EVE: Vanguard Patch Notes For The March Playtest

The fourth playtest session for EVE: Vanguard, CCP Games' new first-person-shooter module for EVE Online currently under development is scheduled to run from tomorrow, 21 March at 1200 UTC, to Monday, 25 March at 1200 UTC. Open to all players with EVE Online Omega accounts, CCP published an article describing the additions and changes for the March playtest weekend. 

I read through the article and translated the contents into a patch note format. The highlights from outside looking in are the inclusion of mining and suppression contracts. Mining because the function will nicely fit into Project Awakening, a survival game that will likely incorporate much of EVE: Vanguard into the world. The inclusion of suppression contracts allows players to fight either for the empires (Amar, Caldari, Gallente, Minmatar) or the pirates of the Deathless Circles. These fights have the potential to affect EVE Online directly.

Below is my writeup of the points of the article.

Armor

These updates aim to deepen tactical gameplay and visually distinguish Vanguard from NPCs on the battlefield. 

• A new warclone suit for players now available
• A new and updated suit for NPCs

Contracts

Warclones now have a choice between sides in the ongoing struggle between order and disorder in New Eden. All corruption contracts have received suppression versions, leveling the playing field between the two sides.

• Mining contracts introduced
• Suppression contracts introduced
• Combat and rewards have received balancing improvements. 

Crafting

• Minable resources added to crafting recipes
• Energy ammo now craftable using mined resources

Mining

• New Mining Laser Prototype
• Allows mining of ore
• Passively scans for ore when equipped

NPC Loot

• NPCs now drop ammunition as well as biomass
  
  
• Higher ranking NPCs drop more kinetic ammo than their lowlier counterparts
• Elite NPCs drop energy ammo

Playtest Rewards

• Receive the Corax Arkombine Arisen SKIN for exchanging biomass for a clone 20 times as part of a squad of two or more.
• Receive the Osprey Navy Issue Arkombine Arisen SKIN for harvesting 2,000 units of ore from mining.
• Acquiring 20 clones as part of a squad counts toward a longer-term challenge in June.
• To unlock the big reward, players need to complete at least 4 of 6 monthly challenges.
  
  
• The top 10 on the leaderboard for most credits extracted during the event will receive PLEX.

Fixes

• Multiple server performance improvements have been made, including fixes to server and client crashes. 
• An issue with deployable shields being active longer than they should has been fixed. 
• An issue has been fixed, which allowed players to perform multiple actions simultaneously, that should have been mutually exclusive, such as healing and gathering resources. 
• Push-to-talk has received multiple improvements, including fixes to key binding and operational errors. 
• An issue with death box animations has been fixed. 
• An issue allowing players to simultaneously sprint, and place equipment has been fixed. 
• An issue allowing players to interact with out-of-range objects has been fixed. 
• An issue with the deployment summary screen displaying incorrect information has been resolved. 
• Display errors with contract objectives have been addressed. 
• An issue with NPCs moving at great speed or appearing to teleport across the map has been addressed.