EVE: Vanguard - January 2024 Playtest Patch Notes

The January playtest for EVE: Vanguard is now live. Running from 12:00 UTC 25 January to 12:00 UTC 29 January, the second public playtest for Omega (i.e. subscription-paying) players is another step toward introducing first person shooter play into the EVE universe. While CCP did post an article covering progress so far, I thought a more patch notes type write-up for returning players could be useful. So here is my effort to write some patch notes.

Server Access

• Access to the Vanguard test servers has been opened to players from  the Asia Pacific and South American regions.

Rewards

• Players completing at least one deployment as part of a squad of 2 or more over the course of the event will get an Executioner Arkombine Arisen SKIN
• This EVE ship SKIN is exclusive and non-tradeable, and the reward is only available if the deployment is played all the way through without quitting
• Successful extraction is not required to meet the qualifications.
  
  
• Delivering the killing blow to 50 threats, including NPCs, other Vanguards, and turrets over the course of the event will reward you with the exclusive but tradeable Dragoon Arkombine Arisen SKIN in EVE Online. 
  
  
• The top 10 players on the leaderboard will receive a PLEX reward
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• The results will be tallied up when the playtest officially ends at 12:00 UTC on 29 January.
  
  
• Completing at least one deployment as part of a squad of 2 or more will make you eligible for an additional reward down the road. More will be revealed in further playtests and beyond. 

Uninstalling Vanguard

Following the December playtest, participants ran into challenges with uninstalling Vanguard from their devices. We understand the frustration this has caused and have been working towards a solution. Unfortunately, we do not have an uninstaller for Vanguard at this time. However, you can reference this help center article which outlines a method for removing Vanguard-related files from your PC without affecting your EVE Online installation. We appreciate your patience as we work to resolve this and plan to have a solution in place for the March event.

Fixes

• An exploit allowing players to avoid melee cooldowns by switching ammo has been fixed. 
  
• An exploit related to fire rate being connected to mouse clicks, allowing very rapid firing with no cooldowns, has been addressed. 
• A UI change has been implemented, fixing an issue that prevented players from looting if their inventory was full. 
• Clones appearing to be walking around after being shot dead have been addressed. 
• A problem that caused issues with reporting players after they had left their squads has been fixed. 
• Collisions and assets have been adjusted to address an issue with multiple players falling through the floor. 
• An issue causing squad mates’ ping markers to get stuck on screen after re-cloning has been addressed.  
• An error causing the contract UI to stay on screen when extracting and redeploying into the same session has been fixed.  
• A fix was made to prevent AR map icons from disappearing when switching window across monitors.  
• An issue with changing input and output audio devices has been addressed.  
• An issue that caused ammo to be duplicated when shooting and changing ammo type has been fixed.  
• Streaming stats have been fixed to prevent flickering.  
• A fix has been implemented to prevent the use of macros to increase fire rate. 
• An issue preventing users from quickly looting energy cells has been addressed.  
• Numerous crash fixes have been implemented.  
• A new informational splash screen has been added.  
• Numerous installation fixes have been made around EAD and Unreal prerequisites.