Join us in the latest cinematic feature tour as we explore the 118.6 release, with the arrival of new citadel balance improvements, bulk fitting, legalized combat boosters, visual updates for stargates, hangars and boosters with secondary lighting, new Serpentis pirate implants and the all new Scope Network Challenge system that kicks off with the Shadow of the Serpent on release day!
CCP Seagull, Executive Producer for EVE Online goes into a little more detail on what's coming to New Eden with the June 118.6 release. From a whole host of citadel iterations, to new player experience improvements that provide better clarification for UI elements and rewards and opportunities, as well as overhauled visual effects, secondary lighting, tactical overlay iteration and the all new Scope Network challenges.
As reports of a new breed of capital ships under construction in the Serpentis home region of Fountain reach critical levels, threatened organizations take action.
The Scope Network will act as a broker between capsuleers and powerful empire corporations in New Eden. The dawn of a new age promising great opportunities is on the horizon, new challenges and new rewards for loyal and capable pilots.
After a successful first round of iterations during the 118.5 release, this release brings further functionality to citadels across New Eden, including redeeming, direct trade and character customization in citadels, as well as the ability to set a citadel as an autopilot waypoint. Further iterations are also coming with the 118.6 release, so please be sure to review the patch notes for more information.
Station hangar environments have been improved by adding point lights, this makes use of a DirectX 11 only feature. Ship boosters will also now cast a secondary light onto the ship’s hull which is intensified depending on ship velocity.
Team TriLambda has been gathering feedback on visual effects that need to be more distinguishable. New effects are coming with the 118.6 release for armor repair from logistics drones, triage mode, sensor dampeners and tracking disruptors, along with a new black ops cynosural field beacon effect that will distinguish it from a regular cynosural field.
All stargates in New Eden have been given an overhaul with the latest physically based rendering and lighting technology available in EVE. Materials, textures and effects for all racial stargates have been renovated to support PBR materials.
With the 118.6 release, a new animated camera will focus in on your ship in order to give a more cinematic view of docking and undocking. The undocking camera can be interrupted at any point to give full pilot control, in case capsuleers find themselves undocking into a blockade or other sticky situation.
Various usability improvements are coming to the tactical overlay with the 118.6 release. This includes cynosural field range when you hover over the module, as well as ship and fighter orbit indicators and a trajectory line for your ship’s direction of travel in order to improve spatial awareness in combat.
The Serpentis, with the help of their allies the Angels, have made large leaps in capital ship design and construction thanks to vessels and techonlogy stolen from the Gallente Federation, and acquired through other illegitimate means.
The first breed of pirate capital ships will see the introduction of Dreadnought, Supercarrier and Titan class hulls fresh from the Serpentis Corporation's shipyards in Fountain.
As well as working on their own breed of capital ships, the Serpentis Corporation has been hard at work creating a new set of implants that give capsuleers more tactical options in combat, and a more direct way to focus and specialize their flight skills.
In an effort to curb organized crime and restrict the flow of revenue to illicit traders, CONCORD has made the decision to legalize all combat boosters used by capsuleers.
With these boosters having proved to be relatively safe, this opens up a whole new range of tactical options for combat pilots across the cluster.
As Corporations, Alliances and Coalitions grow in size, more tools are needed to ensure that infrastructure scales to meet the growing demand for fitted ships, logistics, and supply during combat.
Bulk fitting allows pilots to fit multiple ships at the same time, in order to save time and ensure that everyone from a small gang to a fleet of epic proportions can be reshipped and back in the action as soon as possible.
In an effort to improve the flow of the new player experience for rookie pilots, a number of changes will be made to notifications and information displayed in game. Opportunity guidance will be improved to include clearer instructions, better flow, improved sense of progress and meaningful context to mechanical tasks. An Opportunities path will also be suggested to strengthen a sense of progression. Combat that forms part of opportunities will also be made more dynamic, and a series of UI improvements will be implemented to give deeper clarification for a number of in game activities including mining and wallet transactions.
Please see the 118.6 patch notes for further details.
With the arrival of Shadow of the Serpent, new SKINs sporting the colors of the Serpentis Corporation are coming to New Eden.
With some available for direct participation in the Shadow of the Serpent, and others available in the New Eden Store or as part of Aurum offers, there’s a SKIN to suit most Gallente Hulls.
Check out the New Eden Store in game with the 118.6 release for full information on the SKINs available.
These SKINs will be time exclusive for the duration of the Shadow of the Serpent event, but will make an appearence again in future!
