CCP Fozzie is Quackers

At EVE Down Under 2013 CCP Fozzie announced the name and showed the new SOE battleship (the Nestor) but he also provided a visual hint of an new ship that will be introduced in the 2014 Summer Expansion.

 

Here is the visual hint that CCP Fozzie gave during his presentation:

 

Image from www.themittani.com

Firstly, Ducks are cool so credit to CCP Fozzie for the image but it is supposed to be a clue as to what is coming in Summer 2014.

 

So lets list the possibilities based on what we see from the above image as pertains to EVE Online:

 

New Ship Transporter

 

The image could represent a new ship type that allows the moving of large numbers of assembled ships. The Ship Maintenance Hanger provides this functionality but is really limited (in terms of useful space) to ships that exist outside of high sec or cannot use jump gates.

 

Could we be seeing the introduction of a new freighter type ship that will have a large Ship Maintenance Hanger that can travel through gates. This is something that has been asked for by players before and whilst a freighter can move ships the ability for it to move assembled ships is limited (the smaller the ship the more you can carry).

 

A very specialised ship for a specific and limited purpose, I think this unlikely is what the picture alludes to.

 

New Carrier

 

The use of the ducklings and a single duck could indicate drones and existing capital ships are classed as T1 so could we be seeing a new carrier, T2 class, for each race?  It certainly would be nice, again this is something players have asked for, I think it unlikely as just more drones are just what CCP wants on their nodes and we are still in the midst of the sub-capital rebalancing.

 

Adding a new capital ship seems an outside chance, it would be nice but I believe it to be most unlikely.

 

New Transport Mechanic for Player Ships

 

Ship Maintenance Hangers require that players exit their ships but could the image be showing a new way of moving within EVE Online? This new method could allow ships with SMH to jump and move with player piloted ships and instead of using Jump Bridging players exit the 'mother ship' when they reach their destination.

 

Really, I must have been smoking something (and I don't smoke) to come up with this. This is so far left field that I'm no longer in the same country, extremely unlikely.

 

Change to Drone Mechanics

 

For a long time, should you have the right skills trained and the limitations of drone bandwidth, you could deploy a maximum of 5 active drones. Could the image be alluding to an increase in the current 5 active drones per ship limit?

 

This is another long shot, drones at the moment are server resource intensive and as we saw recently that enough ships and drones can crash a server node. I really don't think this limit will change upwards because it could both negate the Guardian-Vexor's worth and utility but also add additional strain to server nodes.

 

Where would I put my money

 

At this time, selected from my limited list of possibilities I believe that a new carrier is the obvious front runner. However, as with all supposition, this may and probably will change over time as CCP release more information and/or teasers.

 

Still a new carrier is where I'd have my money at this time.