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I like most of the changes in the devblog, but what concerns me most is the inflation ccp is promoting.

They nerfed bots and drone poo. Good changes but T1 stuff is very expensive now.
No change to Tech: T2 stuff if very expensive now.
Major incursion nerf and T1 loot drop nerf: It's a lot harder to earn isk.

Conclusion: it's a lot harder to earn isk and you cna buy less with the isk you do earn. For me personnaly this does not encourage me to pvp. When I grind isk I do it to pay for my pvp-ships. Grinding is not fun and should be kept to a minimum.

I like most of the changes to FW, but CCP are changing way too much stuff in a very short time.

Good direction you are going there with FW but be careful with coupling in industries! Was mentioned many times before but the Mech Engi topic can't be stressed enough.

T2 production is already crippled and dependent on uncontrollable resources. Every single T2 Items needs technetium in on way or the other. And there is not the slightest chance to get your hands on that stuff until you are in a large bloc.
If you now couple DCs to FW you should think about the demand problem first. Giving the Minmatar the Mech Engi DC as one and only supplier you give them an unfair advantage as the demand on those DCs is much higher than that of other DCs.

Doing so with the faction specific DCs is not a problem. If Amarr militia is weak, prices for laser DCs go up. If Caldari are on the loosing side Rails and Missiles will get more expensive. But if Minmatar get weak EVERY SINGEL T2 Ship and a lot of T2 Modules will get more expensive!
That's not only just a bit out of scale it is far away from balanced.

If you do race specific things than stick to the race specific stuff. Take a look at your invention tables. If Caldari encryption is needed for this item those DCs should be available in Caldari LP store. Same for the other races. Of course this will lead to market overlapping but that's not a toxin!
FW should have decent incomes so they can have there fun in killing each other. But they will have that income no matter if the other side can supply the same DCs. They already have the Benefit or Penalty of this 4 times higher or lower cost, respectively.

^^ This

Also you have take the cost of the skillbooks into account, some of them are expensive and it takes time to get that isk back. Datacores are not a very big income.

Not sure if it's been said yet, and I'll be damned if I'm reading 13 pages of emo posts on datacores to check.

The iHub LP buffer, if I'm reading that right it's only 50K LP, which means the enemy only needs to earn a total of 100,001 LP to knock off the level V. That is just 2x minors, 2x mediums, 2x majors.... REALLY!? All you'll have happening is people goto sleep, wake up and their iHub has no LP left in it because 1 guy with his alts decided to wipe it out.

We should at least be able to buffer it for 12hours worth of Outpost type spawns (they still 30mins after despawn or 1 hour now?)

I'd like to know if for Starship Engineering agents I have the choice of getting datacores for 150 RP now or 100 RP + 10k ISK later or if you will normalize the accumulated RPs in regards to multipliers come patch day.

Also to all people asking for skill reimbursements: HTFU! The research skills will work exactly the same afterwards.

A great blog, well presented information and I'm very glad you're going to iterate and keep a hand on the tiller, steering the good ship FW after deployment properly this time.

I've been around FW since the start and I'm quite excited by all these changes.

The best thing being the LP for PVP buff!

I do have a few questions and concerns though (much like everyone else):

1. System upgrades - Please give us a list of the upgrades possible, and roughly their order of value if it is 1-5. I'm all in favour of lower market taxes and more efficient manufacturing/research in lowsec.

2. Datacores - Please clarify if you are changing the existing method of collecting datacores from agents in various R&D corps more than just the multiplier and 10k base cost per datacore. Is FW a supplemental source of cores or will it be the sole source of cores after Inferno? Thanks. As other have mentioned, Mechanical Engineering is a rather tricky case putting them all in one militia LP store could end up in a bottleneck.

3. I have a concern about the upgrades applying neutrals. I appreciate the "get more people" doing industry in low sec is a good thing, but I am worried that major alliances and pirate groups will simply move in and have alts farm one system to fully upgraded so the pirate/large alliance that has nothing to do with 99% of FW can reap all the rewards.

4. System upgrades - Can you tell me what slots this creates, and if in a FW station with no research and manufacturing, you can now potentially upgrade it to have research and manufacturing? This would be awesome (but not unless you reserve some number of slots for FW characters only).

5. Non station FW systems - We need more reasons to upgrade these systems other just than some overall war 'tide' effect. Please consider a POS fuel reduction, cyno-jammers and perhaps some harvestable resource upgrade like booster gas clouds spawning there or something to add some 'life' and consequences to these systems too.

6. Please consider adding Mindlink Implants to FW LP stores. This would fit in quite well racially (even though being Gallente we'd get the crappiest one ). Potentially you could get Outer Ring Excavation loosely in on FW at some later date for the mining mindlink which would be rather cool.

7. Plexes - Are you looking at changing any Plex mechanics? Specifically the gated predictable warp in point makes defending a plex much easier once you're in and set up.

8. NPCs - Are you rebalancing the NPCs of the different factions in plexes and missions with these changes?

9. Missions - While missions have been over-farmed in the past, please balance the time required to do these against plexing carefully. One solution to missions not "contributing" to the war would be to make missions perhaps count some small amount to reducing that systems LP control amount.


All in all some fantastic changes and you're making FW much more dynamic, fun and have real consequences. I'm looking forward to how all this pans out. Cheers.

Ok, you start by saying people will join the winning faction. Fine.
But then you say joining that winning faction restricts the targets you have. Plus any rewards are shared between a lot more people.
Surely they cancel each other out, to some degree?

Also, the more systems a faction controls, the more spread out the defenders will be (even if there are more). So taking systems back should be that bit easier.

No-one knows exactly what will happen. But that's the fun part.

You know how they are making DUST 514 "Eve-like" by having ways to modify your build on the fly? Well, the lockout takes all that away for the back systems. The defenders won't be spread out. They just have to be close to where their opponents can dock.

Something else: It was pretty cool the way CCP didn't have the warzones set up like a sports field. They were unbalanced from the start. Correct me if wrong, but isn't there quite a few more Minmatar sov systems than Amarr (not talking about occupancy, actual empire sov)? The Cal-Gal warzone is fairly even in regards to current empire sov, so much larger that a few systems difference doesn't matter percentage wise.

However, both the Minmatr and Gallente enjoy a lot more tactical hi sec entry points into their enemy's sov. If there were consequences from the start, I doubt the warzones would look the way they do. Which is why it amazes me they aren't adding an Amarr warzone constellation, putting in 1-2 more station in empty systems near Tama, and other things that would make the warzones better for what they are about to implement.

6. Ha! Dream on for the mining mindlink. That would be too much of an advantage. But I do like the idea for the combat mindlinks. Gallente would most likely end up with the info link. Suck it!

7. The plexes are untouched on SiSi. Thrasher takes down initial mob, orbits at 500, might as well be defensive plexing from then on.

8. Haven't seen a rebalancing. I may run a mission tonight but since the LP for the missions weren't changed last I checked, I doubt its been touched.

But yeah, I am also for a revamping of the npc's.

For everyone that's talking about changing sides:

You do know you have to have a positive standing with the faction to join their side for FW?

And doing FW plexes involves killing the opposing side's ships. Thus tanking your standing with them?

Changing side once you've been playing a while isn't as easy as you might think.