So last night I was in fleet running some plexes with a fleet in Heydieles and discovered that the changes to faction warfare plexes in Kronos were causing me and other some massive confusion at first. So this is a Public Service Announcement for those who are still unaware.
When you first warp into the plex, you'll see the Capture Point which looks like a double circle with a name like "Caldari Medium Outpost" and a beacon which looks like an upside down triangle with a stick on top and a name like "Caldari Medium Outpost" and a type like "Medium Military Beacon".
Previously the beacon was the warp in point and if you were a short ranged brawler waiting for targets you would orbit that point. However, its been moved so that it is right on top of the capture point and its radius expanded to 30 km as it now operates as the cloaking disruptor. If you tell your ship to orbit it at 500m, you will go out to 30.5 km and orbit there.
If you look around in the new plex, you will notice another object called Beacon and type of Beacon. Right click on it and add it to your overview (via "Add Large Collideable Object to overview"). This is now the warp in point and has the expected tiny radius so it can be orbited at 500m as expected.
You can choose to either keep all three up on your overview, or remove the extraneous capture point.
What's up with all the low sec only lotteries being added lately?
In my post on Tuesday called Low Sec Evolution I noted:
More recently we have seen a couple more low sec only features announced. Tags for Sec feature where special rats spawn in low sec belts and drop tags that can be turned in for rapid sec status, and coming this summer there will be special Mordu's Legions rats which will randomly appear in belts and drop BPCs to the new ships. A low sec only lottery if you will.
When they've received sufficient data, they are going to launch an all-out assault on a site we're calling the Besieged Covert Research Facility. As we also noted, Mordu's Legion are really not going to want you there; your business with them will be done, and they will react in extremely hostile fashion to anyone who persists in interfering with their operations.
Further on, in the comments CCP RedDawn adds:
Sven Viko VIkolander wrote:
Just to get things straight:
1) The BPCs for the new pirate ships (Garmur etc) drop from Mordus rats in low security belts. (On test server I've yet to see one FWIW.)
2) Contested Guristas Covert Research Facility sites will (only?) drop data that can either be sold on the market or traded at the Mordus station. But otherwise these sites drop no loot? And these sites too will spawn in low sec?
3) Once enough data has been delivered to the Mordus station, Besieged Covert Research Facility sites will start to appear anywhere in low sec and they will drop the new ship skin BPCs, "low-grade" implants, and warp speed modules?
Is all of that correct or am I missing something?
I also have a question about the "Besieged Covert Research Facility" sites. Once they have been "unlocked," are they permanently unlocked such that they spawn all over low sec from there on out? Or is it more of a system where 1 is unlocked as a spawn for every X amount of data delivered to Mordus? (FWIW they are everywhere in low sec on the test server.)
1) Yes that's right.
2) Yes these Contested sites only drop the data you need to unlock the Besieged sites and they will be present in low sec.
3) Yes. The Besieged sites will be over all of low sec and drop what's mentioned in the dev blog.
So there will be a new type of ghost site in low sec that drop sweet loot, and only in low sec.
Exploration in low sec has always been lucrative for the intrepid explorer but now we have the case where even belt ratting can reap unexpected and significant rewards. Belt ratting used to be the only way besides missioning for making money from PvE content but anomalies and exploration killed that off all over null sec. However, will it rise as a common method in low sec once again?
Moreover, from these data points we can extrapolate CCP's vision for low sec, and tangentially for null sec. Assuming high sec is mostly remaining the commons space it is now, null sec will be the player constructed (and destructed) place of capsuleer empires where wealth and power is built from processes and cooperation, and low sec will be the "wild west" frontier where the individual finds his way through lucky panhandling strikes while avoiding the mafias and cartels and gang wars happening around them. Random sites and drops means large scale farming will not succeed in harvesting the wealth thus organized and militarized control will not be cost effective for the most part.
If this hypothesis is true, then we can make some (wild) predictions about future low sec content. It seems likely that pirate factions will continue to expand into low sec and destabilze Empire control in that area. It could lead to pirate factions taking over station in low sec, especially non-faction warfare space. Maybe then they would want a capsuleer militia to enforce and expand their control... leading to pirate militias participating in faction warfare mechanics?
We know eventually players are going to be able to build stargates, and we know that some sort of new space (or more precisely, "New world") will be involved as per this image from Fanfest:
So let's dissect the trailer and see what it tells us. Disclaimer: I'm no lore expert like Rhavas of Interstellar Privateer for example, but I'm very curious as to what this end result will be.
0:14 - 0:28 - "From the formless void, there springs an entity more primordial than the elements themselves."
Well that sounds very dire! And who is saying this? Narrator? Very gravelly voice.
0:30 - 0:36 - "In its wake, it will follow a storm."
That makes no sense... unless we change the punctuation to something more Yoda-like: "In its wake it follow; a storm."
The last great vestige of the religious sect that once ruled the Empire, the Theology Council has the same role as the supreme court has in other empires. It also acts a moral police and hunter of heretics, which gives it considerable power within the Empire, allowing it to investigate, question and even imprison almost anyone at its whim.
Mamet is a low sec system in Domain two jumps from the border of Tash Murkon and Providence regions. A few stations, lots of stargates, nothing else special and nothing mentioning the Theology Council.
0:40 - 0:45 - "The prophecy is true. The heretics have constructed the gate."
Woman's voice. And she says "the gate". Which gate is that? Which heretics? When you're a religious fanatic, there are a lot of different heretics. Details please!
From the formless void's gaping maw, there springs an entity. Not an entity such as any you can conceive of, nor I; an entity more primordial than the elements themselves, yet constantly coming into existence even as it is destroyed. It is the Child of Chaos, the Pathway to the Next.
The darkness shall swallow the land, and in its wake there will follow a storm, as the appetite of nothing expands over the world.
From the formless void's gaping maw, there springs an entity.
Dr. Damella Macaper
The Seven Events of the Apocalypse
Interesting. The line I find most intriguing is the "appetite of nothing expands over the world". I have thoughts on that in the conclusions.
0:45 - 0:47 - "It must be destroyed."
Male speaker, I assume talking to the female voice we just heard, referring to the aforementioned gate.
0:48 - 0:49 - Scene switch, out in space now. Scene description says "Drekar Alliance Command" and subtitle of "Deadspace Construction Facility". The "Drekar" alliance was previously seen in the Causality trailer.
0:50 - Caldari Leviathan titan.
0:52 - 1:05 "Commanders, its the dawn of a new era. Today we hold the key to new worlds, wealth, and our independence."
I'm going to ignore overall the Dust / Valkyrie / Capsuleer working together component in this post because part of me thinks its just marketing and pipe dreams and interests me less than what this trailer means for the development of Eve.
So who is talking? Some overlord with obvious alpha-male voice proclaiming they have "the key to new worlds". So this big stargate we saw the Amarrians getting angry over obviously is the key to new worlds and they are about to open it. Once open, they have access to its resources for the wealth, but independence from whom? The empires?
1:08 - 1:12 - "Once the gate is active we'll change our world forever."
So is it a gate that opens a wormhole that cannot be closed or destroyed? Can there be only one that has to be fought over?
1:15 - Scene switch, descriptions reads "Imperial Fleet Staging Area" with a subheading of "Aridia Region".
1:17 - 1:20 - "The fleet awaits your command, my lord."
Looks like these guys are not going to let that gate get activated if they can help it. Those meddling Amarrians, always putting their Apocs in other people's faces!
1:30 - 1:34 - "We're not aborting the sequence. Prepare for battle."
Okay, gravelly voiced alliance leader! Apparently the big stargate has a EMP ignition zone which we don't know is a feature of a bug. Who am I kidding!? Its a bug that's been turned into a feature! Engineers twenty thousand years in the future are still engineers.
2:01 - 3:02 - Big cinematic fight. Damn cool looking, but not what I'm writing about today.
Interesting note: the capsuleer fleet has a mix of ship types from Caldari, Gallente, and Minmatar but didn't see any Amarr ships. Cinematic contrivance for visual appeal?
2:32 - 2:34 - "*garbled*-ing fuel is online. Clear the ignition zone now."
2:35 - 2:38 - "Negative! We defend the gate!"
For the life of me, I can't make out that first word. Sounds like "Re-tuning" or "Refueling". And of course gravelly voiced generic leader wants to defend the gate, he's a safe distance away. I sense a fail cascade in the future...
3:03 - "Ignition complete." EMP detonation and the gate is active, destroying the fighting fleets. Fuck you, gravelly voiced leader.
3:24 - - "In its wake, it will follow a storm."
Conclusions:
On the surface, we can draw some pretty safe conclusions. Capsuleers will be able to build these gigantic stargates that lead to new space with lots of resources to allow the alliances that build them to become independent of the Empires. I kind of thought they were independent already out there in null space so I don't know exactly what that means, but whatever.
The empires, or at least the Amarrians, are not happy about this (but when are they ever happy?). Does this mean building stargates will have actual in game consequences for those alliances in empire space? HA! Probably not but one can hope.
So are the Amarrians really afraid of this new stargate due to the prophecy, or are they using it as an excuse to try and knock down the capsuleers and prevent them from accruing more wealth and power? It could be a combination of the both. As for the prophecy itself, I find it very interesting and suggestive of a new NPC type, perhaps some rogue drone type AI that humans lost control of...
Here's where I whip out my crystal ball and make some wild ass predictions.
I think that the stargate leads back to space near Earth. The Amarrian empire is pretty old, not as old as the Jove or Sleepers but oldest of the still alive empires. They might have some cultural knowledge of some bad things that happened on/near Earth prior to the New Eden wormhole being closed. Did the wormhole really accidently / spontaneously collapse or did someone close it to protect New Eden from the encroaching danger? I think some type of advanced AI tech got loose near or on Earth and started to dis-assimilate everything. I am starting to suspect that the New Eden wormhole was purposely closed to save humanity in New Eden.
Stargates are paired in New Eden and both ends have to be functional for a transfer through a temporary wormhole to work. This capsuleer alliance built stargate seems to not require a pairing so its endpoint could be random in the new space much like wild wormholes are today. In the trailer the stargate is massive, perhaps bigger than a station. The image from the fanfest presentation says "Stargate construction and control". In the trailer we saw Dust boarding parties fighting defenders of the stargate... can these things be constructed and then fought over? Can you take them like a station? Can they be destroyed? I predict yes to these questions, and in addition I predict that outposts will be destroyed as well when this plan comes to fruition.
EDIT: Apparently I am a big idiot and confused warp scramble range with webbing range and messed up the fact that Mordu's is a second Caldari / Gallente cross. FAIL!!!
For the longest time in EVE, there was a weirdness that there was no pirate faction ships between Amarr and Gallente empires, nor one between Caldari and Minmatar, but there was two between Gallente and Minmatar, the Serpentis line (Daredevil, Vigilant, and Vindicator) and the Angel Cartel line (Dramiel, Cynabal, and Machariel).
With the introduction last year of the Sisters of EVE ships, the Astero frigate and Stratios cruiser (and later the Nestor battleship), the missing link between Amarr and Gallente was filled. Now with Kronos expansion this summer we get three Mordu's Legion ships that will fill the gap between Caldari and Minmatar and give us a complete faction ship array.
There is still the oddity of the two lines between Minmatar and Gallente, but the rest has a new symmetry. This means that regardless of your starting empire, you have three faction ships to explore when you begin crosstraining.
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