Prepping for FFXIV Patch 7.4

For me this weekend will be nuts. I want to jump into EVE Online to partake in the Winter Nexus, EVE's end of year holiday event. I want to jump into EVE Frontier because a lot of the new content is in the starter areas and I really want to look at how unlike Online Frontier has become. I also am close to completing Ball x Pit. But I do have to spend a lot of time in Final Fantasy XIV preparing for patch 7.4.

Over the last month or so I've spent a lot of time in Cosmic Exploration, specifically on Phaenna. All data centers have completed the content with a little more than a month to go before patch 7.4.1 in January. Right now I've just leveled class points working towards the big mount for earning 500,000 points in all crafting and gathering jobs. But for this weekend the big thing is earning cosmocredits.

Cosmocredits are big for two reasons. First, a lot of the materials I need to make the new combat gear in patch 7.4 is available on Phaenna. But perhaps the biggest reason are the glamour changes coming next week. With the ability to wear any piece no matter class, job, or level restriction lots of people will need dye. And where is the biggest source of the new Dawntrail dyes? Phaenna. If I have a couple of hours to spare I'll finish leveling Culinarian to 100,000 class points.

Of course, continuing with crafting I need to make a lot of tacos. Specifically Tacos de Carne Asada. These tacos are collectables and give out the most Orange crafting scrips. I figure if I take a few hours I'll have enough crafting scrips to buy all the new materials I'll need. One thing I've learned is that one can never have enough orange scrips.

A source of materials I'm behind on is the Allagan Tomestones of Mathematics and Allagan Tomestones of Heliometry. Since these currencies mainly require running dungeons I usually don't have a lot. But I can top off at 1300 Tomestones of Matematics and get near 850 of the Tomestones of Heliometry before the patch hits.

I'm not hopeless where combat is concerned. I'm only one or two FATEs away from reaching the cap on bicolor gemstones of 1500. Also, with my free company probably changing the buff schedule so our crafting group can make the new combat gear for members, I won't need to worry about getting a food buff. But I will need to use more of my aetheryte tickets than normal. Thankfully I still have 375 tickets in my inventory or I'd have to go out and start killing things again.

If I have the time I also need to make up a list of items to gather. I hear I'll need to make a bunch of level 98 intermediate items. Something that shouldn't take too long with fully pentamelded crafting gear. But I do need to make sure they are high quality items.

Other high quality items I need to make is crafting food. My stack of All i Pebre is getting low so I need to do a little fishing to make another 30 portions of the eel and potato stew. Unless, of course, the developers are introducing even better food, in which case I need to figure out what I need to do on day one of the patch.

Not a lot to do but I do need to hurry. Not only do I need to finish the patch 7.4 MSQ before patch 7.41 introduces the next section of Cosmic Exploration, but I need to make a new set of combat gear as well. Because I'll probably need the gear to get through the new duties and trusts.

EVE Frontier Cycle 4 - We're Not In New Eden Anymore

Cycle 4 for EVE Frontier is now live, which means patch notes. I'm going to take a higher level look than I usually do because I think Frontier is noticeably beyond what players find in EVE Online. Looking back to the beginning of the year Frontier has really changed and I think the patch notes will help demonstrate the differences. 

First off is the introduction of manual piloting using the WASD keys.

Design Intent

With this release our intent is to introduce an elegant and accessible foundation for Frontier’s evolving piloting fantasy. We want something accessible enough for anyone to pick up right now, yet robust enough to grow with the game as we continue to flesh out its other systems and content. This first iteration is deliberately focused on accessibility, but not so far that there is no mastery involved. There is a small price of admission with some skill required - this is a hardcore game, after all; get good/skill issue/etc. - but the controls should still feel intuitive, and Riders should feel like their skill as a pilot improves as they progress in the game.

And here are the differences in flying around the game in Cycle 4.

Flight Controls Changes and Adjustments

As part of the manual flight controls update (and thanks in large part to the deranged screaming feedback we received from players), we have both heavily modified and removed some previously used ways to navigate the space scene to support a more manual flight control scheme.

• We have made multiple changes to the physics engine that better support manual flight.
• All of the ships have been adjusted based on the aforementioned physics changes to better support manual flight.
• The autopilot system has been mostly removed, with some parts still remaining (such as the waypoint system for interstellar travel), but modified:
  
  
• Double-clicking in space to move in a direction has been removed.
• It is still possible to use both the contextual menu (right click) and double clicking on the brackets of static objects to command your ship to automatically go to that point (Approach). Objects in motion such as NPCs and other players can not be approached using this command.
• The selected object window has been removed, as have other movement commands such as Orbit and Keep at Range.
  
  
• The old speed widget has been removed, replaced by the new movement widget.
• Manual flight is enabled in Tactical Mode, but the navigation widget is not shown. As a result, control in Tactical Mode is difficult, but certainly possible. Part of our intention here is to eventually give players a mix of manual and automated movement systems that fulfill the ideal spaceship fantasy, and we’re taking this next step to try and uncouple the legacy HUD until we have higher fidelity automated control schemes which make sense for Tactical Mode.

Bumping into things also begins to matter now, with the introduction of collision mechanics.

Collisions

• We have made the first change of many to the way collisions work in EVE Frontier. We have added different surface material types which interact with the ship in different ways if collided with. Hitting a rock should feel different from hitting a structure, for example (note: both should feel like a not ideal thing to do, for the same reason bodyslamming a door is generally not the best way to open it).
• We have done away with fully elastic restitution which makes collisions feel much more realistic, and added a first pass of VFX and SFX to support the collision event.

Another big difference from EVE Online is the clone technology. EVE players are used to killing off their clones to travel faster. I think the developers of Frontier want to take the concept up to 11.

Character Progression

With this update, we are introducing the first step towards our ultimate transhumanist power fantasy. You will be able to gather a limited amount of memories that can be permanently transfer to the character; however, die and you must start over (Editor's Note: admittedly still better than the alternative of dying and just staying dead).

This initial progression rollout is only a prototype of our long-term plans for character progression - considering how fundamental this system is to the heart of the game, you can expect to see significant developments on this over the next several months (and years probably, who can say). We'll be taking specific feedback during Cycle 4 to further review how satisfying (or disatisfying) this version of the system feels, how easy (or painful) it is to use, and what players are expecting to see in the future.

In this iteration of the progression system, you will:

• Gain memories through gameplay and increase skill level of the shell.
• Die.
• ...and lose the collected memories when you do.
• Ascend (if you don't die), and store some of the memories as permanent character skill levels.
• Each skill level on both the character and shell will improve fitting attributes

From reading the above I get the feeling Hilmar didn't really like the decision to remove skill point loss from EVE Online.

Another difference between Online and Frontier in Cycle 4 is the intelligence of NPCs. Frontier's artificial intelligence promises to be an upgrade over the original game.

NPC Behavior

This update is our first step towards making the feral drones full denizens of the Frontier that Riders must learn to combat or co-exist with. The ferals now have some understanding of the inventories of containers and ships and will react accordingly with what they find. Items in your ship and in your assemblies may not be safe from their clutches.

Design Intent

The work in this release is focused on laying a foundation for the feral drones to be a much more interactive threat, both synchronously and asynchronously, in the Frontier. Our goal with this update is to both re-define what it means to interact with feral drones and to make it significantly easier for us to add depth to their interactions with the environment and players going forward. We want the feral drones to be a source of tension in the Frontier as well as reward those curious and observant Riders with ways to manage and even manipulate these adversaries to their advantage.

What type of changes to the AI? Here are the ones listed in today's patch notes.

Drones equipped with these new behaviors currently are only available in landscapes, all other drones are using older behaviors.

Some drones are now equipped with scanners and are capable of checking the inventories of wrecks, containers, ships, and certain assemblies.

Some drones desire specific items and will do what is necessary to acquire these objects of interest.

Some drones will leave traces of their interactions with objects.

The loot of some drones is now partially tied to their activities and experiences before their deaths.

Drones now have reasons for attacking beyond simply shooting on sight.

Drones are capable of halting aggression under the right circumstances.

Drones will hold grudges against specific ships which have wronged them.

This isn't all the changes the development team have made to change EVE Frontier into something more than a reskinned EVE Online. I'll go into more detail about some of the industry changes and the new massive belts that don't despawn. But the subjects deserve their own posts. I'm not going to say whether I like the changes -- I probably won't like all of them -- but I'm glad this cycle runs far past EVE's Winter Nexus event, because I still want that ice mining destroyer.

EVE Online's November 2025 Monthly Economic Report: What's Up With The Money Supply?

Today CCP published the monthly economic report (MER) for November 2025. Something didn't seem right so I started doing a little digging.

As seen on 8 December 2025

The New Eden money supply dropping 4% in a month with an expansion? Either Catalyst was a horrible expansion or something was off in the report. So I looked up Jester's latest graph to do a sanity check.

Jester's November ACU graph

Looks like the issue wasn't the popularity of Catalyst. Looks like the seven-day running average of accounts logged in at any one time was up around 20%. The issue then was the report. I then opened up the money_supply.csv file and discovered the end of month total wasn't 2,379.4 trillion ISK. The New Eden economy actually had 2,614.5 trillion ISK. The ISK Sinks and Faucets chart was off by 9%. The money supply didn't shrink by 4% in November. The money supply actually grew by 5.5%. Yikes!

The EOM amount didn't change for 3 months

After doing a little investigation I found the issue also affected the September and October MER as well. Looking at the money_supply.csv file I found the end-of-month figure came from 30 August 2025. I'm not sure if 31 August 2025 having no entry in the file was an issue, but the issue affected the Average ISK Delta as well. I've put what the reports should have contained below.

The corrected AID and EOM figures

And yes, the 112.2 trillion ISK that flowed into the New Eden economy due to the movement of players into the game in November was a record, at least in raw numbers. As a percentage increase in the money supply. last month's increase of 4.5% was beat by November 2023 (5.3%), November 2022 (4.9%) and May 2019 (4.7%).

Going back I had stopped doing monthly Active ISK Delta posts before the issue appeared, but I probably do need to correct this post on quarterly Active ISK Delta totals.

I want to do more with the money supply because I found some interesting information. For example, year-over-year the money supply increased in November by 7.5%, but the amount of ISK spent increased by 15% to 1,115.6 trillion ISK. That's right. Players spent over 1 QUADRILLION ISK last month. I can't even comprehend that.

I asked Copilot for some visualization help. If one stacked 1.115.6 trillion 1 Icelandic krona coins on top of each other the stack would run from Jita to Hek ... over 6 times. That's approximately 12,300 astronomical units. Of course, that's using the jump gate network and not a direct line. Stacking the coins would take much too long without the use of jump gates. Even if the calculation is an AI hallucination, the number put a smile on my face.

(For those who want a simpler visualization, New Eden is roughly 90 light years at its widest, or roughly half as long as a stack of 1.115.6 trillion 1 Icelandic krona coins.)

Okay, the idea of stacking coins was mine. But the sheer scale of the EVE Online economy is staggering if one actually thinks about it. But for now, I need to log off and think some more about large numbers.

I'm Finishing A Steam Game: Ball x Pit

Every year one of my New Year's gaming resolutions is to finish a single-player game I purchased through Steam. Back at the beginning of the year I thought that game would be Final Fantasy II. But for some reason I put the game down and never picked it back up. Instead I heard about a single-player game while writing a post about Amazon Game Studios. The game is published by Devolver Digital. The game? Ball x Pit which just surpassed 1 million copied sold. A promotional video was just published on Tuesday.

For those unfamiliar with the game, Devolver was nice enough to put a description of game play in the press release.

About BALL x PIT

This brick-breaking, ball-fusing, base-building survival roguelite is ready to chew you up and spit you into the pit. Build your home base, fuse ridiculous combinations of balls, and blast through hordes of enemies as you rebuild the legendary New Ballbylon.

Fuse Your Balls

The Ball Fusion system encourages explosive experimentation with over 60 randomized balls to equip and combine during your journey. Discover overpowered combinations and unexpected synergies from hundreds of possible outcomes. Load up, lean in and let the spit hit the fan.

Build New Ballbylon

Expand New Ballbylon with over 70 unique buildings that provide gameplay bonuses and unlock further power-ups, new characters and more. As your community grows, entrust homebound heroes with automated tasks to keep the resources coming while you dive deeper into the pit.

Discover New Realms

Face legions of diverse enemies within the pit, battling through barren deserts, frozen caverns, savage forests and more. Each region offers its own unique set of hazards on top of hordes of increasingly challenging foes and mighty, screen-filling bosses.

Recruit Fellow Hunters

As you explore the pit, you’ll encounter fellow treasure hunters eager to add their skills to your expedition. Each character has unique, upgradable mechanics that totally change the way you play the game. Experimentation and adaptation are crucial to the success of New Ballbylon.

I've set aside an hour every day to play the game, which is a type of game I probably haven't played since working my way through college working in a bowling alley with a rather large video arcade back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. And the pixel graphics match that era of video games as well. The music won't hit the charts like that of Expedition 33, but fits in well with the game play.

So far I've spent $16.60 including tax on the game. After playing for 35 hours, I think the 50 cents-an-hour I've paid is a good buy. I've unlocked 14 of the 16 playable characters and completed 5 of the 8 maps. I've only completed 23 of the 63 Steam achievements but most of remaining ones require completing the final map.

However, I do need to hurry up and at least complete the final map this year. Seems the developer promised free downloadable content if they sold 1 million copies. So I have expansions coming in January, April, and July. So technically I can keep my record of not completing single player games intact even if I complete the final map. But I have the feeling I might try to complete the DLC as well.

I'll try to work on my backlog of Steam games in 2026 instead of buying new ones. But I couldn't resist the videos I saw of Ball x Pit. The game lived up to my expectations.

Winter Nexus Is Coming To EVE Online On December 9

Today I woke up to the news that CCP announced the dates for this year's Winter Nexus event. Running from 9 December to 12 January, EVE Online's annual winter event will run for 5 weeks. Like Final Fantasy XIV, EVE's developers will change the yearly seasonal events. This year, I thought I'd bring up some background information.

The events occur in systems containing Volatile Ice Storms as is tradition. The content is a little bit different.

Hunt Yoiul LADs (Logistical Automated Deliveries) and get Cryo Tech that allows access to even more within the storms, and don’t miss the Perseverance ice mining destroyer, currently only available through the Winter Nexus seasonal reward track.

The Yoiul LADs is an allusion to the real world group known as the Yule Lads.

The real Yule Lads

When looking at the arrival and departure dates of the Yule Lads, the event running for 5 weeks seems culturally appropriate, doesn't it?

This year InterBus is aiding the Yule Lads in their troublemaking in New Eden.

This year, InterBus is launching a cautionary campaign for travelers by dispatching Logistical Automated Delivery vessels (LADs) named after the legendary Yoiul Clones.

However, a whistleblower within Verity Enhancements, known only by the codename Yoiul Kattar, claims to have proof that the Yoiul LADs are not what they seem.

I need to interrupt CCP's narrative here because of the reference to Yoiul Kattar, aka the Yule Cat. Known as Jólakötturinn in Icelandic, the Yule Cat goes around the snowy countryside during Christmas time and eats people who have not received any new clothes to wear before Christmas Eve. So the developers better provide us some new clothing as a login reward before then.

Hunting down these automated vessels will give you Verity Cryo Tech that will unlock new challenges and rewards. For enforcers, this means access to more dangerous parts of the storms with stronger forces to fight. In highsec, marauders will need this Cryo Tech (specifically the Cryostorm Clarifier) to access combat sites. No such restrictions apply in lowsec or nullsec, however, depositing Cryo Tech will give access to more challenging and rewarding experiences in all Winter Nexus combat sites.

But the event doesn't just benefit combat pilots explorers and miners get some love as well.

Explorers can use the tech to gain access to relays normally scrambled by storm interference, which can then be hacked.

The tech will give miners additional recipes for mined ice, which will award enhanced salvage packages. Cryo Tech can be deposited in certain structures in and around the sites to unlock these extras.

So as players fly around New Eden this year they should keep their eyes out for trouble in snowy systems. Especially if they see a grump old man in a red suit.

EVE Online: Catalyst Patch Notes - Control Access For Freelance Jobs

I went to log into EVE Online this morning and noticed a new patch download. Two weeks after the launch of Catalyst came the first patch, concerning controlling access to freelance jobs. The news article describing the patch was pretty short.

The first update to Catalyst is here, bringing Access Control List restrictions to Freelance Jobs.

This allows project creators to decide who can and cannot see the listed job.

Want to blacklist your rival alliance? Done.

Want to make sure only members of a certain corporation see your posting? You got it.

Want to put out a hit on a rival capsuleer or corporation and make sure the target remains unaware? Mum’s the word.

A new Freelancing skill has also been added, allowing capsuleers to accept more than three Freelance Jobs at a time. Explore available Freelance Jobs via the AIR Opportunities interface.

At the same time, the costs associated with Freelance Jobs have been reduced. The duration fee is down by 25%, and the Broadcasting Fee is being cut by a third.

Basically a TL,DR for the patch notes. I was interested in the new skill, Freelancing, so I took a couple of extra minutes to gather some information.

I tried to find out what the market price is with no luck. Of course, I didn't have much time to search. Players can click on the blue "+" button to purchase the book remotely for 1.3 million ISK. I have the feeling that's how the skill will become available as the developers will want to place as few barriers to obtaining Freelancing as possible.

Below I'll include the full patch notes covering the updates to accessing freelance jobs. I have the feeling players interested in the feature will want to dig into the details.

Freelance Job Access Lists (ACLs)

Freelance Jobs now support Access Lists (ACLs), giving corporations and job creators the ability to define exactly who can view and accept the job postings. This update provides better control and privacy and a more tailored collaboration for corporations.

• ACLs allow visibility restrictions at three identity levels:
• Character – specific characters.
• Corporation – all members of selected corporations.
• Alliance – all members of corporations within selected alliances.

• Creating Jobs with ACL:
• You can select which ACL to use during job creation, and once assigned, a job’s ACL cannot be swapped, but the contents of the ACL may be edited at any time.
• Changes to ACL affect job visibility and participation but will not remove existing participants.
• If an ACL that’s attached to a freelance job is deleted, only the active participants of the job are able to contribute. No other capsuleers can accept the job.
• Blocked characters can’t see or access relevant job listings, even with a direct link.
• The job creator and corporation project managers always retain full access regardless of restrictions.

New Skill: Freelancing

• A new Freelancing skill has been introduced.
• Each level increases the number of concurrent Freelance Jobs a character can accept, up to maximum of 11.

Freelance Job Cost Adjusted

To make the job creation more sustainable, two cost reductions have been applied:

• Duration fee reduced by 25%.
• Broadcasting Fee reduced by 33%.

Freelance Job : Alliance Column in Participant view

A new Alliance column has been added to the Participant view for Freelance Jobs. Project managers will now be able to view and sort participants by alliance membership.

• Clicking the Alliance column header sorts the participants alphabetically by alliance name and clicking again reverses the order.
• If a participant does not belong to an alliance, a “-” symbol will be shown.

Cloud Imperium Records $31.9 Million In Cash Shop Revenue In November 2025

In November 2025 Cloud Imperium Games smashed records for revenue generated by its online cash shop. According to the CCU Game dashboard cash shop sales reached a record $31.9 million, a year-over-year increase of 57.7% over the $20.3 million generated in November 2024. The total was also 33.6% greater than the three-year average of $23.9 million. With one month to go in 2025 the CIG online cash shop has generated $140.4 million.

The $914.5 million displayed on the Roberts Space Industries funding page at the end of October was not a comprehensive accounting for all of CIG's revenue since the project's Kickstarter in October 2012. Overall, the company has recorded $1.039 billion in confirmed revenue (the funding page & the 2023 financial report).

• Sales/Pledges: $914.5 million (through 30 November 2025)
• Other cash shop revenue: $2.3 million (through 31 December 2023)
• Subscriptions: $39.5 million (through 31 December 2023)
• All other sources: $82.6 million (through 31 December 2023)

In addition, the company has received a total of $68.25 million in outside investment. According to the 2023 financial report, $4.8 million of the amount was returned to investors in 2020 and another $1.9 million in 2023. Including the outside investment money, the total amount raised by CIG to create Squadron 42 and Star Citizen is $1.107 billion, or $1.1 billion when excluding the returned funds. An additional $12.6 million in loans issued in March 2025 and due for repayment on 31 December 2027 are not included in the total.

Setting records - The $31.9 million in cash shop sales topped the previous single month revenue mark set back in May. The two months, powered by the Invictus and Intergalactic Aerospace Expo, resulted in $60.8 million in sales, or 43.3% of the total so far in 2025.

During November CIG also set a single year high, surpassing the $117.6 million generated in 2023. With one month to go, cash shop sales will go well beyond the $140.4 million recorded in the first 11 months of 2025.

A third record concerning a single sales was surpassed in November. This year's IAE so far has generated sales of $28.5 million. The previous IAE high of $24.5 million was set in 2023. This year's Invictus event generated sales of $24.2 million. The current IAE event still has three days to run.

New accounts - In November CIG recorded the second highest amount of new accounts in a single month in the company's history. Last month's 127,366 new accounts only trailed the 175,556 new accounts created in May 2022. So far in 2025 the number of new accounts created is up 42.7% year-over-year to 625,526. The record occurred in 2022 with 871,922 accounts created.

What to watch for - CIG should publish its 2024 financial statement to the corporate site near the end of December. Also, with the final three days of the IAE falling in December plus the upcoming Luminalia event held every year in mid-December should ensure the year's cash shop total should reach $150 million.

An EVE Online Sale I Couldn't Resist

I haven't made my move to Final Fantasy XIV as my main MMORPG a secret. I maybe play EVE Online a lot for 2-3 months every year and then use the game to hone my programming skills. Or perhaps my skill at using AI to help program in Python. Yes, that's a thing I need to do at work. But this year's Black Friday sale was so good I wound up subbing another year. Which might not make a lot of sense since I'm now subscribed until November 2027.

A 25% reduction in the subscription price is pretty big. Through downtime on 3 December the effective price of a month of gametime not counting extras is:

• 1 month: $15/month
• 3 months: $12/month
• 6 months: $10.50/month
• 12 months: $9/month
• 24 months: $8.25/month

I normally grab my game time one year at a time, so the package I wound up buying also included 1000 PLEX, a $45 value. I don't know how to value the SKINR supply crate. I usually ignore that stuff and have a lot sitting around various hangars around New Eden. One day I might even have to look up how to use the system to make SKINs. But for now looks like I'll stick around another year.

CCP Games And Cloud Imperium Have Reasons To Be Happy This Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! While a lot of game companies have had a down year, a couple studios I follow have a lot to be thankful for this U.S. holiday. Perhaps not Square Enix, which is engaged in a global reorganization pulling itself back into Japan. But both CCP Games and Cloud Imperium are witnessing good news over the past 3-4 weeks.

First, let's start with CCP. The month of November started off well with the news that its parent company Pearl Abyss experienced both an operating profit and net profit in the third quarter of 2025. The last time that had happened was the first quarter of 2024. Hopefully the news that Crimson Desert has a solid release date of 19 March 2026 will help squash any rumors of the South Korean game maker needed to sell off CCP Games for cash.

But that's not all. CCP released its winter expansion for EVE Online, Catalyst, on 18 November. If the average concurrent numbers are any indication, the mining and exploration themed expansion was well received.

The first week peaked at over 41,000 accounts logged in

While not precise, Chribba's EVE-Offline.net shows an average of 28,000 logged in at any one time over the past 7 days. The average before was approximately 23,000. The peak number of users logged in occurred on Sunday, with 41,322 accounts online at one time. Combined with the dissolution of Pandemic Horde Sunday saw the highest PCU since 41,562 were logged in on 10 May 2020.

Despite the nice episode of The Scope, I'm not really sure how much of a war the conflict really was. I get the impression the campaign was more chasing Pandemic Horde and shooting their structures more than a proper full-scale war. I did check to see that the bubble-camp of the R-AG7W keepstar occurred before the launch of the expansion because that would definitely have inflated the numbers. Which is a good thing because major null sec conflicts tend to reduce player counts in the long run. I'm not really sure what will happen if a major null sec leader just walks away. Bobby Atlas departing EVE was over a decade ago.

The other game company is Cloud Imperium Games. Depsite what white knights might claim, at this time last year things weren't looking too good. But at the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025 Chris Roberts instituted a leadership shakeup and a new software release schedule. Combined with an injection of cash from Keith Calder, CIG's second largest shareholder, CIG is once again setting financial records.

From the Roberts Space Industries website

On Tuesday the funding stats page on the RSI website passed the $900 million mark. As of 1800 UTC today the figure was up to $905.4 million. The surge in revenue is due to the Intergalactic Aerospace Expo, an annual event that begins the Thursday before Black Friday and ends the Thursday after perhaps the largest shopping day of the year. 

If CIG exceeding the $900 million lifetime amount isn't enough, the company also surpassed its record yearly total with six weeks to go in the year. As of the end of the day Wednesday, the CCU Game dashboard showed $130 million in sales so far in 2025. The previous record for a single year occurred in 2023 with a total of $117.6 million in sales. The company has an excellent chance to end the year with $150 million in online sales.

The other thing going right for CIG is the success of the sales despite dropping patch 4.4 the day before the IAE kicked off. I know, the event has the expected lag when so many people log into the game at once. Server meshing apparently hasn't solved that issue yet. But through day 7 of the 14 day event CIG recorded $18 million in sales. The record, set in 2023, was $24.5 million. With today looking like another day of $2 million in online sales, I really don't think the IAE will average less than $1 million/day during the event's second week.

I'll end this post with the lifetime revenue numbers for Cloud Imperium Games. I usually provide them in my monthly post on CIG's sales but with all the numbers flying around I thought I'd add the ones I've come up with.

Overall, the company has recorded $1.030 billion in confirmed revenue (the funding page & the 2023 financial report).

• Sales/Pledges: $905.4 million (through 27 November 2025 @ 1800 UTC)
• Other cash shop revenue: $2.3 million (through 31 December 2023)
• Subscriptions: $39.5 million (through 31 December 2023)
• All other sources: $82.6 million (through 31 December 2023)

In addition, the company has received a total of $68.25 million in outside investment, making the total amount raised through all sources for the project as $1.098 billion. I expect to start using the figure $1.1 billion starting tomorrow.

Fractured Legacy - EVE Online's New Epic Mining Mission Arc

EVE Online's winter expansion, Catalyst, introduced a new class of mining ship, the mining destroyer. Known as the Pioneer, the mining destroyer and its tech 2 and navy variants fill a gap in the progression from mining frigates to mining barges.

In a new way of thinking, the developers decided to introduce the ship and some new mining features with an epic arc. Well, I don't think that a series of three missions qualifies as epic, but the new set of missions, called Fractured Legacy, is found in the Epic Arc section of The Agency. I thought I'd give a short description of the arc.

First, players will need a Venture to run the first mission, The Missing Pilot. Since the mission arc is meant for all levels of players, I won't mention specific modules. I would recommend fitting the following:

2 mining lasers
1 prop module (afterburner or micro-warp drive)
1 medium shield extender
1 Data Analyzer I
1 mining laser upgrade

Also bring an extra mining laser and a nanofiber structure for when you get to fly the Pioneer.

To start the first quest, talk to Elias Peltonnen in the AIR Laboratories station above Kisogo VII. The system is located 3 jumps from Jita so picking up any items is easy if you don't want to fly to the system in a Venture. Elias is a level 1 agent for ORE, so there should not be an issue of accessing the mission series unless you have negative security standings as Kisogo has a security status of 1.0.

From the first mission

The first mission, The Missing Pilot, seems needlessly long. Players go out in a Venture and mine a lot of asteroids. No fair flying ahead and mining the Scordite, the game will not allow locking on the asteroid until all the Veldspar is mined first.

But, the length of the mission does have a purpose. Players are also granted a skillbook, Mining Destroyer, upon accepting the mission. For those who didn't already purchase the book and don't have extra skill points, immediately inject the skillbook and start training. Mining Destroyer I should be ready by the time a player is ready for the second mission. Completing the mission grants a Pioneer.

The second mission

The next mission is Pioneering Spirit, so named because the player has to fly a Pioneer. The player is granted a Basic Mining Survey Chipset to help determine which asteroids to mine. Players need to mine out the asteroids that only hold 2000 units. The ones that hold 3000 units are worthless. After gathering 4000 units of the good ore transfer the ore to an NPC's Odysseus.

The final mission

The final mission is Shattered Catalyst. The mission requires fitting the Data Analyzer I again and navigating through a field of proximity mines. The extra range of the Pioneer comes in handy to mine out asteroids blocking the way between the target structure and the mines. While I avoided the mines, the medium shield extender should help mitigate the damage from a mine if one makes a navigation error. But I didn't actually test the theory.

The final mission provided a nice new feature I hope is added to more items: a user manual.

Players get a 1-run blueprint for the item. Honestly with part of the rationale for the existence of the mission arc is to introduce players to the new mining features in Catalyst, I'm happy with the reward. Whether the reward, if not the arc itself, lasts the test of time really depends on how relevant the Pioneer remains going into the future.