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[Druur Monakh]

Where are the other drone officers!

I love these updates. It would be so cool to hear John say "Safeties off.... Safeties off...... FLEET JUMP JUMP JUMP" or something.

Or even better: "Safeties off, safeties off.... Cold-warping Fleet... Weapons hot! Weapons hot! Grab what you can when landing!"

(Seriously, I'm looking forward to not having to deal with the pop-ups anymore).

[orange]

Suggestions of factionalism, and even a sense of morality among the drone hive?

Huuuuuh.

My own understanding may be clouding what little, if any, PF regarding this subject I know of... but essentially the Drone Hives do compete with each other occasionally, and tend to prefer to be within their own Hive. As for the morality bit, well, I have to wonder what machines find so objectionable that they have 'unorthodox methods'.

Instead of relying on classic machine approaches, like system scan and digital analysis, it utilizes more "organic" methods like individual component dissection!

[Morwen Lagann]

Patchnotes and several new devblogs are live.

Patchnotes - http://community.eveonline.com/updates/patchnotes.asp?newpatchlogID=74000
Devblog: Corp hangars on ships and you - http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=73995
Devblog: U and I – Our little improvements together v3 - http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=74038

[Alain Colcer]

long patch notes are long 

[Morwen Lagann]

long patch notes are long 

https://twitter.com/erlendur/status/274536087836315648 : "Retribution patchnotes: 15,152 words; 34 pages. Coming 4 Dec to YOUR computer! #tweetfleet #eveonline"

That's what, half a novel?

[kalaratiri]

Due to Morwen's laziness, here are the devblogs done properly 

I'm not doing the patchnotes, you can read that yourself :l My patience for formatting just isn't that long.

First: http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=74038

U and I – Our Little Improvements Together v3
reported by CCP karkur | 2012.11.30 13:53:25 | NEW | Comments

Hi all

As some of you active forum warriors might know, CCP Soundwave posted a forum thread about a year ago where he asked you to suggest "Little Things" changes. That is, very small changes to the game that would make your life as an EVE pilot just a little bit better. Since then you guys have really stepped up to the plate and posted thousands of ideas. I think it's kind of nice to read through it now and see we have actually implemented many of your suggestions. Recently we felt, however, it was time for a fresh start so we adopted this thread as the "Little Things" thread; so if you have good suggestions, please post them there While we have a new thread, the old thread is of course not forgotten.

I have spent a whole lot of time reading through your many, many posts in these two threads and noted down the stuff that interests me, and my list is pretty long and still growing.

So today I'll be telling you about a few of these small things that are coming your way in Retribution:

I want to start by telling you a short story about a feature you asked for that is actually already on TQ but which is fairly new and we haven't really mentioned yet. So, about two months ago I found this awesome feature on my local server, a feature I have wanted for quite some time and had even started to implement. I was a bit surprised, checked Tranquility and sure enough it was there, but not on older reference servers. I went around the office asking people if they knew where it came from but no one I asked knew anything about it. I even checked my devblogs and there was nothing about this feature there. Then finally I checked the code history, and felt super silly when I found out that it was in fact me who had implemented it (how can one be expected to remember what happened before summer vacation?).

Anyways (cool story bro), this neat (and easily forgettable) feature is to be able to drag the icons in the Show Info window and drop them in chat or other similar text fields. This works for items, characters, corporations, certificates, etc.



Have you ever been in a fleet and tried to find yourself in the hierarchical view? Well, it can be kind of tricky. After Retribution it should be pretty easy to see what groups you belong to and find your place in the list because your wing and squad will be marked with green arrows. You will also be highlighted with a green background.



And how freaking annoying is it that whenever you go to repair something, you get a long list of pretty much all the stuff you have ever owned in your entire EVE career as well as in your real life*, whether it's damaged or not? Pretty annoying I would say. In Retribution we are changing it so only the items that are actually damaged will be listed. So no more "I'll just repair all because I can't be bothered to find what I need to fix right now" for me (and probably you too)
* this might be a slight exaggeration

One of the things you've asked for is for the Character Sheet to remember the page it was on last time it was open. I've recently started to get some actual kill reports (yay, so much fun blowing up ships!), and this little thing has been driving me a little bit crazy when I've wanted to see the newest kill report. So I was more than happy to make this change

Another pet peeve of mine that I fixed... the fitting management window will now open on the category I was using the last time, so now I don't always have to switch from my crappy personal fittings to my corporation's ones to access all the quality fittings.

And for my marketeers: your right hand will not much longer have to travel to the backspace button every time you want to buy more than 1 of some item. After Retribution the default quantity "1" will be highlighted, so all you have to do it punch in the quantity you need and hit Enter.



Another thing that you've suggested is the ability to browse back and forth between the items you have been viewing on the market. This is something my forgetful brain has wanted in the game for quite some time, so I thought it would be perfect to just add it

When I've been out roaming with my corporation and have had to tell my corpsies what I see on the directional scanner I've thought to myself "If only I knew someone who could make it so I could just drag this stuff to chat." Guess what? I don't only know someone but actually I am someone who can do just that. So, because I can't pronounce ship names and am a slow typer (and because it's just convenient), we will all be able to drag the interesting stuff from the d-scanner to chat and create show-info links there. We decided to list the items only by their type names to save space in the chat, but each link will link to a unique item. That means that if the ship linked is on your grid, you will be able to see who is flying it.



Earlier this year I added color coded security status to a few places where solarsystems were listed. Some of you wanted the same in the Show Info window on stations, and that just made sense so I made it so.

In addition to all of this we kept some of your targeting wishes in mind when my team, Team Pony Express, was working on the new targeting changes:

First thing I want to mention is that now when you hover over a module on your HUD, you will see what target that module is active on. A really faint hairline is drawn from the module on the HUD to the bracket in space and to the corresponding module below the target (and the module there will also be highlighted).

Another thing I hope you will appreciate is that you will be able to have multiple rows of targets. That means that you logistics pilots can keep your friends in one row and your enemies in another row.

Previously, as you probably know, the targeted ships where in the order they were targeted, and a new row was only added when there were too many targets to fit in one row. In Crucible we changed it so you could actually change the order of your targets. Now we are taking a step further and allowing you to move your targets to new rows, even if you only have two targets.

The targets will still be aligned to left/right/top/bottom depending on your settings, and they will always be added in the first available slot (top row in the default settings). Once a target is put in a row, that row will be their home unless you change it. That means that targets should not be jumping from the second row to the first row just because some targets in the first row were lost or destroyed.



I hope you like these changes, and believe me, we have a long list of changes we want to make for you guys

Until next time, fly safe,
- CCP karkur

Loving the targeting options.

Next: http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=73995

Corp Hangars on Ships and You
reported by CCP Greyscale | 2012.11.30 11:12:00 | NEW | Comments

So, we're changing Corp Hangars on ships in Retribution.

Why?

 The short version is that the current technical implementation is an unnecessary maintenance burden; and we don't feel that the complexity of the design is justified by the value it delivers.

On the technical side, the same code is handling corp hangars in stations, starbases and ships. Given that ships in particular are clearly not the same thing as stations, it should not be surprising that there is a lot of horrible special-casing in the code to make this work. The end result, in this case, is a chunk of code that's broken in lots of different interesting ways; the fixes for which are generally mutually exclusive; many of which are effectively unfixable; and for which any potential changes are a QA nightmare to validate.

On the design side, the specific functionality that corp hangars are providing - allowing you to control ship access using corp roles - is overkill for the large majority of use cases; doesn't work consistently (the role checks are only applied to players from your corp); has serious issues with NPC corps; places hidden design tripwires everywhere (who owns the contents of a corp hangar - the pilot or the corporation?); and are in aggregate increasing the complexity of the game in a manner that we do not feel is justified in this case.

What's changing?

Corp hangars on ships will be transformed into fleet hangars:

• The total volume will stay the same
• Divisions and all reliance on corp roles is gone
• Only the pilot will be able to open or remove containers in fleet hangars, although any pilot can drop items onto them to place them in the container
• You will now be able to set "allow fleet usage" and "allow corp usage" independently for both fleet hangar and the ship maintenance bays (on
• ships only, not on starbases at this time)
• These settings will now be stored per-ship on the server, so a given ship will always keep its last settings

In this image you can see the "fleet" and "corp" buttons next to the Ship Maintenance Bay and Fleet Hangar, which are used to set access permissions on each

Additional changes related to this:

• We're adding a range of new non-compressive containers to the "freight container" line (volumes in m3 are 1k, 5k, 10k, 50k, 250k)
• All special bays on ships that are not your main cargo will now behave like your main cargo when it comes to ship scanners and loot drop chances; this includes fleet hangars, ore holds, fuel holds and so on. Specifically, they will all allow their contents to show up on scanners, and they will all have a chance to drop their contents as loot. Ship maintenance bays are somewhat special: they will be scannable (ie, ships but not their modules or cargo can show up in results), but they won't be dropping assembled ships as loot
• Ship and cargo scanners will no longer randomize the stack size/number of modules they return: for any stack or module that they successfully detect, they will report the correct size/count
• Blockade Runners are being updated to be immune to cargo scanners, and as such will always show up as empty on scans
• Freighters will have most of their special-case restrictions removed: they will now be able to perform cargo operations in space, including moving items into and out of containers, moving things to and from containers in space, and jettisoning items
• We're removing the restriction on simultaneous users for *all* ship fitting arrays, both on ships and on starbases: an unlimited number of pilots will be able to refit at a single ship or structure

Additional changes that are largely unrelated but seemed like a good idea given that we were looking at the code anyway:

• Starbase forcefield passwords are now stored per-character on the server, so you'll always have the most recent password you entered set until you enter a new one
• The "lock/unlock" setting on audit log containers is now stored per-container on the server, rather than per-character on the client

Why are you removing divisions? They're useful!

Yes, they are. However, we're currently of the opinion that they're not *necessary*, we don't feel that they're adding a lot of value in the most common use cases, and as such we're treating them as a case of unnecessary complexity.

The changes to container behavior in fleet hangars, the new containers, and existing inventory features such as filters, should allow most (but not all) of the current functionality to be replicable in the new system. There will, though, be some cases in which the new system is less useful than the old system. We acknowledge this, and we understand that the changeover will be frustrating for some people, but we need to get the complexity of EVE under control and doing so is going to require functionality downgrades in certain areas. This is annoying but unavoidable.

My Orca-hauling backbone!

Yup. The immunity of corp hangars (and other special bays) to scans and their inability to drop loot was a neat workaround, but it was also essentially unfinished functionality, rather than an intentional feature. We recognize the need for secure hauling in the current environment, hence the scan immunity on blockade runners, but feel that the way it's being provided currently is unintuitive and clunky,
and that the "safe hauling" capacity on Orcas is unnecessarily large. Blockade runners should pick up the slack on high-value, low-volume items, while for higher-volume shipments, we're leaving it up to players to figure out how to handle the new situation.

(We're not making any changes to plastic wrap right now, but it has significant technical issues which will likely see it being reworked at some point down the line.)

[kalaratiri]

I missed this one, whups: http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=74036

In Development: Eve Onlines: Retribution
reported by CCP Guard | 2012.11.29 18:53:00 | NEW | Comments

On December 4th we will publish our 18th free expansion EVE Online: Retribution and we have another In Development video available for you!

Watch how CCP Guard and his good friend Senior GM Nova interact live with the new Crimewatch system for Retribution, weapon safety and the new timer indicators. We also present further insight to Unified Inventory improvements, the new ORE frigate, salvaging drone and UI changes.

Watch the video and see how the saga continues.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XPRSUVaKIwY

Enjoy!

[kalaratiri]

and also this one... : http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=74031

War. War Never Changes..Until It Does
reported by CCP Affinity | 2012.11.29 13:05:00 | NEW | Comments

Hi everyone.

CCP Affinity here with a sneak peek into what Game of Drones has in store for all you FW pilots in EVE Online: Retribution.

After an early launch of Factional Warfare features in October as can be seen here we have continued to work on more changes for Retribution.

Bulk Purchasing:

Let’s start with my favorite Retribution change...  bulk purchasing from the LP Store.  Never again will your datacore habit go hand in hand with a bad dose of Repetitive Strain Injury… it’s now as simple as clicking on the buy button, a number field appears below and you type in the amount you wish to purchase.   




After this you will get a pop-up that confirms your order.  If you try to buy more than you can afford, it will automatically tell you the maximum number affordable in the pop-up.




FW UI Changes:

This isn’t the only FW UI change in Retribution.  We wanted to make it easier for you to see when you are enlisted in a militia so we have now added this information to the following places:

• The login screen
• Character sheet

We also wanted you to be able to proudly display the militia you have enlisted in, making it easier for other pilots in New Eden to see who your loyalty is with and also to allow you to show info on other pilots and find potential war targets.



This will now appear in:

• Character info tab (Show info)
• Corp and Alliance info tab (show info)
• Corporation management and recruitment windows

FW complexes and NPCs:

Another change for Retribution is the complexes.  We have renamed the complexes as follows:

• "Small” complexes are now called “Novice”
• “Standard” complexes are now called “Small”
• “Major” complexes (with the exception of Compound and Stronghold) are now called “Medium”
• “Major complexes (Compound and Stronghold only) are now called “Large”

We felt the complexes had swayed too far towards a PvE activity and this is not what we wanted at all. We want to move towards a more PvP like environment while still ensuring the complexes cannot be quickly farmed.  To achieve this we have made the following changes:

• Designed new NPCs for FW complexes with low damage output, high defenses and good mobility with no EWAR
• Reduced spawns from 10-16 NPCs to 1-2 NPCs

After Retribution, upon entering a FW complex, one NPCs will spawn and if you manage to kill the NPC within 5 minutes for Novice and Small complexes and  within 10 minutes for Medium and Large, no further NPCs will spawn during the capture time.  The main purpose of the NPC is now to avoid quick complex farming and to encourage you to bring enough DPS.

The NPCs in each complex have been carefully balanced to match the ship restrictions for each complex size:

• Novice complexes now only accept tech1 frigates (including Navy and Pirate, rookie ships will be excluded) and the NPC spawned will be a frigate
• Small complexes now accept all frigates (including tech 1, tech 2, all pirate/navy variants) plus all destroyers (including tech 1, tech 2) and the NPC spawned will be a destroyer
• Medium complexes will accept all frigate and destroyer variations, plus cruisers (including tech 1 and tech 2, pirate and navy variations but NOT tech3 cruisers) and they will spawn a cruiser NPC
• Large complexes will have no ship restrictions to enter and will spawn a Battlecruiser NPC

A lot of players told us how much they disliked having to travel more than 80KM to the capture point and we also felt this discouraged PvP within sites.  To counter this we have also made the followed adjustments to the complexes:

All capture beacons have been moved much closer to the warp-in point – they are now 10KM off warp-in
 
Capture range has been adjusted to 30KM for all complexes


Geography Changes:

As a result of player feedback, we have added a few stargates to open up the warzones and make roaming easier:

• A jump connection between Kurniainen (Bleak Lands) and Isbrabata (Metropolis) has been added
• A jump connection between Siseide (Heimatar) to Eszur (Metropolis) has been added
• A jump connection between Gulmorogod (Heimatar) to Egmar (Metropolis) has been added

That’s it for Team Game of Drones FW changes for Retribution, now it’s over to you.  We would love to hear your thoughts and feedback on these changes in the comments thread for this blog.

Thanks,

CCP Affinity

Team Game of Drones

[Lyn Farel]

FW complexes and NPCs...

Meh. 

[Gesakaarin]

They really should have excluded pirate faction frigs from the novice plexes since well fit drams/DD are going to chew through any t1/navy frig. Other than that, I do like the capture point being within 10km of the warp-in now since it makes catching those no fit defensive plexing frigs far easier.

Potentially having more fights inside plexes due to less npc interference is a good thing though.

[DeadRow]

They really should have excluded pirate faction frigs from the novice plexes since well fit drams/DD are going to chew through any t1/navy frig. Other than that, I do like the capture point being within 10km of the warp-in now since it makes catching those no fit defensive plexing frigs far easier.

Potentially having more fights inside plexes due to less npc interference is a good thing though.

Drams are pretty bad now tbqh, A blapping Daredevil is more of a worry.

I have high hopes for this expansion, CCP seem to have done a good job \o/

[Ghost Hunter]

I am speculative if the new capture point ranges will make much of a difference. The requirements for plexers are now to pulse d-scan at the gate entrance vector. As soon as anything shows up, warp off.

Presumably career plexers were already doing this, but...

[Nicoletta Mithra]

You were even doing it if you looked for a fight, as you'd want to know what and how many you're up against.

[Gesakaarin]

I am speculative if the new capture point ranges will make much of a difference. The requirements for plexers are now to pulse d-scan at the gate entrance vector. As soon as anything shows up, warp off.

Presumably career plexers were already doing this, but...

360 short scanning the accel gate into a plex is pretty much SOP. What the changes mean is that you will always need at least one person on the timer within scram range and prevents what at times happens now in which people won't engage because they have to consider burning 80km under npc fire before they can even get a point on a target.

It might not change much in tactics because people will probably do the same as now and just have tacklers on the warp-in/timer and have long range ships setup off it to blap anything that comes inside.

Also, def. plexing alts are mostly brain dead and the only thing that saves them currently is the fact they have time when alt-tabbed out on a timer to warp off due to the distance involved. With the changes, it means even if they're stabbed they can at least get caught with a double scram ship on the warp-in/timer if they're not spamming their d-scan.

[Morwen Lagann]

They really should have excluded pirate faction frigs from the novice plexes since well fit drams/DD are going to chew through any t1/navy frig. Other than that, I do like the capture point being within 10km of the warp-in now since it makes catching those no fit defensive plexing frigs far easier.

Potentially having more fights inside plexes due to less npc interference is a good thing though.

Drams are pretty bad now tbqh, A blapping Daredevil is more of a worry.

I have high hopes for this expansion, CCP seem to have done a good job \o/

I expressed this concern when I saw the devblog (though I lumped navy frigs in with the faction ones, sorry); one of the devs said they'd be keeping an eye on things. So go out in gangs of faction frigs and blap all the things that come your way to show them that they don't belong, if you want them to fix it.