Thursday 2 October 2014

Stop, Revive and Survive

The post title comes from a Road Safety campaign from one of the Australian states and seems rather apt (to me) with the announced changes from CCP with regard to Jump Drives and Capital Ships.

Long Term Plan


Announced overnight by CCP Greyscale in a devblog are details of the three phases of changes that are coming to null sec over a-yet-to-be-given time scale:
  • Phase 1 - Long-Distance Travel
  • Phase 2 - Medium-Term Changes
  • Phase 3 - Dynamic Warfare and Granular Territory Control

Very little information is given for Phases 2 and 3 but we have a lot of detail for Phase 1 as this is being planned for the next Expansion, called Phoebe, in November 2014.

Changes, Soon


It is made clear form the devblog that the changes are not "a silver bullet" that will fix all issues in null sec in one go but instead will form part of a greater number of changes, over time, that will represent a significant improvement to "specific areas of concern" within EVE Online.

The major change coming will be changes to how capital ships can move:
  • they will now be able to use gates in null and low sec
  • their jump distance changed to a maximum of 5ly per jump

but by far the biggest change are the new timers:
  • Jump Activation - counter that shows how long you have to wait until you can jump again
  • Jump Fatigue - counter of accumulated jump fatigue that is used to calculate the Jump Activation timer when you do jump

New Timers for Jump activation and Jump fatigue
An example is given in the devblog of how this will work in practice but basically the further you jump the longer it will take you because the length of wait between jumps will increase due to Jump Fatigue. 

Read the devblog, it clearly lays out the functionality and how it will work much better than if I reproduced it here.

Jump Freighters/Capital Industrial Ships


The Jump changes potentially could have a massive impact on goods movement within null sec and CCP appear to have foreseen this and have given Jump Freighters and Capital Industrial Ships (i.e. Rorqual) a role bonus that will reduce these timers by 90%.

From my perspective this is great, it means that when I have my "logi day" I won't have to worry too much about jump timers slowing my jumps down. I did have to check the jump range of JF's but they already are at 5ly so there won't be much change for me.

Fuel costs already went up, now I may have a couple of minutes between jumps when I use midpoints but aside from that these changes won't impact me very much I believe. 

How Will This Change Things


This certainly will have an impact on force projection but it will not change the ability of the current Null Sec power blocs to retain their power. They will need to adapt and change but the ability for them to deploy will not be greatly diminished and we will certainly see capital armadas moving via gates, with sub-capital support, to continue to strike fear into any smaller groups looking to get a foothold anywhere in Null.

We could see the end of large empires spanning entire quarters of null sec but entire regions would still be defensible and with the changes to jump mechanics it will make more sense for power blocs to maximise the use of the systems they have and relinquish control over areas they cannot actively defend or would be more trouble than they are actually worth.

Null Sec Power Blocs
These changes could stimulate Null Sec industry, forcing characters to use the space they have rather than claiming it and not making use of it. New null sec trading hubs could be created and catered to by local industry rather than importing everything from High Sec. 

A lot of space is currently unused because it is not very resource rich or profitable, Phases 2 and 3 should address this and perhaps we'll see rebalancing of system sec and upgrades that mean space is finally worth owning.

My own hope is that there will be smaller entities, be they Corporations or Alliances, that can will finally be able to gain themselves a small foothold in one or two systems in areas that the current Power Blocs cannot easily assault or want to retain because they cannot profit from them.

Actually I love that this brings risk back into null sec, no longer can wrecking ball fleets or massed capitals move around with impunity and at high speed.

More To Come


I see there is some "hurt feelings" in some quarters, so much so that they has been a leak of a post/message that CSM Member/Providence Head FC corebloodbrothers on internal forums.

People certainly get passionate about changes, especially if they feel it will have a negative impact and after having lived in Providence myself I can recall the insular and "me" behaviour a lot of people had. 

Changes can only be good, in the long term. Short term it means everyone will need to look at what they're doing and finding new ways of existing or adapting to the changes.

Reaction

"I was astonished by CCP’s latest DEV blog"
                                                                - EVE Hermit
"Dis gon b gud"
                     - Neville Smit
"I actually rather like this"
                                   - Stabs
Three quotes from three people who don't jump to conclusions or mince their words. These quotes come from their respective blogs based on their feelings on the devblog.

Wilhelm Arcturus also has an excellent write up, he even tries to explain to his non-EVE readers what this change could be compared to in other games. The other three seems positive about the changes but Wilhelm is, from my reading, on the fence about the changes possibly even thinking that they don't go far enough.

I believe they are a good start, I still feel that a mass restriction on cynosural fields is another way of limiting force projection, but what we're seeing (subject to feedback and change) is an excellent start and certainly seems to open the way for splintering of null sec space away from the current Power Blocs.

I'm sure over the next couple of days we'll see more comment come out, there will be the nay-sayers and the EVE Online Forums will be full of people saying the changes are too much and they will be quitting because of them. 

These changes are the start of something good and perhaps its time for a culling of the old guard to allow new players a chance to get into the game without the bitter vets of old.

6 comments:

  1. Check your range dude, that's 5ly BEFORE skills now and 5ly AFTER skills post-patch. You're going to need twice the cyno's and getting out of Curse is going to be a gold plated bitch. You won't be able to jump out of Curse directly anymore.

    Here's your new jump range from YKE post-patch: http://evemaps.dotlan.net/range/Ark,0/YKE4-3

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  2. You're bang on there Nikor.

    When I got home tonight I saw a couple of posts on Reddit and then did my usual route using JDC 0, JFC V and JF V skills on dotlan. Route out is now 11 jumps and at least 5 to return instead of 2 and 1 that it is now.

    There will be a post over the weekend with more details but its looking bad for logistics from NPC Null to High sec for use Curse residents.

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  3. Add to that the new mechanic that you can't death clone your cyno alts around anymore either. So double the jumps PLUS you have to fly cynos into position with all the aggravation and time that will entail. Basically, if you are a solo JF pilot, movement will BE your play time, period. For really fast movement, up to the limit of the new cooldown mechanics anyway, you'll need a massive amount of cyno alts that you can pre-position. Ofc, you could always take the gates... :P

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    1. I had a evemail from someone who read my post on the forums about this and they asked "why can't you move your cyno character via gates after each jump.

      It's a valid question but its a pain to do, you have to navigate up to a couple of dozen jumps to get to the next system in a shuttle and/or noob ship that a single gate camp could easily kill. Not to mention that you have to wait at least 10 minutes for the cyno to finish before you can move again.

      It's just a pain in the arse.

      A lot of the comments I saw on the forums were from players who professed that EVE time was limited and RL came first. But with these changes they'd be spending their time logged in and just moving characters rather than something more enjoyable.

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  4. Well this does explain the request for more NPC null stations in every region. Indestructable safe havens.

    I am currently training capital/dreadnaught/carrier skills, injected skills three days ago so changes come just in time that I will never feel the pain of this change.

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    Replies
    1. Yes, when I read about the NPC space in every region I thought exactly the same and here we see why. They would not need to fight for a beachhead or staging system in enemy space but could retreat to the "safety" of NPC Null if things go south.

      Nice training queue you have there :) As of yesterday I had but one character left needing Jump Drive Calibration V and now I'm wondering if I can get a refund on those (at the moment) wasted SP :)

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