According to a recent dev Post by CCP RedDawn, Eve’s exploration aspect will soon be seeing some tweaks and changes. The focus of the changes will mainly be targeting the mechanics of Data Sites. The changes proposed are intended to help re-balance the Data Sites and make them more useful and profitable for players. To me, many of these changes are a swing of the nerf bat at Relic Sites. While Relic sites still have unique loot, much more focus will be placed on Data Sites for day-to-day operations. Could this be a sign of a much larger change to Relic and Data Sites for the final phase of SOV changes? Perhaps a new form of mechanic for income generation that would crive conflict?
Quoting from the dev blog by CCP RedDawn, the following changes will be seen in a not-to-distant release:
- Removed all skill books from Relic sites and placed them into Data sites. (Includes Encryption books)
- Removed the more commonly dropped ‘non rig-related’ blueprints from all the Relic sites. (They will still drop in Data sites)
- Introduced all Cosmos site building materials to all 4 tiers of Data sites. (Info Shard, Com Tower, Mainframe and Databank)
- Introduced the higher tiered (higher value) Cosmos site building materials to all class wormhole Data sites. (C1 to C6)
- Increased the drop frequency of the Cosmos sites items that are currently on the Data site loot tables.
- All exploration Ghost Sites now require the use of the Data Analyzer module.
- Halved the drop amount of the most commonly used building materials found in all data sites. (EG: Positron Cords, Electric Conduits etc)
- All Ghost sites are now Cosmic Signatures rather than Anomalies.
CCP RedDawn also added that “Relic sites still have all their unique loot, all I’ve done is removed their less valuable drops which also already currently drop in Data sites.”
There have been very few changes to the Ghost Sites since they were introduced in the Rubicon expansion.
A question in the thread asking about the possibility of environmental hazards, or defenders being triggered by failed hacking/analyzing attempts yielded an interesting response from CCP RedDawn, who stated that he was “all for changes like this, that increase the demand on player ability and potentially harm them if mistakes are made.” He went on to say that “An alarm based Defensive Subsystem inside the hacking UI was one of the initial goals that had to be dropped due to time constraints, but it’s something I would like to see revisited in the future. A relic based alternative is something I would like to do in tandem with that change.”
