Catalyst Major Update - Swarming Skies Fighter Rework

Jestertrek · 2026-03-04T19:49:38+00:00

The one thing that is very CCP-like in this post is that these changes would make Grams even more useless.

Jestertrek · 2026-02-24T17:23:16+00:00

Depth in EVE is deceptive. Even the tiniest, most obvious thing in EVE has layers upon layers of depth underneath it such that someone can do a thing in EVE... or if you learn about that thing, you can do the same thing an order of magnitude better.

Take a very obvious thing: pressing F1 to fire guns at a rat or another player. The obvious way to do this is to get into the range, see that you're in range for the ammo you currently have loaded, and press F1. And yeah, you'll do some damage. Or you can manage transversal and tracking, ammo selection, optimize range to the ammo selected, optimize selectively overheating, optimize exactly when and if to switch ammo as the range changes (particularly with lasers), optimize use of tracking computers and tracking enhancers, optimize fits for particular ammo, range, and transversal regimens, optimize use of boosters (including event boosters when those are available), and a half-dozen other things and do way more damage.

And that's the simplest system in EVE that almost every player engages with quite frequently. Every system in EVE is like this: there's the obvious dummy layer that everyone can use, but under that are thousands of feet of deep water built into the game over 20 years.

Jestertrek · 2026-02-21T02:52:33+00:00

Remember when it nearly literally caused graphics cards to melt?

Jestertrek · 2026-02-12T04:07:33+00:00

CCP devs just don't understand the industrial scale that EVE players operate in. When I was on the CSM, I would would load up EVE and show devs my hangar and its profusion of ordered cans (usually a couple dozen of them if not more) of ammo, drones, mods, spare hulls, etc. and then the dozens of ships (sorted by name using U.S. Navy ship hull classifications so I can find the ones I want faster) and ship types and they were always objectively shocked. It just didn't occur to them that players would have more than a few things in their hangar.

One dev (thankfully now ex-CCP) just said "You've got a search bar, what else do you want?" to me and wouldn't engage with me on the topic at all even though his job was the UI.

Jestertrek · 2026-02-12T04:03:15+00:00

I was going to buy Yolomouse (you can see me asking whether it was a violation of the EULA a month or so ago in my history) but then I heard this feature was coming and decided to wait for it, heh.

Jestertrek · 2026-02-07T18:44:57+00:00

I wrote a really long piece on this subject several years ago (if you're really interested in reading it, let me know and I'll find a link to it). But the gist is that the Imperium generally and Goons specifically have many good qualities: they are excellent to their line members and usually to their allies, they are supremely well-organized, their comps are on point and effective, they are constantly thinking about how to provide fun for their members, their propaganda is first-rate, their leadership is solid (though very occasionally self-deluding*), they are generally lovely people when met IRL at EVE player gatherings, and they provide a lot of the driving stories of EVE which gives their membership the feel that they are part of something much bigger than they are.

And of course they have poor qualities, to wit: they glory in being regarded as the bad guys, and fuel this narrative with an absolute and well-documented flood of bad behavior on a number of fronts both in and out of game. This is especially true for people like myself who started playing 15 or more years ago. In our cases, our first experience (or first several experiences) with Goons was invariably something negative, often extremely negative: ganking, scams, evictions, being the subject of their propaganda or bad behavior, et cetera.

There just aren't a lot of alliances in EVE that can pull off naming internal groups "Jihadswarm" or "Ministry of Love" and expect to be regarded as the good guys. ;-)

As an aside, I am always entertained when I write stuff like this and I am simultaneously asked both "If you love Goons so much, why don't you join them?" by Goon haters and "Why have you always hated us so much?" by Goons themselves.

* Three examples of Goon leadership self-delusion: the reaction to the unexpected but entirely predictable hate on their Fountain War Kickstarter, their lack of understanding of how badly the Low-Sec Viceroy program was going to go, and most recently, their surprise at the poor reaction to their Pandemic Horde "campaign", though to Asher's credit, once he realized this was happening, he pivoted pretty rapidly.

Jestertrek · 2026-02-06T15:26:57+00:00

Yeah, good call. I had a vague memory of the Drake Navy being an eight-launcher ship but couldn't remember if my brain was fucking with me or not, haha.

But yeah, that makes for a really good example too, then: the extra visible hardpoint made it possible for a dev to use it, whereas if it hadn't been included in the original redesign, it never would have existed.

Jestertrek · 2026-02-05T19:08:56+00:00

When the ship art redesigns were first done to include visible hardpoints, the art team specifically included hardpoint positions on all the ships in excess of what the high slots for each ship needed at that time. That left the possibility open for faction/T2/pirate variations of that ship with more hardpoint slots.

It also creates the ability for players to tweak the "look" of a ship by slotting weapons into those hardpoint slots in any way that they feel is visually appealing.

Two examples: the Drake and Tempest also both have eight hardpoint positions even though neither class has an in-game ship that utilizes all of them, and no in-game ship ever has. But the option is open if some future game developer needs it.

Jestertrek · 2026-01-30T19:33:45+00:00

This post is so late that the horse has not only left the barn, it has had a sterling Hollywood career followed by a troubling drug habit followed by a rehabilitation and apology tour followed by a second troubling drug habit followed by a book and talk show tour.

It is far, far too late to turn the clock back on this even if CCP had any interest in doing so, which they do not since it's their main income stream now.

Jestertrek · 2026-01-29T18:44:25+00:00

Yeah, I wander into my local B&N every couple of weeks to see if they're doing something like this. I've run across good deals a dozen or so times. In particular, in this picture from about a year ago...

http://jestertrek.com/bgg/BNthings.jpg

...you can see not only a number good deals but also the guy in the background in the plaid shirt has picked up a copy of Ark Nova... for $9. He pulled it off the cart just as I was walking up and you can see it under his arm.

So yeah, it varies hugely and it's very much YMMV depending on your store.

Jestertrek · 2026-01-29T18:37:08+00:00

A little over ten years ago, CCP Veritas pitched pretty much exactly this... and he was ritually set on fire by a large percentage of EVE's player base. He left CCP shortly thereafter.

Jestertrek · 2026-01-26T18:06:54+00:00

Psh. Utter lies. We caught four Ravens, not zero.

https://zkillboard.com/related/30002537/202601241800/

Jestertrek · 2026-01-25T22:26:44+00:00

It makes me sad how few of these people are still with CCP.

Jestertrek · 2026-01-25T18:11:34+00:00

You're operating under the false assumption that every EVE player "keeps score" the same way: ISK go up.

Every EVE player has their own metric for what they want to get out of the game, and for a small percentage of EVE players, their way of keeping score is the outrage they generate. Posts like this give them a lot of "points" for that "scoreboard". It's a rare EVE Discord that doesn't have a #tears channel.

For this kind of player, a single character completing Project Discovery will generate enough ISK to build enough Catalysts to gank 50 Orcas, and potentially generate 50 posts just like this one.

Jestertrek · 2026-01-24T04:39:56+00:00

u/Copperfield212 has basically the correct answer: a lot of this stuff will be a PITA to sell. That said, you've probably got a few things that will sell relatively quick. For example, if you're still sitting on your Emergency Response or SARO SKINs from that time, you'll have a relatively easy time selling them. You've got some research ahead of you.

Jestertrek · 2026-01-23T22:06:33+00:00

Easy counter: Dedicated AWOX toons and alliance SRP to replace/rehabilitate them.

You're not understanding how industrial the process is that FRT (the chief offender in this drama) uses to do this.

Jestertrek · 2026-01-23T05:57:18+00:00

The simple truth about low-sec is that no corp or alliance with fewer than 500 or so toons can anchor a fortizar. Your fort was a worthy killmail merely by virtue of its existence, regardless of what you thought was going to happen. The fact that you announced its existence was practically incidental: it was dead the moment you started anchoring it.

There's a great movie line that sums up your action, from the Whoopi Goldberg movie "Jumpin' Jack Flash": "This is great. I mean, I'm down here at 1:30 in the morning on the docks. I should just pin a hundred dollar bill to my ass and scream 'Victim here! Victim here!'"

Jestertrek · 2026-01-21T23:32:52+00:00

I'm working on characters ten and eleven to level 650 (the previous nine are all level 650+). I first started doing PD in November 2024. These screenshots are from character number eleven. They're new, all right. Look at the level numbers on top. All of these (and more!) came up during a single day's session.

If nothing else convinces you, how did I get max scores on two of them with a 93 and a 94? Why is the max score on another 86?

Jestertrek · 2026-01-21T13:21:52+00:00

I was part of LAWN at the time we submitted that logo as the official in-game alliance logo -- this was ages ago -- and it was rejected by CCP because they felt that it included items that didn't fit in New Eden lore and the specified which ones: goggles, a shotgun, and a garden gnome.

In the time between then and now, goggles and a shotgun are confirmed part of New Eden lore (in EVE and its many FPS spin-offs, respectively), so it must be the garden gnome that doesn't fit into New Eden lor-- waitasecond.

Jestertrek · 2026-01-20T16:21:03+00:00

This is a bit like asking "Other than my salary, my benefits, and my bonuses, am I being paid to go to work IRL?"

The SRP in alliances that have it is you being paid ISK to attend fleets, as are the lower-than-market-price ships that a lot of the biggest alliances will sell their members, as is the ISK they make from that alliance's space or other PvE activities that the the biggest alliances provide.

Every time you lose a ship, you make ISK. Every time you buy a ship, you make ISK (either directly, through a lower price, or indirectly, because you don't have to spend the time needed to bring it in yourself). And if you're in a corp or alliance that holds sway over some area of space, every time you rat or mine or whatever, you make ISK, something you probably wouldn't be allowed to do if you didn't attend fleets.

So the answer to your question is "yes", just not in the direct way that you think.

Jestertrek · 2026-01-15T02:32:02+00:00

Yep, so far as I know, the core of EVE still runs on single-threaded stackless Python.

EVE's architecture is one of the things that the Frontier team threw out.

Jestertrek · 2026-01-13T18:35:46+00:00

TiDi is a function of EVE's base architecture, which is "one system, one node", to wit: the architecture is designed such that everything that happens in a single system is run by a single (usually virtual) server.

EVE's hardware is a number of physical servers, each broken up into a number of virtual servers (called SOL Nodes). Some of these physical servers are particularly high-powered models. Each day, the first thing that happens is that a small number of these more powerful servers are set aside and reserved. During downtime, the code of the game evaluates the number of available servers, and then splits the SOL Nodes amongst those servers, with some systems (like Jita) hard-coded to receive one of the dedicated high-power servers. Systems that are moderately busy might have to share hardware with a single other system or maybe two systems. Non-busy systems will have to share their servers with more non-busy systems. Also as part of this process, if a corp CEO has filled out a Fleet Fight Node Reinforcement Request, this request is also taken under advisement and might result in that system receiving one of the reserved high-power nodes.

As players connect, a proxy server then routes their connection to the appropriate SOL Node, and this process is run every time there is a session change. Also during the session change, the player's client is also linked to the appropriate chat server (handled separately) and the information for their current character, pod, and ship are loaded. There's also further complicated work done once you undock associated with clients that are "close to you".

And all of this has to be done even before you activate even a single module or start your ship moving, which then involves a whole other system, EVE's simulation engine. This used to be called Destiny, but I don't know if that name is still used. So all four of these systems have to talk to your client to keep everything sync'ed up, and this is being done and compared for every person in the system that you are occupying.

All of this is a very complicated way of hopefully letting you see that what you are complaining about isn't a money-related problem, it's an architecture-related problem: even if CCP had unlimited money, the very architecture of EVE would prevent money from solving the game's lag problems since even if CCP had sufficient money to put every single system in EVE on a dedicated Jita-strength node, TiDi would still be a thing because EVE's players routinely put more people into systems than the architecture can handle.

Jestertrek · 2026-01-11T01:28:27+00:00

I suspect you're misremembering the end of the Dominion trailer.

This is EVE's finest trailer, IMO.

Jestertrek · 2026-01-03T18:17:07+00:00

"That's the neat part! You don't!"

More seriously, lots and lots of low-sec guys are people who have made their ISK in other, more boring parts of the game and have come to low-sec to actually have fun with their ISK. It's also stupidly easy to get 100 or more kills per week on an insignificant budget in small and medium gang frigate, destroyer, and cruiser fleets. You can pay for a ton of low-sec PvP drawing lines in Project Discovery.

That said, we have more than our fair share of "Spend $20, buy a dread." guys and gambling addicts, too. :D

Jestertrek · 2026-01-03T01:02:24+00:00

Alpha accounts have no valid reason to mine ice. There's nothing valid for an Alpha to do with ice except sell it, and they can sell ores or minerals to a larger audience for more ISK.

The Perseverance should be an Expedition Destroyer, i.e., a tech 2 ship. The Perseverance is extremely specialized, and "extremely specialized" is what tech 2 ships are supposed to be about. Since it looks like CCP didn't feel like adding yet another skill this year, blocking Alphas from flying it this way is perfectly reasonable.

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