EVE Online News

Stain-based Capsuleers,

As part of our next Quadrant release, you can expect to see a new route opening up in the southern regions of New Eden bringing a long-awaited Lowsec gate to Stain. This newly-built stargate will offer Capsuleers expedient access into and out of this NPC Nullsec region, making it much more favorable as a place to live or stage from.

Unfortunately, CONCORD could not be contacted to issue a statement on the potential of a new gate to Stain being built. Instead, here are some comments on the topic by valued Capsuleers around the cluster:

• Have you heard that Lowsec is missing gate to Stain?
  
• How about enriching Lowsec and giving it direct gate connection to Stain?
  
• Wait - what do you mean we cannot jump to Stain?
  
• Stain is the best region in the game
  
• Lowsec gate to Stain will not build itself
  

Unfortunately, the gate to Stain would have been built sooner, but construction efforts were held up for some time after an Orca attempted to use the gate early and became lodged sideways in the jump tunnel.

Scanners at the ready Capsuleers! The annual pod hunt has returned to New Eden and is now live, offering an opportunity to secure a bounty of rewards, discounts, and special bonuses.

Running until 11:00 UTC on 13 April, The Hunt encourages you find and destroy mysterious Guristas capsules and claim the keys inside. Those keys will provide access to special time-limited combat sites. The capsules are reported to be orbiting celestial bodies in random star systems, and can be pinpointed by employing directional scanners or a probe scanner.

This increasingly infamous event also brings opportunities to explore non-combative hacking sites, claim daily login SKIN bonuses, enter the fray in The Hunt-themed Abyssal Proving Grounds battles, take advantage of discounted SKINs, and more.

A focus on smaller ship classes such as frigates and destroyers ensures that The Hunt provides plenty of opportunity and challenge for both newcomers and battle-hardened veterans.

Ready to get podding? Before you begin your pursuit, check out this quick guide to every element of The Hunt:

[h3]SPECIAL COMBAT SITES [/h3]
Throughout the 14 days of The Hunt, combat sites will be restricted to frigates and destroyers (T1/T2/Faction). Standard sites across New Eden will be suitable for T1 frigates and destroyers. Meanwhile, the more demanding, more lucrative Huntmaster sites will only appear in Caldari Lowsec and in the Guristas’ beloved home region Venal, and have been balanced for T2 frigates and T2 destroyers.

Each combat site will offer two combat rooms; one that can be accessed by all players, and a special area that will require key cards found in The Hunt’s mystery capsules. In those locked rooms, special loot drops will be available.

[h3]EXPLORATION SITES [/h3]
During The Hunt, Capsuleers looking for a break from combat can visit special exploration sites where hacking challenges will not only provide means to secure standard loot, but also a chance to gain items normally only available through combat. Again, these sites are limited to T1/T2/Faction frigates and destroyers.

[h3]PVP IMPLANT DROPS [/h3]
Throughout the two-week period that The Hunt is live, there will be a special 50% implant drop from player capsules; an opportunity that should be particularly appealing to pilots that prefer to hunt in high security and low security space.

[h3]DAILY LOGIN BONUS [/h3]
Omega and Alpha pilots that login for 10 of The Hunt’s 14 days will be granted a range of reward SKINs. Check out the snapshot below to see some of the rewards up for grabs.



[h3]50% OFF 3 MONTHS OMEGA + 3 MONTHS MCT [/h3]
Shortly after The Hunt begins, running from 31 March to 5 April, visitors to the New Eden Store will be able to save 50% on 3 months of Omega and 3 months of Multiple Character Training (MCT), when purchasing the pair as a bundle. Omega lets you level up at twice the speed, command advanced ships, get better rewards from in-game events, access to higher tier missions, and much more besides. Meanwhile, MCT allows you to train skills on multiple characters on the same account simultaneously. Reach your goals faster with Omega and MCT together!

[h3]SPECIAL ABYSSAL PROVING GROUNDS EVENT [/h3]
During The Hunt, players will be able to head to the Abyssal Proving Grounds to demonstrate their prowess in 3v3 T1 destroyer combat, empowered by special missile and drone damage bonuses.

[h3]NES EASTER SALE [/h3]
A special New Eden Store sale will compliment The Hunt, also running until 13 April, offering 33% off a wide selection of SKINs. For the opening week of the sale, selected SKINs from popular lines including Hazard Control, Helmatt's Harriers, and Vitalshift EGO will be available at the discounted price. The following week, popular lines such as the Zento Isideko Combine and Bluestar Defenders will see some of their most sought-after SKINs reduced.



[h3]EASTER MERCH OFFERINGS [/h3]
Throughout The Hunt, all purchases in the EVE Merch Store will come with a complimentary Hostile Takeover SKIN bundle featuring three stylish Guristas’ SKINS.

The Friendship Week Omega sale is ending soon so don’t miss out!

There are just 48 hours left until 11:00 UTC on 30 March for you to get 15% off a full year of Omega.

Visit the EVE Online Secure Store now to upgrade your gameplay and take New Eden by storm with double training speed, unlimited Skill access, and access to advanced ships and modules!

Industrious Capsuleers,

A significant update to industry, focusing mainly on Tech I ship manufacturing, will go live in the middle of April in a series of two updates. Material requirements for all Tech I ship blueprints will be updated, and new manufacturing tiers are established, making industry progression more consistent and easier to understand.

[h2]Aftermath of the Invasion[/h2]

"Over the course of the Triglavian Invasions, EDENCOM and the core empires became increasingly concerned by the threat of subversion of ship and capsule systems by the invading forces. The demonstrated ability of the Triglavians to infiltrate information networks and subvert key communications backbones raised the very real prospect of the capital ship and line battleship fleets of the empires being crippled by Triglavian information warfare. While the empires deployed selected capital fleets to combat invasion flashpoints, and kept large guard fleets of capital ships close to their home systems, a large proportion of the fleets were rushed into refitting programs aimed at hardening their systems against infiltration and subversion. Additional refitting was also carried out to enhance crew survival systems, improve reactor core temperature regulation, and enable increased power utilization of empire naval vessels.

Developments in these technologies were shared across the empires through the EDENCOM alliance, and inevitably some of the new resource extraction and manufacturing technology also fell into the hands of criminals and pirates. All ship designs are undergoing extensive upgrades to guard against subversion by the Triglavians in the uneasy aftermath of the invasions and the formation of the Triglavian region of Pochven."

[h2]A significant update to industry[/h2]
The path for aspiring builders in New Eden will be clearer than ever – so if you have ever thought about getting into industrial production, this is a good time to start! In addition, experienced builders will have a new set of challenges to rise to in their field of expertise.



Requirements for a given ship will be determined by a variety of factors, including tech level, ship category, hull type, size, and purpose, among other things. Based on these factors, each ship will be given a tier, and their material costs updated accordingly.

These changes will:
- Create more robust and interesting manufacturing progression
- Allow for better compartmentalization in the manufacturing process between subcapitals, capitals, and supercapital ships
- Revitalize the importance of R4 moons
- Normalize the value proposition between different activities in EVE
- Increase the importance of wormholes and allow wormholers to be a catalyst in New Eden's environment
- Positively impact capital proliferation without a significant impact on subcap markets
- Impact the whole economy of New Eden, such as the pricing of a variety of items
- Lay the foundations for future resource distribution

In addition, new industry components will be required for battleships, capitals, and supercapitals. These new components will be available via reactions, blueprints, and loot drops from exploration content.

The new reactions and blueprints for component construction will be available via NPC markets. What’s more, reprocessing material values will be updated for subcapital ships as well as for existing capital components.

This update will be split into two different phases in April. The first update will distribute the necessary blueprints, reactions, and components that will become a requirement in ship manufacturing. This will allow for a transitional period before the second update goes live a few weeks later, when these components will become required materials in ship production.

You can view the changes in more detail here and we supplied the preliminary SDE for the release to facilitate the transition ahead of time. This new update will be expanded to all Tech II ships in the future.

[h2]Also coming in April[/h2]
Due to the nature of the manufacturing changes, which include introducing Mycoserocin gas as a required material in some ships, the potency of all Mycoserocin booster products is being doubled.

In addition, the distribution of Mycoserocin gas clouds will be greatly increased and will now be included in all Lowsec systems, as well as select Nullsec systems.



The manufacturing process for Standup Fighters will also see some adjustments. The blueprints of all Tech II Standup Fighters will now require Tech I Standup Fighters as inputs instead of Tech II Carrier Fighters, which follows the general paradigm of Tech II manufacturing.

This means:
- Carrier Fighters are removed from all Standup Fighter Blueprints
- Tech I Standup Fighters are added to the Tech II Standup Fighter Blueprint

EDENCOM module blueprints will also receive an update, with an overall reduction in the materials required as input.

The Dynamic Bounty System will also see an increase in the average bounties across the universe.

Finally, the Encounter Surveillance System will see an increase in the time to autopay contributors, as well as a decrease in time required to link to the main bank.

[h2]Upcoming updates[/h2]
As was discussed in the EVE Online Ecosystem Outlook blog from last December, 2020 was a year of rebuilding - with a focus on the long-term health and sustainability for EVE, ensuring that player choices matter, that loss has meaning, and that New Eden becomes a dynamic and ever-changing place.

This update to manufacturing, as well as the large increase in availability of Mycoserocin gas, is the start of a new era of resource distribution, using the new manufacturing requirements as a driving force. Just like the Dynamic Bounty System has been updated based on player feedback and interaction, the industry update will follow the same path and include the community in the process.

There are more things around the corner. The mysterious keys to ESS Reserve Banks – which have been a source of a lot of speculation - will become available in Quadrant 2 of 2021. With more than 8 trillion ISK sitting in bulging bank vaults across New Eden, the race is on to see who will prevail in the struggle between the producers of wealth and the pirates who want to steal it.

A new intel tool is also coming to New Eden in the next months, one that will offer novel defenses against covert operations in New Eden.

Once these changes are live, focus will go towards capital mining as well as the risk-reward-attention trifecta of Nullsec combat anomalies to seek opportunities around incentivizing high-risk, high-attention gameplay such as capital ratting.



[h2]CCP TV[/h2]
This new update, as well as an in-depth look at the EVE Ecosystem will be the topic of a CCPTV livestream on Monday 29 March at 17:00 UTC. We will be joined by members of the Ecosystem Team and we invite the community to submit their questions in advance and vote on the questions submitted by other players here.