We're still here! And this is what we're working on now

Issues, bugs, exploits, more bugs, imbalance, big bugs. Mix it all together and you might have a description for last week. Well, except for lag, then lag and then some more lag. All three from different sources, we got one down, two to go.

However, I'm going to address some of the gameplay issues in this blog, some (radical) changes which we have scheduled for the next patch (after the one tomorrow) and some others that might see the light of day before the patch. They are, in no particular order, a customization of the overview, fixing the war cost, fixing gang warp, attempts to address the bumping, fixing more cases of the client not starting and changes to propulsion. Oh, and of course, nerf the CSPA.

The Overview. "OMGNERFCCPUSUCKBBQFISHSTICKS" or something of that sort has been said. The requirements are so wildly different since you had this evil customization of death in Castor, and obviously you feel gimped by us now. So we're accelerating the next version of the Overview, which should allow just the amount of customization you are looking for. We are splitting the displaying of different states into three groups, the bracket itself, the background and the flag (the small icon). You will be able to customize the coloring of states for each of these, so background can be used for standing/corp/alliance states, bracket for displaying war and outlaw and the flags for gangmates. Well, or not, since it's now up to you ;)

War cost bug is also associating us with beforementioned BBQFISHSTICKS in the case of Corporations declaring war on Alliances. As stated on the EXODUS feature page, the "same cost applies". In this case, the correct "same" is the same as an Alliance would pay if they declare war on a Corporation or another Alliance. The reason behind all this is that Alliances should wage war on Alliances. That's the most bang for the bucks (no pun intended). This works both ways of course. Alliances would prefer warring with Alliances. Alliances won't bother with individual Corporations most of the time due to the cost and individual Corporations can go to war with an Alliance if they want to, it's just has the same cost as if they they were an Alliance. Mercenaries can therefore join a warring Alliance if they want to have the Alliance pay those costs or declare war directly and then billing the contractor. In addition to this, we are looking at an "mutual war declaration" option, where neither party would pay for that war, but thats some way down the road (Yes, there are people that would like that).

Gang warp is also getting fixed so you don't bounce all your ships to hell and some of the time back again. We're also adding gang warp to the agent bookmarks. At the same time we have implemented some attempts at stemming the bounce-of-gates and such. It's not an obvious thing since it's deep down in the physics engine, but we're trying some tricks now so let us know what it did for you when it hits Tranquility.

Client not starting is a very big issue after the EXODUS expansion was released. We have a number of fixes lined up but there are more issues out there that we have to squish. There is a thread on the matter here regarding known issues and workaround which our team monitors, so if you encounter this, please share your experience there and maybe find the workaround for your problem there. Of late, rumours of the sound causing crashes are getting louder, so try disabling your sound as suggested in that thread and let us know if that works for you.

Whoa, the big one, propulsion changes. I better put three of my flame retardent suits on for this one. These are quite radical and something we weren't going to do until beginning of next year in a ship balance patch. We are accelerating the deployment schedule so you might see this out sooner than later. This change deserves a full blog and about 14000 forum posts all by itself but I figured I'd give you an early warning so we don't cause to much trauma.

The basic changes are that we will be boosting afterburners considerably in power, making them a far more useful module. However we are also limiting Afterburners to one module per ship, as has been done with microwarpdrives. The gain of the modules will be sufficient that you only need one on your ship. The surprise here? You can still fit oversized modules on your ship. Only one of course and it will not work as well as it does today, it will probably be more sluggish (it's oversized) and it won't be better than a proper size microwarpdrive. However it will be faster than a proper sized afterburner, it does not have the MWD penalties while of course gimping your ship setup.

Talking about MWD penalties. We're considering removing the shield penalty. It gimps shield tanking too much and since the MWD is now limited to one per ship, this is quite feasibile. (OMGNOITCANTBETRUECCPACTUALLYLIKECALDARI?). No, we don't. Amarr 4 teh win, but we figured we'd throw them a bone ;)

Changes to propulsion addresses a number of issues. The main factor being the use of oversized AB's and MWD/AB combo's which were getting out of line. 8000 m/s is not a practical combat speed. By being able to control this better, combat balancing can get back to normal where it doesn't have to take into account insane speeds and it allows us to do better propulsion modules down the line.

One of the reasons we are accelerating it is due to Deadspace. Deadspace prohibits use of warping and microwarpdrives and as such seriously does that BBQFISHSTICKS thing to short range tactics and fast movers. No, we won't enable MWD's in Deadspace, this is just the reason why we are accelerating the changes, not the reason for the changes. Not being able to kite past everything in Deadspace is essential for current Complexes and the features to come there.

More hard numbers and examples in it's own blog. Plead don't jump to conclusions. My mega was flying 400m/s with an single AB so it's not entirely bad. Indies will also go a bit faster. We will temporarily change Singularity so that all ships and modules will reflect the changes, so you only need to login and fit your ships with your setup to test them out.

Last but not least, we're refunding CSPA charges and changing the configurability of it. It's there because there are different fees for sending to public lists (such as NPC corps), but it got more configurability ... a bit to much perhaps? :)

Well, here's whats at the top of my mind besides the obvious lag issues and the 300 other registered bugs. I have not been able to be as visible as usually and the same goes for many of the other devs, buts thats because we're working on EXODUS. But rest assured, we're still here, fixing.