OGRank - EVE-Online: Revelations to be released tomorrow

Build 27121 to 27756 addresses REVELATIONS Patch Notes, Features, Fixes and Improvements

REVELATIONS is the first of three installments in EVE Online’s second major game expansion. The first expansion, EXODUS, revealed the escalating tensions between the Empires of EVE with its first installment, Cold War. In the second installment, Red Moon Rising, a galactic arms race forged the most powerful weapons ever constructed by man.

Enter REVELATIONS, in which the empires make their final push towards the brink of war. Uncharted regions of space shall open for pilots to explore, yielding vast wealth and the untapped resources needed to feed a hungry war machine. New innovations in weapons technology will provide pilots with the means to wage the battle for supremacy in the universe of EVE.

New Game Play

Contracts

The Contracts System is a player-driven mechanism for characters and corporations to formalize work agreements with each other, providing an intuitive way to engage in directed commerce transactions currently supported by the market. Auctions, Item Exchange, Loans, and Courier will be the first contract types introduced to EVE. Contracts will be an invaluable tool for corporation management, allowing tasks and missions to be created that are available at all times. Read more here.

Two new skills have been introduced for Contracts, one which increases the number of personal contracts you can create and one which increases the number of contracts you can create on behalf of your corporation.

Combat Organization

Gang mechanics have been revamped, including a new hierarchical fleet option allowing for better situational awareness, orders and broadcasts which are represented in the new seamless view. Please read this thread and this Dev Blog for full details.

Two new skills have been added for the revamped gang mechanics, allowing you to command larger groups of people.

Exploration

Space exploration is now a viable profession requiring extensive use of the new System Scanning feature in the seamless view. With this tool, you can discover hundreds of hidden locations, which could potentially lead to escalating encounters and higher rewards. Exploration ties into Archeology, Invention, Hacking, Salvaging, and Mining. While the act of discovery is likely to be a solo activity, capitalizing on what you found will require good connections through contracts or the market. Escalating encounters will also require a group effort, as the sites you discover will be heavily defended. Read more here.

Invention

Invention will open wider access to the Tech Level II industry, specifically by gathering data, tools, materials, and technology through Exploration and Research Agent means. By processing this data using decryptors and datacores, utilizing Tech Level I blueprint copies, and disassembling altered versions of modules, you can create limited-run blueprint copies of Tech Level II items, but with one disadvantage: They will be very inefficient and time-consuming to manufacture. This provides you with a way to break into the Tech Level II business, providing market competition opportunity for those willing to put in the effort, while still allowing original Tech Level II manufacturers to keep their edge in longevity, efficiency, and production time. Read more here.

Combat Boosters

Combat Boosters introduce a new angle to combat, allowing you to temporarily boost your combat abilities at the cost of random penalties to other attributes. The emergence of Combat Boosters begins with 0.0 COSMOS constellations that contain unique resources, specifically gas clouds that must be harvested to create the Boosters. The manufacturing process utilizes the skill set of mini-professions, and uses specialized starbase structures required to process the gas clouds. The eight new COSMOS Constellations each have their own unique Booster, with the more advanced Boosters requiring ingredients from all over the universe. Read more here.

Five new skills have been added for the Combat Boosters, one for gas cloud harvesting, one for manufacturing and three for their usage. These skills can not be purchased from NPC corporations.

Rigs and Salvaging

With the introduction of rigs, you can tailor your ship’s capabilities to excel at a specific role, and specialize your character in the new Salvager or Rigs Manufacturer professions. Because of rigs, ship destruction is now integrated into the economy. Both player and NPC ships will leave shipwrecks, which can be salvaged for materials required to manufacture rigs. Additionally, new rig technology levels will be accessible through Invention.

All ships destroyed in the game will now leave a shipwreck. Wrecks will replace the loot cans that previously dropped from ships upon their destruction. While regular looting of a shipwreck will not require special skills or equipment, ships equipped with Salvaging gear have an increased chance of recovering ingredients needed for manufacturing rigs.

Eleven new skills have been added for the new rigs & salavaging feature. One is for salvaging and the rest are for rigs ranging from general usage to reduction of negative modifiers.

Scanning

Probe System Scanning has been revamped, visit this thread for full details.

Three new skills have been introduced for the improved probe system scanning. These skills will allow you to increase efficiency, reduce the duration of the scanning or reduce the inaccuracy of scan results. Sixteen new probes have been added to the market to support the new exploration mechanics. These new probes are split into four groups and are designed for use in different scanning scenarios. All scan probes now have an original blueprint on the market and can now be manufactured from these blueprints.

Directional scanning has changed to the allowed types for scanning, visit this thread for full details.

Escalating Paths

A new feature called Escalating Path has been introduced which can send players on story-line missions taking place across multiple systems and deadspace complexes. These work similar to missions but are not related to Agents and can be triggered via various locations and game mechanics.

Triggers & Events

A trigger and event system has been created which allow the addition of more flavor to the deadspace system. Players will be capable of triggering events such as: smartbomb effects, NPC spawns, NPC healing etc...

Seamless Views

The World Map and in-flight views have been combined with a new view level called the Solar System Map into one seamlessly zooming view. We call this feature Seamless Zoom. This enables better interaction with information about various things such as stations and systems and is a better tactical interface for fleet and scanning operations. See full details here.

Eight New Regions

New areas of space have been discovered but are under the control of the first self-aware drone, Orphyx, and his Rogue Drone descendants. Will you be one of the brave souls to venture into these untamed systems and help push back the robotic menace?

Other Game Play Features

'Warp to 0 km' will be added as an option to the 'Warp' menu. This is being done in conjunction with the deletion of 'Instajump' bookmarks, a major contributor to database and game lag. It is highly recommended for players to delete their instajump bookmarks before the Revelations deployment. This action will improve client performance and decrease log-in times. Note: Normal bookmarks will not be affected by this change.
New Tier 2 Battlecruisers and Tier 3 Battleships to wreak more havoc on your enemies.
Ship, module, weapon, ammunition and drone balancing for improved Player versus Player and Player versus Environment experiences.
More complexes, missions and encounters.
An improved Character Creation process with more information and guidance provided by Aura.
Extensive hardware and software optimizations for both the server and game client, including performance gains, memory leak fixes and much more.

Additions, Improvements, Changes and Fixes

Note: Changes and additions may be added in the future during the ongoing Quality Assurance process. Such changes or additions will be highlighted with green text.

Ships

A number of changes have been made to ships in an effort to prolong PvP combat. These changes include:
- The capacitor capacity for all ships has been increased by 25%.
- The capacitor recharge time for all ships has been increased by 25%.
- The shield recharge time of all ships has been increased by 25%.
- Ship Hit Points (Shield, Armor and Structure) have also been increased by the following percentages:
  - Tech 1 battleships, cruisers and frigates receive a 25% increase.
  - Tech 2 cruisers and frigates receive a 12.5% increase.
  - Tech 1 Destroyers receive a 66.67% increase.
  - Tech 2 Destroyers receive a 33.33% increase.
  - Tech 1 Battlecruisers receive a 56.25% increase.
  - Tech 2 Battlecruisers receive a 28.125% increase.
  - Capital Ships (not freighters) receive a 400% increase in hit points.
The Cruise Missile launcher grid bonus on stealth bombers have been increased to 19.72% per level.
The Power Grid on the Manticore and Nemesis have been increased to 35MW and 38MW respectively.
The CPU on the Hound and Purifier have been increased to 225tf and 220tf respectively.
The CPU on the Gila has been increased to 380tf, the Helios’ to 290tf, Cheetah’s to 275tf and Anathema’s to 280tf.
The Agility of the battlecruiser and command –class ships have been boosted by 20%.
Unique/rare ships such as the Imperial Apocalypse and Silver Magnate have been boosted. They should be much more powerful now.
The Fleet Issue Tempest now has the same mass as its more common sibling.
The Vigil's description shows the correct max velocity bonus and not projectile damage.
Base CPU bonus on covert ops ships (Buzzard, Anathema, Helios and Cheetah) have been increased to -97.5%. Bonuses of 0.5% CPU and 50tf CPU reductions are received for each level of covert ops skill trained.
The ECM strength bonus of the Scorpion and Falcon has been increased to 10% per level, while the Rook's has been increased to 20% per level.
The ECM cap need bonus of the Blackbird has changed to a 10% ECM strength bonus.
The missile kinetic damage on the Griffin changed to a 10% ECM strength bonus.
The Scythe now gives 3.5% bonus to tracking links per its description.
The Hawk's cargo capacity has been increased to 300m3.
The Hel's volume has been increased to 51,000,000m3.
The Arbitrator description now displays the correct mining drone bonus.
Plastic Wrap can now be placed in freighters so freighter pilots can fulfill contracts and courier missions.
The powergrid on the Deimos has been increased to 950MW and powergrids on the Sacrilege and Muninn to 1100MW.

The CPU output of the Sacrilege and Deimos have been increased to 350tf.

The Nighthawk’s missile explosion velocity bonus has been replaced with a missile launcher rate of fire bonus.

Modules

A number of changes have been made to modules in an effort to prolong PvP combat. These changes include:
- The capacity of Capacitor batteries have been increased by 25%.
- The charge capacity of cap boosters have been decreased by 20%.
- The volume of cap boosters have been decreased by 20%.
- Plate and Shield extenders have been increased by 25%
- The ECM strength of all ECM modules has been reduced by 50%.
A new low slot module that boosts the ECM strength of ECM modules has been created and added to the Market.
Warp core stabilizers now suffer a penalty to scan resolution and maximum targeting range.
Capital shield transporters and capital remote armor repairers have changed, their durations have decreased to 5 seconds, cap need decreased to 1500 and hit point repair amount decreased to 1500.
The jump portal generator is now active for 60 seconds.
Named versions of capacitor power relays, capacitor flux coils and power diagnostic systems now give better bonuses than their standard tech 1 counterparts.
ECCM Module CPU requirements have been reduced.
Sensor backup arrays CPU requirements decreased and strength increased.
Inertia stabilizers now give bonuses to mass and agility and have a penalty to signature radius.
Signature radius penalty on shield extenders have changed so meta modules in general give less of a penalty.
The speed modifier on cargo expanders have been changed to a percentage instead of a flat rate.
'Brotherhood' Small Remote Armor Repair System I was incorrectly named as a Hull Repairer.
'Peace' Large Remote Armor Repair System I no longer has the stats of a small module.
Many ECCM metatypes had incorrect values. Fixing this resulted in a boost for the affected modules.
Some ECCM Omni modules were using too little cap. Fixing this bug resulted in a nerf to the affected modules.
FZ-3 Subversive Spatial Destabilizer ECM was using far too much cap. Fixing this resulted in a boost to this module.
Dual Diode Mining laser is no longer described as a tech 2 module.
The lifespan modifier of tech 2 mining crystals has changed and should now be doubled.
Mining lasers now display how much ore they can mine instead of ore units.
Modules that give scan results no longer autorepeat.
Only one scan probe launcher can be fitted per ship.

Weapons and Drones

Fighters will shut down their microwarpdrives at the proper distance from their targets.
The drone control unit description now displays a CPU reduction bonus for Motherships and Carriers.
Warp Disrupt Probes have changed, their hitpoints have increased to 1000, flight time decreased to 120 seconds (and carries over after jumps), portion size increased to 2 and volume decreased by 50%.
Interdiction Sphere launchers have changed, the launch duration has been decreased to 120 seconds.
The volume of all ammo has been halved in size, as well as the capacity of all turrets/launchers.
The damage and duration of autocannons have been increased by about 50% for most sizes. This maintains the same damage over time but makes each ammo more valuable.
All artillery damage has been increased by 5%.
The damage of tech 2 ammos types: Gleam, Javelin, Quake, Conflagration, Void and Hail have been decreased by 6.66%, optimal range penalty has increased to 75%.
The damage of tech 2 ammos types: Aurora, Spike and Tremor have been decreased by 27.2%, optimal range bonus has been decreased to 80%.
The shield penalty of the Javelin has been removed.
The Hail's velocity penalty has been removed.
The tracking speed penalty of Null and Barrage is now 25%.
All doomsday weapon damages have been increased by 25%.
Named light neutron blasters now need as much powergrid as their tech 1 variant.
Mining drones now display their tech level.
The bonus on expanded cargo holds have been rounded.

Missiles

A close range high damage alternative for missile users has been added. A new missile launcher type called the heavy assault missile launcher, 4 new tech 1 missiles and 8 new tech 2 missiles have been added.
The Fury Cruise missile damage has been decreased to 345 base, cap recharge rate penalty decreased to 5% and flight time decreased to 10 seconds.
The Fury Heavy missile cap recharge rate penalty has been decreased to 7.5%, flight time decreased to 6 seconds and explosion cloud increased to 125.
The Fury Light missile base damage has been reduced to 87 and cap penalty reduced to 10%.
The Precision Cruise missile flight time has been decreased to 10 seconds and velocity penalty reduced to 4%.
The Precision Heavy missile flight time has been decreased to 5.25 seconds and velocity penalty reduced to 5%.
The Precision Light missile damage has been reduced to 75 base.
The Javelin Torpedo base damage has been reduced to 380, flight time reduced to 12.5 seconds, velocity penalty reduced to 4% and explosion cloud increased to 400.
The Javelin Rocket base damage has been reduced to 22.5, velocity penalty reduced to 7.5% and explosion cloud increased to 40.
The Rage Torpedo base damage has been reduced to 540, cap recharge rate penalty reduced to 5%, flight time decreased to 10 seconds and explosion cloud reduced to 600.
The Rage Rocket base damage has been decreased to 29, cap recharge rate penalty reduced to 10% and explosion cloud decreased to 75.

Skills and Implants

Sovereignty skill is available on the market.
Motion prediction now displays its tracking bonus attribute correctly.
Advanced learning skills prerequisites have been lowered from 5 to 4.
Electronic warfare is no longer a requirement for ECM drones.
The gunnery skill requirements of tech 2 projectile has been reduced to level 2 so it is inline with laser and hybrid skill requirements.
The Astrometrics skill bonus has been changed for the new system scanning, it now allows you to scan for one group per each skill level.
The attribute requirements of the Interdictors skill were reversed to make the skill in line with other tech 2 ship command skills. (Willpower is primary, Perception is secondary.)
The Targeting skill no longer displays an incorrect target bonus.
Ore Processing skills no longer require metallurgy and refinery efficiency but refinery and science.
Repair system is no longer required for the remote armor repair systems nor will it give a bonus to these systems.
"Encryption methods" science skills have been renamed from pirate factions to empire factions to better reflect their use.
The Information Warfare Link - Electronic Superiority Implant now gives bonus to all EWAR modules' strength, including remote sensor dampener, tracking disruptor, target painter and ECM.
Low-grade Slave Gamma Implant now gives a bonus to armor.
'Shady' ECCM - Gravimetric I Implant now gives a bonus to the gravimetric strength of a ship as the name implies.
Omnidirectional tracking link no longer requires trajectory analysis.
Errors in the description of the "Hardwiring - Zainou 'Deadeye' ZGC1000" and "Hardwiring - Zainou 'Deadeye' ZGC100" implants have been fixed.

Player Owned Structures

A new starbase structure, the 'Drug Lab', is available on the market. This structure is used in the creation of Combat Boosters.
Mobile laboratory anchoring time has been increased to 600 seconds (10 minutes).
Advanced Large Ship Assembly Array volume has been increased 18,500,000 m3.
Capital ship Assembly Array capacity has been increased to 1,550,000,000 m3.
Large Ship Assembly Array capacity has been increased to 18,500,000 m3.
Fixed an overlap of status information and reinforced timer in the control tower management window.
The Amarr and Gallente control tower bonus to silo- and coupling array capacity persists after downtime.
Reserved lab and manufacturing slots in player owned stations and assembly arrays are now correctly represented.
The ammunition assembly array has now an icon.
Faulty descriptions for siege class sentry guns and their correct bracket colour has been fixed.
Large ship assembly arrays can no longer be anchored in 0.5 security space and above.
Alloys looted from Rogue Drones can now be used in a starbase refining array.

Deadspace, Agents and Missions

New generic storyline courier mission have been added for levels 1-4.
Numerous new missions have been added for each of the Empire and non-Empire factions, all with varying degrees of difficulty. Some may be given by agents, while others may be found by Exploration, System Scanning and the new Escalating Paths system.
New Deadspace complexes have been added for each of the Empire and non-Empire factions. Some may appear in the overview, while others may be found with the new Exploration, and System Scanning features or as a part of an Escalating Path.
Agents collecting common pirate dog tags have been created and placed inside data centers around the galaxy. The common dog tags include copper, bronze, silver, electrum, brass, palladium, gold, crystal, platinum and diamond tags for all 5 major pirate factions.
Cosmos agents Mirmon Gorgoz and Ystvia Lamuette have decided to get back to work.
Minas Iksan and Ison Tiadala have received promotions and are now level 4.
Karo Zulak and Dagras Kutill are no longer indestructible.
The faction settings of The Carnival agent site have changed to prevent faction loss caused by the destruction of an agent in that location.
The mission 'The Hapless Thief' can no longer be completed by turning in data sheets bought off the market. The timer for the data sheets spawning in the spawn container has been increased to compensate.
The mission 'Enemies Abound (1 of 5)' now requires you to bring back some of the inhabitants of the illegal settlement.
The faction setting on the overseer in the first pocket inside the Old Meanie has been changed.
The spawnrate of Rekker in Jakela Plantation in Ani has been increased.
The Angel 8/10 complex is now more difficult and the final boss now spawns twice a day.
The level 4 'Worlds Collide' missions should be less 'farmable'.
Changed the mission 'Enemies Abound (5 of 5)' so waves start spawning when the player enters the mission dungeon, instead of when the mission is accepted. It is possible to stop the spawn.
Fixed a spelling error in the Seek And Destroy missions.
Fixed the description in 'Eliminate A Pirate Nuissance' so it doesn't give a faulty bonus time limit estimate.
Changed the bracket colour of the 'dungeon' (mission/complex) sentry guns, as some were incorrectly set to white.
Map landmarks have been placed at the 0.0 Kenobanala and Audesder 'COSMOS' sites.

Non Player Characters

The Arch Angel Depredators and Arch Angel Predators drop loot when destroyed.
All NPCs located in mission deadspace have afterburners now instead of a microwarpdrive.
The names of CONCORD ships spawned in missions and exploration sites have been changed to DED to better reflect the division of CONCORD they represent.
Rogue Drones in missions and dungeons have had a name change, the "Drone" moniker now follows pirate faction NPCs naming conventions in similar instances.
Blood Raider NPCs are no longer filling in for the Angel Cartel in various 0.5 security systems.
Tweaked the loot drops from the standard navy fleet commanders so now they would always drop at least 1 navy module. Their implant drops also have more variety.

Manufacturing

Warp Disrupt Probe Blueprints no longer have an incorrect waste factor.
Fighter production and research times have been cut in half. Go out and shoot each other more.
Productivity research on tech 2 torpedoes and cruise missiles are now inline with other tech 2 items.

Market

Rig blueprint market groups and types have been added.
Salvage materials market groups created and types added into groups.
The "Shield Boost Amplifier II" can now be sold on the market.
Market orders are updated with correct minimum volume if it becomes higher than quantity.
Items not in a market group can no longer be bought or sold on the market.
It is no longer possible to export market orders if there are no orders available.
You can now use the arrow key's to navigate between items in the Market quick view tab.
An issue with corrupted text inside buy order windows has been fixed.
It is now possible to change the location of buy orders by clicking the station name in the buy order window.
Export of Market orders no longer fails for some items due to the item names containing invalid characters for filenames.

Tutorial and Character Creation

All newly created characters now have their final skills & skill points increased (800 - 810.000 total). This allows for a larger variety of characters created, instead of min/max ‘templates’.
30 new sub-tutorials (pages) have been added to Aura's repertoire, including Boosters, Jump Clones, Standings, Kill Rights, Cosmos, Attributes and their importance, Augmentation implants, Industry specialization - Prospector.
The Saboteur NPC in the tutorial will now additionally drop stolen graduation certificates which can be used to start up the newbie bloodline missions.

User Interface

The show introduction movie button in the login screen has been removed.
Fixed an issue with auto hiding the neo-com on the right side of the screen while docked in a station.
For security reasons the option to save passwords in the login screen has been removed.
Merged windows no longer split up when aborting an undock from station request.
The text area of petition replies to a GM message has been increased.
An issue with pressing Ctrl+TAB while in a widescreen resolution has been fixed.
The gang and chat invitation window no longer assumes focus when they pop up. This helps prevent the accidental blocking the person that invited you.
Items that are Shift-Moved into member hangars are now shown immediately.
It is no longer possible to create duplicate corporate votes.
Corporate votes can now be issued while in space.
Research agents now show all skill levels needed for research when looking at the agent information.
The Survey scanner window can now be minimized.
An issue with resizing the set quantity window has been solved.
Deleting bookmark folders will now delete the folder itself, not just the bookmarks inside it.
You can now use Ctrl+TAB to scroll between opened windows.
Refining arrays now have icons in the selected item section of the overview.
Sorting by "next free time" in the science and industry panel is now correct.
Sorting in the assets window is now done correctly
You can now rename secure containers that where launched in space on behalf of your corporation.
Station services buttons will no longer move out of place.
A graphic bug where skill names in the characters sheets are not shown has been fixed.
Laser weapons and strip miners now have an "Unload to cargo" option when they are fitted with crystals.
You will no longer get a warning popup when you attack an alliance war target in empire space.

Overview

The icon for rogue drones in the overview will now represent they're correct ship size (battleship, cruiser or frigate).
The overview bug where a boarded ship was represented incorrectly as having no pilot has been resolved.
Containers in space that have been renamed will now display their new name in the overview.
Numerous NPCs are now chosen by default in the overview settings filter.
An issue with the overview freezing, becoming empty or no longer updating has been fixed.
An issue with the gang window becoming empty while in a gang has been fixed.
An issue with assigning fighters in a gang that has more than 20 members has been solved, you now get a scrollbar when picking a gang member if the selection is too large.

Miscellaneous

It is no longer possible to log into a trial account if there is already an active client running on the same computer (subscription or other trial).
Docking while ejecting from a ship is no longer possible.
Pilots aiding other criminally flagged pilots now become criminally flagged themselves.
Jump Range for capital ships is now represented correctly in the map.
You can now research remotely using laboratories anchored at Starbases.
The default cost of sending EVE mails has been increased to 2950 ISK.
Operators on in-game mailing lists can now delete mails.
On the Serenity server, skills no longer train when the owning account is deactivated. Tranquility is not affected by this change.
A rare memory leak occurring when docking at player owned stations has been plugged.
If a player declines a mission from an agent, the agent will not give the same mission again the next time.
Deleted characters no longer retain their corporation roles.
Standings checks are modified by the Connections skill when installing a jump clone.
Your corporate standing can be used to install jumpclones.
Items are no longer lost when direct trading between players.
Alliances are now disbanded if the alliance fees are not paid.
Fighters can no longer be delegated to capsules.
An issue with secure containers taking up too much space in Corporate Hangers anchored at control towers and Carriers has been fixed.
Audit containers can no longer be reprocessed or trashed if they contain logs that are less than three weeks old.
Table cell spacing in the in-game browser is now represented correctly.
All solar systems that were located in Empire Space and had the security level of 0.0 have had their security increased to 0.1, this does not have any affect on anything besides how these systems are displayed in security.
Some stations didn't have a complete set of station icons, particularly the Science & Industry icons. This service has now been displayed as intended (it was available through the S&I window, but not in-station).
New Alliance logos have been added. Time to strut your allegiance.
Screenshots are now saved in JPEG format by default but can also be saved in BMP format by changing settings in the graphics tab in the ESC menu.