EVE: Viridian Patch 2023-07-13.1 - Homefront Operations Changes

Normally CCP pushes out all regular patches on Tuesdays. The devs decided to push out some balancing of Homefront Operations 30 days after the launch of the Viridian expansion, which fell on last Thursday. The changes are rather meaty, so I figured I'd list them below.

Dread Assault sites - Apparently the developers felt the Dread Assault sites were too easy and buffed the poor NPCs.

• The charge required for the Dreadnought to enter Siege Mode and fire its lance has been reduced.
  
• The total number of lance attacks for the target structure to be destroyed has increased.
• The duration of the Dreadnought’s Siege Mode - during which it cannot have charge transferred to it - has been reduced to 90 seconds from 300 seconds.
• The amount of charge neutralized by ‘Focused’ enemies has been increased significantly.
• The effective hitpoints of ‘Focused’ and dedicated ECM enemies have been reduced.

Emergency Aid sites - A theme throughout the changes is the content doesn't offer enough rewards.

• Contributing players within Emergency Aid sites will now receive additional rewards when their protection target is kept alive at 5 and 10 minutes.

Suspicious Signal sites - The devs figure the hacking sites need more rewards. Adding an ISK faucet to the sites might raise some eyebrows.

• The reboot time of arrays within Suspicious Signal sites has been reduced to 90 seconds from 120 seconds.
• Data fragments can now be looted from hacked arrays within Suspicious Signal sites. These items can be sold to NPC buy orders.
• Hacking an array within a Suspicious Signal site will have its time until reboot show within the Info Panel.

Abyssal Artifact Recovery sites - I have the feeling players will complain about these changes, especially the AI prioritizing drones.

• Added additional enemy types that can appear within Abyssal Artifact Recovery sites.
• Enemies will no longer attack capsules within Abyssal Artifact Recovery sites.
• Some Sleeper and Rogue Drone enemies within Abyssal Artifact Recovery sites will now target and prioritize drones.

All sites - The changes are a mix of buffs and nerfs, but overall I believe players will like the changes.

• The minimum amount a player must contribute to be rewarded within a site has been increased.
• The respawn time for enemies within all sites has been greatly increased.
• Rebalanced the energy neutralization amount inflicted by combat NPCs within all relevant sites. Notably, cruiser NPCs have had their values significantly reduced.
• The orbit ranges of enemies within all sites have been adjusted to better match their weapon ranges.
• Conversations within all sites have been reworked:
• If the site is ongoing, instructions on how to complete it now appear when arriving within the area containing the acceleration gate. A more concise reminder is given when arriving within the main combat area.
• If the site is complete, players will be informed of its state when arriving within the area containing the acceleration gate.

The developers also fixed a few bugs.

• Fixed an issue causing the Info Panel objective information to appear with incorrect or missing values.
• The items delivered counter in the Info Panel will now update correctly when depositing multiple items simultaneously within Raid sites.
• Added ‘Focused’ to the names of enemies which use energy neutralizers within Minmatar Dread Assault sites.
• Fixed various typos.