Thursday 26 September 2013

Eve's Winter Expansion: Rubicon

CCP's ever improving public relations team announced the date for the Winter Expansion and talked about the vision for it and some of the features.

It was broadcast live tonight on Twitch TV and will no doubt be on Youtube and/or CCP's Twitch archive in a day or two.

The presentation was hosted by CCP Guard and his first guest was CCP Seagull. She gave the overview, the broad perspective.

Over multiple expansions "we're going some place together" and it will be "beyond the bounds of the known universe." Words like colonisation and increased control over technologies and capsuleers gaining more power over the universe were mentioned.

"We're starting to question some of the rules that have governed Eve Online for a long time." A picture was shown which looked like a bunch of Badgers constructing a stargate. That's the long term vision, over multiple expansions.

This expansion will go live on November 19th and is called Rubicon. Rubicon of course was the start of Caesar's challenge to the Roman Republic.

The presentation then replaced CCP Seagull with CCP Rise and CCP Fozzie.

Customs Offices: players will be able to take over high sec customs offices. They will be able to set whatever tax rate they like. They are expecting large groups of players to fight over them. There are some very valuable sites - I personally have a bunch of manufacturing installations next door to Jita.

Personal deployable structures. This is a new set of structures, not based on the clunky old POS code. 4 new types of structures in Rubicon. All can be attacked and destroyed. Shooting them in high sec will not provoke Concord.

 Siphon Unit - steals resources from moon mining or reaction poses. Steals stuff over time and anyone can access it and take the resources. So it just sits outside the pos - very effective against people who don't pay much attention

Depot - storage and fitting. Drop it in space and refit your ship or stash loot.

Deployable automatic tractor beam and looting device.

Deployable short range cyno jammer (disposable, one use). 70-100km range. Won't stop covert cynos.

Warp acceleration changes. Ships that warp faster will enter warp faster. (Right now all ships accelerate at the same rate and most warps spend most of the time in acceleration/deceleration). Some adjustments will be made - generally small ships will warp faster and large ships will warp slower. T1 cruisers are used as the baseline. HACs and frigates should be able to catch battleships and so forth. "Interceptors will actually be able to intercept."

Ship balancing:

Marauder has already been announced. A new mode will be available giving ewar immunity and enhanced tanking called bastion mode. A gorgeous picture of a bastioned Kronos was shown. The ships will also get a role bonus to MJD cooldown.

Interceptors. In addition to the warp acceleration changes interceptors will get bubble immunity. Slight drop in hit points and small cargo bays will make it tricky to cyno fit them. (Thread on Features and Ideas promised by early next week).

Electronic Attack Frigates. Cap recharge and lock time to be improved. Double range on secondary ewar effects (points webs neuts). CSM loves them.

(Light) Dictors. Core role remains, warp acceleration changes will help them, they will be more balanced within the class (ie sabres won't be miles better). Bubble art is going to be reworked.

plus possibly more ships balanced if time allows.

New battleship missile launcher: Rapid Heavy Missile launcher. Battleship-ish dps with heavy missile effectiveness against small ships. "Looks great."

"The Raven's going to be super-awesome!"

New ships: Sisters of Eve faction ships.

Frigate

Cruiser

Really nice concept art was shown. Mostly white with red highlights. Bonuses from Gallente and Amarr. Long deployment versatile combat ship. Drones and armour bonuses and exploration/hacking bonuses. Cov ops cloaks. Intended to be pvp viable.

Usability changes:

Certificate system to be completely replaced with a new cleaner system. Attached to a new concept called mastery. No longer need to be claimed.

New Interbus ship identification system. Shows you all the ships in Eve in a chart showing what you can fly and what might be good to train for. Ties in with the mastery system.

Character selection screen. Hint at extra functionality.

Twitch TV will be integrated into the Eve client.

Collector's Edition shipping 24th October.

Eve Vegas coming up, Guard Rise Fozzie Bro and Locksey will be going. Prizes, Eve Valkyrie in HD.

Eve Down Under end of Nov - Fozzie and Chribba going.

Gatherings published in their own subforum on the Eve boards.

CCP Fozzie mentioned that the interceptor bubble idea was stolen from a player.

4 comments:

  1. the warp acceleration change has nothing to do with entering warp. currently all ships accerate to their max warp speed at the same rate once in warp. that means if your mega does 3au/sec and my vexor do 3au/sec and we are both aligned we when we warp we will land at the same time. Under the new changes the vexor would accelerate to its 3au/sec faster than your mega reaching the end of warp sooner. That why tackle interceptors (13au/sec) seldom beat other frigates except in very large system. not the faster your warp speed is the faster you will reach your max warp speed.

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  2. I haven't had a chance to see any formal details. Anything on Heavy Interdictors? Will they be interdiction nullified as well?

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    1. No discussion except that "other ship classes may get overhauled if times permits." The candidates for this are T2 ships not already covered like hics and recons.

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