Greetings honorable spaceship gladiators. Today, we’ve got some details on what you’ll be fighting to claim in Alliance Tournament XIII later this year.
For those of you just tuning in or new to the game, The Alliance Tournament is an annual competition in which alliances pit their best members in a grand contest to see who the masters of spaceship combat really are. Alliances will spend months honing their skills to give themselves the slightest edge in this grueling competition that is played out over three weeks. Some of the most memorable moments in EVE’s history can be found in the Alliance Tournament, with priceless ships being torn apart and turned to ashes, great dynasties falling to an unexpected newcomer, and long standing feuds between rivals played out in nail-biting matches that leave everyone holding their breath right up to the last moment. Any alliance that manages to win this prestigious event will find themselves showered in fame and fortune, rightly respected by all citizens of New Eden.
This year, Alliance Tournament XIII will be held from the 15th of August over three weekends, culminating in the finals on the 30th of August. You’ll be able to watch the action from weekends two and three live on CCP’s twitch.tv channel with our panel of expert commentators. If you’re interested in participating, signups are still open until June 8th so you better get in quickly. For more details on how to sign up, please see this dev blog.
The Blood Soaked Riches
With Alliance Tournament XII, we introduced a new prize structure that had several goals:
- To provide strong and unique rewards that match the epic levels of passion, training and mastery displayed by our competitors
- To ensure that teams feel they have a good chance of being rewarded if they put in the effort to field a competitive team
- To reward the entire alliances behind each team, since in the Alliance Tournament there are often hundreds of players providing support for each team member that you see flying in the matches
As this structure found great success, we’ll be using it again this year. As for the actual prizes, here’s what you’ll be fighting to claim this year:
The Alliance Tournament Cup
The Alliance Tournament Cup is an ingame inventory item of which only one copy may ever exist. Every year we edit the description of the item to reflect the complete list of former tournament winners and move the item to the possession of the most recent winners.
The Alliance Tournament Cup was given to The Camel Empire alliance after their victory in the most recent Alliance Tournament XII, and after the conclusion of Alliance Tournament XIII it will be taken from wherever it resides at that time and given to the ATXIII champions.
Alliance Tournament Medals
In previous tournaments, we have given ingame Alliance Tournament Medal inventory items for the teams that places first, second and third in the tournament. The number of medals granted was the same number as the maximum pilots that could be fielded in that tournament. We will be continuing to do this for Alliance Tournament XIII.
However, like Alliance Tournament XII, we will also be giving out medals to every character that was a member of the participating alliances on the first day of the tournament. These will appear on the character sheet, exactly like a medal awarded by a corporation. There will be medals for Tournament Competitor, Top 32, Top 16, Top 8, 4th, 3rd, 2nd, and 1st. Each character will receive only the highest medal that their alliance earned.
Remember, the medals will only be granted to characters in a participating alliance on the first day of the tournament (August 15th)
PLEX
As with previous Alliance Tournaments, we will be distributing the PLEX collected as entry fees as prizes in the tournament.
This year, the PLEX will be awarded as follows:
- Teams that place between 17th and 32nd will receive 5 PLEX
- Teams that place in the top 16 will receive 15 PLEX
Alliance Tournament Prize Ships
Ever since the 7th Alliance Tournament, the main prizes each year have been a set of special edition frigates and cruisers, with unmatched combat prowess. Only 50 of each type of frigate or cruiser are given each tournament.
As with Alliance Tournament XII, this year we will be distributing the special edition prize ships to the top 4 teams, with each team receiving an equal number of cruisers and frigates.
- 1st place: 25 Cruisers and 25 Frigates
- 2nd place: 15 Cruisers and 15 Frigates
- 3rd place: 7 Cruisers and 7 Frigates
- 4th place: 3 Cruisers and 3 Frigates
This year, the ships on offer from the Independent Gaming Commission (IGC) are based on Sansha ships. Skilled pilots are sure to be able to use the strengths of these ships to impale and destroy their enemies. The preliminary ship stats are as follows (and may be subject to change):
IMP
Amarr Frigate Bonuses:
7.5% bonus to Small Energy Turret tracking speed per level
Caldari Frigate Bonuses:
20% bonus to Afterburner velocity bonus per level
Interceptors Bonus:
5% bonus to Warp Scrambler and Disruptor range per level
15% reduction in Microwarpdrive signature radius penalty per level
Role Bonus:
150% bonus to Small Energy Turret damage
80% reduction in propulsion jamming systems activation cost
Immunity to non-targeted interdiction
Slot layout: 3H, 4M, 4L; 2 turrets
3 Rig Slots, 400 Calibration
Fittings: 50 PWG, 180 CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 700 / 500 / 500
Base shield resistances (EM/Therm/Kin/Exp): 0 / 30 / 40 / 50
Base armor resistances (EM/Therm/Kin/Exp): 50 / 55 / 25 / 10
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / average cap per second) : 450 / 210 / 2.14
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / warp speed / align time): 450 / 3.5 / 1,000,000 / 8 / 4.85s
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 0 / 0
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 40km / 800 / 6
Sensor strength: 15 Radar
Signature radius: 35
Cargo capacity: 150
FIEND
Amarr Cruiser Bonuses:
7.5% bonus to Medium Energy Turret tracking speed per level
Caldari Cruiser Bonuses:
20% bonus to Afterburner velocity bonus per level
Heavy Interdiction Cruiser Bonuses:
5% bonus to Warp Disruption Field Generator scramble range per level
Role Bonus:
150% bonus to Medium Energy Turret damage
Can fit Warp Disruption Field Generator
20% bonus to all shield resistances
Unaffected by Warp Disruption Field Generator mass & speed effects
Slot layout: 5 H, 6 M, 4 L, 3 turrets
3 Rig Slots, 400 Calibration
Fittings: 900 PWG, 450 CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 2800 / 1600 / 1600
Base shield resistances (EM/Therm/Kin/Exp): 0 / 80 / 70 / 50
Base armor resistances (EM/Therm/Kin/Exp): 50 / 86.2 / 62.5 / 10
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / average cap per second): 1800 / 450s / 4
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / warp speed / align time): 240 / 6.0 / 10,000,000 / 3.3 / 8.32s
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 0 / 0
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 80km / 250 / 7
Sensor strength: 24 Radar
Signature radius: 120
Cargo capacity: 450
Alliance Tournament Edition Nightmare Ship SKIN
As with Alliance Tournament XII, we will be offering a ship SKIN that can be applied to the Nightmare pirate battleships to give them a similar visual style to the Imp and Fiend.
We will be awarding 10 copies of this SKIN for each series won by a team. This includes the single match series that make up the bulk of the tournament. This should provide an additional incentive to try and win every match you can. Again like last year, these skins will be handed out later than the rest of the prizes at a yet to be determined date.
Rule Updates
We have made an update to the points cost of Battlecruisers and Navy Battlecruisers. Both now cost one point more at 12 and 13 points respectively. Both the Rules blog and the rules page have been updated accordingly.
Proving Grounds
Due to the changes in the Sovereignty release schedule, Duality will not be available for teams to practice on until the Sovereignty features have been released as it will be needed for feature testing. We will however provide support where we can to teams that wish to practice on Singularity, such as spawning the arena beacons in systems. This feature testing also means that the hardware that Duality is running on will be upgraded, so teams will find practicing on Duality a much better experience.
With prizes like these on the line, we’re looking forward to the clash between teams as they fight to take the blood soaked riches on offer. As always, if you have questions, feel free to head on over to the Alliance Tournament Forum. And remember, signups are still open until June 8th so if you’re thinking about participating, make sure you get in as soon as you can.
On behalf of the Tournament Team