EVE Online's anticipated Siege Green update has arrived, bearing a significant number of changes and improvements. Industrious capsuleers should find it easier to build many of the game's ships thanks to a reduction in material costs particularly for larger ship types like EVE Online's notoriously costly dreadnoughts.
Since entering the market back in 2003, EVE Online has been constantly updated and expanded upon over the years. Developed and published by Icelandic company CCP Games, the spacefaring sci-fi MMORPG regularly sees updates to its balance, visual quality, user interface, new player experience, and gameplay. EVE Online is almost entirely player-governed, with everything from resource harvesting to the manufacturing of entire fleets being undertaken by player-operated corporations, so any time an update affects the game's industry the impact is felt throughout EVE Online's universe.
Its latest update, entitled Siege Green, has a strong focus on rebalancing the shipbuilding industry among other things. Industry components used for manufacturing larger ships such as battleships, capitals, and supercapitals have had their costs and construction times reduced substantially, making these powerful ships more readily available. Aiming to make attack and defense more engaging, player-owned Upwell Structures are now significantly more vulnerable. This combination of quicker and cheaper ship construction plus more vulnerable structures should result in more frequent and interesting siege combat. Capsuleers particularly invested in the industry side of the game may want to break out the Excel spreadsheets and figure out their new production needs.
Besides the industry overhaul and structure changes, many other adjustments and fixes have been implemented. The UI has seen fixes in many areas such as misplaced tooltips and broken opacity. Visually, ship boosters should look better on low graphics settings and ship models now load faster, helping smooth the framerate when many ships are being loaded simultaneously. The game's intro movie should no longer stutter when it begins playing, a minor but welcome boost to the game's initial presentation. Additionally, capsuleers using the MacOS client now also have access to Skillplans.
With a massive amount of changes to manufacturing costs, the Siege Green update will likely have some serious implications for the game's player-operated economy. Miners, refiners, transporters, manufacturers, and pilots are all affected by adjustments to the industrial economy, and it may take some time for the full effects of the update to be realized. It's a good sign for EVE Online that CCP is still looking for ways to positively impact its players with each new update, whether it's economic tweaks or making large portions of the game free-to-play to entice a new generation of budding capsuleers.
EVE Online is available on PC.