character creator that is the precursor to Incarna (when all will be blessed with feet), and a plethora of other goodies large and small, Incursion has been garnering a lot of attention from both active and retired capsuleers. According to a dev blog posted today by EVE's Senior Producer, CCP Zulu, the company has made a tough decision about the release date for its eagerly anticipated expansion. Rather than push it out with potential bugs and issues, CCP is opting to split up Incursion into a three-part deployment. The important part is that by doing so, CCP expects to be able to give each particular chunk of the expansion the time it needs to be "excellent." The first chunk, which will release on November 30th, offers a host of requested and needed tweaks. While CCP isn't willing to confirm the exact list of features at this time, the list of potentials is expansive, including changes to rockets, T2 ammo, 80 new storyline missions, faction ships' addition to the market, and more. From there, the second patch will be released in December and will contain wonders that "only Santa knows." January 2011 is when the company plans to release the third chunk, which should deliver Incursion's new character creation tool to the masses. If you're curious about more details on the reasons for the change in deployment dates as well as a bigger listing of all the things to come, pop on over to the EVE Online site and check out the devblog.
EVE's Sansha live event takes an interesting turn
On the 11th of May, CCP announced that they'd be bringing live events back to EVE Online. Later that day, the first event was set in motion with the apparent leak of private CONCORD police documents into the hands of players. The documents hinted at a Sansha NPC military build-up, and suggested that Sansha's Nation was behind the reported abduction of a Ducia Foundry expedition team. Events rapidly escalated, with players breaking the news that Sansha fleets had begun attacking the populated worlds of the four empires and abducting citizens in the tens of thousands. The most worrying part was that the navies of the four empires were unable to respond in time as the Sansha fleets were using wormholes to enter their target systems. During the first few days of the event, locator agent traces on key Sansha slave actors between attacks revealed their presence in a system named 3-CE1R. This was quickly written off by many EVE players as a roleplaying inconsistency as that system is within the Jove Empire. Jove space is currently unreachable as the mysterious and technologically advanced race decided long ago to cut the stargate connections between their empire and the rest of New Eden. When random wormholes through space began spawning after the Seylinn disaster, none appeared to connect to Jove space. This led players to believe that the Jove Directorate possessed some form of control over wormhole formation, able to at least block it from occurring in their systems. Skip past the cut to read the startling revelations recently made in this epic storyline arc.
