Ombeve

What is arguably one of the biggest patches is just around the corner, and CCP have now released the patch notes. By biggest, I mean game changing of course- the sov changes are extremely wide reaching and will cause some huge changes to alliance ‘sprawl’. I have picked out some highlights (only in order they appear on the patch notes):

• Corporation, alliance and militia fleets can be registered into a fleet finder, this will allow people to look up your fleet and join it without an explicit invite from the commander – I think this is an excellent addition. As good as Alliance self invites are, this is a step more sleek.
• There is now an “apply to join” button on a player corporation’s show info page. You are no longer required to fly to the office to join a player corporation – about time, the current process is really unwieldy!
• Damage notification plays a warning sound whenever your shield / hull / armor drops below a certain threshold – nice idea, can’t think of a practial application for it yet, perhaps if you’ve suffered from a moment’s inattention while watching X-Factor Certainly can’t hurt to have it included.
• Planets and Moons in EVE have received a complete graphics overhaul. Brand new stunning graphics and high resolution textures have been added throughout New Eden – sexy.
• It is now possible to view the content of containers and ships remotely. Note that you can not view the contents of password locked containers – about time! Very handy addition to the game, saves us flying 49 jumps to see what’s in that container…to find out it’s empty.
• You will now autojoin your fleet again if you connect within 2 minutes of being disconnected. You will not enter your old position within the fleet however – excellent
• You can now report players as ‘ISK Spammer’ from the right click menu of a character in chat. This will remove all their messages from that channel and report it to the GM’s - good idea, but may be misused by idiots clicking on anyone, and then suck up GM time to investigate
• The old EVE mail and mailing list system got replaced by a new and better one. It can be sorted by date and much more! – woot!
• We have replaced the old in game browser (IGB) with a modern version based on Chromium – awesomesauce!
• The Naglfar has a new bonus: 5% bonus to Missile Launcher rate of fire per level of Minmatar Dreadnought Skill. In exchange, the Naglfar has lost its bonus to projectile rate of fire – they trying to steer it into a missile boat?
• All projectile weapons have been rebalanced so each tier (long range/short range, small/medium/large) have more consistent attributes and the increase between each tier is more defined – this is going to be VERY interesting, especially to all us Vaga jockeys in U’K.
• The Tech 2 ship component composition has been changed – have no idea what this is going to do… prices up, prices down, who knows? Certainly not I.
• When opening the character sheet you will no longer see the typewriter effect in the character information – the text will be displayed instantly – GOOD!!
• Ballistic Control Units now correctly apply their bonuses to missile damage - err what? You mean they didn’t before?
• Tech III ships equipped with an Interdiction Nullifier subsystem will no longer be stopped from warping by warp disrupt probes or warp disruption field generators - I predict a lot more people will now fit these. Although you only had to re-initiate warp, it was still a PITA.
• People who really fail at PvP can now navigate through their loss mails beyond the first page – lol
• Aggression timers will now be updated, when undocking. There will be a warning message, when trying to undock with an active aggression timer in high security space – doesn’t affect me really, but no doubt handy for those people it does
• A metric ton of fixes

All in all, some good stuff. Exciting time to follow I think, especially for us in Catch and Provi. With any luck, the patch will go smoothly, but set a long skill anyway- you know the score

~ by Ombey on November 29, 2009.