The second episode of The o7 Show details some of what happened in Phoebe, CCP Explorer talking about the 5-week development cycle, CCP RealX dropping mad spaceship audio science, CCP Rise exploring the Worm, an update from Team Size Matters on upcoming clone changes and CCP Fozzie discussing the new Thera system for the December 2014 Rhea release.
As the PFR struggles to get it's feet wet in post-Phoebe SOV, and at the same time struggles with the vast amount of problems that EVEs mechanics create for new groups, those in search of an easy target and some content have herded into the system to stymie PFR's efforts.
In the AAR (After Action Report) below, founder of the PFR coelomate details the goings-on in PFR's neck of the woods. The stage is set: Just after downtime Tuesday, Phoebe Freeport Republic claimed sovereignty in WPV-JN. Like a dog chasing a car and actually catching it, we found ourselves unexpectedly holding sov (albeit objectively horrible sov). We scrambled to sort out logistics and defensive measures. The rest of Tuesday and early Wednesday were spent in scuffles with the Etherium Reach Welcoming Committee, featuring Stoseph Stuarts and his gang of 23/7 active alts. Our TCU fell to enemy forces at 20:43 Wednesday, and our outnumbered fleet sought refuge while the enemy circled our POS triumphantly. Curiously, when our TCU was destroyed and our sovereignty dropped, the next TCU that began to online in the system belonged to us. The enemy had taken our sov, but hadn't moved (or hadn't moved fast enough) to take it for themselves - we were back in the fight. It was clear that TCUs and SBUs wouldn’t be enough to hold our space, and so a quiet plan was launched: we needed to hold on while our 2nd TCU onlined (8 hour timer) and then anchor (1 hour timer) and online (1 hour timer) an infrastructure hub. Once online, the infrastructure hub would provide significant defense to our system: not only would it be one more difficult structure for an attacker to grind, but it would allow us to set reinforcement timers and coordinate defenses. Aren’t infrastructure hubs 750,000 m3? Yeah. There’s a reason we didn’t plunk one down Tuesday morning – ihubs are GIGANTIC. They can only be moved in a freighter – you know, the boring, jump-drive-less, slow, expensive, fragile kind. After onlining our 2nd TCU, a few trusted pilots began sketching out the details of an operation to bring the ihub (**codename: 800m3 of atrons, or just “The Atron”) through lowsec, then nullsec, and into WPV-JN. Meanwhile, we did our best to secure WPV-JN as our TCU onlined – keeping watchful eyes in important places, and maintaining diplomatic contact with several entities with a significant presence in the region. Convoy: A few hours before the TCU came online, our system was looking calm, and so we got to work. Out of corp alts moved the infrastructure hub to a nearby hisec system, and a gang was quietly formed to scout every system along our route. Newer or less skilled pilots (~like me~) took up perches along the route while vets formed anti-tackle, ECM and a webber to help deliver The Atron. The move was tense, but mostly free of combat (I think we popped a redfrog alt or something, our bad, sorry bros, and somebody lost a (lowercase) atron perched on a gate). A few whiskeys and some eerily quiet battlecoms later, The Atron was resting quietly in WPV-JN, and our sovereignty claim was about to be complete as the TCU neared the end of its 8 hour online timer. Nice charon. Meanwhile, the illustrious Stoseph Stuarts, an NPC placed by CCP to permanently camp WPV-JN, private convo’d me “Nice Charon.” In hindsight, this was probably a bad sign, but we were faced with a difficult decision: online the ihub as soon as possible after caliming sov, wait until just before downtime, or regroup the next day and sit out the 2 hours of onlining with better numbers. Intel was mixed, nerves were frayed, and the whiskey was taking hold. In what may have been a strategic error, the decision was made: FUCK IT, WE’LL DO IT LIVE. Just after our sov clicked online, The Atron was warped to the destination planet and launched for the Dutch East Querious Company (...we’ve got some map reading problems, hush). Lossboards are green (subtitle: Dominion sov is great~~~) At this point, everything went to shit. The ihub launched, but wouldn’t anchor. And while we tried to sort out those issues, local spiked – hostiles landed on grid and claimed a shiny kill: https://zkillboard.com/kill/42237736/ ...and the ihub still wouldn’t anchor. Coms turned to panic. Our humble ECM and anti-frig fleet was quickly overwhelmed by the Serenity Initiative moas, logi, and morale dominix (I dunno maybe it had a purpose I was busy reading wikipedias on sov mechanics). At this point we were greeted with three different error messages each time we tried to anchor the ihub (paraphrased):
Can’t anchor because ships are in the way (the hostile gang and drones meant we couldn’t plunk it down easily)
Can’t anchor more than 100km away (away from your ship? Away from the ihub? Couldn’t tell – with hostiles swarming the clicking was frenzied and the anchoring interface left a lot to be desired, but suffice to say the clicking and dragging and scrolling presented huge issues)
Can’t anchor because there are indications the system is being contested.
Wait, contested? WPV-JN has three gates. At that moment, PFR had one online defensive SBU and two more ready to be placed. Our understanding was that it took more than one online SBU to make the system contested, though more thorough research now has revealed a few sources mention ihubs can’t be anchored if any SBUs at all are anchored or online in the system. And so commenced in earnest the second battle of WPV-JN, which once again was waged primarily with cloaky ships and panicked sov maneuvers rather than clashes between fleets. A fearless blockade runner offlined the SBU and scooped it, leaving the gates clear. In this time the hostile fleet appeared to be shooting the unanchored ihub, but reports on whether that was mechanically possible are mixed. Somehow shields were down to 85% by the first time we could check. Once the gates were cleared of SBUs, characters with roles began suiciding into the ihub and moa mosh pit trying to find a sweet spot where we could anchor the damn thing without hitting the “can’t drop on ships” or “must be within 100km” error message – all the while praying the attacking fleet wouldn’t realize their opportunity and deploy SBUs of their own. At last, the ihub found its footing, and the 1 hour anchor timer began, and the hostiles continued to fire at the nascent structure. I commanded the remnants of our fleet to rendezvous at the pos, alt-tab out of EVE, and start reading everything we could find about ihub mechanics. What could the enemy do to stop our onlining? When precisely would it go invulnerable? Did it have full shield/armor/hull HP before coming online? Ships were dispatched to lock the ihub and check its shields and time how long it would last against the enemy fire. Flash form: As the planning continued, pings went out to form a moa and scythe fleet of our own. In addition, a turbo-bro not even in our corp volunteered to fly from Jita in a slippery pete, sniping the attackers and buy some time with harassment techniques. Research into sov mechanics yielded a few troubling results, and we decided to step up from a small gang getting a job done to a drudge-siren-red-alert flash form fleet. It was bad timing, but we cobbled together a moa fleet of our own to keep a watchful eye and engage as necessary to ensure the ihub’s survival. After a tense hour of standoff, scouting, and diplomacy, the ihub anchored. A final suicide pod-warp succeeded in starting the 1-hour online timer, and the hostiles broke off – ostensibly realizing they didn’t have the DPS needed to interfere any further. Castles in the sky: Exhausted and down to a handful of pilots, we watched the timer click over, and the ihub’s subtitle flip to invulnerable. We’re still fragile, we’re still new, and the crusade is far from over – but the night was won. Our first stake is secured... for now. http://i.imgur.com/8XV1gbE.png Editor’s Note: You might get the impression that “Coelomte and PFR are terrible” more than “Dominion sov is terrible” as you read this report. IMO both statements have truth to them. The sov system is very poorly documented, and the mechanics can be clunky and unresponsive at the worst times. We should have known the mechanics better, but we’re also overwhelmed and responding to fast changing circumstances – onlining an ihub the day after Phoebe launched is significantly faster than we had ever hoped for. Anyway, we’re learning and exploring and gaining experience through trial and error. There have been and will be mistakes along the way, but the system isn’t doing us any favors either. It seems to be riddled with bugs and features that operate materially differently in what one would expect to be similar circumstances. But we're here to learn, improve, and continue taking the fight to them - and it's been a hell of a ride so far. Want to know more? Check out our subreddit, http://www.reddit.com/r/PhoebeCrusadeWarRoom. Ready to join the crusade? Our sub's sidebar has info on joining up. Join our public channel, talk to a recruiter, apply to the corporation or alliance. Want to help fund that freighter loss? Send isk to the corporation Dutch East Querious Company. We, uh, don't exactly have an income to support our level of whelping or sov bills at the moment. No pressure, but, uh, we are kinda broke, and I promise any spare isk will go straight towards more misadventures and AARs from those misadventures. With love and gratitude, Your servant, ~Coelomate
On the eve of the Phoebe release, jump-drive activity was a hot topic. Players can observe the patterns of cynosural beacons lighting up around New Eden by looking at the map statistics in the client. This led some to wonder how the activity might look over an extended time period. After seeing this repeatedly discussed in the past few days across the forums, blogs and social media, I decided to dive in to the data to see what I could find…
Across the 35 day period between October 1st until the Phoebe deployment at 10AM on November 4th, 263,344 beacons were activated. Operations peaked the day before Phoebe with 15,572 beacons activated, as players looked to perform last-minute maneuvers before jump-drive changes made such travel more restrictive.
We’d like to share this data with you in even more detail, so that you can work with it yourselves. The file in the following link contains a listing of all activations of Cynosural Field Generator modules on Tranquility (excluding the covert variant) for the 35 day period mentioned above. Each line shows the activation time and the solar-system in which the beacon was activated. (Other data points such as pilot IDs, xyz coordinates have been removed, in the interests of not exposing detailed intel)
We look forward to seeing what interesting visualizations and analysis that the community will come up with! Please let us know at share@eveonline.com what you make.
‘Twas the night before Phoebe, and all ’round the region
capsuleers were all cheering, (except Pandemic Legion)
Some decried their suitcases would be covered in dust
and Shadow Cartel’s titans would certainly rust.
But ratters and carebears and pilots of small ops
were happy they could fly with less fear of blops drops.
And others in Sov were equally blissed
while many big coalitions were totally pissed.
But the complaints about logistics and freighters were heard
so freighters and rorquals wouldn’t be nerfed, was the word.
And blops (so frightening) would get only a small nerf
So alliances could still use them to protect their home turf.
So, in the days before Phoebe plans were all put into place
to move assets around and even trade space.
Goonies and Legion, and Shadow Cartel
Traded this for that from Geminate to Delve.
Move Nyxes! Move Thannies! And Moroses too
Wyverns an Hels, you know what to do!
Light up those cynos, in the north and the south
From east and from west, move them all NOW!
Because in just one days time, fatigue is our bane,
and a limit of five light years is a changer of game.
Projection of force is up in the air,
but whatever happens will make things more fair.
How will it work out when we run out of gas
trying to cross Immensea, or Bob-forbid even Impass.
How will we make sure those pesky ratters will be gone
if we can’t hot drop a drake with our shiny Archons?
How will Eve change? I don’t know, but it will.
It will be hard to swallow, like a dose of Blue Pill.
If you want some advice, I’ll give you a freebie,
and tell you, you’ll find out, right after Phoebe.
The following poem was copied from Reddit and written by Robaticus. The original post can be found here. Great work!
Hi space friends!
CCP karkur here to tell you about a few often-requested changes that are coming your way in Phoebe.
Asset Search and Advanced Search
Many of you like organizing your assets into station containers, which is all well and good, that is, until you need to find that Polaris Engima or that ‘Nibelung’ Mining Laser you have misplaced but know you have somewhere. The Asset Search you are used to has not searched inside your containers.
That’s changing in Phoebe– items inside containers in stations will be included in the search results.
I should note that for those who have thousands and thousands of neatly organized items in containers, fetching the information on the items might take a bit longer than you are used to. However, after the data has been cached the searching should be really fast, and you can actually find the items you are looking for
Some of you may know that we have pretty powerful advanced search functionality in EVE. However, I’ve found that surprisingly many citizens of New Eden either don’t know it exists at all, or don’t know how to use it.
We wanted to raise the visibility of this powerful tool, so we have added a little question mark icon in the Asset Search tab, which will show a handy tooltip that lists all the keywords you can use and how to use them when you hover your mouse over it. For further information on the advanced search, please take a look at this dev blog by CCP Frellicus.
(Click image for a larger version)
The Overview States and “Always Show”
The ability to have a “war target”/”fleet member” only Overview has been a commonly requested feature and it is arriving with Phoebe. We will be adding a third entity display setting called “Always Show” to the overview. Before I explain what that means, let me go over how the display settings currently work:
Entities (ships, drones, etc.) on the same grid as you in space are displayed in the Overview as long as they do not match a state that is filtered out. This can be quite tricky and confusing because any one entity commonly has multiple states (war target, outlaw, etc).
For example, you can have a corp(1) and alliance(2) mate in the same fleet(3) as you, but is also a supspect(4) with security level below 0 (5), and he‘s neutral(6) to you. If you filter out any of those 6 states he matches, he will not appear in your Overview, which is not always ideal. This has for example caused war target hunters some issues, because in order to have war targets in the Overview, they cannot filter out all those random neutrals they meet on their travels, since their war targets might be neutrals too.
So what is this new display setting? As I mentioned above, we refer to it as “Always Show”, and what it means is that if an entity has a state that is set to “Always Show”, it does not matter if any of the other states it also matches are filtered out, the entity will always appear in your Overview.
If an entity does not have an “Always Show” state, it’s displayed by default as long as it does not have a state that is filtered out, just like before.
To summarize:
Always show
Entities with this state will always be shown regardless of the display setting of additional states they may have
Filter out
Entities with this state will be filtered out unless they have additional states that are set to always show
Show by default
Entities with this state will be shown unless they have additional states that are filtered out
These changes are compatible with all current Overview profiles, which are simply treated as having no state with the “Always Show” setting.
It‘s worth mentioning that although we talk about “Always Show”, nothing will override the settings in the Group tab. That is, if you have chosen to not see Battleships in your Overview, your fleet mate in the Raven will not be in the Overview, no matter how your state display settings are.
With this change, we’ve had to change the interface where you control the display settings of the entity states. The states are back to being in one list, but now you have 3 radio buttons (“Always show”, “Filter out”, “Show by default”) to choose from for each of the states.
You can click each of them individually, or select many states in the list and set them all at once by clicking on the header icons.
Scanners
Many have asked for the ability to have both the Probe Scanner and the Directional Scanner open at the same time, but none have pleaded more than the wormholers among us who are not only constantly scanning with probes but also need to be on the lookout for someone sneaking up on them. These two very useful scanning tools have lived together as tabs in the same window, along with a lesser used tool, the Moon Analyses tab. In Phoebe we will be splitting them apart, giving each its own window, and these can of course be stacked just like any other windows.
Shortcut for Directional Scanner
We have added a shortcut to directly open the Directional Scanner.
The Rest
Lastly, I want to mention a few small changes we have implemented recently but not had the opportunity to tell you about:
Added a Booster Timer that clearly shows you how much time you have left on your active boosters, their benefits, and side effects. This timer is displayed next to other timers such as Weapon and Limited Engagement timers.
Added the ability to select which overview preset to use when scanning with the Directional Scanner.
Added a visual timer in the HUD on modules (such as micro jump drives and cloaking devices) that have cooldown time to indicate how much was left of the cooldown.
Added the ability to name your jump clones. This can be done through a right click option on the jump clones in the Character Sheet
We hope these small changes make your stay in New Eden a little bit more pleasant.
Fly Safe,
Another archaic anachronism of EVE’s notorious UI is set to get a badly needed makeover in next week’s Phoebe update. The elves of Team Banana Stand have been getting down to brass tacks, making several major quality of life improvements for those running NPC corporation and tutorial missions.
Rather than having to constantly refer to the Journal panel to see how a mission is progressing, or where to go next, missioneers will have easy access to critical information via an updated Agent Missions panel in the top left section of the screen, near the current Route and System panels. The update brings tooltips and other nifty features that promise to simplify the process.
In a beautifully crafted piece of understatement, CCP SoniClover has described the current mechanism as an “old bastard in many ways”, in a devblog highlighting how the new system will be implemented.
Capsuleers over at the /eve/ subreddit summed up the changes in their typical larrikin fashion. Seasoned denizens of New Eden, especially those with little to no regular PvE interaction, may scratch their heads over this change. For newbies, this represents a great leap forward in simplifying information delivery and generally cleaning up the interface for newcomers suffering information overload and, ofttimes, cognitive dissonance as they confront the vertical nightmare of EVE’s learning cliff.
The Directional Scan, Probe Scanning, and Moon Analysis features are now split up into separate windows
Lowered the volume of the most commonly dropped items in exploration Data Sites from 1.0m3 (and above) to 0.1m3.
Lowered the volume of all Datacores and Decryptors in exploration Data Sites from 1.0m3 to 0.1m3.
Null Security space Data and Relic exploration sites can now also be encountered in Wormhole Class 1, 2 and 3 systems.
The spawn frequency of the Besieged Covert Research Facility has been increased.
The drop frequency of faction POS blueprints in all Data and Relic sites has been increased.
The drop frequency of 'Optimized' items in all Data sites has been increased.
Various Faction Materials have been added to the exploration Data site loot tables. These can be found in the Manufacture Research Materials Faction Materials section of the Market.
Various Industrial Goods have been added to the exploration Data site loot tables. These can be found in the Trade Goods Industrial Goods section of the Market.
The percentage chance of encountering rarer Expeditions from combat sites has been increased.
Expeditions now have completion messages, congratulating the player in various ways on the death and destruction that followed in their wake.
'Guiding' messages have been added to some, but not all of the dungeons where an Expedition could possibly occur.
Alliance Updates are intended for an internal audience and should be considered propaganda or taken with a grain of salt.
This update will cover what we will be doing for the next 10 days
right up until the release of Phoebe and how you can get ready. Please
read the entire post thoroughly and work hard over the next week to
findtime to complete any preparation that you don’t already have done.
Most of you won’t need to do anything, for the rest of you this should
take virtually no time to get ready. Our plans for Phoebe are simple,
and we’re incredibly excited about some of the ideas we have for these
new game mechanics. Here are the 5 steps/announcements/stuff of our
simple Phoebe plan:
1) We will be moving everything out of Tartoken and deploying to a new staging system on Sunday, November 2nd:
The exact time of the move op will be posted on
the calendar this upcoming Sunday after our corp leadership meeting,
but expect it to be around the 19:00-20:00 range. There has never been a
more important move op, if it is at all possible for you to make it to
the scheduled move then you need to do so. I know this is cutting it
close to the November 4th Phoebe patch, but because we only have dreads,
carriers, and subcaps in Tartoken, this should be a move we are capable
of making successfully before the jump drive changes. We have very
good reasons for waiting this late to shift to our final destination
before Tartoken, and they outweigh all of the obvious issues that moving
this late might cause. We will do our best to run what is basically a
constant cyno route to our new staging system for the 48 hour period
between when we move and when the Phoebe patch is deployed.
However, I know there will be some of you that
will legitimately not be able to make any move op between Nov. 2nd and
Nov. 4th. If you know that you will not be able to make those ops, or
are in any way concerned that you could miss those ops, then you should
pack up all of your things and talk to your corp members to help get
them moved during the move op. We will be making more than one trip to
go back and get all of the capitals and subcaps, so there will be plenty
of opportunities for your corp mates to get your stuff moved. You have
8 days to determine whether or not you will be able to make the move op
and plan accordingly.
I can not stress this enough, and will be pinging about
this every single day until Nov. 2nd, BUT YOU NEED TO EITHER MAKE THIS
MOVE OP OR GET YOUR TARTOKEN STUFF TO SOME CORP MEMBERS BEFORE NOVEMBER
2ND.
If you have pvp assets in Kheram that you
would like to move to our new staging system, then you need to move
those assets to Tartoken before the move op. Our new deployment will
still be a combat deployment, so you still only need your combat assets.
All Titan and Super pilots have different orders that
are on the supercapital forums. If you are a super and titan pilot and
do not have access to those forums, that sounds like a problem you
should get fixed.
2) You need to finish training the mandatory jump clone
skills we asked you to train during the Tartoken move op. For those of
you who don’t remember, these skills will be mandatory for everyone to
have by November 4th (you can easily train all this in time):
Infomorph Psychology V
Infomorph Synchronizing IV
Advanced Infomorph Psychology IV
We would actually like everyone to have all
those skills ready by November 2nd, as we will be strategically placing
jump clones during our move op (as well as during the week before it).
However, if you are going to be cutting it tight to make the deadline,
We would rather you train Informorph Psychology V first, then Infomorph
Synchronizing to IV, then Advanced Infomorph to as high as you can get
it before the op (and then obviously finish it to IV as soon as
possible).
Every combat pilot, including dread and carrier
pilots (but not supers or titans) is required to have these jump clone
skills trained. This is as mandatory as mandatory things get as far as
I’m concerned. It’s a quick train, but more importantly, so much of our
plans post-Phoebe will revolve around our new Jump Clone strategy. We
will go over in detail our methods and plans at the Nov. 2nd meeting,
but for now you need to start minimizing the amount of jump clones you
have for personal use. With the required skills trained, you’ll be able
to own a maximum of 9 jump clones. Right now we are trying to decide
between requiring you to have 5 or 6 of your jump clones reserved for
alliance use. It’ll be at least 5 (but I’m pushing hard for 6). This
will leave you 3 or 4 jump clones for personal use. If that's not
enough for you currently, then you need to find a way to make that
enough. I wish we could be flexible on this, but we can't.
Orders for where to place the jump clones will
come out this Sunday after our corp leadership meeting. This should
give people who can’t make the Nov. 2nd move op plenty of time to
teledeath and install a jumpclone somewhere.
3) Once you have finished training the required jump
clone skills, we need you to spend 4 days following these skill training
orders:
While not as crucial as the jump clone thing
above, it is very important that we get as many of you as possible to
follow these next instructions before November 2nd. The more of you who
do this, the more effective we will be:
On any account you own, pick a character that you think
you will lose the least post Phoebe (or make a new one if you have an
open slot). It’s important that this character is not your main PVP
character, or isn’t a character you plan on Jump cloning a lot.
You will then pause the skill training on this account
for whatever character is training so that you can train the 4 day skill
plan below. This is why it’s required for you to finish the jump clone
skills before training these skills. I know that no one likes wasting
skill training time, but this is a 4 day skill plan for even the most
basic character. All we are asking for is 4 days.
The skills you need to train are listed in this forum thread: http://forums.nullis...and-aid-fleet/
If this character is not currently in a nulli corp, he doesn’t need to join one yet, we will take care of that on November 2nd.
IF YOU ALREADY HAVE AN ALT CHARACTER THAT IS NOT A PVP
CHARACTER AND HAS ALL OF THESE SKILLS, THEN YOU CAN USE THAT CHARACTER.
That should save you some time.
4) We are relocating Nulli’s home base/asset storage
location from Kheram to UW9B-F in Curse:
http://evemaps.dotla...ap/Curse/UW9B-F
We told everyone a few weeks ago that we would
be discontinuing Kheram as our home base as it is no longer practical to
keep assets their with the Phoebe changes. We have finally decided on
UW9B-F as a place that fulfills the most of our needs in a “home system”
for whatever that will mean in a post-Phoebe world. UW9B and it’s
adjacent system have good 5-LY jump ranges for various jump routes, and
of course some of you will remember that this was the same system we
used to pool our assets after the 0-W hellcamp. Some corps already have
offices, and there are plenty available either in system or within one
jump for every corp to have an office.
Basically, everything you have now in Kheram
that you don’t want to leave in high sec and don’t want to take to our
next deployment, needs to be moved to UW9B-F. The focus should be on
things that can’t be moved in a jump freighter, as JFs will still be
able to move around pretty freely post patch.
5) There are no orders to evacuate anything out of any
conquerable space that we currently own. However, if you have things in
a conquerable station that can not be moved with a Jump Freighter, and
you do not want/need to keep it in the conquerable station, then the
place you should move that stuff to is UW9B-F.
Basically, there is no space we are planning on
purposefully conceding or not defending. So if you are doing industry
things, or ratting things, or whatever down in our sov, then there is no
reason for you to evac those assets unless you feel that you wouldn't
be able to get them out quickly in an emergency. If you have assets
that are much larger than a few jump freighter runs (a.k.a you’ve been
saving cap parts for a super/titan), or have assets that can not
physically fit in a jump freighter, then you will need to discuss that
with your corp leadership after this upcoming Sunday. Your corp
leadership will be getting information as to what we plan to do with
things like super and titan building and other heavy assets of that
nature on Sunday, and will then plan accordingly on what to do with your
stuff.
Conclusion/Summary/whatever:
That's it, do those things. Morale speechs and
narrative crafting and shit like that will be saved for the November 2nd
alliance meeting. You should all make an effort to ensure that not
only are you prepared and finished with all of these things, but that
your corp is as well. I'll be pinging this thread and information about
it every day multiple times a day. We will still be running fleets
from Tartoken, so there's no need to leave here except to do stuff that
is detailed in this post.
Hello capsuleers! As some of you may have heard already from CCP FoxFour's presentation at EVE Vegas, Team Size Matters will be releasing a number of improvements for trial accounts in the Phoebe release on November 4th. This blog will go into detail regarding what we're actually changing and how we hope to improve the trial experience for new players.
Why We Are Changing Trials
The goal of these changes is to open up the game to new players so they can explore a greater variety of the content available in EVE. We believe getting new players invested in the game early on will keep them playing longer than if we throw all the good stuff behind a subscriber wall. In addition to opening up the game for trial users, we will be adding extensive logging in every area that we are removing restrictions. This way we can closely follow changes to ensure they are not enabling negative behavior such as botting or trial cycling exploits.
What We Are Changing
We want players on trial accounts to have a chance to experience a large variety of activities in EVE without being overly burdened by existing restrictions. This will help to make it easier to find something they enjoy doing and thus decide to stick around. In that vein we are lifting the following restrictions in Phoebe:
Trial accounts are no longer limited in the ways they can send and receive ISK. They are now able to directly transfer ISK to other characters and corporations and send ISK to other characters by direct trades in stations. This will assist trial players who want to share ISK with each other or are looking to get into a corporation.
Players looking for places to trade will now be able to post in trade chat channels (Channels 10 – 15). The normal restriction on chat frequency still apply.
Players interested in mission running are no longer limited to just level 1 and 2 agents and they can now participate in incursions (and receive a cut of the reward pool). Those interested in some low-sec mission running and/or PvP can now sign up for Factional Warfare.
To assist with joining corporations, trial players will now be able to apply to up to 5 corporations at any one time. If they are rejected by a corporation or withdraw their application, an application slot will free up and they will be able to apply to another corporation. For those who are not quite ready to make the jump into a permanent corporation, trial players will now be able to post fleet finder advertisements.
Skill Restriction Changes
We will be removing the trial restrictions from a lot of currently restricted skills. Some new restrictions will be put in place, but most of these are to inform trial players about what is achievable within the trial period, or are directly associated with already trial restricted ships. As mentioned earlier we will be keeping a close eye on how trial accounts use these skills and we will not hesitate to restrict some of them again if they are leading to misuse or exploits.
Skills which are currently restricted that we will be allowing trial accounts to train are:
Anchoring
Command Center Upgrades
Interplanetary Consolidation
Planetology
Gas Cloud Harvesting
Amarr Starship Engineering
Caldari Starship Engineering
Gallente Starship Engineering
Minmatar Starship Engineering
High Energy Physics
Plasma Physics
Nanite Engineering
Hydromagnetic Physics
Graviton Physics
Laser Physics
Electromagnetic Physics
Rocket Science
Nuclear Physics
Mechanical Engineering
Electronic Engineering
Quantum Physics
Molecular Engineering
Amarr Battlecruiser
Caldari Battlecruiser
Gallente Battlecruiser
Minmatar Battlecruiser
Amarr Battleship
Caldari Battleship
Gallente Battleship
Minmatar Battleship
Amarr Industrial
Caldari Industrial
Gallente Industrial
Minmatar industrial
Assault Frigates
Skills which are currently not restricted which we will be restricting:
Capital Remote Armor Repair Systems
Capital Remote Hull Repair Systems
Capital Repair Systems
Megacorp Management
Empire Control
Sovereignty
Fighters
Fighter Bombers
Amarr Drone Specialization
Caldari Drone Specialization
Gallente Drone Specialization
Minmatar Drone Specialization
Projected Electronic Counter Measures
Tactical Logistics Reconfiguration
Advanced Weapon Upgrades
Capital Capacitor Emission Systems
Capital Energy Turret
Capital Hybrid Turret
Capital Projectile Turret
Doomsday Operation
Tactical Weapon Reconfiguration
Small Blaster Specialization
Medium Blaster Specialization
Large Blaster Specialization
Small Railgun Specialization
Medium Railgun Specialization
Large Railgun Specialization
Small Autocannon Specialization
Medium Autocannon Specialization
Large Autocannon Specialization
Small Artillery Specialization
Medium Artillery Specialization
Large Artillery Specialization
Small Beam Laser Specialization
Medium Beam Laser Specialization
Large Beam Laser Specialization
Small Pulse Laser Specialization
Medium Pulse Laser Specialization
Large Pulse Laser Specialization
Fleet Command
Wing Command
Citadel Cruise Missiles
Citadel Torpedoes
Cruise Missile Specialization
Heavy Assault Missile Specialization
Heavy Missile Specialization
Light Missile Specialization
Rocket Specialization
Torpedo Specialization
Jump Drive Calibration
Jump Drive Operation
Jump Fuel Conservation
Jump Portal Generation
Advanced Infomorph Psychology
Advanced Mass Production
Capital Ship Construction
Deep Core Mining
Advanced Laboratory Operation
Capital Shield Emission Systems
Capital Shield Operation
Amarr Strategic Cruiser
Caldari Strategic Cruiser
Gallente Strategic Cruiser
Minmatar Strategic Cruiser
Amarr Defensive Systems
Amarr Electronic Systems
Amarr Engineering Systems
Amarr Offensive Systems
Amarr Propulsion Systems
Caldari Defensive Systems
Caldari Electronic Systems
Caldari Engineering Systems
Caldari Offensive Systems
Caldari Propulsion Systems
Gallente Defensive Systems
Gallente Electronic Systems
Gallente Engineering Systems
Gallente Offensive Systems
Gallente Propulsion Systems
Minmatar Defensive Systems
Minmatar Electronic Systems
Minmatar Engineering Systems
Minmatar Offensive Systems
Minmatar Propulsion Systems
Corporation Contracting
Margin Trading
Wholesale
Retail
Tycoon
Skills that are currently restricted which will remain restricted:
Starbase Defense Management
Cloaking
Cynosural Field Theory
Advanced Planetology
Drug Manufacturing
Astronautic Engineering
Laboratory Operation
Amarr Carrier
Caldari Carrier
Gallente Carrier
Minmatar Carrier
Amarr Dreadnought
Caldari Dreadnought
Gallente Dreadnought
Minmatar Dreadnought
Amarr Freighter
Caldari Freighter
Gallente Freighter
Minmatar Freighter
Amarr Titan
Caldari Titan
Gallente Titan
Minmatar Titan
Advanced Spaceship Command
Battlecruisers
Black Ops
Capital Industrial Ships
Capital Ships
Command Ships
Covert Ops
Electronic Attack Ships
Exhumers
Expedition Frigates
Heavy Assault Cruisers
Heavy Interdiction Cruisers
Industrial Command Ships
Interceptors
Interdictors
Jump Freighters
Logistics
Marauders
Mining Barge
ORE Industrial
Recon Ships
Transport Ships
Contracting
UI Changes
Trial accounts will now see more information relating to their trial status in a number of places in the UI. This includes clearly indicating trial restrictions in the UI and giving players a more direct way to get to Account Management (actually a streamlined subscription page) from the client.
The InterBus Ship Identification System
The ISIS will show players a visual representation of the ships they can and cannot fly on a trial account. Players seeking further info on the specific restricted skills can hover over a ship to see more details.
Character Sheet
The skill list in the character sheet will now indicate whether skills are trial restricted or not. Note that as mentioned in CCP Seagull's Phoebe dev blog, trial accounts will still have a 24 hour limit on their skill queue instead of the upcoming unlimited skill queue.
Information Window
In the information window, players will be able to see whether any of the required skills to use the relevant item are trial restricted.
Market
The Market will display restrictions on ships and items which cannot be used during the trial. Players will still be able to purchase and move these items as normal.
Industry
Industry panels will display any trial locked skills required in manufacturing and research.
We're very excited to be bringing these changes out in Phoebe and hope they allow new players to really get a feel for EVE while they're in their trial period.
– CCP Terminus, on behalf of Team Size Matters
Here is a video demonstrating the MultiSell window coming in the Phoebe release. It gives a person the ability to create multiple sell orders at the same time. It’s a big time saver for those who need to liquidate a large number of items at once.
