Final Fantasy XIV Cosmic Explorations: The End Game

Final Fantasy XIV's Cosmic Exploration feature has just about run its course. All Japanese worlds will have completed the Auxesia Development Initiative in the next week if not sooner. In Europe, 14 of the 16 worlds have completed the final infrastructure tasks. In North America only the newest virtual data center, Dynamis, is still working on progressing the content. And the five worlds in Oceania are still grinding.

Patch 7.55 or 7.56 might have a surprise like occurred with Island Sanctuaries in Endwalker. I have to admit the final missions on Auxesia didn't really feel final for the conclusion of the event. Cosmic exploration began with patch 7.21 in April 2025. I think some big shots from Old Sharlayan need to come out and see what the project has grown into.

But I still have titles and mounts to earn. I am now doing the tool mastery missions. I know reaching 500,000 tool mastery points will grant a title. But I don't know if reaching one million points unlocks anything. My highest total is on carpenter but I had only reached 900,000 points or so when I switched to blacksmith. Before pushing on I'm trying to get all crafting and gathering classes to 250,000 points.

For the tool mastery points I wound up making a multi-part macro to do the lowest payout Master mission. In the case of blacksmiths that mission is Master: Ruin Restoration Supplies. Hint: look for the mission that pays out 240 exploration tokens.

I found I can craft 10 items in 15 minutes, which is the length of time a Cunning Craftsman's Tisane lasts. So what I do is 2 tool mastery missions, crafting 5 items for each mission. I found if I pay attention to the crafting I can earn 17,000 class points per hour. I figure at that rate I might have the Excavating Vacuum Suit earned by Halloween. 

For anyone interested, here are my non-specialist stats and the macros I came up with using Raphael. The macros don't guarantee 100% quality, but does a good enough job I only lose a maximum of 100 class points per mission. And yes, I know I can shrink this down to 2 macros, but by using 3 I'm able to click the macros faster in order to get that 10 crafts per 15 minutes.

I have the feeling I could make the process more efficient so let me know where I screwed up.

Craftsmanship: 5933
Control: 5470
CP: 649

Food: All i Pebre (HQ)
Medicine: Cunning Craftsman's Tisane (HQ)

Macro #1

/ac "Reflect" <wait.3>

/ac "Manipulation" <wait.2>

/ac "Basic Touch" <wait.3>

/ac "Refined Touch" <wait.3>

/ac "Duty Action II" <wait.2>

/ac "Innovation" <wait.2>

/ac "Hasty Touch" <wait.3>

/ac "Hasty Touch" <wait.3>

/ac "Great Strides" <wait.2>

/ac "Preparatory Touch" <wait.3>

/ac "Manipulation" <wait.2>

/ac "Great Strides" <wait.2>

/ac "Waste Not" <wait.2>

/ac "Innovation" <wait.2>

/echo Macro finished (1/3) <se.1>

Macro #2

/ac "Preparatory Touch" <wait.3>

/ac "Great Strides" <wait.2>

/ac "Preparatory Touch" <wait.3>

/ac "Trained Finesse" <wait.3>

/ac "Trained Perfection" <wait.3>

/ac "Great Strides" <wait.2>

/ac "Innovation" <wait.2>

/ac "Preparatory Touch" <wait.3>

/ac "Trained Finesse" <wait.3>

/ac "Great Strides" <wait.2>

/ac "Byregot's Blessing" <wait.3>

/ac "Veneration" <wait.2>

/ac "Duty Action II" <wait.2>

/ac "Rapid Synthesis" <wait.3>

/echo Macro finished (2/3) <se.1>

Macro #3

/ac "Rapid Synthesis" <wait.3>

/ac "Rapid Synthesis" <wait.3>

/echo Macro finished (3/3) <se.1>

EVE Vanguard: Operation Avalon Begins Today

This morning I woke up and checked the EVE Online patch notes like I do every Tuesday morning. I saw Operation Avalon, the event for Fenris Creations' new extraction shooter attached to EVE Online, but no article on the event itself. I guess I woke up too early, because as I check during lunch I see information on the EVE launcher, the main EVE Online website, the Steam page, and even the Fenris Creations corporate website. 

Now, I don't have a lot of time because I'm on my lunch break. What I am going to do is copy the press release from the corporate website. Why? Because with Operation Avalon, the game officially is in alpha. Not pre-Alpha like Star Citizen has been in for the past 13 years. An honest-to-goodness alpha. I want to mark down the occasion on the blog. Besides, I was in Las Vegas back in 2018 when Project Nova crash and burned at its public debut. I'd like to post something positive about a Fenris FPS game for a change.

LONDON, England – July 7, 2026 – Today, Fenris Creations launched Operation Avalon, the first time-limited Alpha playtest for EVE Vanguard, the in-development extraction-adventure FPS connected to the iconic sci-fi MMO EVE Online. Available to access for free from now until July 20 on Steam and the EVE Launcher, Operation Avalon brings EVE Vanguard’s core experience into sharper focus, with more responsive combat, expanded enemies, higher-pressure extraction, deeper progression, and escalating risks and rewards the longer players stay deployed. The further Warclones push, the harder the planet pushes back.

Watch the EVE Vanguard: Operation Avalon launch trailer here:

For a deeper look at what players can expect from Operation Avalon, including the goals of the Alpha playtest, watch the briefing here:

Set on the hostile planets of New Eden, EVE Vanguard casts players as brutal Warclones, technologically immortal mercenaries who can be redeployed after death. In Operation Avalon, players drop onto dangerous planetary battlefields to raid enemy sites, gather valuable technology and intelligence, fight rival players and hostile forces, then extract before the situation turns against them. What they recover helps fuel longer-term Warclone progression and supports the fight to establish Avalon, a future sanctuary for Warclones beyond the reach of New Eden’s empires, while the intelligence uncovered on the surface begins to influence the wider conflict unfolding across New Eden.

“Operation Avalon is the moment EVE Vanguard starts to feel like itself,” said Scott Davis, Game Director for EVE Vanguard. “You drop in with a plan, the planet pushes back, and suddenly you’re deciding whether to run for extraction or push your luck and risk losing what you’re carrying. That tension is the game. We want players to feel powerful, vulnerable, and very aware that every choice on the ground has consequences.”

“Operation Avalon is a critical step for EVE Vanguard because it marks our move from experimentation into a more focused Alpha phase,” said Snorri, Executive Producer for EVE Vanguard. “The long pre-alpha period has given us the time to refine and battle-test the foundations of the game. With Operation Avalon, players will experience EVE Vanguard as it was always meant to be: a more complete, cohesive vision where Warclones fight to build Avalon and influence the wider conflict unfolding across New Eden. We’ll continue to evolve that vision together with our players as we head toward persistent 24/7 Alpha later this year.”

Operation Avalon introduces:

• Lost Convoy Map: Deploy into Lost Convoy, a planetary combat zone set around an Upwell salvage recovery site, where wrecked ships, dig sites, and refineries create high-value targets to raid.
  
  
• Overhauled Gunplay and Weapons: Gunplay has been rebuilt to make weapons feel heavier, clearer, and more responsive in combat. Players can earn, manufacture, buy, and deploy with five additional weapons, including a bolt carbine, laser pulse DMR, beam rifle, scatter cannon, and slug launcher.
  
  
• Revamped Enemy Response: Mordu’s Legion now escalates its response as players move through key sites, sending in smarter patrols, drones, marksmen, troop drops, and imposing Heavy Oppressors. The deeper players push into contested sites, the harder it becomes to survive and extract.
  
  
• Harmonic Bridge Extraction: Recover equipment and resources through Harmonic Bridges, extraction points that must be found and activated during a deployment, burning the Warclone out of the battlefield in the process. Orbital bombardments shut them down over time, leaving fewer ways out the longer players stay.
  
  
• Resource Gathering and Permanent Progression: Operation Avalon expands the ways players build strength between deployments. Gather resources, earn Deathmarks, unlock blueprints, use vendors, manufacture equipment, and develop longer-term progression that persists beyond what is carried into a single deployment.
  
  
• Refined Looting: Looting now creates greater tension, with items revealed over time as players search enemies, containers, and sites. Choosing when to keep searching, when to move, and when to extract can be the difference between building your arsenal and leaving empty-handed.
  
  
• Fueling Platform Raid: Track down a Mordu’s Legion Reserve Leader, recover a keycode, and unlock the Fueling Station. Inside, players face a tougher combat encounter with some of the strongest rewards available in the deployment.
  
  
• A Wider War Across New Eden: Operation Avalon begins connecting Warclone deployments with the wider EVE Universe. In EVE Vanguard, Warclones fight to recover valuable resources and intelligence in support of Avalon’s future from the surface. In EVE Online, capsuleers can hunt roaming convoys, secure Vanguard Tokens, and exchange them within their empire’s space to influence where Avalon will ultimately be established.

The battle for Avalon has begun. Boots are already on the ground, and extraction is not guaranteed. For every Warclone deployed to the surface, the rule is simple: adapt, or die. Operation Avalon runs now through July 20, 2026, on Steam and the EVE Launcher. In November 2026, EVE Vanguard will move into persistent 24/7 Alpha access, available exclusively via the EVE Launcher on PC.

Flying Solo In EVE: The Vagabond

I took a little break over the Independence Day weekend. Not the entire weekend because I did need to play a little for blogging purposes. Then I started flying my old love, the Rifter. I did finish up in Exordium and maybe got a little carried away, working on another EVE project: making PvE fits for heavy assault cruisers. Eventually I want to make one for each NPC empire. My new thumbnail for EVE posts is a little bit of foreshadowing.

Online activity declining after the launch of CoW

Looking at the charts I wasn't the only one. For the week the average number of accounts logged in dropped again down to 24,000 +/- 500 accounts. So far in 2026 the line has not dropped below 24,000. Will the online numbers continue to drop or were Americans just off celebrating the holiday weekend (and everyone else watching the World Cup)?

A pause in PLEX sales

Over the week the average price of PLEX on the global PLEX market dropped 4.4% as the Omega time sale in the New Eden Store ended on Tuesday. The replacement sale in the cash shop involved skill points and Cerebral Accelerators which didn't impact demand for PLEX. Offering new SKINs for sale in the NES wasn't that enticing. Overall players traded nearly 15,000 months of gametime on the global PLEX market for 34.7 trillion ISK.

Statistics halfway through 2026

Last week was ship nostalgia week as I flew a couple of ships I hadn't in a few years. The first was when I finished up in Exordium on my new character. I forgot how much fun flying a Rifter is. A very low skill ship, the NPCs didn't manage to break my shield tank, a positive on a armor tanked ship. On my new character I am now busy training up to fly a navy destroyer for when I run the last obvious new player content, the Sisters of EVE epic arc The Blood-Stained Stars. Yes, I'm still traumatized by Dagan 17 years later.

The Vagabond is a blitzing beast

I decided I wanted a HAC to blitz level 3 missions to make running through the Daily AIR missions run faster. While my Sacrilege is a long range sniper that shrugs off damage, Gemini gave me a Vagabond fit that relies on speed and a lot of close-in autocannon damage. Yes, my AI experiment with letting Gemini fit ships continues.

My testing with the ship is almost over and I have to do a write-up and post on the experience. Admittedly I'm an afterburner type of pilot and don't like the idea of someone shutting off my microwarpdrive with a scram. But I decided to let Gemini fit the ship and take advantage of the Vagabond's role bonus. The resulting 2400 m/sec speed is really nice flying around mission pockets.

The AI did let me know the Vagabond relies on speed. I was a little slow figuring out the situation once and had to warp out. But once I remembered how to manually pilot by clicking in space the experience was pretty fun. And satisfying. I'm just glad I was doing the level 3 versions of the missions.

I do have to admit I started thinking about the movie Dr. Strangelove and Slim Pickens waving a white hat as he rode a nuclear bomb to a target over the Soviet Union. That image, plus some of the coverage of the World Cup in Texas, inspired the below Vagabond image. Which is one of the reasons some may not like AI: cat ears in EVE.

Not exactly the way the devs imagined riding a Vagabond

Cloud Imperium Games Cash Shop Records $67.7 Million In Sales In Q2 2026

We are only at the halfway point of 2026 and I've already run out of superlatives to describe the revenue performance of Cloud Imperium Game's online cash shop. According to the CCU Game dashboard, in June the company sold $11.8 million in goods, mostly in the form or virtual space ships, an increase of 29.1% over the total in June 2025. 

The year-over-year comparison was even more impressive when looking at the total for the second quarter. The $67.7 million in cash shop revenue for the past three months was a 47.4% increase over that recorded in Q2 2025. For the first half of 2026, the company raked in $95.1 million. Not bad for a video game studio which has yet to commercially launch a game.

Cash shop sales up 52.9% over the average from 2022-2025

The $1024.3 million ($1.02 billion) displayed on the Roberts Space Industries funding page at the end of May was not a comprehensive accounting for all of CIG's revenue since the project's Kickstarter in October 2012. Overall, the company has recorded $1,179.4 million ($1.18 billion) in confirmed revenue (the funding page & the 2024 financial report).

• Sales/Pledges: $1024.3 million ($1.02 billion) (through 30 June 2026)
• Other cash shop revenue: $2.7 million (through 31 December 2024)
• Subscriptions: $46.8 million (through 31 December 2024)
• All other sources: $105.6 million (through 31 December 2024)

Q2 cash shop sales up 75.5% compared to the previous 3-year average

In addition, the company has received a total of $68.25 million in outside investment. According to the 2023 financial report, $4.8 million of the amount was returned to investors in 2020 and another $3.1 million in 2023-2024. Including the outside investment money, the total amount raised by CIG to create Squadron 42 and Star Citizen is $1,247.6 million ($1.25 billion), or $1.239.8 million ($1.24 billion) when excluding the returned funds. An additional $12.6 million in loans issued in March 2025 and due for repayment on 31 December 2027 are not included in the total.

New account creation still grew by 12.7%

The new user account generation may come as a surprise to those who followed Star Citizen in June. Despite all the complaints about server performance introduced with patch 4.8, new user account generation still increased by 12.7% year-over-year up to 38,060 accounts. Not only is new account creation not related to sales, apparently the statistic is not an indication of game stability either.

The 2024 Financial Report: CIG finally got around to posting the combined financial report for the company's worldwide business on 7 June. With that I was able to update some of the financial categories in the monthly summary of known revenue. In total, an additional $30.3 million in revenue is added to my running monthly tally. The total known revenue collected outside the cash shop comes out to $155.1 million from 2012 to 2024, the same amount the cash shop earned in 2025.

The 2024 financial report also showed spending hit a plateau in 2023-2024. CIG spent $163.1 million in 2023 and $160.9 million in 2024. If the company managed to maintain that spending, then CIG spends approximately $13.5 million per month. If CIG was able to keep spending increases at the level of inflation in the UK, we can expect spending in 2026 to wind up at the $14.5 million per month range.

Flying Solo In EVE: Halfway Through 2026

I have to admit that over the last week or so work has gotten a little hectic and I haven't played a lot of video games, much less EVE Online.  I've also spent what turned into a significant part of my free time going down the AI rabbit hole, mostly related to EVE content. Is my current run of playing EVE steadily, now approaching the end of month 7, slowing down?

Average and peak concurrency - 23-29 June 2026

I'm not the only one slowing down. Last week the average number of accounts logged in at any one time dropped down to 25,000 +/- 500 accounts. An expected decline after the launch of Cradle of War a couple of weeks ago and still at the average number for the first five months of the year. I'm really interested to see if the summer slow down begins in July or somehow is delayed until August.

The Global PLEX Markt

One thing that didn't slow down was Fenris Creations' end of quarter sales. The big one was a New Eden Store sale where Omega game time was marked 25% off until 2359 UTC today. Since time in the NES is sold using PLEX, that created a big demand, pushing the average price of a single PLEX to over 5 million ISK. The demand (and price) settled down but the average price of PLEX on the global PLEX market finished the week up 4.4%.

Finally comes an update on my alts. I've almost run out of multiple character training time on the character I started training at the beginning of April. The training plan I set out to become a max skill Sacrilege pilot completes a little after midnight UTC tomorrow. I probably need to use the rest of the time to learn some of the social skills to enhance my PvE payouts.

After that I can concentrate on my newest character, a Minmatar Vherokior who still needs to finish up in Exordium and then take the shipcaster to Amo to begin the life of a Minmatar citizen. I still have 2 months of multiple character training to use and a lot of PLEX saved up. If MCT goes on sale in the NES I might take advantage and lock myself into playing regularly for the rest of the year. Assuming EVE Frontier doesn't drag me back in, of course.

EVE Online And Gemini: It's All About The Prompts

Since the announcement of the managerial buyout of Fenris Creations from Pearl Abyss I've switched my AI program of choice from Copilot to Gemini and the entire suite of DeepMind applications. After about two months I thought I'd do a little review of how well the products of Fenris' financial and research product perform for me when used on EVE Online. 

My newest and oldest characters having a beer

Before heading straight into Gemini I want to take a quick look at Google Flow. The problem I have is coming up with backgrounds for the characters. That is kind of a given since the stars of the game aren't the players' avatars but the ships they fly. I'll need to see what I can do with ship images.

Output from my global PLEX market scripts

I am not going to dive into the assistance I received in upgrading my EVE Python scripts. For now my scripts focus on analyzing the global PLEX market. I used Gemini to clean up the code from my initial efforts using Copilot plus extending the data base my scripts can use. The API I access every day only holds up to 13 months of data. A couple of weekends ago I used Gemini to write data files locally I can access for historical data. I already had the code written in another script but all I had to do is copy my old code into Gemini and I had new code. Yes, I still had to troubleshoot problems because AI is not perfect, but the process was a lot less painful than what I experienced with Copilot.

A Sacrilege fit created by Gemini

Now for the function I found the most fun: ship fitting and theorycrafting. If players use Gemini (or any AI, really) poorly a lot of nice, shiny, EXPENSIVE kill mails will show up on zKillboard. Until AI gets a lot better, fitting is going to feel a lot like manually figuring out how to fit a ship. As the title of this post says, "It's all about the prompts."

I went through the fitting process with a Sacrilege. Tell Gemini the ship being fitted, the type of content

to engage with (PvE vs PvP), why are you running the content, and the location in New Eden (Minmatar Republic vs Caldari State, for example). Gemini might ask some clarifying questions but eventually will provide a fitting.

This is where the double checking begins. Use the in-game fitting tool to make sure of things like do you have the skills to fly the fit and are all the fitting slots being used. For example, in the image above my fit is intentionally leaving one of the high slots empty.

Then comes what I consider the fun part. Have Gemini explain the fit to me. One of the most important question (or prompts) to ask is why Gemini decided not to take advantage of a ship role or bonus. Sometime doing so improves the fit. Sometimes the reply explains something I didn't consider. In other words, I learn, or at least remember, things about EVE I wouldn't have by fitting the ship unassisted.

The Minmatar Ship Tree

The next two uses are more for some blogging projects I have. One is the actual number of spaceships in EVE Online. Looking at the ships listed in EVE's many ship trees I came up with 374. I then came up with a crazy idea: how many ships has Fenris introduced to EVE while Star Citizen has been in development. Not exactly an easy question to answer since Cloud Imperium has spent close to 14 years developing SC. So I made a spreadsheet with the names of the ships, ship details, but perhaps most importantly, when the ship was released.

Remember the title of this post? My life would have been a lot easier if I had used efficient prompts at the beginning. I wound up using the ship tree to identify the 100+ ships that weren't present in the initial data set. I spent a couple of hours going through finding all the missing ships, duplicates, and misspellings. But I do have the answer to the question of how many ships that are on the ship tree have the developers introduced since Star Citizen was announced: 133.

The last project I used Gemini for was related to my EVE ship spreadsheet. The spreadsheet currently has a column indicating if a ship was introduced before or after the introductory announcement of Star Citizen. But what about the eras of EVE? I wanted to divide the game into eras but I wasn't sure if I wanted to just use "First Decade", "Second Decade" and "Third Decade". 

I came up with a pretty good initial prompt with different options. The three eras I came up with, using Gemini's research to back up the decision, were:

• Era A: The Classical Sandbox & Accumulation (2003 – Summer 2013)
• Era B: Intended Fixes & Unintended Consequences (Late 2013 – Late 2022)
• Era C: Reconciliation, Ecosystem Design, & Independence (Late 2022 – Present)

Something strange happened during this last project. I began thinking of Gemini as a partner and not just an application to use. I know AI programmers try to achieve that goal, but my prompts became a conversation, bouncing ideas off Gemini. My little idea to create eras I can use to think of EVE history became a fairly detailed outline, lining up in-game developments with real world business decisions.

I decided to let Gemini write a brief article on the history of EVE. I then acted as editor to remove all the inaccuracies I could find. The brief history turned into 2500 words and 6 1/2 pages in Google Docs as putting in the corrections I found added an additional 2-3 pages to the story.

For those wondering what a Gemini-assisted story looks like, below is the title and link.

The Three Epochs of New Eden: A Macroeconomic History of EVE Online

I'm not quite sure about some of the null sec political stuff. Yes, I was around but never really played in null sec due to my allergy to bubbles. But as much as I've gone over the Google Doc I think, except for the length, the article is pretty good. While I may not formally publish the piece I am going to use the Google Doc as background information when writing about EVE Online in the future.

I've used Google DeepMind products, particularly Gemini, quite a bit since the MBO of Fenris Creations from Pearl Abyss brought the AI giant into EVE's orbit. One thing I've learned is that AI is not a magical wand one can wave to make things easier. The less work one puts into using the tools, the worse the results. The one thing I've become convinced of is that experience makes the use of AI more effective. One has to have the ability to recognize errors in order to fix them.

EVE Frontier Cycle 6 Launched 25 June 2026

"You are a baby turtle on a beach... except there is no sea and the gulls have guns. Run."

EVE Frontier Cycle 6 patch notes

I'm a bit behind due to a real life power outage, but EVE Frontier launched its Cycle 6: Sanctuary yesterday. The game is progressing past the point I'll play when the game finally launches. I'll have to see if the game swings back to a point where I think I can play further down the line. Indeed, the way the game is evolving has me hesitant to go beyond the new player experience because I just don't have the time to play.

I still follow development of the game because I think what the team over at Fenris is doing, while very niche, is fascinating. Over the next couple of weeks I want to jump into Frontier and run through the starter system once again. Every time is a new experience.

In keeping with Google DeepMind's investment in Fenris, I plan to keep up with the game by taking the patch notes and dev blog for each cycle and running them through Gemini. But first I want to make a couple of comments about things I like or don't like.

1. The change in the free trial - I think the Frontier team is getting a little more confident in the stability of the game world. The change now means new players can drop in at anytime instead of at designated times.

2. Modular ship building - The initial release of modular ship building is the feature that really has me interested in logging into Cycle 6. Plus, I always wanted a crafting ship in EVE Online.

3. No more logging off to safety - This is the feature that makes me hesitant to log into Cycle 6. My compromise, at least at first, will be to just stay in the starter system.

4. Testing crypto - The fuel-based economy feature is introducing a test version of Frontier's crypto currency. For those who are allergic to crypto.

5. Evolving ecology - One of the things I found intriguing about games like Everquest Next was the idea of NPCs running around doing things even if no players were around. I think we begin to see this implemented in Cycle 6.

6. A more robust starting area - Between the new starter systems in Frontier and the introduction of Exordium in Online I'm beginning to think some development theories are showing up in both games.

Now that I've had my say, here's what Gemini pulled from the patch notes and dev blog:

---

1. Modular Ship Building (Initial Release)

Instead of flying predefined, static ships, the old fitting system has been completely reworked.

• The Concept: You now manage a single modular ship built from a "catalog of modules." Your ship's purpose (industry, combat, exploration, or logistics) depends entirely on which parts you piece together.

• On-Board Crafting: You can now install modules like mini-printers and material processors directly onto your vessel, essentially turning your ship into a mobile, flying manufacturing facility.

• Rebuilt Energy System: Fuel is now the definitive lifeblood of your ship. It flows linearly: Fuel → Generators → Power → Consumers. If you run out of fuel, you sit idle until you are destroyed, though modules now have battery capacities to give you a temporary buffer.

• Thrust-Based Physics: Top speed limits are gone. The game has transitioned to a thrust-and-torque-based model where acceleration and your ship’s structural ability to handle the forces of turning dictate how fast you can go without tearing the vessel apart.

2. A Brutal Survival Loop & "Space Fights Back"

Space is no longer a passive backdrop—it actively tries to kill you. Safety is no longer free.

• Stellar Heat: The system star radiates active environmental heat. The longer you stay in open space, the more your heat rises. You have to actively break line-of-sight by hiding behind wrecks, space rocks, and structures to cool down.

• Feralization: A new threat type called Feral Drones lurk in shadows. If they get close, they apply a "Feralization" status effect that can corrupt and sever the connection to your pilot shell without even needing to blow up your ship.

• No More Safe Log-offs: When you log off, your ship stays floating out in space. Furthermore, NPC station doors are closed—you can no longer dock there for infinite safety. To survive, players must build a Refuge (a dockable shelter) to protect themselves and their gear between sessions.

3. The Fuel-Driven Economy

Sanctuary brings the core economy loop online. Players can exchange LUX for a test version of $EVE to acquire Mining Lenses. You then use these lenses to extract Crude Matter from rifts and refine it into the vital Fuel required to run ships, bases, and infrastructure.

4. Reactive Feral Drones & Combat Rebalance

• Allotrope Clade Drones: New evolutionary feral drones (Mycena and Dermestid) have been introduced. The Mycena scavenges materials and builds a stationary, vulnerable Chrysalis. If left alone, it consumes resources and hatches into a highly dangerous, ranged combatant (the Dermestid). Players have to choose whether to destroy the chrysalis early or let it hatch for potentially rarer loot.

• Conservator Rebalance: Existing Conservator drones have had their total health/shields lowered but their damage significantly boosted, making combat encounters much faster and more lethal.

5. New Player Experience & Rebuilt Opening

• The Creche: Everyone now spawns (and respawns upon death) in a starting zone called the Creche until they manage to build a Refuge home. It acts as a baseline area to learn to scavenge, salvage, and craft your first crude survival tool—the Skillshot Cutting Laser (a free-aiming, non-target-locked multi-tool used for mining, salvaging, and basic defense).

• Contextual Tutorials: The game has abandoned linear hand-holding. Tutorial pop-ups will now only contextually surface guide prompts the exact moment you discover a new mechanic or resource out in the sandbox.

6. Accessibility & Features

• Five-Day Free Trial: A new 5-day free trial system is live. Anyone can register, download the launcher, and play for 5 days from character creation before needing Founder Access.

• Visuals: 3D animated character models and Shell sheets are now fully rendered inside the game client.

• Tribes: Players can now form Tribes natively while out in space without needing to dock at a station first.

The Defense Crumbles: Pearl Abyss Stock Falls Another 21%

One of the benefits of owning an independent blog is the ability to go back and update stories I find interesting. The fall of the stock price of Pearl Abyss following the managerial buyout of CCP Games/Fenris Creations is one of those stories. When I last looked on 22 May Pearl Abyss stock had fallen to ₩46,050, the target price set by the analysts at JPMorgan. How has the price moved since then?

The price continued to slide

The price continued to fall. By the close of the KOSDAQ on Friday 5 June the stock had dropped another 12% down to ₩40,500 a share. On the following Monday the price crashed through ₩40,000 a share in afterhours trading over the weekend to open at ₩37,700. On Tuesday Pearl Abyss announced three measures designed to stabilize the stock price.

The first was the establishment of the company's first-ever annual cash dividend policy (the greater of ₩10 billion ($6.5 million) or 10% of net profit). 

Next came the retirement of roughly 1.4 million treasury shares (representing 50% of its holdings) three days later on Friday, June 12. When a company "retires" treasury shares, it permanently deletes them. These shares vanish from the books and Pearl Abyss can never reissue or resell them on the open market. By permanently shrinking the total pool of outstanding stock, Pearl Abyss structurally locked in a higher ownership percentage for every remaining shareholder and theoretically eliminated future dilution risk.

The third measure reinforced the retirement of the treasury shares. The company hired Korea Investment & Securities Co., Ltd to institute a buyback of ₩100 billion ($64.7 million) worth of Pearl Abyss shares. The buyback program is scheduled to last until December 2026.

At first the buyback worked as intended by creating a psychological price floor. The buyback news triggered a short-term rally, lifting the share price back up to ₩41,150 by the end of the trading day on 12 June.

Timeline of the price drop

But Pearl Abyss' plan didn't work as intended. Instead of jumping back in to purchase under-valued stock, institutional investors used the guaranteed buying volume from Korea Investment & Securities as a convenient exit door. They dumped their shares right into the company's own bids. Once the temporary buying window closed, the stock resumed its fall in value. 

And this is coming on today's article in GameRant that after three months user counts on Steam are down 95% from its all-time peak. So despite announcing Crimson Desert had reached 6 million units sold on 12 June, the rice has dropped another 12% over the past 12 calendar days.

The story of the fall of the stock price of Pearl Abyss began with the news of the sell-off of CCP Games (now Fenris Creations) on 29 April. The sales of Crimson Desert, now up to 6 million units, are now baked into the historic revenue calculations. MassivelyOP has noted that any meaningful DLC or major platform expansions for Crimson Desert are mapped out 1 to 2 years away. The next new game in the pipeline, DokeV, is 2-3 years away. Until the new content hits the market, Pearl Abyss needs to depend on the Black Desert franchise for the majority of its revenue for a significant amount of time.

I did get a quote from Gemini I liked about the near-to-mid term future of Pearl Abyss:

By divesting the steady, boring, predictable live-service subscription engine of EVE Online right at this moment, Pearl Abyss successfully turned themselves into a "pure-play" console/premium developer. The problem? The market hates gaps. Investors looked at the 2026–2028 pipeline, saw a multi-year structural drought where Black Desert has to carry the entire corporate overhead alone, and cleared out.

Whether that analysis is correct remains to be seen. But what is indisputable is that since the news of the departure of Fenris Creations from the Pearl Abyss family the stock price of PA's stock has declined 39.4%.

Flying Solo In EVE: The New Epic Arc For Beginners

I'm still in the fascination phase with EVE Online's summer expansion, Cradle of War. But the honeymoon is beginning to wear off as I feel myself drawn to completing some blogging research tasks. Some of these tasks have taken hours even with the assistance of AI, as I had to QA the output. 

For the week of 15-21 June 2026

I think I'm not the only one who's attention is wondering. EVE-Offline.net showed last week the average number of accounts logged in at any one time remained at 26,000 +/- 500 accounts. But in the middle of the week the line reached 27,000 accounts before returning to 26,000 over the weekend.

Price and sales volume on the global PLEX market

The price of PLEX remained constant, with the average daily price falling less than 1% over the course of the week. The volume of PLEX sold did spike, thanks in part to a big 25% off sale in the EVE Store which is ongoing until 28 June. Expect a lot of activity on the global PLEX market in the next 5-7 days as today Fenris announced a 25% off Omega time sale in the in-game New Eden Store. This means that for the next 5 days, one can spend $93.75 for 3000 PLEX, spend 2700 to get one year of Omega gametime, and have 300 PLEX left over. Plus, I hear the SKINs that come with the sale in the online store look pretty good. EVE for $7.81/month compared to the $20/month standard for one month at a time or $144/year ($12/month) the company usually charges for a year is kind of insane.

Supply of PLEX on sell orders, approximately 1 hour after downtime

A new graph I've been working on shows the effects of the sale already. An hour after downtime yesterday the global PLEX market had 225,559 PLEX in 191 sell orders. This morning, the supply had decreased down to 114,615 PLEX in 63 sell orders. If the developers wanted to decrease the supply of PLEX, they may have done so. We'll have a better idea next week.

Finally, my experience in Exordium continued last week. I completed the 4 career agents I wanted to work with, leaving the Soldier of Fortune career track agent alone. I then went on to the new epic arc designed for new players: Visions of Greatness. The epic arc is designed to introduce new players to some of the base lore for each of the four NPC empires. A good idea. However, I did encounter a problem. Each of the four main faction missions requires flying one of that faction's ships. Actually a good idea, but I encountered a problem. I needed to train into each of the ships, including some of the weaponry.

Like I said, a good idea. If someone completes Visions of Greatness, they will have all the basic skills to sit in an Astero. Then, if they want to continue down the Sisters' ship line they can use the shipcaster in Dettisolin to jump to Amo. Perfect for those choosing Minmatar, and perhaps even Gallente.

The fly in the ointment is learning the skills to fly the ships. I had to pause my progress to learn the skills. I guess if I were an actual new player I could have run Sisters missions while waiting for my skills to finish. Instead I went ahead and worked on my second alt. I managed to finish up 3 personal goals in military campaigns last week. A good use of my time, but would a new player have the ability to do that? No. Perhaps a stronger hint about how to earn skill points might be in order. Just saying.

Squadron 42 Release Announcement In October?

Over the weekend I heard about Cloud Imperium Games sending out invitations to a private event in Manchester on the weekend of 9-11 October. One of the major Star Citizen content creators, BoredGamer, released a video explaining the situation. Since he is going to the event, I'm going to consider that confirmation of the original Reddit post.

According to the Reddit post, a curated guest list of European, US, and Australian content creators, specialized gaming media, and a select handful of long-term original backers received invitations. Instead of showing off stage demos and heavily polished vertical slices, CIG plans to give attendees exclusive, hands on gameplay at the event. CIG also plans to make the core development team available for face-to-face interactions as well as present an unrestricted look at the current state of the single-player campaign.

I have to put in my two cents. I know that people on Reddit were excited because the invitation included "Launches 2026", but unless I hear about CIG obtaining a publisher in the People's Republic of China, I don't see the game launching this year. Especially since Grand Theft Auto VI is still on track to release on 19 November 2026 with pre-orders beginning on Thursday.

Instead, I see the event as a kickoff to marketing the game to people outside the Star Citizen community. My big prediction is the announcement that CIG will sell the game on Steam and that players can begin pre-ordering Squadron 42 at that time on both Steam and the traditional RSI website. Since I am assuming a Steam launch, CIG would need to follow Steam's policies. These policies include having a "Coming Soon" page up for a minimum of two weeks before buyers can press they buy button. Steam also requires a build review to ensure the game boots up properly and doesn't contain malicious files.

These Steam requirements explicitly details that Valve requires 3-5 business days to review the store page and a separate 5 business days to review the actual game build. I really don't see CIG setting things up ahead of time and stepping on their big announcement. CIG probably will also want to avoid the launch of GTA VI so I imagine a launch window of June or July 2027 would work well in also meeting all of Valve's requirements to list the game on Steam.

Pushing the release back until the summer of 2027 would also give CIG to set up relationships in the People's Republic. CIG is not a company like Fenris Creations. FC set up a physical presence in Shanghai in 2005 and began operating EVE Online in the country during the summer of 2006. Not only does CIG need a Chinese partner to sell the game in China, but an influential one like TenCent or NetEase is almost a must for a billion dollar game like Squadron 42. 

The timeline from obtaining a Chinese publisher to publishing the game could take 6-9 months in a best case scenario. If CIG uses the event in Manchester to secure a Chinese publisher with a feature-complete build, delaying the global launch of Squadron 42 to the summer of 2027 isn't just a move to avoid competing with GTA VI. Those 9-10 months is practically the minimum amount of time legally and operationally required to get a game approved by China's National Press and Publication Administration.

So will CIG release Squadron 42 at the special event in Manchester in October. I highly doubt it. But will the event act as the springboard for the effort to market Cloud Imperium's first game. All signs point to yes.