API will be turned off again...

...starting in a couple of hours, in case you missed the news. This means all 3rd party tools such as EveMon will cease to function for this period - starting at 14:00 today, until after downtime on the 21st (Monday).

Perhaps this has something to do with the server database migration to MS SQL 2008 scheduled for Tuesday, the 22nd (also accompanied by extended downtime starting at 8:00).

Fly safe.

New Planet GFX - Just Brilliant

The new planet graphics have been put on Singularity, the test server. And they look simply gorgeous. Here's a short clip by Flamewave:








Now the planets will look better than the rest of the game X)

Motherships - now with more teeth and less guts

There are significant changes coming to the Sovereignty mechanics in Eve-Online, and at the same time a lot of changes to capital ships. Dreads will no longer be the be-all, end-all in almost all types of conflict, Titans will no longer be able to wipe out entire fleets at the push of a button and carriers will remain largely unchanged in their logistics role. No doubt the removal of the Titan's AOE (area of effect) weapon is the most important change in fleet warfare since Titans were introduced, however the focus of this article are the changes that are expected to Motherships.

Up until now, Motherships were rarely put in harm's way intentionally.Used more as a personal hangar ornament (ironic, because they can't dock), and in limited logistics roles (clone vat bay etc.), they are to undergo a major re-purposing process, becoming Supercarriers in the process.

Things that are expected to be taken away:

• The ability to fit Triage modules
• The ability to fit Clone Vat bays (leaving the Titan and Rorqual the only two ships who can fill this role)
• The ability to fit Warfare Links

Gallente Fighter-Bomber - close-up

Things given in exchange:

• Hitpoint boost - how much remains to be seen
• Fighter-bombers, special attack craft similar to Fighters that will be used to kill other capital ships
• Specialized Fighter Bay (on both Supercarriers and Carriers) so the pilot can better organize his  strike craft. CCP Abathur: "The server does not like it when Supercarriers have 1500 spare Hobgoblin II's in their drone bays and making the server happy is always a good thing."
• Slightly reduced price tag, since the Supercarriers won't require Capital Clone Vat Bay components.

  What should still remain from the old Motherships' abilities is fitting Remote ECM Burst modules - which can be especially cool when one side has multiple Motherships/Supercarriers on the field and can possibly perma-jam  the enemy support fleet.

One thing I would like to see given to Supercarriers though is the ability to dock. Yes, regular carriers can dock, and now that they had their Cloning Vat removed,. their bigger cousins should be able to do this as well. Not having a character stuck at all times in what seems to be a very expensive coffin with big bad drones would make a big difference towards making the ship class more popular and seen more often on the battlefield - otherwise people are simply going to do what they've been doing until now - BRING MORE DREADS.

Sovereignty changes - TL;DR version

Today a new Dev Blog by CCP Abathur sheds some light into the upcoming changes to Sovereignty mechanics expected to come into effect with this winter's expansion (Dominion).

I highly recommend reading this blog, but for the "TL:DR Crowd", here's some details in short:

• No more Sov levels, you'll either have sov over the system or not
• Sov will no longer be tied to starbases (we knew that much already)
• Fuel costs for Sov-upholding towers will be swapped with costs (not necessarily financial) for running Stargates
• CCP will let capsuleers do "some really cool stuff" in order to increase revenue from their held space - "Through the investment of time, money and effort at all levels, an alliance will be able to directly affect the value of and develop the space they hold."
  
• Shooting stuff will still be an essential part of gaining (and defending) Sovereignty
• A new interface, called "Sovereignty Dashboard" will allow players, according to their position in the alliance, to see real-time information on what's happening in any part of your alliance's controlled territories.
• For a future expansion CCP envisions the introduction of treaties - formal contracts between alliances. These may include such features as "renting" of space, formal military treaties and so on.

These changes will not spell the end of gigantic power blocs in Eve Online, but a major shakedown is certainly on the horizon. Those entities with too rigid a structure, those who don't deserve their space, or those unable to adapt to the changes will find themselves removed, remaining only as a footnote in the EVE cluster's history, only to be replaced by new, more flexible entities.

Thoughts on Changes to Faction Battleships

The winter expansion, called Dominion will bring about new releases and changes to faction ships.

In this article I will focus on the Battleships, since CCP has finally decided to release Tier I battleships in Navy versions. Also, quite a few changes are to be made to the Tier 2 (Navy versions of the Megathron, Apocalypse, Tempest and Raven).

You can read the improvements to navy versions compared to the vanilla versions in the forum thread linked above - basically all navy Battleships will recieve +10% CPU and PG, +25% racial sensor strength and will lose some calibration compared to the T1 versions. All Tier 1 Navy Battleships get +50% hitpoints on Hull, Armor and Shield, making them pretty hard nuggets.

It is worth mentioning that the Tier 1 Navy Battleships will only be available for purchase from their respective Militia's LP store, with a price tag of 150'000 loyalty points. I expect the tier 1 versions to be rather expensive at first, given the scarcity of Militia LP, but they should go down as more people sign up in search of wealth and nice toys.

The Navy ships of particular interest to me are the Armageddon, Dominix and the Megathron (of which I used to own one for running missions, but which I sold because of its inability to fit T2 railguns without faction mods to spare on CPU)

Now then, on paper the Armageddon looks like a real monster. The slot layout will be 8/4/8, with 7 turret slots. It receives an extra mid slot compared to the standard version, which is CRUCIAL, since it can now fit much better for PVP (Has room for MWD, Cap Booster, web/sensor booster, warp disruptor/scrambler), and also for PVE (one extra cap recharger or AB or whatever). It also gets 50m3 additional drone bay space (which can mean 1 full set of sentries and also other drones; yay for rape-grade DPS).

The new Dominix receives 1 additional mid slot, making the slot layout 6/6/7, adding even more
versatility to what can be considered the Swiss Army Knife of battleships. It also gets a small capacitor boost (+5%) and +25m3 drone bay space, bringing the bay on par with the one on the Sin. All in all it will be more resilient, more versatile (can fit more ewar, more tackle, more drone mods like the omnidirectional tracking link and so on). I sure hope they'll make the paint job Jet Black, like the one on the Navy Megathron.

Finally the Megathron Navy issue will get +5% agility and speed when compared to the current version, +50m3 drone bay capacity and with the PG/CPU boost it'll be good to fit my full T2 setup, including the guns.

Time to start the count-down until Dominion gets released... I can't wait.

Guristas Exploration Boat - The Ishkur

So these past few days I've been passing time exploring in Caldari highsec and lowsec. I use a few ships to do this - a Helios to scan and do radar sites with no rats in them, Deimos for the combat sites that allow (and need) cruiser hulls and an armor-tanked ishkur for smaller plexes that don't.

In the past I used to run the Deimos with 2 scan rigs and a core probe launcher to do it all, but I found it rather slow to use full-time and also without the covops cloak taking it into lowsec and sitting in a safespot while looking for plexes I run the risk of getting caught with a PVE fit.

So, seing that the Ishkur also has a utility high slot, I thought of adapting it to the role, creating a high-dps, high-tank scan capable Assault Frigate. After tinkering in EFT, looking for the right price/performance ratio, I came up with a shield boosted fit:

[Ishkur, Gistii Booster, Neutrons, C-Type AB, Scan]
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Beta Reactor Control: Capacitor Flux I
Damage Control II

Gistii B-Type Small Shield Booster
Pithum C-Type Kinetic Deflection Amplifier
Coreli C-Type 1MN Afterburner

Light Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Sisters Core Probe Launcher, Sisters Core Scanner Probe I

Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I
Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I


Hobgoblin II x10

[Note to self: get the latest EFT, with sized rigs, on personal laptop as well]

Stats:

• 225 dps tank vs. Guristas (85% kin, 15% therm split common in exploration)
• 230 dps output using Null S (for extra range) and Hobgoblin II's; 265 with Federation Antimatter (but then only 1.7 km optimal). Only use Void on static installations you need to destroy.
• 943-ish m/s speed, thanks to the Coreli C-Type AB
• 39 Sig Radius

Yes, it's shield tanked, but this allows me to fit a damage mod (rig slots are needed for scan rigs), and is also cheaper than the armor tank solution of equivalent strength. My shield skills are sub-par compared to armor, but I still get the job done OK.

I've been flying it for a few hours now and I can honestly say, for Guristas it's golden. Radars - did 2, no problem, even the one with battleships (yay for small sig radius); breaks combat sites like nobody's business (Now if I could only find a 4/10 or similar to check out)... I did break a sweat in a Guristas Watch site because I mismanaged the triggers and because (I think) of the high number of gun ships present.

All in all it performs admirably, the 2 scan rigs and Sisters equipment allow for pretty damn fast scan times (almost as fast as covops, and although you might need an extra scan or two, it's definitely faster than going back and forth to swap ships).

I like the fact that it's fast and maneuvrable (and awe-inspiring) - I managed to snatch a Radar site from a small gang made up of a Drake, Buzzard and a Tristan. They warped out in a hurry when they saw me coming and didn't loot the site. By the time the Buzzard returned (and decloaked in the gas cloud cause he warped in too close), I had already looted all the cans and had just punched the warp engines.

For radar/arcsal sites I bring codebreaker/analyzer/salvager with me and dock to swap the C-type resistance amplifier or the probe launcher for the required mod.

The whole fit costs about 150mil - reasonable enough to be feasible (sisters launcher and probes I got on LP but are typically worth about 65mil, shield booster was 35mil, ship was 26mil, AB was 10mil, assorted bits and pieces a few more millions), and it also has the capability to flee should things get rough in lowsec, which will happen given the fact that it has no cloak.

Comments are welcome, as always.

In other news, I've been accepted as a member on the Eve Blog Roll (a collection containing various Eve Online related blogs ). Thanks, CrazyKinux, and congratulations to all other newly added participants.