The YC118.6 Release in New Eden

It is now possible to reprocess Rorquals and Titans in Citadels.

–YC118.6 Patch Notes

Bridge burning rage quit capabilities now fully enabled for titan pilots!

Time for another monthly EVE Online patch update sans code name.  We did get a real name worthy update back in April with the Citadel expansion, but the May patch update was thin enough that I didn’t even bother with a post about it. (Though, as always, there was a theme song for the release.)

This month however, the patch notes go on and on.  Some new things along with lots of fixes.

First, and foremost there is this item:

• The number of possible overview tabs has been increased from 5 to 8

More overview tabs is a boon for me at least.  This is likely to have the most immediate impact on me in the game.

Also high on the list of stuff is the Serpentis Event, Shadow of the Serpent, which goes live with today’s update, and which should be plastered all over the UI in various places just to make sure everybody knows about it.

Serpentis Menace

Among the new items coming with the event are three Serpentis capital ships, a dreadnought, a supercarrier, and a titan, plus a whole new set of faction implants.

Drugs are now legal in New Eden.  The space war on drugs having be declared futile and a waste of ISK, CONCORD will no longer confiscate your combat boosting drugs when you fly through the space they nominally control.

Choose your poison…

I’m more of a Quafe Zero fan myself, though living in the back of their warehouse for the last few months might have influenced that.

As I noted last week, CCP is removing the recurring opportunity daily quest and its 10K skill point reward.  No more Thrill of the Hunt as of today.  On the other CCP has tried its hand again at the New Player Experience, making the following changes:

• Opportunities have been revamped, rewritten, and reordered.
• Implemented ISK rewards for completing opportunities.
• The Opportunities window and icons have been redesigned.
• Starter system NPCs have been rebalanced:
  • Greatly increased hit points
  • Improved loot tables to better fit opportunities
  • Increased number of NPCs in starter system sites
• Players who log out of the game while still being in the starting site will now log back into the site.
• Reduced the cycle time and mining output of Civilian Miners.

That isn’t exactly the sweeping changes alluded to in the Fanfest keynote back in April.  Then again, CCP has been working to find a decent NPE for the entire life of the game.  What I faced back in 2006 is arguably better than the opportunities system that was in place up until today, so maybe they’re stepping in the right direction this time.  One can always hope.

Then there is one for our logistics people… logistics by the actual, real world definition and not the CCP “repair, let’s call that logistics” view of things… that will make their lives better.

• It’s now possible to fit multiple repackaged ships at a time.

Bulk fitting of ships.  Being able to fit from a saved fitting was huge, but for our importers who haul in dozens of ships and have to fit them out one by one still, I expect that this will be a big quality of life improvement.  Also, preparing for Burn Amarr/Burn Jita just got a lot easier.

There have been a number of graphical updates.  Jump gates got the physically based rendering treatment, so now Amarr gates will be just as shiny and gold as some of their ships. (And, is it just me, or does it look like some of those Amarr gates were made out of Apocalypse hulls?)

The tactical overview will now give more details about items when you hover over them and a vector line for your own ship.  There is a new camera view to “give a more cinematic view of docking and undocking” from stations and citadels.  When you are docked up, there is a new lighting scheme (DirectX 11 only.)  And there are a host of new effects including black ops cynos get their own new look.

Cyno comparison – Current and new Black Ops

Then there is a long list of items that, to me, basically add up to “fixing stuff from the Citadel expansion” that address carriers, fighters, citadels, and some more of the oddities and issues found with them over the last two months.  As a subcap line pilot, most of that is over my head, though I think, if I read things correctly, that Svipul pilots won’t be calling insta-locking carriers over powered anymore.

I am sure there is more to it than that, but that is all I am going to try to summarize.  For those looking to delve through the data themselves, there are the YC118.6 Patch Notes and the June 28, 2016 Updates page as starting points, along with CCP Seagull’s Producer’s Update video.

There is also the feature tour video for the update:

And, of course, there is the update’s theme, a fast yet soothing piece, available over at SoundCloud for your listening and downloading pleasure.

The whole thing is reported as live on the servers now, so let the comedy commence.