Most blogs die within a
few weeks of being born. The internet is littered with their sad
husks – once full of promise, now lingering on servers that no-one
has bothered to clean up for years. Some have an overwrought,
apologetic wall of text on them excusing the author's inaction.
Modern Ninjering is not one of those blogs.
What's going on?
Imagine writing a
particularly fine post on the use of the current T1 logistic
cruisers, then having this pop up right before you publish it. No biggie, you'll just push your
schedule up a bit and start writing that article on mission
mechanics. And then this happens. Damn you CCP! Now you have to write that in-depth analysis
of aggro mechanics that you'd been saving for next month. Except,
oops.
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| That'll leave a man speechless. |
Throw in some family
business after that and the release of a new XCOM and you have about a month's worth of hiatus.
All in all, Retribution is
promising to dramatically reshape the ninja salvager's landscape.
With so much change on the horizon, it would be folly to do guides
for ships or mechanics that will be obsolete in a couple of months.
Instead I'm going to be doing some sporadic brainfarting on whatever
interesting new bits of information come out until the winter
expansion hits. And then I'll get back to my regular programming:
bringing you the latest, shiniest, state-of-the-artiest in ninja
tactics.
Food for thought
Here's some things to mull
over in the meantime. I intend to cover these topics in depth one by
one.
- Ship re-balancing. We're getting some viable new combat vessels added to the roster, mostly in the frigate and cruiser department. We're also losing the Hurricane as our go-to gank boat. Most exciting to me, as stated before, is the prospect of viable yet cheap T1 frigate- and cruiser-sized "support" ships. These will allow even our youngest ninjas to step in and provide remote repairs to their friends, and grab aggro in the process. This is fortunate because the new Crimewatch is likely to lead to escalating fights.
- Crimewatch 2. CCP is finally giving the old, convoluted, and in many places broken Crimewatch system (which governs aggression, ie. who can shoot whom) a thorough overhaul. The new system looks a lot more transparent. Some of our old tactics, like dropping bait cans or extending aggro, will no longer function. Global "suspect" flagging means more opportunities for white knights to come in and escalate the fight in all sorts of hilarious ways. We'll need stronger teamwork to ensure we always have the upper hand in combat.
- Enhanced mission
AI. We'll need to look carefully at how the new targeting
routines for mission rats work. Given that our mission runner prey
generally fly battleships or battlecruisers, our smaller bait ships
may need to prepare to fight off a mission's complement of frigate
and cruiser rats. The fact that these rats often carry e-war
(webifiers, target painters and the like) makes that a challenge.
Plundering an active mission site is certainly going to become a lot
more interesting.
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| It's our turn to HTFU. Again. |
That's EVE, baby
We have a bit of adapting
to do this winter. We'll face some new dangers in the form of
target-switching mission rats and global suspect flags allowing
everyone and their dog to shoot us. We'll also be given improved
ships to handle those situations. Solo ninjering, even when
multiboxing, will become more dangerous. Teamwork will allow us to
take cruel advantage of any wannabe heroes' good intentions. There's
new mechanics ahead. Modern Ninjering will be here to help you break
the hell out of them.
