A Rift in Spacetime Opens - A Glimpse into One Possible Future for Asteroid Belts

that we were considering moving asteroid belts to our content development system. The reason for this is primarily our Need For Speed initiative . Currently we track each and every celestial belt asteroid on Tranquility. We have database procedures which regrow and replace them when they are mined, all lovingly cared for by CCP Prism X who can talk in much more detail about the technical aspect of asteroid belt seeding than we in Game Design can. By changing asteroid belts to spawn only when someone warps to them, we save many unneeded database calls and every little bit helps in the Need For Speed initiative153.


A Catalyst for Change?
This Need For Speed optimization has presented us with a window of opportunity to overhaul asteroids and mining itself. Migrating this to our content authoring system is no small feat but in the process of doing so we have an opportunity here to add a lot of interesting and new depth to mining and ore distribution and it is this idea which we want to focus on in this blog.


New Ores!
Currently each asteroid ore has three variants with two giving +5% or +10% yields in minerals. The idea is to simply add more varieties of ore. These could be super-rich, ultra-high density asteroids which yield a large amount of potential minerals but also require specialist equipment and skills to mine safely and reprocess. Being super rare and difficult to find, they might lie in dangerous and difficult to navigate nebulae surrounded by explosive gas pockets or other dangerous stellar phenomena.

On the other side of the coin, you might spend hours looking for that elusive nugget but end up with Fool's Crokite, a badly formed or damaged asteroid with a very low yield of recoverable ore. You may have never properly examined the ore sample first or did not have the proper skills or knowledge to find the mineral rich belts. Or perhaps you tried to reprocess at the wrong facility with inadequate recovery processes to extract the volatile minerals.

There is a huge potential here to add more varieties or quantities of ore with different higher variance yields, different required skills and advanced modules or reprocessing facilities to also allow further specialization for miners who dare to devote their time to extracting the most precious of all ores in the most hazardous of environments.

It is this first step for now where we would like your own input and ideas on what ores you would like to see and what minerals they might contain. What skills or modules they might require to mine them and the environments in which they exist.

It does not matter how extreme your idea is either. Whether it is Rift asteroids which exist phased in small spatial distortion pockets that are invisible to normal sensors and vaporize on contact with normal matter in New Eden or a simple new variety of veldspar which yields more tritanium and is found in the fringes of New Eden. All ideas are welcome at this stage!


Asteroid Belts are not Just about the Ores
The idea of changing asteroids belts to not only have new ores but also be distributed in a new system brings with it many other questions that will need answered in time. Asteroid belts are the lifeblood of Eve and of vital importance to us all. Where they are, what is in them and who controls them are factors we all need to know and will be answered in time as this project progresses and is refined and morphed into a form that you may one day see on Tranquility.

For now, we want to speculate with you over the possibility of new ores in eve and assume that nothing else changes in this possible future other than what new ores may lay at asteroid belts and how the miners amongst you go about extracting them in this dangerous and dark possible future of New Eden.

Ave - Chronotis
Source: myeve.eve-online.com

Did you participate in the last Buddy Raffle?
Did you participate in the Buddy Program? You might be one of our lucky winners but you don't even know it! The last Buddy Raffle prizes were:

1st prize: Nvidia 7900 GTX graphic cards.
2nd prize: 4 EVE t-shirts with different logos.
3rd prize: EVE glass mug and beer mug.
And the special was a 30 day subscription time to 10 additional winners.

We have contacted the 1st prize winner and the 10 additional winners will recieve their days added either today or tomorrow. However, we have not heard from the 2nd and 3rd prize winners so if you participated in the last Buddy Raffle, check your email now to see if you're one of the lucky winners!

If you didn't win you don't have to be sad, the Buddy Program continues and if you get some friends to sign up in July you'll be in the running for these awesome prizes:

1st prize: CCG - Day of Darkness Starter Kit
CCG - The Great War Starter Kit
CCG - EVE: The Second Genesis Booster Packs x3.
2nd prize: Poster "Avatar" - Amarr Empire Titan.
3rd prize: 50 day subscription time.
Source: myeve.eve-online.com

Space Junk - Dev blog
New Dev Blog, Prism X and the Space Junk
Source: evevault.ign.com
http://www.eveonlinenews.com/