Further Structure Bashing in Cache

Asher got us together again for another structure, this time an Astrahus timer, the timer that TEST had set while we were out bashing that tower a couple days before.  Being a final timer that might see the structure destroyed, the thought was that the locals might form up and defend leading to a fight.  And if they didn’t fight… well.. structure kill mail.

We logged in, once again totaling less that 30 ships, swapped out our cloaks and formed up to travel to M-MCP8, where we sat on the P7-45V gate.  The latter is Vindictive’s staging, so we hoped to catch some people passing through.

On the gate, bubble up

We did catch a Fraternity Dominix on the gate, and a couple other minor target.  The Domi seemed like a good sign, that maybe Vindictive would be getting some support from their Winter Coalition allies, since they were not leaving the coalition until the end of the month.

They would need some help and somebody else we caught in our bubble was Seddow, the FC of the Legacy Coalition Loki fleet that mauled the Vindictive Machariel fleet while we were shooting that POS tower.  We were asked not to shoot him.

So it seemed like they would be coming back to finish off the Astrahus.  They set the timer, so why wouldn’t they?

Our eyes on the Vindictive staging Keepstar was reporting various activity and even a titan up and perhaps ready to bridge a defense fleet in on the Astrahus.  They had a couple of force recons, the only viable cyno ships these days, hanging about.  Asher even had us drop our mobile depots in safe spots in the system in case things went against us and we had to either reload drones from cargo or get our cloaks on and hide.

However, for all the activity, not much happened.  When the timer ran down on the Astrahus we started shooting it, waiting for something to drop.  But nothing did.  Instead, a gunner in the Astrahus took shots at us, neuted us, hit us with tracking disruptors, and generally tried to make our time hitting the structure as taxing as possible.

Another bomb from the Astrahus goes off

The gunner did manage to kill off some drones, something of an annoyance to a group with a long supply line back to Delve, but did not slow down the inevitable all that much.  Legacy showed up with their Lokis again as expected.

Legacy Lokis join the shoot

Then final outcome was determined, the Astrahus exploded.

Another Upwell structure destroyed

We scooped our mobile depots and formed back up.

Then it was over to P7-45V, where an Athanor was also in its final timer.  There was no defense put up there either, so another structure kill mail was shared between us and the Legacy Loki fleet.

Athanor brews up

After that it was back to our staging system and our safe spots, cloaks once again fitted and running, waiting for our safe log off timers to run down so we could leave space safely.  Another night in Cache.

The October Update Expands the Triglavian Invasion of New Eden

We are into October and it is time for another update to EVE Online.  Probably the biggest thing on the agenda for the patch is a new stage to the Triglavian invasion.

The Triglavian Menace Continues

There isn’t much in the way of details however, with the only line about it being:

The Triglavian Collective has been spotted deploying what appear to be system-altering structures across invaded locations.

What these structures are and how they may be altering systems remains to be discovered.  Let’s just hope that CCP can keep them out of the new player starter systems this time around.

There are also a new Triglavian implants with the mid-grade Mimesis set being introduced.  The low grade set came in with last month’s update.  These are available at LP store at DED stations.

CCP has modified the market so that players do not need to manually repackage items in order to list them on the market.  If a player attempts to list an item now it will be automatically repackaged.  Given that what can be listed on the market and the state it needs to be in (repaired and repackaged) has always been a bit of a pain, this is probably a good change.

The UI has been updated so that players can distinguish between the different cyno types that were introduced with the September update.

Another item from the September update that has seen some revision is the tutorial part of the new player experience.  Given that the recent CSM Summit Minutes indicated that CCP would be putting 80% of dev resources on new player retention, I suppose the only surprise here is that there were not more changes.

The tutorial got the following changes:

• Improvements made to the text Aura displays throughout the Tutorial.
• Added shortcuts to the Tutorial Instructions.
• Improved the flow for claiming rewards during the Tutorial.
• Removed the civilian mining laser from the starter corvettes (not other versions of the corvettes) to help new players.
• Improved the hiding behavior for the Aura Conversation window
• Updated the rewards to the tutorial to be ISK, modules, or ammunition.

In addition there was a wave of UI changes to various aspects of the game that very much feel like an attempt to make the UI less obstinate in the face of player needs.  Whether or not the notoriously balky interface that has seemed at times to almost resent telling you what you need to know can be improved enough to keep it from scaring off or scarring new players remains to be seen.  I have heard the phrase “lipstick on a pig” bandied about, but CCP isn’t done yet.

My own favorite item from the patch notes was a fix to a situation where mobile tractor units were causing scooped items to go missing:

Mobile Tractor Units would occasionally not eject their contents when being scooped from space, leading to the apparent loss of some items. (This was caused by the MTU being too greedy and scooping back up its own jet-can at the same time as a ship is picking up the MTU!) The auto-looter behavior will now shut down earlier during the scoop-to-ship process.

As I have been known to say, timing is everything.

There are, as always, lots of other small fixes and tweaks in the update.  You can find details in the patch notes  No updates page entry for this patch (so far).  Word is that the update has been deployed successfully.