EVE Vanguard News

Attention Vanguard,
The war is coming to EVE Vanguard from 28 November – 12 December, as warclone testing concludes and the Vanguard get ready for their first full-fledged operation: YC126.11.28 Groundbreak. As before, this deployment is open to all Omega clones, but will now offer greatly expanded access with new opportunities for Alphas as well as newcomers to the EVE Universe to jump into the fray. The time has come to choose your allegiance. Descend to planet surfaces and ascend to greatness, as you make your mark in New Eden. Your footsteps may be small, but your next shot will topple empires.

If you want to show your support for EVE Vanguard’s development make sure you wishlist on Steam and join the conversation on Discord.

[h3]Between now and November, we will be sharing content in the form of Themes. These Themes will cover multiple topics from art, lore, weapons and more to provide you insight into our development journey. Lets look at our eight and final theme, FUTURE OF EVE VANGUARD. [/h3]

Introduction
Five years is a long time. Nothing can ever stay perfectly solid for five years without changing somewhat and this even truer for video games and video game development. In September 2023, at EVE Fanfest just over one year ago, we announced EVE Vanguard to the world. Alongside some live game play, we talked about what EVE Vanguard was right there and then, what we wanted it to be, and what we wanted it to grow into in the future. There is still a lot in what we talked about then that is still true now in what we want EVE Vanguard to become, but even in this short year between then and now, where we are about to release only our second ever major feature update to EVE Vanguard, we have learned so much, grown as a team, and gained confidence in what we want EVE Vanguard to become.

So… with all that was demonstrated in 2023 and what we’ve learned along the way since – what does EVE Vanguard look like five years from now?



What is EVE Vanguard
EVE Vanguard is an MMO FPS. It is an FPS (first person shooter) through how the players interact with the world, through a more human lens, and with a gun in their hands. It is an FPS for players who want a more complex, deeper, and connected experience. It is an FPS that caters to many different play styles that rewards players for preparation, decision making, and systems mastery. It is an MMO for players who want to have a lasting impact on the game play environment, across an expansive universe, a connected universe of over a million players already playing, warring, and collaborating within it. It is an MMO for players who don’t just play one way, who don’t just want one single experience repeatedly with just new content added. This is a game for players who want lasting impact, a player-driven ecosystem, and a progression and economy that doesn’t reset so your identity and actions live on!

EVE Vanguard is an MMO FPS that has the playgrounds, tools, and experiences for players to create their own stories, have that impact in a single, vast, shared universe, and one day be part of the record-breaking tales that got them excited to be a part of this universe in the first place.



The EVE Connection
That ‘universe’ that EVE Vanguard inhabits is clearly EVE Online’s New Eden and the players that exist within it that you will connect with. This is what truly makes EVE Vanguard an MMO FPS and can even help set a new standard as to what that really means in a game. EVE Vanguard will be another avenue to experience that single universe -its economy, its social structures, the politics, and all the glory and loss of the battles that take place there.

Vast corporations, new and old, will span across both EVE Vanguard and EVE Online as one. Wars fought, lines redrawn, territory lost and gained - will be fought across both experiences. Our existing expansion right now into how the Vanguard will fight in insurgencies is a testament to the direction and depth of connection that we want to build out here.

EVE Online is at its core a resource game and its legendary economy is housed on those solid foundations. EVE Vanguard will be no different in how it’s fuelled – people fighting for power, influence, and the resources that are required for that, late into an elder game. How those resources flow between EVE Online and EVE Vanguard is very important. It cannot be total, as the scale of these two experiences are just far too different. The Vanguard on the ground aren’t thinking or trading in the scale of capital ships (...or are you?) – they’re thinking about guns, and suit modules, weapon chipsets, and whatever amount of contraband they might be able to shift around themselves. But that doesn’t mean the weight has to be so desperate; something found on world, however small, can have a massive impact in the right hands of a Capsuleer. Something sent down from space, however small to a Capsuleer, could be huge in turning the tide of a skirmish on the ground. Whether it is resources, equipment, influence, or even intel – we want to create tools in EVE Vanguard to allow players to manage the flow of these useful components and the economy that surrounds it, to have an impact upwards into EVE Online and feel its effects on the surface back from it. EVE Online is often player-driven chaos, and with EVE Vanguard; as above, so below.



A great bit of competitive analysis we received on EVE Vanguard said something very key – if you want to bring New Eden to EVE Vanguard, you have to bring the players. And that insight is correct, EVE Online is what it is because of its players – how they connect, the social structures they have built, the operations they run, and the feuds they live by. That will be embodied in EVE Vanguard, with more systemic integration as to how players connect across both games through corporations, alliances, and faction allegiances.

In the business of video games, you look for a USP – a ‘unique selling point’. For EVE Vanguard, its EVE Online and EVE Vanguard’s predecessor Dust 514 - not the setting (it’s space), not the actors (it’s capital ships), but it’s players and the systems they have built.

What will actual play look like?
At the core of what we want EVE Vanguard to play like is an open FPS with many different experiences and playgrounds to allow players to play to the ways in which they want to, much like a traditional MMO. If you like to play competitive PvP, fighting for a new frontline, there should be a place and experiences for you in EVE Vanguard. Similarly, if you just want to mine and gather resources for your friends or corporation. If you want to field test a new loadout and take on a horde of NPC drones. Or if you just want to deploy down to the surface of a planet with friends and not know what you want to do, or what you’ll find. All of these play styles, all of these experiences are part of a central economy, a central progression flow, and about the pushing and pulling of impact across the same, shared universe.

We’ve said we don’t want to just make a single mode, a single experience that players repeat over and over. We want to keep making new experiences, adding to the many play styles that define Sandbox MMO games, and keep building towards the lofty goals of a CCP game – a forever game.

At the centre of these EVE Vanguard experiences however is the loop that we are building – players deploying down to surface of planets; killing, looting scavenging, turning in contracts, competing in activities, to earn, find, and steal resources. Resources that feed into what players can manufacture, sell, or trade to grow – grow as a Vanguard in power, influence, and infamy. These currencies are how players move through the universe, grow more important in it, and interact with everyone else that inhabits it.



Primary to this is players deploying down into more sandbox-like environments, like we have at the moment and will only continue to expand on and flesh out. But around the edges of these are other secondary experiences, that to you, or to the elder game may start to become more primary. These are the likes of more PvP leaning experiences like fighting in Insurgencies or even fighting over front-lines that take part in more ‘separate’ skirmishes that players deploy down to, and in future possibly the more economically run experiences, the more industrial, the more social, even purely PvE in nature. We’re not restricting ourselves in how the game as a whole NEEDS to be played – we just want to provide you the tools, build the playgrounds, that can cater to how anyone might want to play and contribute to the universe so each and every one of our players can feel a sense of belonging in New Eden.



In your hands though will be guns – and lots of them. Whilst we have been fleshing out our weapon systems around a single weapon, showcasing how much agency and customisation we really want to put into the hands of players, there will still be lots of different guns, of many many different types, that you can rip, tear, and rend with chipsets into the perfect weapon for how you like to play. The same extends to your suit as a Vanguard, upgrading various subsystems and components to fit you out for the type of experiences you might be deploying down to – a fight, a resource run, or if you just want to show off…or, you know, laser your comrades with the cutting tool.



Closing Thoughts
It has only been a year since we announced EVE Vanguard – and it has already been quite the journey. We are a small team with big ambitions, and we are resolute in building towards a shared vision for EVE Vanguard – but we know what we’ve prioritised and chosen to build out for you so far in our major feature releases has showcased the game that we are trying to build, the universe we want to impact, and the types of experiences we want players to have with a gun in their hand.

We get there with your help as we have only gotten to where we are now with it – building this alongside the community as we set out when we first announced EVE Vanguard.

I’ll repeat what I wrote up above about ‘what EVE Vanguard is’ because it’s how we ‘win’, and part of the challenge as to how we make EVE Vanguard a success – we’re not building a single experience, a single mode of play, we’re building a playground. We’re building the tools to allow you all to create your own goals, write your own stories, have that impact on New Eden, and one day be part of the record-breaking stories that got us all so excited to be a part of this universe in the first place.

What will EVE Vanguard look like in five years? Well, that’s up to you!

o7

[h3]Between now and November, we will be sharing content in the form of Themes. These Themes will cover multiple topics from art, lore, weapons and more to provide you insight into our development journey. Lets look at our seventh theme, EVOLUTION OF COMBAT. [/h3]

Weapons
Before designing any weapon in Vanguard, we ask the same three core questions: Who made it? What does it do? How will it be used? These principles form the foundation of our design philosophy, ensuring that every weapon feels like an authentic part of the world.

Who made it?
Every weapon in Vanguard has been manufactured by a faction or empire within New Eden, each with its own distinct culture and technological signature. Whether a weapon is sleek and precise or heavy and brutal, its origins will influence its visual style and the materials used in its construction.

What does it do?
Weapons are designed with a specific purpose in mind, whether it’s delivering precision strikes or providing heavy firepower in chaotic battle scenarios. Once we understand the function of the weapon, we assign it to an appropriate world manufacturer. Just as in the real world, different corporations specialize in different methods of construction, and this is reflected in both the look and feel of the weapons.

How will it be used?
Weapon design goes beyond aesthetics—ergonomics and player experience are critical. Elements like the positioning of charging handles or magazine placement must align with how players will handle the weapon in combat. Our 3D, concept, and animation teams collaborate to ensure each weapon not only looks incredible but feels amazing to use in action.

From concept to the battlefield, every detail of a weapon is carefully crafted to ensure it delivers a unique combat experience for the players of Vanguard.



Drones
Drones in Vanguard are autonomous robots that fulfil a variety of roles and tasks. Not all drones are designed for combat, and many do not pose significant threats to Vanguard or NPCs. Their modular nature allows for extensive customization, enabling them to serve different functions depending on the variant.

Most drones are airborne, manoeuvring easily in 3D space, which presents a unique challenge for players, especially when engaging small and agile drones. The diversity of drone sizes and shapes also means that combat strategies must adapt accordingly—sometimes evading drones is just as critical as engaging them.

Goals & Strategy
Each drone variant in Vanguard is built for a unique purpose, requiring players to adapt their strategies when encountering them. Whether drones are scouting for targets, protecting key assets, or deploying reinforcements, players must always consider their role and threat level.

Intended Player Experience
Drones in Vanguard offer a range of challenges, from their aerial mobility to their varied capabilities. Players must take a different approach depending on the drone’s vertical positioning and modular design. Drones also evoke different emotional responses depending on whether they are aligned with, against, or agnostic toward the player.



Militia
The Militia are an organized group of survivors native to Solstice and other habitable planets. They act as a resistance force, primarily using ambush tactics to combat occupying forces. Despite being low-tech compared to other factions, they use scavenged weaponry and resources to become a significant threat to Vanguard and other AI-controlled enemies.

Player Experience
Players should expect sudden ambushes from Militia, which create reactionary combat scenarios. The ambushes slow players down and force them to become more methodical in navigating the map, being mindful of Militia traps or squads lurking nearby.

Militia combat should feel unpredictable but not entirely without warning. Players can detect the presence of Militia through subtle environmental cues like chatter, clicks, and whistles. This gives players some control over avoiding traps while still keeping the pressure on.

Encounters
Militia ambushes come in various forms, surprising and disorienting players with traps or sudden attacks. Some common ambush types include:

• Trap Ambush: Exclusively targets Vanguard players with tripwire traps. Once triggered, Militia squads quickly appear to engage the player.
  
• Roaming Ambush: Militia squads roam the map, attacking both players and NPC squads.
  
• Camp Ambush: Militia lie in wait at strategic locations, initiating scripted set-piece encounters.
  
• Trapdoor Ambush: Triggered by players or objects like grenades. These ambushes send Rogues (a Militia variant) to spring a high-damage melee attack.
  

Post-Combat: If Militia wins a fight, they might be seen looting deathboxes in the area before retreating. Militia who successfully loot items will drop them upon death if killed later.

Militia variant ideas:

• Warrior: Standard enemy wielding stolen Core80s. Uses knives in close proximity.
  
• Watcher: Tracks targets with low fire-rate rifles and maintains a safe distance.
  
• Rogue: Fast-moving melee attackers who charge recklessly toward players.
  
• Grenadier: Throws explosives from behind cover, advancing on pinned targets.
  

Situational Awareness (Player's perspective vs Militia)
Players need to rely on subtle cues to detect Militia presence. These include:

• Militia Presence Ambience: Whispers, clicks, and subtle sounds warn players of nearby Militia.
  
• Militia War Cry: Loud war cries signal an impending attack, giving players a final moment to react.
  
• Unique Footsteps: Militia have a distinctive sound profile, making them identifiable even when out of sight.
  

Loot Drops
Militia often drop munitions components and scrap. More valuable resources can be found as uncommon loot, but players may also recover items looted by Militia during their ambushes.



Until next time,
o7

[h3]Between now and November, we will be sharing content in the form of Themes. These Themes will cover multiple topics from art, lore, weapons and more to provide you insight into our development journey. Lets look at our sixth theme, MINING. [/h3]

Goodbye banana, hello Cutting Tool!
A versatile, equippable tool designed to interact with specific targets in the game world. Though it functions similarly to a weapon, the cutting tool is built to handle precision tasks, like cutting open mineral deposits, wreckage panels, or other materials that block access to valuable resources. It’s designed specifically for mining and exploration purposes, allowing you to retrieve resources or unlock containers and doors.

How the Cutting Tool works:

• Emits a beam that damages mining targets, allowing you to extract resources or access hidden areas.
  
• Used to mine mineral deposits, cut open wreckage for salvage, and unlock containers or covered switches.
  
• Designed to damage targets that respond to frequencies generated by the cutting tool laser, such as ore-rich deposits or latches on wreckage.
  

Cutting Tool Design:
The cutting tool itself is a tough, rugged piece of kit designed to survive the harshest conditions. Its construction allows it to withstand extended use in unforgiving environments. Additionally, it’s designed to be easily disassembled, ensuring that players can maintain and repair it with minimal effort when needed, making it a reliable companion in exploration and mining operations.

The cutting tool is essential for players exploring hostile environments where quick access to resources or locked areas can mean the difference between success and failure. It’s not just a weapon or a tool, but a key piece of gear for exploration, salvage, and even survival.



Customizing your Cutting Tool
The cutting tool uses mining crystals, each tuned to specific frequencies that are most effective for cutting certain materials. Players need to experiment with these crystals through trial and error to find the right one for the job.

Switching Crystals:

• Switching between crystal types is like swapping ammunition in a weapon. You can cycle through them to see which crystal works best for a particular material.
  
• Using the wrong crystal slows the process but the correct crystal will allow for faster, more efficient cutting.
  
• Crystals have limited durability, and once depleted, they must be replaced. Crystals cannot be repaired.
  

Mining Minigame:
The cutting tool introduces a simple, strategic element to mining: crafting the correct crystal to use for each material. Using the right crystal rewards players with faster cutting, while using the wrong one results in slower progress and may incur potential penalties.



Node Layers and Visual Feedback:
When mining resource nodes, players must cut through layers of material using the correct crystal type to speed up the process. Visual feedback, such as cracks or heat effects, will show how well the crystal is working. However, the process is more about experimenting with different crystals. If the wrong crystal is used, the cutting will take longer, encouraging players to switch crystals until they find the right one.

Chipsets and Customization (concept):
Chipsets can be added to the cutting tool to improve its efficiency, regardless of which crystal is being used. These chipsets provide benefits such as:

• Durability: Each crystal has a limited lifespan, but using the wrong one simply slows progress rather than depleting it faster. Crystals must be replaced when depleted.
  
• Yield: Enhances the amount of resources collected from nodes.
  
• Speed: Shortens the cutting time, helping players mine resources faster.
  

The idea is that these customizations offer the player flexibility depending on their playstyle—whether they prefer efficient resource gathering, faster gameplay, or a balance of both.



Combat Feedback:
Although the cutting tool is not designed for combat, it can deal minor damage to characters. However, for the upcoming release, the feedback for damaging characters might be rudimentary. Expect a more developed combat feedback system in future updates.

Until next time,
o7

[h3]Between now and November, we will be sharing content in the form of Themes. These Themes will cover multiple topics from art, lore, weapons and more to provide you insight into our development journey. Lets look at our fifth theme, CONNECTIONS TO EVE. [/h3]

On May 6th, 2003 (or YC105), New Eden came to life for the first time. In the more than two decades since, this living universe has steadily grown hand-in-hand with a community unlike any other – evolving through DUST 514, EVE Valkyrie, EVE Gunjack, and striving toward an even brighter future in EVE Vanguard.

When a story must exist in the context of a broader world, the worry that it might constrain its own future to a narrow path for fear of breaking what came before—or worse, deliberately disregard that history—is all too often proven justified. On the infinite horizons of New Eden, however, precedent becomes potential. Rather than prescribing lines that must be carefully coloured within, EVE’s twenty-one years of established story and community provide a palette from which a truly limitless future can be painted. The Vanguard is this idea manifest, resolving elements at the very roots of EVE, DUST, and Valkyrie into a foundation for a new era of Elysian independence.

In Vanguard infomorphs, the remnant Sleeper origins of warclone technology have been unified with those empowered by it in a very literal sense by the Arkombine mercenary group’s “Lifegiver” – lighting a path to harmony at last for the first generation within the inner virtual world of the Fulcrum and to self-realization together with second gens through compatibility with a new kind of warclone blank.

In Vanguard clones, the history, technology, and biology of the ever-factious Jove weave together with the vision and innovations of the Deathless Circle’s “Quartermaster” to form a body whose brain and implants are capable of coupling with the Fulcrum’s onboard virtuality at a distance, as if they were Sleepers coupled physically to their crumbling enclaves.

• Lifegiver brings the technology and population of DUST to a long-hoped resolution.
• Quartermaster innovates paths of pragmatism and progress from the core tech of Valkyrie.
• The Deathless and the Fulcrum drag ancient Jovian lore and technology to the surface in EVE Online.



More than simply sharing roots in deep lore, the stories of Vanguard and EVE have interacted directly in the games themselves, and this confluence will only grow as time goes on:

In December YC125 (2023), the First Strike deployment saw the Vanguard make their first appearance on the planet Hevrice III, launching from a Forward Operating Base cast into orbit and descending upon the crashed remains of a Mordu’s Legion Bowhead outfitted with an onboard clone fabrication chamber. This vessel and others like it were evidently designed to provide tactical deployment of an also-previously-unseen mass-production warclone type to the battlefields of Angel and Guristas Insurgencies.

A “second strike” several months later in March YC126 brought deeper investigations into the contents of these ships and Mordu’s new toys at the request of Lifegiver and Quartermaster. It quickly became clear that the Legion had found new uses for technology they had acquired more than a decade prior from partnered Guristas-Thukker covert research facilities host to Quartermaster’s involvements at the time.

The Solstice deployment—by far the largest to date—took place shortly after the Upwell Consortium’s launch of their Equinox product line in June YC126 on the planet Auviken VI, which had become the host of Upwell’s prototype Skyhook and a wealth of research infrastructure. Suspected by many to have burned a longstanding zero-day vulnerability in the system’s cynosural jamming network to bring assets into the system, the Deathless Circle provided low-atmosphere launchpoints from several vessels cloaked in low orbit. Vanguard at the target location—a crash site that, like the rumoured insertion, is broadly considered unrepeatable—observed the Skyhook prototype’s near-ground launch zone in the distance.



Though the backends of EVE Vanguard and EVE Online have been developed independently, they share a lot of common DNA. Most notably the adoption of an Event Driven Architecture (EDA), and some common tech choices in the use of Golang, Protobuf and gRPC.

EDAs produce highly flexible and decoupled systems that can grow organically while maintaining scalability and resilience. In an EDA, all state changes are captured as “events” and published onto a central message bus. An example event might describe a character undocking from a station, what ship they undocked in, and what modules were fitted to that ship.

Once an event type is being published onto the message bus, consumers can choose to subscribe and react to that event. The publisher of the event is unconcerned with the event's consumers, and so new system behaviour can be built independently of existing behaviour.



To link into EVE Online, the Vanguard Backend was setup as a trusted publisher of events into Quasar (EVE Online's backend), and used this connection to publish events about contracts completed in Vanguard. Insurgency services in Quasar listen out for these events, ascribe active insurgency information to them, and aggregate them into the insurgency totals for the appropriate solar systems.

When it came to building this connection between Vanguard and Eve Online, the initial challenges were technical. To become a trusted source of events, a publisher must connect to Quasar's internal gRPC gateway service; and to connect to that, the publisher must be within the same private network as the gateway, and be authenticated using CCP's Private Key Infrastructure (PKI) to acquire an mTLS client certificate.



In the run-up to First Strike, the Vanguard backend team re-deployed both our development and production environments into new subnets that could be connected into the wider CCP network without address conflicts. We were then able to connect to CCP's PKI services to sign our client certificate and use that to connect to the Quasar internal gateway! Fortunately a Golang client SDK already existed for interacting with the Gateway, so we were able to integrate that into the Vanguard Backend without too much difficulty.



Now that we've proven out the technical aspects of this inter-game communication, we want to next look at maturing our integration by simplifying the client SDK to bypass the need for a PKI Agent, and building support for bi-directional communication so that the Vanguard backend can react to events coming from EVE Online.



A bi-directional link into Quasar would allow for Vanguard’s game systems to react to events that happen in Eve Online in realtime. This opens up all kind of possibilities for inter-game gameplay and we’d love to hear your ideas for how we could use this!

Until next time,
o7