EVE: Viridian Patch Notes - Ecosystem and Industry Changes

EVE Online's Viridian expansion, set to launch on 13 June 2023, is the game's second full expansion since the return of the content format in November 2022. The patch notes are fairly extensive. Instead of just composing a surface-level single post giving my thoughts, I thought I'd do a little experiment. Are people interested in perhaps a little deeper coverage? I'm about to find out, as this post covers ecosystem and industry changes.

We are making a lot of quality-of-life changes to various aspects of the economy, as well as reducing some of the bottlenecks that currently exist, especially for capital production. 

The changes in the ecosystem and industry are subjects I would normally ignore when reading patch notes. But with the new format, I have to pay attention to some of the more esoteric changes. Doing so led to finding out the changes will also effect those engaged in planetary interaction, mining, factional warfare, and even high sec gankers. With that teaser in place, let's dig into the patch notes.

Blueprint Changes: The first involve blueprints involved in capital production:

The changes to the Capital Core Temperature Regulators and Neurolink Enhancers will lower the cost of all Capital Ships. We are also changing the PI consumed by the Life Support Backup Units and Auto-Integrity Preservation Seals from P1 to P2 planetary interaction commodities. This will make hauling the build materials for them much easier. 

Capital Core Temperature Regulator Blueprint 

• Integrity Response Drones: Decreased from 100 to 25 
• Self-Harmonizing Power Core: Decreased from 100 to 25
• Core Temperature Regulator: Decreased from 70 to 50 

Meta-Operant Neurolink Enhancer Blueprint 

• Hypnagogic Neurolink Enhancers: Decreased from 160 to 80 
• Axosomatic Neurolink Enhancer: Decreased from 160 to 80 
• Cogni-Emotive Neurolink Enhancer: Decreased from 160 to 80 
• Sense-Heuristic Neurolink Enhancer Decreased from 160 to 80 

Life Support Backup Unit: 

• Removed Water: 150 → 0 
• Removed Oxygen: 200 → 0 
• Added Test Cultures: 8 
• Added Viral Agent: 8 

Auto-Integrity Preservation Seal 

• Removed Bacteria: 80 → 0 
• Removed Proteins: 40 → 0
• Added Nanites x 4 
• Added Supertensile Plastics x 4 

Jump Freighters already required certain input materials when building the Tech 1 Freighters. We are removing them to both lower the cost of Jump Freighters and lower the demand for these items so that they are more available for other capital ships. 

Ark Blueprint:

• Removed U-C Trigger Neurolink Conduit: 32 → 0 
• Removed Radar-FTL Interlink Communicator: 2 → 0 
• Removed Auto-Integrity Preservation Seal: 400 → 0 
• Removed Life Support Backup Unit 200 → 0 
• Removed Capital Core Temperature Regulator 1 → 0 

Rhea Blueprint: 

• Removed R-O Trigger Neurolink Conduit: 32 → 0 
• Removed Gravimetric-FTL Interlink Communicator: 2 → 0 
• Removed Auto-Integrity Preservation Seal: 400 → 0 
• Removed Life Support Backup Unit: 200 → 0 
• Removed Capital Core Temperature Regulator: 1 → 0 

Anshar Blueprint:

• Removed S-R Trigger Neurolink Conduit: 32 → 0 
• Removed Magnetometric-FTL Interlink Communicator: 2 → 0 
• Removed Auto-Integrity Preservation Seal: 400 → 0 
• Removed Life Support Backup Unit: 200 → 0 
• Removed Capital Core Temperature Regulator: 1 → 0 

Nomad Blueprint:

• Removed G-O Trigger Neurolink Conduit: 32 → 0 
• Removed Ladar-FTL Interlink Communicator: 2 → 0 
• Removed Auto-Integrity Preservation Seal: 400 → 0 
• Removed Life Support Backup Unit: 200 → 0 
• Removed Capital Core Temperature Regulator: 1 → 0 

Ecosystem Changes: Major changes to the game like the ability to build Tech 2 dreadnaughts will result in changes to the ecosystem in order to allow players to build the ships. Since the blueprint change section ended with jump freighter blueprint changes, let's start the ecosystem changes with the final jump freighter change.

• Jump Freighter wrecks now have an access difficulty of -10 to match all other T2 Ships.

The developers also chose to make the logistics of creating the new capital ships easier.

• Reduced Volume of Capital Ship Components from 10,000 m3 to 2,000 m3
• Volume of all PI commodities reduced by 50%

The patch notes included the following description of the PI size change:

We are making it much easier to haul PI commodities as well as it now requires fewer active inputs to manage since the space of all storage facilities and spaceports is effectively doubled.

PvE content is also involved in the creation of capital ships, with CCP "increasing the availability of the content that drops the Capital Ship control items."

• Increased spawn chance by 100% for the following sites: AEGIS Captial Ship Security Facility, AEGIS Secure Transfer Facility, AEGIS Captial Construction Forge, Overmind Nursery Grove.

CCP's changes require a heck of a lot of isogen, which led to the following change:

• Ytirium asteroid count increased by 900%

We are adjusting the asteroid belts that we added earlier this year, these are the asteroid belts which can be found in blue A0 star systems in Null Security and Wormhole space. As well as in 0.5 security High Security systems which border Low Security and Null Security systems which border Low Security systems.

Ytirium is an asteroid which reprocesses into Isogen exclusively. We are increasing the value of these mining sites and increasing the supply of Isogen.

Finally, factional warfare will have a role in the new industry changes with the addition of Molecular Condensers to factional warfare loyalty point store. The developers see the addition putting a price ceiling on the item.

• Price: 1 Million ISK and 600 FW LP.  
• LM-Composite Molecular Condensers can be purchased in the 24th Imperial Crusade LP Store 
• AG-Composite Molecular Condenser can be purchased in the State Protectorate LP Store 
• CV-Composite Molecular Condenser can be purchased in the Federal Defense Union LP Store 
• AV-Composite Molecular Condenser can be purchased in the Tribal Liberation Force LP Store 

Hopefully this post has helped explained some very important changes to the EVE economy. The changes to existing blueprints, while perhaps just changing some values and formulas in a database, will impact the ability of New Eden's industrialists to produce the new flavor of the month, the Tech 2 dreadnought. Changes to the ecosystem, ranging from item sizes to the frequency of site spawns, has the potential to affect every player attempting to make ISK in EVE. And where significant economic activity occurs, the possibility of exploding spaceships follows.