EVE: Equinox Patch Notes: Orbital Skyhooks

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. The first post in the series for Equinox will cover orbital skyhooks.

In science fiction, skyhooks are often depicted as orbital structures designed to transfer cargo and passengers to and from space without the need for traditional rockets. They are a type of non-rotating space elevator that reaches into orbit and uses momentum exchange to assist spacecraft in reaching orbit or returning to Earth. In New Eden, the orbital skyhook will provide the base for maintaining player-run organizations in sovereign null security space. As the developers explained at the beginning of May:

Replacing the customs office, the orbital skyhook takes the form of an anchor, and will be required to extract resources from planets. It not only replaces but retains the functionality of the customs office as a resource interface for Planetary Industry, but also enables the extraction of new colony resources introduced with Equinox. Skyhooks can be attached to all planet types, but only within player-owned sovereign nullsec space, and only one can be placed in orbit of each planet. 

CCP provided a nice graphic with a breakdown of which planets provide what new resources.

First, the two new categories of resources that do not require physical transportation by players.

• Power - Power is provided by the sun, with larger blue suns giving the most power, and small white suns giving the least power, it is also provided by gas, storm and plasma planets. Power cannot be moved and is local to the solar system.
  
  
• Workforce - Workforce is provided by the working population available on suitable planets, which are barren, oceanic and temperate planets. Workforce can be imported and exported via the Sov Hub through different solar systems that the same alliance controls, as long as the systems are directly connected together.

Next comes the resource I believe will most touch players the most directly, reagents.

• Reagents - Reagents come from ice and lava planets and have to be manually collected and moved.
  
  
• Magmatic Gas - Is provided by lava planets and is used to fuel the Metenox moon drill, as well as the Cynosural Navigation (Pharolux cyno beacon) and the Cynosural Suppression (Tenebrex cyno jammer) upgrades.
• Superionic Ice - Is provided by ice planets and is used to fuel the Advanced Logistics Network (Ansiblex Jump Gate) and the Supercapital Construction Facilities upgrades.
  
  
• Take Access to the Reagent Bay is governed by an ACL on the Skyhook, which can be set by players with the Station Config Manager role, Directors or the CEO of a corporation.
  
  
• Immature Reagents will be produced over time from Skyhooks anchored at lava and ice planets, and will slowly become mature, at which point they can be extracted by players. Skyhooks yield will gradually improve over time as their immature bay becomes larger. If a Skyhook is stolen from, then all the Mature Reagents will be taken, and the Immature Reagents will be lost, resetting and slowing down the improved ramping yield, making defending Skyhooks important.

A ramping up effect similar to Triglavian weapons? Speaking of weapons, players can attack skyhooks in two ways.

• Reagents can be stolen by linking to the Skyhook Reagent Silo which is present at Skyhooks that are harvesting reagents from ice and lava planets. To link to a Silo, players will need to shoot it to below 10% Shield HP first, and then will need to link to it using a ship which is cruiser sized or larger including Capital ships but excluding Freighters and Jump Freighters. While linked, players cannot warp, use micro jump drives, cloak or tether, and their maximum velocity is capped at 1000m/s. Additionally, starting a theft on a Skyhook Silo will send a notification to all players in the solar system, and after 2 minutes, all pilots 1 jump away, and finally, after 5 minutes, an additional notification to all pilots within 2 jumps. After 10 minutes have passed, the theft will succeed, and a cargo bay will eject loot from the Silo for anyone to collect.
  
  
• The Orbital Skyhook has a single reinforcement cycle, with similar hitpoints, resistances and damage cap to existing upwell medium structures, such as the Raitaru and Athanor.

CCP has a support page with more information on attacking Upwell structures. Below is a flow chart of how to attack medium structures such as Ratiarus, Athanors, and now orbital skyhooks.

An early question is how players will replace the existing player-owned custom offices with orbital skyhooks.

• Corporations who own a Customs Office at a planet can replace it with a Skyhook by going to their Customs Office and deploying a Skyhook. The Customs Office will then be replaced with a Skyhook and all the PI commodities inside the custom office will automatically be transferred into the Skyhook.
  
  
• If a corporation wants to deploy a Skyhook at a planet which contains another corporations Customs Office, they will need to destroy the Customs Office before they can deploy a Skyhook.

In the patch notes the developers just made a vague note about NPC interactions with skyhooks.

• Pirate Asteroid Belt NPCs can show up at Skyhooks.

The earlier May dev blog provided more details.

Once an orbital skyhook is in place, capsuleers must be vigilant, as there's a periodic risk of encountering a Pirate Orbital Blockade. These blockades challenge players to either engage in combat with pirate NPCs, potentially at an officer level, including capital and supercapital ships, or run the blockade. Successfully lifting these blockades rewards pilots with ISK in addition to enhancing the defensive rating of the solar system. The blockades thus give capsuleers more opportunities to tackle powerful pirate NPCs for impressive rewards. 

The last item from the patch notes concerns building the new structure.

• Blueprint Originals for the Skyhook can be obtained from all Upwell Consortium corporation member NPC stations for an ISK cost of 5.5 billion ISK.
  
  
• Orbital Skyhook Input Material Requirements:
  
  
• 1 x Structure Construction Parts
• 2 x Structure Storage Bay
• 1 x Structure Reprocessing Plant
• 1 x Structure Office Center
• 2 x Structure Acceleration Coils