Chad McKinney Has Left Cloud Imperium Games

The fallout is just about over for the closing of Cloud Imperium Games' facility in Los Angeles. A few names known to players may emerge and get a mention or two on social media or amongst Star Citizen's content creators. One such individual is Chad McKinney.

Big life update! pic.twitter.com/OZH9VvyK4s

— Chad McKinney (@raycast_curses) March 28, 2025

According to his LinkedIn page, McKinney began working for Cloud Imperium Games in 2016. In 2017 he was named a Lead Gameplay Engineer and then in 2021 promoted to Senior Gameplay Engineer. According to Star Citizen Wikipedia McKinney was involved in the development of many systems in Star Citizen.

He developed and supported many player facing multiplayer gameplay features using Star Engine. This includes among others the interaction system, item health and destruction, the room and atmosphere system, player created missions, energy and power distribution, designer systems for item creation, spline traversal to planetary surface locations, physically moving elevators, inventory, global persistence.

And now McKinney is moving over to Blizzard. At least he's secure in another position in the industry. Just another small story in the epic saga known as Star Citizen.

Hitting The FFXIV Patch 2 Gear Wall

Did Final Fantasy XIV's patch 7.2, Seekers of Eternity, really launch only 2 days ago? So far I've purchased all my level 12 crafting books, crafted all the high level foods I'll need for a week, including fishing a two-week supply of cloudsail so I can keep myself fed with the hot crafting food right now, ceviche. Last night I started the patch 7.2 main story questline. As I kind of expected, I hit the gear wall.

"What gear wall?" I can hear readers who are much better at FFXIV than I am thinking to themselves. Those readers don't think twice about participating in the duty roulette grind and thus don't know about the wall. But FFXIV has a lot of activities I find more enjoyable so I started out the patch wearing a full set of the Archeo Kingdom gear. High quality, obviously, tenderly handcrafted by myself. But not good enough to advance through the MSQ.

The problem I have is the 8-character trial, Recollection. The trial has an iLvl requirement of 715 and my Archeo Kingdom gear only has an iLvl of 710. In other words I can't advance the MSQ until I upgrade my gear. A requirement that wouldn't affect most players, but I'm really bad at the game and don't like running duties with other players.

I do have a solution. I don't even need to run anymore dungeons to get the gear if I want to pay through the nose for the crafting materials I need now. But, I don't want to spend another ridiculous amount of gil. So all roads lead to grinding through patch 7.2's regular 4-character duty, The Underkeep.

My preferred option is to craft the new iLvl 740 Ceremonial set for white mage. Unlike the last 4 duties and 2 trials introduced in Dawntrail and patch 7.1, The Underkeep and Recollection are not item sync'd. A positive since I need all the help I can get. But in order to get the Allagan Tomestones of Heliometry I need to avoid spending all my gil, I need to run The Underkeep. Many, many times. I currently have 296 with each crafting mat costing 20 tomes. I also have 370 of the discontinued Allagan Tomestones of Aesthetics which I can trade in for the tomestones I need. Hopefully the exchange rate is 1 for 1. Either way, I only get 80 Allagan Tomestones of Heliometry if I defeat all three bosses in a run.

Since I have to grind The Underkeep I might as well attempt to get one or two pieces of the new iLvl 750 gear purchasable with Allagan Tomestones of Mathematics. I probably need to do so to prevent running into a gear wall in future point releases. But with a limit of 450 tomestones per week I may not have enough patience to get a full set. Killing the last boss of The Underkeep also grants 50 Allagan Tomestones of Mathematics.

One benefit of grinding The Underkeep is the duty drops iLvl 725 gear. So while I'm striving to get the top sets for white mage I can also gear up my other classes with the drops not useful for my white mage. And, perhaps most importantly, my two white mage retainers. Currently both are at iLvl 670. For bringing back materials the highest effective at the end of patch 7.1 was iLvl 715. If I can get both to iLvl 725 the retainers will bring back 15 Gomphotherium Skins or Gargantua Hides instead of the current 5. A big improvement.

One important feature I haven't mentioned is the difficulty factor. Yes, I didn't finish the duty on my first time through. But I think, unlike the last few duties and trials released, I actually have the ability to learn the fights. Also, the fact The Underkeep doesn't have item syncing also helps. So if I can get my completion time down to 35 minutes or so farming the duty to support my crafting habit I won't mind too much.

I pretty much have 4 weeks in my schedule to get all the grinding done. Once Cosmic Exploration launches and Fanfest is over I want to get away from combat and opening up the stars (or at least moons). Because while some people play for the raiding, this content is just something I have to do to get to the fun stuff.

I Bought Into The Star's Reach Kickstarter

Well, I finally did it. Despite covering the financial situation of Cloud Imperium Games I went ahead and backed a game on Kickstarter. Star's Reach, a game under development by Playable Worlds, finishes up its Kickstarter campaign tomorrow and I jumped onboard last night.

I decided to buy the $30 package, the cheapest I could get while still having the ability to play the development build. That puts me up to the cap on my alpha game budget of $50 (I paid $19.99 for EVE Frontier) so don't ask me to pay for another game. I have too many to play and write about now.

In many ways, the negative coverage Frontier receives led me to check out the Star's Reach Kickstarter. People are losing their ever-loving minds over CCP Games' selling cosmetics packages for $100 (off 30% for a limited time!) and I decided to check out the offerings from Playable Worlds. 

Look, I understand. I really do. Companies need money. But I'm not paying $20 for a SKIN and a pretty portrait for a game still in alpha much less $100. Not even after looking at the prices for Star's Reach Kickstarter packages as a comparison.

Selected packages below $250

Two things stood out to me. The first is pets. I started getting flashbacks to Black Desert Online when Kakao published the game in North America. The pets from the cash shop were so overpowered in looting, making them almost mandatory purchases. Pearl Abyss did tone down the cash shop greed when they began self-publishing BDO world-wide, but the damage was already done to my memories.

The expensive packages

The second was how much people were willing to spend. With about 24 hours to go before the campaign closed here is how many of the most expensive packages were sold.

• Wormgate Trader ($1500) - 4
• Nebula Surfer ($2000) - 25
• Tech Runner ($2250) - 4
• Guild Patron ($5000) - 6
• Galactic Plenipotentiary ($10,000) - 5

Those 44 people combined for $145,000 towards Playable Worlds' goal of $200,000 for the Kickstarter campaign. Overall, those 1% of Kickstarter backers contributed 22% of total funding. Including those who purchased the $995 and $1050 packages, 2% of backers contributed nearly $193,000 or 29% of the funding. A real life example of how whales can fund a game. Hopefully the 99 people who purchased the $800 package aren't offended by not being called whales. Include them and the percentages go up to 4% of backers paid in 41% of the Kickstarter total.

And, I'm one of the people who has contributed to a Kickstarter MMORPG now. My only previous experience was with Andrew Groen's Empires of EVE books. Hopefully my experience with Star's Reach will prove equally satisfying.

FFXIV's Gearset Command Was Solution 8

Final Fantasy XIV is currently down as Square Enix prepares to launch patch 7.2 on Tuesday. I was dutifully preparing for the patch Saturday night until I noticed something I'd forgotten. I still had 2272 white crafting scrips I needed to exchange for an equal number of purple crafting scrips, and I only had a little more than 72 hours to retrieve them.

Sure, I could have purchased 10 crafting materia XIs and called it a day. But the true end game of FFXIV is glamour so I decided to spend them on crafting glamour gear instead. I saw so many good looking glamour sets on Eorzea Collection for crafters that I figured since I had to spend the scrips anyway, why not to fix my glamour game?

Now, I did face a problem. All 8 crafting jobs use the same gear except for primary and secondary tools. Since the glams I was looking at all had class-specific pieces, I would need to manually apply the glams every time I switched classes unless I could come up with a solution.

My solution was to modify the Snap macro I use to change my jobs. The basis of the macro is the /snap emote which lets your character snap their fingers over their head like Emet-Selch. I played around and came up with this macro:

/macroicon "Armorer" classjob

/snap

/wait 1

/gs change 8 4

/wait 1

What exactly does the macro do? Here's a line-by-line breakdown.

Line 1: Each macro can have an icon to identify the macro if placed on one of the action bars. For my combat jobs I use things like Soul of the Whte Mage, Soul of the Dragoon, etc. But the crafting classes don't have fancy items I can use. Instead, the command sets the generic crafting class icon. In the above example the icon is set to the Armorer icon.

Line 2: The command to execute the Snap emote.

Line 3: Set a one second delay before executing any other command. This allows the command to execute cleanly.

Line 4: This is the gearset command. Gearset needs to know what type of action to perform. In my macro I am changing two things, the job/class and the glamour plate used.

The job/class is found by going to character window and clicking on the icon to display your list of jobs/classes. The number on the list is the first number. The second number is more intuitive to find. Just go to the glamour window and enter the plate number. So in the above example, Armorer is the eighth entry on the list and plate four will be active.

Line 5: Set a one second delay before executing any other command. This allows the command to execute cleanly. Without setting the delay the macro didn't work from an action bar.

An experienced macro creator is probably looking at the macro and suggesting ways to make the macro shorter. First, the /macroicon command can be shortened to /micon. Next, the 1 second waits I included can go on the same lines as the slash commands. A cleaned up version of the macro would look something like the below:

/micon "Armorer" classjob

/snap <wait.1>

/gs change 8 4 <wait.1>

I have two arguments in my defense. The first is by making the macro like I did I could more easily explain how the macro works. Understanding usually is better than blind copy/pasting of code. The second is, I got the bloody thing to work and I was in too much of a rush to clean up before logging off for the night. Better to have something in place that works than something pretty you didn't have time to adequately test. Although, to be honest, the cleaned up code above should work.

I did manage to stock up on enough orange and purple scrips and craft enough collectables to fulfill my needs on day 1 of patch 7.2. Perhaps more importantly, with the above script I'll look better playing as well.

Cloud Imperium Games' Los Angeles Office Closes

Yesterday news broke out that Cloud Imperium Games, the developers of the upcoming games Squadron 42 and Star Citizen, closed its office in Los Angeles. I do not know if the story came from the r/starcitizen sub-Reddit or came because the author of the piece is a member of The Chairman's Club.

Image taken from Reddit

In a newsletter to members of The Chairman's Club (customers who have purchased $1000 or more in goods from CIG's cash shop), CIG is closing the Los Angeles office in order to "make sure our developers are right where they need to be for the final stretch, which means moving key staff to be closer to their teams and counterparts in other studios."

The closing of the Los Angeles office was first officially broached by Chris Roberts in his response to the news of layoffs at Cloud Imperium at the beginning of 2024. However, at the time Roberts only referred to development staff. In a Letter from the Chairman published in March 2024 Roberts informed the world about plans for the Los Angeles office.

As part of this development re-organization, we have made a few significant changes. From a personal standpoint I have moved to Austin, Texas from Los Angeles to be closer in time zone to our main development operations in Manchester, Frankfurt, and Montreal. I am spending significant time at our largest studio in Manchester with almost 600 staff, as I sit with Rich and the teams, working towards completion on Squadron 42 and Star Citizen. As part of this, we made the difficult decision to ask the Los Angeles development team, which had increasingly been providing support for the main development teams based in Manchester, to relocate to join other teams, primarily in Manchester, but also in Austin and Montreal. Los Angeles, while shrinking, will still be an important office for the company, but one focusing on a business support role with Marketing, Finance, Legal and HR.

By January the information that the Los Angeles office would remain important began to appear optimistic. Two key HR leaders based out of the L.A. office were quietly removed from the About page on CIG's corporate website. In October 2024  Francesca McKibben, the vice-president of human resources in the U.S., left the company, moving over to LinkedTree. Sometime between the beginning of October and beginning of December Eric Kieron Davis, formerly Cloud Imperium's Chief People Officer, was also removed. Since I first posted the news in January, Davis' LinkedIn page was either deleted or otherwise made inaccessible.

In February another Los Angeles-based member of Cloud Imperium's leadership team was removed from the About page. Chief Marketing Officer Elliot Chin is also no longer listed with no replacement listed on the CIG corporate website.

With both the global leaders of HR and Marketing based in Los Angeles departing their roles, the writing was on the wall for the office. While the information possibly only comes from Reddit, I'm going to go ahead and believe it. Hopefully my judgement is correct because I really hate writing retractions.

CCP Games' Carbon Engine Moves To Python 3

With the latest update to the Trinity graphics engine going live on EVE Online's Tranquility server on Tuesday, I thought the time was right to bring up another significant update to CCP Games' Carbon Engine: the move from Stackless Python to Python 3 back in mid-February. But unlike other major technical changes in the EVE Evolved series, the change came from a highly reviled source by some quarters of the gaming media. That's right, the change came from the team making EVE Frontier.

The developers of the Carbon Engine ran into a serious problem: the lack of support for Stackless Python. According to a dev blog from the Frontier team, Stackless Python would not progress any farther than Python 3.8. A real problem as a look at the Python developers guide shows the end of life for Python 3.8 was October 2024.

The end of life of Python's major releases

CCP has a long history with Stackless Python but had reached a fork in the road. Either maintain Stackless Python 3.8 themselves or migrate to the main development line of Python 3. This, of course, presented a major challenge.

Over the years, CCP has been a major contributor to the Stackless Python fork but it has been stuck on a maximum of Python 3.8 for some time now, which gave us two options if we were to continue the development of EVE Frontier as a game for the next 20 years (and beyond):

1.) Maintain Stackless Python fork ourselves

2.) Move towards vanilla Python 3

At this point I should mention the same challenge for development also faced the team of developers working on EVE Online. The upgrade was not an easy, or quick, task.

Around 4 million lines of Python code and 1 million lines of C++ code make up the EVE Frontier client and server. Many of these needed to be updated or completely changed.

Python 3 is a major upgrade but contained a number of backwards-incompatible changes. Many of these have a very simple migration path, such as changes to print statements which transforms to print "hello world!" to print("hello world!") . However others were more complicated, such as division changing from being an integer division to a floating-point division (in this case we can, at the cost of code readability and a small performance cost, do a safe transformation).

Veteran EVE players probably winced at the thought of the effect those small changes potentially would have on the game if not performed properly. Or, at least on EVE Online as those playing in Frontier wouldn't feel the effects as they didn't have experience with changing outcomes of formulas.

In addition, other challenges arose: some things no longer work. For example you can’t compare two types that aren’t comparable. This had historical reasoning but in our development we have come across code where sorting list of tuples sees the second element being not comparable. We also have C++ code that is exposed to Python and that interface changed quite a bit between Python versions. For example any code written and compiled for Python 2 does not work for Python 3.

These and similar issues have already been found and fixed, however there may be more lurking in code that is seldomly executed or only executed in a production environment.

I think with the relaxation of the NDA I can mention I was involved in the test phase in which the developers flipped the switch to run the version of the Carbon Engine using Python 3. Trust me, I'd rather the testing continue on the Frontier servers.

The amount of work was staggering:

• 4 million lines of Python code made Python 3 compatible
• 5840 files modified
• 80,564 lines changed
• 18,461 lines added
• 16,305 lines deleted
• All C++ interfaces to Python now compatible with a Python 3 interpreter
• The developers rewrote a large portion of the network stack
• Implemented a new scheduler to work with greenlets
• Upgraded all of of the developers tools to use Python 3

Finally, the conclusion from the Frontier dev blog.

Estimating performance improvements in a complex product such as Frontier is difficult. When we do measurements on certain code paths we can see improvements in some and regression in others. However, what the net effect it has depends on how often those code paths are executed.

You could get some numbers if we had consistent load before and after the Python 3 upgrade but that is not the case for Frontier. That being said, what we can clearly see in our numbers is that when we measure more complicated code paths, such as multiple users logging in or weapons being fired we are seeing between 10% to 30% performance increase.

An impressive result, especially when considering we are still developing EVE Frontier itself in a live environment! You could say we have been replacing the engine while the car is running. A massive undertaking the payoff is huge: EVE Frontier is now running smoothly on Python 3.12, setting the stage for all future development.

EVE Online is still to my knowledge utilizing Stackless Python 3.8. One of the items I'm hoping to hear at the upcoming EVE Fanfest at the beginning of May is when the upgraded engine will hit the Tranquility shard. But for now I'll have to settle for logging back into the alpha test for EVE Frontier.

EDIT - 21 March 2025: Someone let me know that EVE Online is still using Python 2.7, which based on a dev blog was implemented 15 years ago. The end of life of Python 2.7 was January 2021.

EVE Online's Trinity Graphics Engine Receives An Upgrade

Yesterday CCP Games introduced a major upgrade to its Carbon Engine. The graphics engine, known as Trinity, now utilizes a GPU-Driven Rendering Pipeline in on EVE Online's global game shard known as Tranquility. 

Revenant just got a major update, and the evolution continues. New Eden now moves faster, flows smoother, and feels more vibrant than ever. The new GPU-Driven Rendering Pipeline is now live, boosting performance and unlocking a more responsive, immersive experience for DirectX 12 and macOS. Battles unfold with greater fluidity, your ship reacts with razor-sharp precision, and the vastness of space stretches before you with even greater clarity.

This is not just an upgrade – it’s evolution in motion. With an average of 10-30% higher FPS in busy scenes, every decision, every dogfight, and every daring escape is now sharper, faster, and more thrilling than ever. And this is only the beginning, paving the way for even more graphical enhancements in the future.

The concept of the GPU-Driven Rendering Pipeline was first introduced at Fanfest 2023.

At Fanfest 2023 a future vision for some of planned changes was presented. One of these features, known as a GPU Driven Pipeline, is a technical change in the way the CPU and GPU work together. Traditionally, rendering a scene involves the CPU figuring out what to send to the GPU, and then the GPU doing the work. While the linked presentation goes into more detail, a more modern rendering pipeline allows the GPU to do more of these calculations overall, reducing the CPU overhead. This is great for a few reasons:

• EVE is often CPU-bound, meaning the CPU is the limiting factor and not the GPU. Freeing up the CPU in these situations can be very beneficial.
• A modern GPU can render more frames with this approach – it’s just simply faster due to the advances DirectX 12 (Windows) and Metal (macOS) offer with modern GPUs.
• It makes adding or changing features in the codebase easier, allowing improvements to reach capsuleers faster. In addition, it simplifies processes for artists bringing new assets to the game.

I've also embedded the video below, which should begin at the 30:04 mark.

One usually has to do a bit of searching for how CCP came up with the computation of a 10%-30% higher GPS as the result of yesterday's changes. EVE players are usually interested in details like this.

When changes are made to Trinity, a dedicated tool called “EVE Probe” is used. It has one job: to allow testing of just the rendering and audio engines. It’s a lightweight application that excludes other systems needed to play EVE Online, such as UI, network stack, or even keyboard and mouse input! This approach enables reliable performance testing outside the chaotic live server environment.

One of our most popular test scenes is called the “Cube of Death,” which has been covered in previous dev blogs. In short, the test features 1,000 evenly spaced and stationary ships. They can also shoot at each other, resulting in mesmerizing visuals! It’s proven effective for clear before-and-after performance comparisons.

The dev blog also provided performance upgrades for a selection of computer setups.

One item I do wonder about. Would CCP have gone through the labor of upgrading the Trinity graphics engine if EVE Frontier, the blockchain game currently under development, weren't also using the Carbon Engine? With both Online and Frontier using the same game engine, did CCP manage to get the crypto investors to pay for an upgrade to the original game?

Going back and watching the clip from Fanfest 2023 was a reminder than the task took around a year longer than anticipated. Unless the coding was done and the developers took 9-12 months to test and tweak the graphics engine. I like the latter thought a lot better.

I'll conclude with the conclusion from the dev blog from two weeks ago.

The move to a GPU Driven Pipeline required significant refactoring of Trinity, but it sets EVE up nicely for the development of more features, unlocking better performance, and increasing graphical fidelity in the future. You may already have seen some of these improvements in mass tests last year, such as upscaling and raytraced shadows. Although not ready for release to Tranquility yet, these tests validated the approach taken. A huge thank you goes out to everyone who participated in the tests last year and this past weekend. Your contribution really helps!

With the GPU now used more efficiently, more situations in the client will be GPU-limited (even though the overall framerate is higher). Upscaling solutions will enable even higher framerates in these scenarios. More details on that will follow in future dev blogs.

Looking Forward To FFXIV's Cosmic Explorations

Last Friday I learned what I'll spend a lot of time doing in Final Fantasy XIV over the next 12-18 months: Cosmic Explorations. Sounding a lot like Shadowbringers' Ishgard Restoration, Cosmic Explorations not only will provide group content for crafters and gatherers but their enhanced tools for Dawntrail as well.

Content for gatherers and crafters level 10 and up who have completed the MSQ quest Dawntrail, players begin building a base on the moon with the release of patch 7.21 on 22 April, meaning I have a very short time to try out the content before jetting off to Iceland for EVE's Fanfest. But with patch 7.3 scheduled to come out sometime in July I should have time to catch up to most people.

One major improvement over Ishgard Restoration is a separate inventory space to hold the resources used during the event. I was so glad the developers addressed the inventory space issue. Not bad for gatherers, but for crafters? I had to dedicate so much inventory space for the materials I would use in the crafting portion.

The cosmo missions themselves are generally solo affairs. Think of guild leves except without the requirement to go back to the quest giver to turn in the items.

Emergency missions, on the other hand, are done by everyone in the area, sort of like a FATE. When the gauge at the top is filled the emergency ends. Each step in the emergency mission will provide rewards, with additional rewards assessed at the end.

The next type of mission is called Mech Ops. One lucky player will get to man the mining mech while everyone else plays in support. I say lucky because Cosmic Exploration will have a special currency used to bid on getting to use the mech. Those who lose the mech lottery will not only get their money back but an enhanced chance to win the next lottery.

The final type of mission are Critical Missions. I'm not sure if all emergency missions are critical missions, but I know that Critical Missions are brought about by the weather. I'm pretty sure we are not witnessing a return of The Final Days as we took care of that particular threat in Endwalker. But Critical Missions are another type of mission done with others.

Of course, what's an event without a little competition? Every two days players compete for the title of Star Contributor. Winning the title also grants a buff for 14 days along with some sort of marking while exploring. How many people want a hologram of their character in the main base camp?

One problem I foresee for the developers is that crafters and gatherers can begin working on their enhanced tools starting in patch 7.21 while those wanting relic weapons can't begin their grind until patch 7.25 a month later. But the combat players did it to themselves by insisting on having a Bojza-type area. Oh well, I'll need to work on upgrading 11 total tools so I won't have much time to waste listening to the complaints.

One last thing. I probably won't shut down my Island Sanctuary over this, but Cosmic Explorations have at least one new dye color. The color is Metallic Cobalt Green. I look for new dyes and where one shows up can I hope for more? I really would like a nice metallic purpose I can earn from playing the game and not just from visiting the cash shop.

During Shadowbringers I didn't reach the end of the MSQ until patch 5.4 so missed out on the first half of Ishgard Restoration. During Endwalker I became distracted decorating my new cottage and had to hurry to catch up to obtaining the expansion's tools. This expansion hopefully I can play with the crafting and gathering content when not progressing the main story questline and stay involved that way.

Revenant Major Update Patch Notes: Planetary Interaction QoL Changes

I woke up this morning to find when CCP Games labels something as major, they are not joking around. Today's Revenant Major Update for EVE Online features quite a few topics that deserve their own posts. The eight and final post will feature on changes made to planetary interaction.

Compared to the original user interface for planetary interaction, today's user experience is the height of luxury. But the latest changes are finally out of beta and live on Tranquility. Hopefully the work lives up to the description in the news article announcing the update.

Planetary Industry Enhancements

Capsuleers managing planetary colonies will enjoy major quality-of-life improvements. UI enhancements, multi-select for schematics, and the ability to reset extractors make operations smoother than ever. Hotspots will still shift over time, ensuring active management remains key to maximizing output. One of the reasons this is now moving out of beta is thanks to feedback and participation from capsuleers.

The patch notes provided a list of changes. The items with the small handshake icon are suggestions from players incorporated by the developers.

• 🤝 It’s now possible to restart extractors for a planet from the Planetary Industry window.
• To do this, the extractors need to have finished their cycle already, it cannot be done to refresh an ongoing extraction which hasn’t completed yet.
  
  
• PI Templates are no longer an opt-in feature preview and have been added as a feature for everyone.
  
  
• Several improvements have been made to the filters for PI Templates.
  
  
• Improved the search function for PI Templates.
  
  
• It’s now possible to rename PI Templates.
  
  
• Using a PI Template with a higher command center level than your character has, will now just upgrade it to your max skill level and try to add as much as it can from the template before running out of resources.
  
  
• 🤝 We now store the height of the window for each tab, so we are not constantly shrinking the windows when you switch tabs and back to them. This applies only to those tabs that do not have max height.
  
  
• 🤝 The sort order of templates is now alphabetical.
  
  
• 🤝 It’s now possible to select multiple pins by holding shift and then swap multiple schematics at once.
  
  
• The routes tab shows the short names for the pins.
  
  
• The text for the transiting routes in the 'Routes' tab is now using a secondary color.
  
  
• Added origin/destination to the 'Routes' tab.

Revenant Major Update Patch Notes: Factional Warfare And Pirate Insurgencies

I woke up this morning to find when CCP Games labels something as major, they are not joking around. Today's Revenant Major Update for EVE Online features quite a few topics that deserve their own posts. The seventh in the series will feature on changes made to factional warfare and pirate insurgencies.

As always, the news article provided a quick overview.

Factional Warfare: Seagulling Fix & Anti-Pirate Incentives

A critical fix is coming to Factional Warfare battlefield sites: payouts now require active participation, eliminating passive “seagulling” rewards for those who linger without engaging. This change is being tested on Battlefield sites before expanding to other areas. Additionally, anti-pirates can now claim new rewards, including valuable loot from Forward Operating Bases and roaming NPCs, increasing the stakes in Pirate Insurgencies.

Now, I think the news article may have exaggerated the changes just a tad. The changes, as short as they are in the patch notes, don't look bad.

Factional Warfare & Pirate Insurgencies:

• The Pirate FOB will now drop 1.5 billion ISK in average in loot.
  
  
• Regular pirate insurgency roaming NPCs now have a small chance to drop scorched navigation log items which can be turned in at FW LP stores in conjunction with some ISK and LP for a crate containing blueprints for new navy scanning upgrade modules.
  
  
• Rebalanced the number of pilots that get paid when completing multiplayer reward complexes. The new Schema is as follows:
• Scouts and Smalls are now NVY-2 / PIR-2
• Mediums are now NVY-3 / PIR-3
• Larges are now NVY-4 / PIR-4
• And Opens remain at paying up to 5 players before splitting the rewards.
  
  
• Players will now need to be inside a FW Battlefield site, and within 200km of the entrance beacon to the site for at least 3 minutes to get paid LP.
  
  
• Moved structures which were very close to the Amarr FW warp in for the Minmatar Battlefield so they will no longer bump off from it if trying to approach the central capture point.

I just want to point out the anti-seagulling features are just a test and may not last, or even work as intended.

Revenant Major Update Patch Notes: Mining Sovereignty Upgrades

I woke up this morning to find when CCP Games labels something as major, they are not joking around. Today's Revenant Major Update for EVE Online features quite a few topics that deserve their own posts. The sixth in the series will feature a subject that received a very long dev blog at the end of February: Mining Upgrades for the Equinox sovereignty system.

The news article gave a summary of the changes.

Mining Sovereignty Upgrades

Nullsec mining operations are seeing major boosts. Tier 1 and 2 mining sites now provide more ore from fewer but larger asteroids, reducing travel time and inefficiency. A new Tier 3 mining site, designed for capital-scale operations, offers enormous asteroids rich in resources. Mordunium refinement has been buffed to improve Pyerite availability, while Mercoxit yields increase across nullsec. Additionally, a new ORE deep core strip mining laser enhances efficiency for barges and exhumers, giving industrialists a powerful new tool for mining Mercoxit.

A new set of sovereignty mining upgrades were introduced in today's patch.

• New Tier 3 sovereignty mining upgrades have been added! The tier 3 mining locations are designed with Rorquals and large mining fleets in mind, with smaller numbers of asteroids but all of them are very high in volume. Each site contains just under 4x the total ore overall compared to the tier 2 mining sites.
  
  
• Tier 3 sites have a 10 hour respawn timer.
• Power Cost: 1800
• Workforce Cost: 18100
• Blueprints are available for purchase for 1 billion ISK.
  
  
• Large Veldspar Deposit
• Total site ore volume = 17,000,000 m3
  
  
• Large Mordunium Deposit
• Total site ore volume = 25,000,000 m3
  
  
• Large Kylixium Deposit
• Total site ore volume = 13,000,000 m3
  
  
• Large Griemeer Deposit
• Total site ore volume = 13,000,000 m3
  
  
• Large Nocxite Deposit
• Total site ore volume = 13,000,000 m3
  
  
• Large Hezorime Deposit
• Total site ore volume = 23,000,000 m3
  
  
• Large Ueganite Deposit:
• Total site ore volume = 16,000,000 m3

The pre-existing Tier 1 and Tier 2 also received buffs in the patch.

• The Power cost of Tier 1 and Tier 2 upgrades have been reduced by approximately 10% each.
• Tier 2 Power Cost reduced from 1350 to 1220
• Tier 1 Power Cost reduced from 500 to 450
  
  
• The Tier 2 nullsec sovereignty hub mining upgrade sites, such as the Grimeer Deposit, have been refactored so that approximately 40% of the asteroids in each site have been removed and their ore contents added to existing asteroids in the site, we have prioritized removing the lower quantity asteroids and tried to make sure there is at least one very large asteroid in each site, we’ve also compacted the asteroid belts to move more asteroids closer together.
• Additionally, after this refactor, the amount of ore in the Tier 2 sites has then also been increased by approximately 10-15%.
  
  
• This means that now, the average asteroid size in all of the sites has been significantly increased.
  
  
• The Tier 1 mining upgrade sites have also had their ore contents increased by approximately 10%.
  
  
• Increased the chance of getting the mining escalation from Tier 2 mining sites by 1.5x

Mining escalations are important and miners in player-owned null sec should be happier with the patch in that regard.

• The new Tier 3 sites have approximately 2.5x chance over the improved Tier 2 mining sites to get the mining escalation.

The devs also worked to address the mercoxit supply issues in the economy.

• We have a created a new ‘Enormous Mercoxit Deposit’ site which has 4x the amount of Mercoxit in it than the Large Mercoxit Deposit, and much larger asteroids.
• Total site ore volume = 960,000 m3
  
  
• Tier 3 mining upgrades will give a guaranteed Enormous Mercoxit Deposit into the system with a 12 hour respawn time.
  
  
• Tier 2 mining upgrades now will also give a guaranteed Large Mercoxit Deposit into the system rather than it being a chance-based spawn, which has an 8 hour respawn time.
  
  
• Tier 3 mining upgrades now also give a chance to spawn the ‘Large Mercoxit Deposit’ in addition to the guaranteed Enormous Mercoxit Deposit site.
  
  
• Tier 2 mining upgrades now also give a chance to spawn the ‘Average Mercoxit Deposit’ in addition to the guaranteed Large Mercoxit Deposit site.

The devs have also introduced new mining equipment specifically aimed at mercoxit.

• Added a new faction ORE Deep Core Strip Miner module which has 0% waste as an option for mining Mercoxit with mining barges and exhumers. It can be obtained from ORE corporation LP stores.
• Cost/Materials to Purchase:
• 37,500,000 ISK
• 56,250 LP
• 1x Modulated Deep Core Strip Miner II

Null sec will also produce more pyerite though a reprocessing change for a null sec ore.

• Increased the amount of Pyerite that Mordunium gives when reprocessed.
• Mordunium: 80 → 84
• Plum Mordunium: 84 → 88
• Prize Mordunium: 88 → 92
• Plunder Mordinium: 92 → 96

Two other items of interest.

• To help allieviate pressure on R4s and increase the value of Athanors - The magmatic gas fuel cost per hour for a Metenox Moon Drill has been increased from 110 units to 150 units.
  
  
• Most Mining sites spawned by upgrades will now persist their respawn time across downtimes (i.e. they won’t always respawn at downtime even if they were mined out at 10:59).

And finally a note from CCP Okami from his mining dev blog.

Notably we are not touching ore density of our newer Nullsec ores at this time. While we are aware of the feedback and understand the complaints with it, it’s a more complex lever to pull that touches both on reworking many of the sites from a content perspective and also puts some risk on stockpiles as well. Will this fix everything all at once? Being totally honest? Probably not. There’s no silver bullet here. And I can’t promise that this is going to be the magic change that gets it all right. However, since there are a large number of changes going out the door all at once, I want to see how these land and what their impact on our simulated universe is. I promise to be looking at data and check in with you guys every 2 weeks on the official EVE Discord. We’ll examine what levers and things we may need to keep adjusting on a monthly basis. Tending to this is an iterative thing and I think we can keep moving towards a healthier equilibrium.

Revenant Major Update Patch Notes: Filament Changes

I woke up this morning to find when CCP Games labels something as major, they are not joking around. Today's Revenant Major Update for EVE Online features quite a few topics that deserve their own posts. The fifth in the series will feature another nerf to fast, long distance travel through the use of filaments. 

The news article gave a very brief explanation.

Pochven Filament Changes

Tactical retreats through Pochven just got harder. Filaments now feature a spool-up time, preventing instant extractions. Additionally, their activation leaves a detectable trace on D-Scan and can be probed with combat scanners, allowing pursuit and counterplay. This is the first step in a broader look at Pochven travel mechanics.

The patch notes were equally brief.

Filaments have long been a powerful tool for both fast travel and escaping dangerous situations. The addition of a spool-up timer and scannable traces aims to add risk and enable counterplay.

The patch notes didn't reveal a complex system. Hopefully the desire for needless complexity is behind us all.

• A spool-up timer has been added to all travel filaments (Triglavian Space, Needlejack, and Ice Storm).
  
  
• A Filament Trace will appear next to the travel filament’s owner on activation:
• Nearby fleet members without capsuleer log-off timers will become linked to the trace as it appears.
• Characters will unlink from a trace if they cloak, change ship, or go beyond 30km of the trace.
• A link cannot be reestablished once broken.
• If the filament’s owner unlinks from the trace, it immediately closes.
• Traces can be scanned with combat probes or d-scan.
  
  
• After the spool-up completes, the filament’s owner can jump all characters which remain linked to it:
• Warp disrupted players will not be jumped.
• Filament owners will be given a confirmation prompt if characters will be left behind.
• Traces will close after 15 minutes have passed since it first appeared.
  
  
• Travel filaments can no longer be used on a deadspace grid.

The patch notes did provide a table with the spool-up times for filaments:

Revenant Major Update Patch Notes: Ship Balancing

I woke up this morning to find when CCP Games labels something as major, they are not joking around. Today's Revenant Major Update for EVE Online features quite a few topics that deserve their own posts. The fourth in the series will feature balance changes to specific ships and classes of ships.

According to the news article announcing today's patch, address complaints for nerfs to your favorite ships to the Council of Stellar Management.

Following discussions at the latest CSM summit, several ship balance adjustments have been made. Heavy interdiction cruisers can now fit cynosural field generators, adding new strategic options for fleet commanders. Also, ECM burst jammer restrictions have been tightened to prevent unintended abuse.

In addition to listing the changes, the patch notes also explained why certain ships received the nerfs or buffs in today's patch.

Eos

We’re making some adjustments to the Eos to specifically target the amount of damage and tracking that it has with sentry drones, while avoiding nerfing regular drone fits. This makes it more similar to the Ishtar which also has lower bonuses for sentry drones.

• 10% bonus to drone damage and hitpoints per level of Gallente battlecruiser has now been split into 2 separate bonuses.
• 10% bonus to heavy drone, medium drone, and light drone hitpoints and damage.
• 5% bonus to sentry drone damage and hitpoints.
  
  
• 7.5% bonus to drone tracking per level of command ships has now been split into 2 separate bonuses.
• 7.5% bonus to heavy drone, medium drone and light drone tracking.
• 5% bonus to sentry drone tracking.

Orca

The Orca had a higher align time than the Rorqual, so we are correcting this by giving it a significant buff to agility which should have it now be more comparable to the Rorqual and a reinforced bulkhead fitted Bowhead. We need to be careful not to obsolete Freighters, Deep Space Transports as hauling platforms but we feel like we can make this change now since both of those classes are also receiving warp speed boosts at the same time.

Taking into the account the 25% warp speed buff that it is getting, it should feel significantly more mobile when travelling between systems and mining locations.

• Agility multiplier improved from 2.6x to 2.0x

All other changes

• Heavy Interdiction Cruisers
• All HICs can now fit the regular Cynosural Field Generator.
  
  
• Interdictors
• Reduced the web strength of the Stasis Webification Probes launched by Interdictors from 40% to 20%, to reduce how effective they are against brawlers and sig tanking fleet compositions.
  
  
• Burst Jammers (ECM Burst)
• Can now only be fitted to Battleship Hulls, Hauler Hulls and Command Ships.
  
  
• A009 C13 Wormholes reduced lifetime from 16h to 4.5h.

Revenant Major Update Patch Notes: Warp Speed Changes

I woke up this morning to find when CCP Games labels something as major, they are not joking around. Today's Revenant Major Update for EVE Online features quite a few topics that deserve their own posts. The third in the series will feature changes to warp speed affecting nearly all ships in the game.

The news article about the update gave a brief description of the change. 

Warp speeds across ship classes are being standardized for more consistent travel mechanics and better fleet balance. Heavy assault cruisers (HACs) will see a slight warp speed reduction to align with their Tech I counterparts, while specialized ships will retain their warp bonuses where appropriate for their roles.

The patch notes went further into why the developers made the change.

Overtime, we’ve adjusted and rebalanced different ship class warp speeds, most recently in 2019 and they are now fairly inconsistent with some ships like Heavy Assault Cruisers having the same warp speed as Stealth Bomber Frigates and Tech 1 Destroyers, while industrial ships such as haulers and mining barges which are also the same size (M) are slower than some battleships.

This can make it difficult for new players to understand the relationship of warp speeds between different size classes of ships and Tech II ships currently have faster warp speeds than Tech I ships, even when it doesn’t always make sense for their specialized role, like the above-mentioned heavy assault cruisers warping faster than regular cruisers. Tech II ships from the size above are also competing with the tech I and navy size below for warp speeds, which makes it is harder to justify bringing smaller classes of ships. This also contributes to unhealthy ‘force projection’ since stronger, more powerful ships, are also able to cross the universe faster.

I also suspect that the reduction of 13 ship categories down to 7 might help the game code run more efficiently, but that's just a guess.

Warp speeds - new vs old

• Grouped up all ships based on their size, such as Small, Medium, Large and Capital. Removing the 10% or +0.5AU/s bonus from Tech II ships.
  
  
• Ships that are slightly bigger than this size category, such as Destroyers for small, Battlecruisers and Haulers for Medium etc. are placed in a plus sized group.
• This leaves us with just 7 base warp speed tiers rather than the current 13!
  
  
• Tech II ships which need the increased warp speed for performing their specialization, such as Interceptors and Interdictors, have been given role bonuses to warp speed to keep their current warp speeds about the same while making these ships easier to identify for new players.
  
  
• The Net result from these changes are that Titans, Freighters, Mining Barges, Exhumers, Haulers will now warp 10-15% faster, The Porpoise and the Orca get improvements of 25-30% and most Tech II ships which are not specialized will warp slightly slower.
  
  
• Additionally, Capsules will now warp at 4.0 AU/s to match cruisers, which is what they did before the 2019 warp speed increase for Cruisers.
• We are not buffing the warp speed of corvettes at this time, which still warp at 3.0 AU/s, to make sure we do not obsolete shuttles and tech I frigates as travel options.

Revenant Major Update Patch Notes: Ansiblex Gates And Force Projection

I woke up this morning to find when CCP Games labels something as major, they are not joking around. Today's Revenant Major Update for EVE Online features quite a few topics that deserve their own posts. The second in the series will feature changes to Ansiblex Gates designed to affect force projection.

The news article about the update gave a brief description of the change.

Force Projection Adjustments

Ansiblex jump gates are becoming more vulnerable, creating new strategic opportunities for those looking to disrupt enemy logistics. Capsuleers using these gates will now land closer upon arrival, making them easier to intercept. Additionally, Ansiblex gates will no longer auto-repair and must be actively repaired like Metenox moon drills. Warp disruptors and interdiction bubbles will now prevent gate use, further limiting force projection and making nullsec movement more tactical.

The description in the patch notes was a bit more expansive.

We’re making a number of changes to Ansiblex Bridges to limit their force projection power. We’re doing that primarily through giving players more agency by making them more difficult or dangerous to use in contested space, removing the damage cap and requiring them to be manually repaired just like Metenox Moon drills, and requiring new Ansiblex bridges to be placed off grid from stargates to make scouting from the gate harder, rather than introducing new systems or mechanics which limits their use such as jump fatigue.

Our goal with these changes is to make sure nullsec line members and sov holders are still able to use Ansiblex bridges to access the core space that their alliance controls, so that they can still efficiently do daily activities such as mining, ratting, PI, Mercenary Dens, refueling and logistics work without impeding them with a system like fatigue. While opening up more gameplay options to counter force projection, such as delaying responses and fleets with defensive Interdictor and bubble usage, making them more dangerous through increasing the ability for players to setup traps like bombing runs and pipebombs, and to give more options to raiders and roaming gangs by making them easier to camp, and increasing the burden of maintaining distant Ansiblex gates outside of the alliances core space.

I was wondering if anyone would mention the fatigue mechanic introduced in the Phoebe release. If not for fatigue, Phoebe would have gone down in history as the release that brought players the expanded skills queue.

Since the developers went to great lengths to explain the changes I'll just conclude with the details from the patch notes.

Ansiblex Gates & Force Projection:

Ansiblex Jump Gates

• It’s no longer possible to use an Ansiblex while warp disrupted or inside a bubble.
• Ansiblex Jump Gates have been renamed to Ansiblex Jump Bridges for more clarity on not being able to use them while warp disrupted anymore.
  
  
• Reduced the Radius attribute on the Ansiblex Jump Bridge from 13,000m to 7,000m.
• This will mean that it now takes up much less volume/area in space and will be easier to camp with warp disruptors and bubbles.
  
  
• Ansiblex Bridges no longer auto-repair, no longer have a damage cap and now use the same reinforcement flow as Metenox Moon Drills.
• Ansiblex HP values and resistances have been rebalanced following this change, to provide an increase to their total EHP while giving them higher resistances and lower flat HP to make them easier to remote repair for logistics pilots.
• Shield HP and Armor reduced from 750,000 HP to 500,000 HP.
• (Note: These are increased by 4x when it is high power).
• Shield and Armor Resistances increased from 20% to 75%.
• Structure Hitpoints increased from 3,000,000 HP to 12,000,000 HP.
  
  
• Ansiblex Bridges can no longer be placed closer than 100,000km to stargates.
• Existing Ansiblex Bridges will be grandfathered into their current locations, but once destroyed, they will need to be placed at least 100,000km away from the nearest stargate to be replaced.

Revenant Major Update Patch Notes: Mercenary Dens, Industry, And Taxes

I woke up this morning to find when CCP Games labels something as major, they are not joking around. Today's Revenant Major Update for EVE Online features quite a few topics that deserve their own posts. The first in the series will feature industry topics, including one not mentioned in the news article.

The developers gave a brief description of the changes in the introductory news article:

Industrial Overhaul

Manufacturing capital ships and Tech I battleships is now cheaper, reducing the resource strain and making fleet deployments more feasible. Lower costs mean less risk when bringing these hulls to battle, reinforcing their role in fleet warfare.

One item not mentioned explicitly outside the patch notes is the rise of the sales tax from 4% to 7.5%. Sales taxes are automatically deducted after an item is sold, but are mitigated by the Accounting skill. For each level of Accounting learned, the sales tax is reduced by 11%, meaning at level 5, the sales tax is only 3.4%. For those who sell PLEX to fund their PvP habit, I'd advise training Accounting to 5 if the skill is not already at that level.

Mercenary Dens received the following changes during downtime today:

• Mercenary Dens base Infomorph generation has been lowered from 80-115 (avg 100) to 65-100 (avg 82.5).
  
  
• MTOs now only give 350 bonus infomorphs instead of 500 when completing a MTO for a max development mercenary den.
  
  
• Existing MTOs which have already been generated will still give 500 bonus Infomorphs.
  
  
• The Development levels of Mercenary Dens have been decreased to the following:
• Development 1, 5%.
• Development 2, 10%.
• Development 4, 15%.
• Development 5, 20%.

Tech 1 Dread production just became less resource intensive. The following reductions should show up on all blueprints.

Revelation:

• Capital Propulsion Engines required have been reduced from 5 to 4.
• Capital Armor Plates required have been reduced from 5 to 4.
• Capital Ship Maintenance Bays required have been reduced from 5 to 4.
• Capital Turret Hardpoints required have been reduced from 20 to 15.
• Capital Siege Array required have been reduced from 20 to 15.

Phoenix:

• Capital Propulsion Engines required have been reduced from 5 to 4.
• Capital Shield Emitters required have been reduced from 5 to 4.
• Capital Ship Maintenance Bays required have been reduced from 5 to 4.
• Capital Turret Hardpoints required have been reduced from 20 to 15.
• Capital Siege Array required have been reduced from 20 to 15.

Moros:

• Capital Sensor Clustes required have been reduced from 4 to 3.
• Capital Armor Plates required have been reduced from 4 to 3.
• Capital Propulsion Engines required have been reduced from 5 to 4.
• Capital Ship Maintenance Bays required have been reduced from 5 to 4.
• Capital Turret Hardpoints required have been reduced from 20 to 15.
• Capital Siege Array required have been reduced from 20 to 15.

Naglfar:

• Capital Shield Emitters required have been reduced from 4 to 3.
• Capital Computer Systems required have been reduced from 4 to 3.
• Capital Propulsion Engines required have been reduced from 5 to 4.
• Capital Ship Maintenance Bays required have been reduced from 5 to 4.
• Capital Turret Hardpoints required have been reduced from 20 to 15.
• Capital Siege Array required have been reduced from 20 to 15.

Tech 1 battleships also received a 25% decrease to input materials.

• Tritanium required has been reduced from 8,000,000 to 5,200,000.
• Pyerite required has been reduced from 4,000,000 to 2,600,000.
• Mexallon required has been reduced from 600,000 to 390,000.
• Isogen required has been reduced from 200,000 to 130,000.
• Nocxium required has been reduced from 24,000 to 15,600.
• Zydrine required has been reduced from 6,000 to 3,900.
• Megacyte required has been reduced from 3,000 to 1,950.
• Auto-Integrity Presevation Seals required has been reduced from 200 to 150.
• Life Support Backup Unit required has been reduced from 100 to 75.

In addition, the tech 2 Scorpion also received a 25% decrease to input materials.

• Tritanium required has been reduced from 6,000,000 to 3,900,000.
• Pyerite required has been reduced from 3,000,000 to 1,950,000.
• Mexallon required has been reduced from 450,000 to 292,500.
• Isogen required has been reduced from 150,000 to 97,500.
• Nocxium required has been reduced from 18,000 to 11,700.
• Zydrine required has been reduced from 4,500 to 2,925
• Megacyte required has been reduced from 2,250 to 1,463.
• Auto-Integrity Presevation Seals required has been reduced from 150 to 112.
• Life Support Backup Unit required has been reduced from 75 to 56.

All capital ships, not just dreads, also receive a manufacturing buff as the input materials for Capital Components also decreased by 25%.

Finally, two additional updates I couldn't categorize.

• Combat Battlecruisers and Attack Battlecruisers have had their reprocessed materials updated to the same inputs as the blueprint, so they will now have more accurate (higher) insurance payouts.
  
  
• The Estimated Item Value for multiple items in the game in the manufacturing cost breakdown should now more accurately reflect the value of the finished product.

Drifter Crisis: Race for the Hives Patch Notes And Lore

All hell has broken out in EVE Online's lore. After letting the Drifters run amok, 10 NPC factions (yes, 10!) are now prepared to attack the Drifters in their home wormholes. After a pair of strikes in Tabbetzur on Thursday, the Republic Fleet and allied capsuleer forces barely emerged victorious over Deathless Circle and Drifter forces. But the story may now proceed.

Today's patch brought another major one-time event to New Eden. In an event lasting until Sunday, 16 March, players will race to turn in resources to their allies. Ten factions are competing for the opportunity to learn more about (and exploit) Drifter technology. 

Harmonics Boost Competition Over Drifter Wormholes

Interested parties throughout the cluster have begun reaching out for the newly available Harmonics. The items' only function is to provide remote access to the Warden. This Warden access is believed to be a significant advantage in the race for a sustainable foothold in Drifter wormholes. As the Deathless Circle has ceased deploying these structures, those discovered so far may be the only copies in existence.

ATTENTION: The Scope has consulted with experts and they believe that only items received by the end of YC127.03.16 will be of use to the interested parties. After that point, the Deathless Circle will have been able to reroute their remote connections and the Harmonics will be of no value.

The ten factions are:

• Amarr Empire via the Ministry of Internal Order.
• Angel Cartel via the Archangels or Guardian Angels
• Caldari State via the CEP or House of Records.
• EDENCOM via the DED.
• EverMore via Paragon.
• Gallente via the Federal Intelligence Office.
• Minmatar Republic via the Republic Security Services.
• Society of Conscious Thought via the SOCT and Genolution.
• Triglavian Collective via the Convocation of Triglav, Perun Clade, Svarog Clade, or Veles Clade.
• The Upwell Consortium via Ytiri.

Today's announcement gave an overview of the event.

Fight for Your Faction

A seasonal challenge and reward track has been introduced, giving capsuleers the chance to score points for one of 10 factions as they push back against the Drifter threat. While they share a common goal, these factions are not allies. They are rivals, each seeking to claim power, resources, and strategic footholds in the war, as they race for the Drifter hives...

By completing event challenges, you will earn points that can be assigned to your chosen faction. At the end of the event, the top five factions will launch the next phase of the war by directly occupying Drifter wormhole systems.

Of course, the developers listed the rules for the event in the last place anyone would think to look: the patch notes.

Drifter Crisis:

The Race for the Hives has begun!

• 10 factions are vying for Drifter Wormhole control.
  
  
• Pick your favorite and complete challenges on the reward track.
• Gain points by completing challenges relating to Drifter Crisis sites.
• Claim volatile boosters, Drifter SKINR components, and the Drifter Plugsuit.
  
  
• The Top 5 will occupy a Drifter Wormhole system at the event’s end (11:00 UTC, April 3rd, 2025).
• Note: Points gained after the reward track is completed will continue to be tallied for your chosen faction.
• Stayed tuned to the New Eden News to learn how well, or how badly, your faction is doing.
  
  
• Warden Connection Harmonics can now be turned in to LP stores as an alternative to NPC buy orders:
• Search for 'Gratuity for Warden Connection Harmonics' within LP stores of the relevant corporations.
• These gratuity items can then be sold to NPC order for the standard price.
  
  
• Drifter Crisis Field Rescue sites and Salvage Research Homefront Operation sites have been rebalanced:
• Wrecks are now significantly easier to salvage.
• Note: This should be most noticeable for players with lower salvaging skill levels.
• The number of wrecks within a site has been increased to 30 (from 18).
  
  
• Drifter Crisis Lancer Counter Offensive sites and Dread Assault Homefront Operation sites have been rebalanced:
• Focused neutralizer NPCs will no longer respawn after being destroyed.
• Focused neutralizer fleets are now weighted towards Cruisers.
• Additional focused neutralizer fleets will spawn during the first and second Dreadnought siege cycles.
• Target structure EHP values and allied Dreadnought damage values have been increased to make directly damaging the structure less viable.
  
  
• NPCs equipped with ECM have been added to Drifter Crisis Lancer Counter Offensive sites.

For those who might have some trouble picking one of the 10 sides, the lore team thoughtfully provided some background.

The Four Major Factions (Amarr, Caldari, Gallente, Minmatar)

Intelligence operatives from the four major factions have begun searching for information on how to achieve this new technological development. The Republic Security Services, Ministry of Internal Order, and Federal Intelligence Office have all made enquires on the behalf of their respective governments. In the Caldari State, the House of Records and direct representatives of the Central Executive Panel have done the same.

The Angel Cartel

The Angel Cartel is known to use Jovian tech as inspiration for their unique ships. Recent arrests believed to be tied to the Guardian and Salvation Angels indicate a key interest in seizing Drifter technology.

EDENCOM

Formed to fight against the Triglavian invasion, EDENCOM has recently begun training on Sleeper drones instead. Shifting focus from the Triglavians to the Drifters could be seen as a natural extension of EDENCOM’s remit. It is believed that EDENCOM is collaborating with the DED who would act as a proxy for their interests.

EverMore

A household name, this corporation’s manifesto is to “bring all things to all people”. EverMore has framed itself as a cutting edge technology developer. Their subsidiary Paragon hosted the above-mentioned scientific talks recently, and acts as their parent company’s capsuleer liaison group.

Society of Conscious Thought

The Society has been vocal in its belief that they should be the stewards of Jovian technologies. Through their own corporation and Genolution they will likely be glad recipients of any new technologies.

Triglavian Collective

The Triglavian Collective is believed to be in the midst of a full-scale conflict with the Drifters inside Abyssal Deadspace. All Clades and the Collective itself have begun reaching out within Pochven for technologies that would give them an advantage over “The Ancient Enemy Azdaja”.

The Upwell Consortium

The Consortium is known for its advanced infrastructure technologies, from megastructures to unique cloning techniques. Ytiri, one of the consortium’s member corporations, has recently begun making enquiries about Drifter Wormhole technologies on the Consortium’s behalf.

I imagine the event is relatively short as to allow a longer event occurring in Drifter wormholes. Fanfest is only seven weeks away and I have the feeling CCP would like to announce something big for the finale of the storyline at the company's big event at the beginning of May.

A Look At The Active ISK Delta In February 2025

On Friday CCP Games released the February Monthly Economic Report (MER) for EVE Online. As this post will look at a major influence on the New Eden money supply I want to take a quick look at the developers' main takeaways from last month's MER.

Economic Summary

• Production Value has seen a significant increase (11.2%) in February.
• Mining Value has been steady during the February Period, after 3 months of strong growth.
• Bounties has seen a 16% increase over February, while the commodity ISK faucet has been steady.
• The MPI has been steady!

As noted on Friday, February only has 28 days compared to January's 31 days. One would think, all things being equal, all the numbers should have declined. Unless, of course, the summary above is based on daily and not monthly numbers.

Month over month comparisons of explosions by security band

The month-over-month rise in bounties combined with a 7.9% decrease in NPC kills (7.1% in null sec) indicates bounties received a pretty big buff. No wonder players were moving from mining to ratting in null sec.

But while bounties increased, the Active ISK Delta recorded a historic figure, at least in terms of raw ISK. The 80.4 trillion ISK removed from the EVE economy due to the net departure and returning to the game of players was the 4th most since January 2017.

All months with Active ISK Delta value less than -75 trillion ISK

But as I mentioned last month I need to look at the Active ISK Delta differently as the money supply has more than doubled over the last 8 years. So when I look at the percentage of the money supply due to players leaving and returning to the game, I see a different picture.

All months where Active ISK Delta was 5% or more of money supply

The 3.3% of the game's ISK exiting the money supply last month placed February 2025 in 27th place out of the 98 months I have records for the Active ISK Delta since January 2017.

Using the percentage of the money supply removed produces a bit of a different analysis. For example, year-over-year the Active ISK Delta changed from 75.3 trillion ISK removed from the economy in February 2024 to 80.4 trillion ISK removed in February 2025.

Looking at the Active ISK Delta with seasonal effects and inflation minimized

Using percentage of the money supply as the metric, the Active ISK Delta actually improved YoY, from -3.6% in February 2024 to -3.3% last month. Don't get me wrong, ideally for those wishing for more people to play with, the higher over the average line shown in the above graphic, the better. While the trend is not spiraling into a failure cascade and the heat death of the EVE universe, the devs do have reason to try to make changes like the upcoming "Revenant Major Update" due to release on Wednesday.

I haven't completed all my conversions to the percentage of the money supply yet, but hope to have all my charts updated in time for the March MER. I realize I'm only looking at 8 years of data out of EVE Online's 22 years of existence. But even during that time the money supply has grown approximately 140% and I need to try to account for the effects of that monetary growth if I wish to make comparisons stretching back more than 2 or 3 years. 

Also hopefully readers won't mind too much if I use this post to address issues other than the Active ISK Delta. The AID is just part of the overall money supply and the summary in the February MER did point to news affecting the growth of ISK in the game. And unless I come up with additional posts about the MER, posts about the Active ISK Delta are just the most relevant form I have to discuss the MER.