This patch has been deployed on August 28th. There are very extensive patch notes at the Eve-Online site. Browsed over it a little bit and didn’t see a lot that did appeal or seemed remarkable to me, though the sheer size of the list is a good thing :).
There are two things that stand out though, the NOS changes as described at this dev blog and the Capital Ore Ship.
Nosferatu Changes
In their current implementation Nosferatus not only neutralize cap of the targeted ship, but also leeches energy for your own ship. For instance a Heavy Nosferatu I gives you 8en/s and the peak recharge rate of a Megathron is about 20en/s with good skills, so a single Heavy Nosferatu I gives you about 40% increase in cap recharge rate. Even if the Nosferatu didn’t leech energy it would still be a useful module since it can neutralize a capacitor at no (energy) cost to yourself. The problem, then, is that Nosferatus allows one to both leech energy off a target and at the same time neutralize its capacitor. This makes the Nosferatus too powerful since there is no compromise involved.To address this issue we have changed the effect on Nosferatus (but not on Energy Neutralizers) in order to make the Nosferatu less powerful as an Energy Neutralizer without affecting its ability to leech energy. Under the new system, the amount transferred by a Nosferatu is based on the relative capacitor charge levels (measured in percent). Energy is only transferred while the charge percentage of the targeted ship is higher than the charge percentage of the ship that activated the Nosferatu. This means that the target is no worse off (energy wise) than the attacking ship.
For instance, if a battleship with 30% capacitor left activates a Nosferatu on a frigate, then the frigate is not drained below 30%. In other words, the Nosferatu would not drain the capacitor of the frigate completely, though an Energy Neutralizer would do the job nicely (but at an energy cost to the battleship). It is, however, still possible to use Nosferatus to drain a target if one is willing to sacrifice ones own energy to do so.
Capital Ore Ship
The ship fills this role by having the unique ability to compress ore and ice to a fraction of its original volume for transport and storage using the latest in advanced techniques. Additional abilities include:
- Fitting capital tractor beam modules which can pull cargo containers from two hundred kilometres at a much faster velocity than normal tractors beams can,
- Inherent bonuses to the range of survey and cargo scanners allowing it to survey asteroid belts at a glance from its position and the status of cargo cans for its mining gang and,
- It can equip multiple gang links and provide significant bonuses to the mining foreman gang links.
- Bonus to Capital Shield Transporter range per lvl of ship skill.
- Like other ships in its class, the ORE Capital Ship will also:
- Include a ship maintenance bay, corp hangar, a generous drone bay and cargohold,
- Have the ability to fit a clone vat bay, and
- Be propelled by its own jump drive to move between systems.
Would definitely be fun to have one in the Corporation, though I dont see that happen very soon !
If you mine at all with a survey scanner, the scan results ui has been tweaked really nicely. Much easier to use and figure out without being a huge headache.
That’s good to know. The changelog is so big, useful stuff can be easy to overlook :).