The testing on Singularity has started with the first of the mass tests for the upcoming summer expansion, Kronos. Not all of the features have quite yet made it to the test server however there is plenty to get your hands on and more than enough eye candy to keep everyone happy.
Features currently on Singularity for testing:
Prospect advanced mining frigate – The new T2 variant of the Venture is ready for testing and has been seeded along with the required ‘Expedition Frigate’ skillbook. The Prospect is designed to be a covert cloaky miner with large bonuses designed for mining behind enemy lines and with the ability to carry a Mobile Depot it also makes it feasible to set up base remotely for slightly extended mining trips in hostile territory.
Mining barge and exhumer rebalance – This is a second pass on the mining barge and exhumer changes which were rebalanced during Inferno. The basic roles are staying the same but the Procurer and Skiff will see improved yields and a drone damage bonus and the Covetor and Hulk will gain bonuses to range to try and encourage players to move away from the Retriever and Mackinaw which are currently dominant due to their large ore holds.
Lowsec mining improvements – The rare highsec spawns of Hedbergite, Hemorphite and Jaspet are coming to lowsec due to the high value if Nocxium these sites are actually the highest in terms of ISK per hour. Additionally some of the nullsec only spawns such as small Arkonor and Bistot sites are being added to lowsec too.
The high end ABC ores are getting increased yields also with Mexallon being added to Arkonor and increased Pyerite in Bistot which is designed to help make it more viable to mine these minerals to produce locally in lowsec and nullsec.
Faction warfare complexes – Three aspects of faction warfare complexes are being changed; there are new large outposts, cloaking is being prevented within a 30km radius of the FW button and the NPCs are being changed with reduced damage and increased active repair rates so encourage more players to fly PvP fit ships.
Faction station variants – Stations are getting faction skins with 38 of the factions giving their stations beautiful new paint jobs. The skins vary from Inner Zone to Quafe and bring some striking new station visuals to the game.
Star lens flare overhaul – The lens flare from stars has greatly improved with a wide variety of new visual effects that add variety to the appearance of stars depending upon their position on screen and the type of star.
New ship skins – In total there are 20 new ship skins coming in Kronos of these 12 are available in the NeX store and the other 8 are pirate faction skins which will be available through lowsec exploration.
Improved audio customization – A whole variety of new audio settings are ready for testing these changes will make it much easier to play EVE with sound even if you’re a multiboxer adding features such as the ability to dampen audio effects for clients which are not active.
UI Little things – These changes are really wide spread the most notable however are the ability to drag and drop chat channels from window to window to link to them as well as the introduction of different icons for warp disruption and warp scrambling in the effects bar. Additionally fleet advert settings are now saved locally allowing you to avoid the hassle of having to tweak settings every time you create a fleet.
On top of all of these changes Mac users can rejoice as CCP have update the Cider version for OS X clients which is also live and ready for testing on Singularity which means that players using MAC don’t have to worry about annoying bugs such as stars and warp disruption bubbles flickering.
Update your Sisi client and get testing there’s many a CCP developers just begging for feedback right now on the forums so get testing and help shape this summer’s Kronos expansion.
– Danny Centauri
