EVE Online's Equinox expansion, set to launch on 11 June 2024, is the game's fourth full expansion since the return of the content format in November 2022. The patch notes are fairly extensive and dense. I find reading lengthy patch notes rather boring, so I also like to go to other sources for information. For both the Viridian and Havoc expansions I wrote a series of posts based on the patch notes with other information added to hopefully make absorbing all the information less painful. This fourth post in the series for Equinox will cover the Metenox Moon Drill and the return of passive moon mining.
The introduction of the Metenox Moon Drill is pure fan service designed to draw in disgruntled former players who were upset about the removal of passive moon mining in the Lifeblood expansion of October 2017. The content drop introduced the Athanor and Tatara Upwell refineries, shutting down the old passive moon mining player owned starbases (POS). At the time and for years afterwards many combat-focused players, especially in low sec, lamented the removal of one of the main conflict drivers outside the null sec wars. In Equinox, the conflict driver is back.
The patch notes introduced the new Upwell refinery, noting some of the structure's unusual characteristics.
Another deployable structure being introduced is the Metenox Moon Drill. Fueled in part by fuel blocks and also by Magmatic Gas harvested from lava planets. This structure can be deployed at moon mining points in lowsec, nullsec, and wormhole space. The Metenox will be less efficient than manual extraction by players using an Athanor or Tatara, but instead, it slowly collects the resources obtained from mining and refining moon ores over time at a rate of 40% efficiency. Players can control who has access to take the moon materials it harvests with an ACL.
But the callback to the Metenox' POS roots came in the details.
- The Metenox Moon Drill features a unique reinforcement flow. Once it has been deployed, the Metenox will not have automatic repairs like other Upwell Structures, instead, players will need to manually repair the shield and armor if it gets attacked. The Metenox has a single reinforcement cycle in Hull, once it leaves reinforcement, it will need to be repaired to 100% Shield OR 100% Armor HP in order to fully repair itself and gain the reinforcement cycle back and be able to have the service module turned on again, the Metenox does not have a damage cap like other Upwell Structures, and instead behaves a lot more like an old moon mining POS prior to the Lifeblood expansion.
- Shield HP: 1,000,000 (4,000,000 when high power), 75% resists.
- Armor HP: 1,000,000 (4,000,000 high power), 75% resists.
- Hull HP: 24,000,000, 0% resists
- The Metenox provides no defenses, weaponry or tether ability.
- Only a single Metenox, Athanor or Tatara can be at the same moon mining location at any time.
- If a Metenox is reinforced, the moon materials it has in the Moon Mineral hangar are trapped and will be dropped as loot when it is destroyed.
- Metenox moon Drills will require an Integrated Moon Drill Armature to be built, and will always drop it at a 100% rate, this functions as a built in Upwell Quantum Core. The cost of the core is 300 million ISK in Upwell Consortium member stations.
- The Metenox Moon Drill blueprint is available from Upwell member NPC stations for 6 billion ISK.
- Metenox Moon Drill Blueprint Manufacturing Input Materials:
- 3 x Structure Construction Parts
- 1 x Structure Storage Bay
- 1 x Structure Reprocessing Plant
- 1 x Structure Office Center
- 1 x Integrated Moon Drill Armature
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