Welcome to the seventh article in an ongoing series on EN24 where we will be looking at the ‘small things’ that might not make a full EN24 article but are either funny or interesting enough to share anyway!
We here at EN24 will be running one of these articles once a week after scouring the intel channels and other intel outlets for information to share with you, our readers.
Confederation of xXPIZZAXx loses 8 corporations in one week.
Since the 4th March 2015 xXPIZZAXx has lost around 200 member over 8 corporations who have left their alliance. The biggest of these was Beach Boys with 117 members, as yet they have not joined another alliance, unlike Yarrdy YaRr YARRR who moved from xXPIZZAXx to Triumvirate. on the 13th February 2015, starting the trend of corporations leaving.
I spoke to Choridon Saissore from the Yarrdy YaRr YARR corporation about their move to Triumvirate 
Hey, we left before the others & it was a simple case of we didn’t feel like we fit in & they didn’t quite live up to our expectations in terms of activity.
And to add, there was no hard feelings etc.
The trend continues when I spoke to Xenophilius Lovegood, one of the directors for the League of Non-Aligned Worlds corporation;
Mail Lite: Why did you leave PIZZA?
Xenophilius Lovegood: PIZZA’s great but it’s a one-corp outfit. For the PIZZA experience, join Love Squad. It’s not ideal for building a corp from the ground up. The one issue that’s always stopped us getting fully involved with PIZZA is culture. Love Squad’s core is formed largely of deceased 4chan corps, and we literally can’t handle the memes.Mail Lite: Is there any issues between your corp leadership and the PIZZA leadership?
Xenophilius Lovegood: Absolutely not. PIZZA’s leadership is their strongest aspect. They probably hate us for pumping and dumping them so often though 🙁Mail Lite: How do you think PIZZA function as an alliance overall?
Xenophilius Lovegood: They are the best in the game at their style of play. They function as well as they always have, and as long as wheniaminspace is active, they’ll continue to do so.What is next for LNAW?
Xenophilius Lovegood: See which comes first: we disband our new alliance, or they kick us.
It seems that, while they have lost members, it is more due to the culture of the alliance itself, and the feeling of not fitting in that is causing issues rather than any type of large scale drama between the leadership members of the individual corporations. It could be that wheniaminspace will look to change the ethos of his alliance to retain more of his member corporations in the future, however at the moment it seems that certain things within xXPIZZAXx don’t live up to every ones expectations.
Cruiser weapon damage application chart.
A very interesting chart emerged over the last week that showed the difference in DPS at different ranges for cruiser sized weapons.
So all of these weapons are hitting the same target, going the same speed and with the same resist profile. Here is the main issue I have, seeing these stats like this. The Ishtar.
Every other ship in this experiment will have one of these weapon systems fitted. My Thorax has Heavy Electron blasters fitted, and a flight of medium drones (which are missing from this graph) this means that, while I am in this ship my effective engagement range is limited to around 8km. If I decide to swap out to my Omen, which has Pulse Lasers, my engagement range spikes to around 20-25km.
The Ishtar however can swap between 3 of these weapon systems at will (3 x sentry drone flights of different types) and it drastically increases it’s effective range and maintains a DPS output which is higher than most other weapon systems at their optimal ranges. Does CCP need to look at this graph and make further changes? We will have to see what happens after the next release when the Ishtar, Bouncers and Rail-guns receive their turn under the nerf bat.
‘FozzieSov’ Announcement: Timing?
I’m not going to give you yet another piece of ‘how i think it will work’ in this article. I think everyone has already read enough of those, and while some make great points, some are completely bonkers.
Instead I want to point out a couple of things that I think have either been overlooked in the ‘oh my god’ moments of the announcement or just skated over since.
The first is this is the ‘Phase 2’ announcement of a 3 phase plan. That means we still have another phase to go and I think we can draw some conclusions on what Phase 3 may be bringing to Eve Online.
The first will be a change to the way capitals, and in particular, super-capitals will work in Eve Online. In the Phase 1 review, CCP Fozzie said this when wrapping up his in depth capital/super-cap review:
Overall score for Capital Ship Activity: A wash. Continued work on engaging and balanced roles for Capital Ships will be needed in the future, especially as some of their current roles in structure shooting are de-emphasized in Phase Two.
With the lack of structures to grind the super-capital and dreadnought will be at a loss on what to do. Sure you could drop a capital fleet on a contested system, but the Entosis module is designed to discourage that by extending the activation time by a significant amount.
In my eyes the first thing that will happen in phase 3 will be a re-imagining on the roles that super-capitals take. The ‘super-carrier’ may soon become less of an offensive force and more like a mobile POS without the force field. It may contain fleet ships so that it can support an attack on enemy SOV, so that once your ship is destroyed, instead of going back to base in your pod (or being podded home) you can reship from your super-carrier ‘mobile HQ’
Also, with fights now becoming constellation wide, a super-carrier could become the ultimate in off-grid boosts, not only giving them to everyone in the fleet in the same system, but in the same constellation. Of course this would have a massive cool-down timer, and like the Entosis module, it will prevent fleet assists and jumping in and out of systems. This change would also be in conjunction with a nerf to off-grid boosts how we know them today to bring them onto the field. This would mean that the only way to get these sort of boosts from off-grid would be to make your super-carrier extremely vulnerable in enemy held systems.
Another quote from Fozzie, which shows what might be coming in ‘Phase 3’
It’s also important that our new Sovereignty system be flexible enough to incorporate new improvements to EVE as they are released, especially improvements to structure game play that are being developed as we speak. The possibilities for engaging game play provided by the combination of complete revamps to Sovereignty and structures are nearly endless.
A rework of structures. Now this could be the main point for phase three. I am not just thinking about POS finally being fixed, but I can envisage a whole plethora of new modules and structures that will make your space into more of a fortress, rather than just a farm. Imagine have sentry guns that you can place on your gates in your systems not just on your POS? There would have to be a limit to the number you can have there, but it would add a new dimension.
What about turning off local chat in null-sec? But having some sort of ‘listening post’ structure which enables it? Would attacker go after that to keep their movements secret? Or would they just ignore it?
My last thought, wasn’t the timing of the announcement a bit funny? It came out on the 3rd March, just 17 days before the biggest Eve event of the year, Fanfest. Why would CCP have released such an earth shattering, game play changing devblog before Fanfest and not at Fanfest during the keynote address? Big announcements like this have been made before at Fanfest so why change it now?
Does this mean that CCP has other big news they are going to release during the Eve Online keynote? I know I can’t wait to find out.
CSMX Voting closes at 23:59 tonight!
If you haven’t got your vote for Bobmon in yet then you don’t have long to do so! CCP Leeloo put this out on the Eve Online announcement page;
The final hours of voting in the CSM X election are now upon us, with less than 24 hours left for pilots to cast their vote!
Click here to cast your vote! (Requires login!)
In total we have 75 approved candidates that are viewable here for your consideration when voting. Be sure to read up on who fits your interests best before having your voice heard.
This is a lot of candidates to pick from, so we suggest that you use Vote-Match, produced by former CSM member Diedra Vaal, if you are not sure which candidates your interests align with. Vote-Match can be found here.
If you’d like to hear more from incumbent CSM delegates regarding the CSM, its usefulness and its unique relationship with CCP, feel free to check out the short video interview with members of CSM 9 that we recorded during the winter summit.
Voting for CSM X is open until 23:59:59 on March 10th, 2015 so be sure to check out the list of candidates and make your selection. For further information on how to vote, and key dates surrounding the CSM X elections, see this blog by CCP Leeloo.
Also be sure to claim your Council Diplomatic Shuttle, in celebration of the tenth CSM term if you haven’t done so already, it’s waiting for you in your redeeming system!
Absolution Alliance; Absolutely Absolving their SOV.
, who used to stage out of EX-GBT in Etherium Reach, have decided to give up on holding SOV to live in NPC Venal and will be giving all of their current SOV to fellow member of GemCo, Legion of xXDEATHXx.
PFV-ZH has already been transferred along with around 80 other systems in the Perrigen Falls region and soon the entirety of their holdings within the Etherium Reach region will follow.
Absolution Alliance has been living out of Venal since Phoebe Freeport Republic was evicted from ER When PFR was kicked out, there was no further threat to ER so they went back to Venal. When Triumvirate and Circle-of-Two began to invade the same area, Absolution Alliance hardly defended their SOV and left it up to GemCo to defend it for them. It would make sense that this SOV exchange is some sort of reward for service rendered to Total Absolution for helping defend their SOV over the last few weeks.
Eve Universe: The Art of New Eden Release
The new art book, created in association with CCP Games and publisher and comic creator Dark Horse, will be released on Amazon on the 7th April 2015.
Like the previous EVE: Source book, EVE Universe: The Art of New Eden will be developed in close collaboration with CCP’s creative teams, developers and concept artists, vividly illustrating the factions, spacecraft, planets, mercenaries and pilots of the EVE universe.
Dave Marshall, Editor for Drak Horse said;
“With the EVE Universe: The Art of New Eden book we will once again tap into the CCP art vault and present an even deeper examination of CCP’s epic universe through its striking imagery.”
However, while most of us will have to wait until the 7th April, it has been rumored that the book may be available for purchase at Eve Online Fanfest, a full two weeks before going on general sale! This is a huge bonus for those who have made the trip to Iceland at the end of the month.
Well that’s it for this weeks issue of ‘The Small Things’ and I hope you enjoyed it and we shall see you next week for another edition!
If you have anything that you think should be reported on EN24, please contact me at @mail_lite on Twitter, email at [email protected] or Eve Mail me in game.
