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CCP and EVE need help testing the new networking layer

April 28, 2008, 8:00 am
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When flying through space in EVE Online, without a care in the world, things can often go wrong rather quickly. For example, when jumping through a stargate on the way home from a successful trading expedition, the game decides to freeze. The stargate then disappears, the UI becomes completely useless, and the only thing on the screen are twinkling stars. What happened here? A massive battle between alliances just took place and the node decided to choke. This means lag, waiting, re-logging, and the never ending cycle of keyboard smashing. Oh what a wonderful world it would be if this did not happen.

Well, with the next Trinity patch, a new networking layer that may ease the suffering of cosmic travelers is being tested. EVE and CCP are requesting some extra players, about 200 or so, to help test the networking layer on singularity. You only need to log in between 1830 GMT and 2100 GMT on the 29th of April to participate in the test. Sound easy? Well it is just that simple. CCP will have a channel devoted to test results and updates throughout the testing period. Hopefully, if successful, we can all avoid the lag when corporations decide to crush one another or when you make that evil trip into Jita. In order to make sure your ship does not implode when you try to log in, be sure to check out the singularity installation and FAQ page to be ready to test and make the universe a better place.

MassivelyCCP and EVE need help testing the new networking layer originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Download details for EVE Online's Trinity expansion

October 16, 2007, 3:02 pm
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It's time to make sure you got room on your hard drive as CCP Games
is planning on dumping incremental bits to help ease Trinity's digital distribution, which is being estimated to be over 1 gigabyte in size. Trinity is the next expansion in the EVE Online universe that will be free-to-download and features an ultra new shiny graphics engine and numerous updates to the cosmic battlefield in the form of combat advancements; New Tech II ships; hundreds of missions; and metric tons more.

CCP developer, 2kay has posted a slew of details on how this distribution will work and the need for a separate client that utilizes the improved graphics engine to its full potential. It is important to note in order to use the new graphical content players will need a graphics card that supports Shader Model 3, a format newer graphic cards already do. To help determine if your card supports this technology CCP put together an application to help players check, available here. Another alternative is to check in the device manager under display adapters or if you already know your video card make and model, do an internet search to make sure it has SM3 capability, it only takes a few minutes so get off your butt and do it before it's too late. If your graphics card does not support this technology you will still be able to play via the classic client and the patcher will not force you to install the higher end client.

The new graphics look absolutely breath-taking, sadly I'm running antiquated video technology so I'll be upgrading shortly after Trinity launches. Crazy Kinuk is a screen capping maniac and has over a thousand Eve screenshots available for your viewing pleasure on his blog -- be sure check out his flickr for some comparisons of old and new ship graphics as pictured. I drooled.
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EVE Online: Trinity's Tech II ships and works revealed

October 26, 2007, 4:00 am
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CCP Games has unpackaged all the rowdy details on the new Tech II pew-pew ships that will launch with EVE Online: Trinity, the upcoming expansion due out later this year. I must... remain... calm.... Screw it, new ships! Look, new ships! Before the hardcore EVE hot-shot pilots interrupt my spastic outbreak with a target lock; these ships are advanced versions from their Tech I counterparts. Only brand-spanking new ship classes get the distinct honor that warrants a new design. There, I hope you're all happy.

The four Tech II class combat ships declassified fall into: Electronic Attack Ships, Heavy Interdictors, Black Ops, and Marauders. Buckle-in, the ships are available for crash testing on Singularity for a limited time only. The current Tech II ship models are not the final models, those will be implemented once the graphic update rolls out. The final ship models will use current Tech I hulls but with different textures and shaders. Onto the details -- incoming Tech II ship data transmission after the jump:
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EVE Online Trinity II ship comparisons

October 31, 2007, 3:00 pm
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CrazyKinux has a bee-yoo-tiful split-screen look up at four EVE Online ships, before and after the upcoming Trinity II graphical update. The video is actually a little old (it's being passed around by the devs at various conventions and on the EVE Affiliate program), but it's definitely worth a watch if you haven't seen it before-- EVE is already a good looking game, and it's about to get more, um, good-looking-er.

Everything just looks slicker, more reflective, and better defined. I think my favorite is the Prophecy, but I can't wait to see how my ships (I'm still a noob-- riding in an Exequror and an Iteron right now, but working on moving to an Osprey and a much bigger hauler) look after the update. Here's some more new shots-- Trinity II can't come fast enough.
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Trinity to be released first week of December

November 5, 2007, 4:40 pm
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We got an official release date for EVE Online's next expansion, Trinity, at the FanFest over the weekend. If you're an EVE player, make sure to leave the first week of December open, because that's when you'll be playing with all the cool new ships and updates in Trinity. Of course, the fun starts tomorrow, when Revelations.2.3 arrives, but in just a month from now, we'll have access to Trinity (the new name of what used to be Revelations 3).

GamesIndustry also has an interview up with CCP CEO Hilmar Petursson, who tells them that the old graphic engine isn't actually going anywhere-- players will be able to switch from old to new via the configuration screen ingame. There's also a new ingame concurrency record-- it's a whopping 37,200 players all in one game (I think all of them were in Jita yesterday afternoon, because it was horrible there). Petursson also gives feedback on CCP's decision to hire a real-life economist to help them with the player-driven economy-- apparently "he's validated some of our assumptions, but he's also shattered a lot too." Man, I'd love to sit in on a few of those meetings.

Mark your calendars: Trinity is coming the first week of December. And unless you change that setting, EVE will never look the same.
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The ultimate EVE Online Fan Fest 2007 wrap-up link post

November 7, 2007, 5:00 pm
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The EVE Fan Fest held in Reykjavik, Iceland ended days ago, and aside from some poor schlep blogging about his nipples freezing off there wasn't much information to "reblog" early-on since everyone was partaking in the Icelandic imbibing culture. I'm disappointed, I wasn't getting drunk off my ass at the EVE Fan Fest, none of us from Massively were able to attend, and provide up-to-the day reports on the various round-tables and panels, but now that the jet-lagged reporters and citizen journalists have returned back to their abodes across various ponds, how about a link-mmorgy to make up for it. Don't forget to bring your own toga, capsule, and most importantly, your own booze because I'm not sharing.

Last Updated: (11/16/07 3PM PST) EVE Trinity teaser video after the break! Several more links added!
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WarCry's "War on the Impossible" part 4 details EVE's Trinity expansion

November 13, 2007, 7:15 am
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The folks at CCP are nothing if not ambitious. They're more willing to take risks and try new things with EVE Online than a lot of other developers are with their respective games. So far it's paid off; EVE has a very large and passionate fan base. So large and passionate, in fact, that they annually hold a huge Fanfest in Reykjavik.

We provided a list of all the best coverage of the event, but one item on the list stands out enough to warrant a plug of its own. WarCry has been rolling out a series of articles on EVE Online as coverage for this year's conference. All together it's called "The War on the Impossible" after CCP's new slogan. Part IV of this series was just launched. This time the focus is on the Trinity expansion, which includes a graphical overhaul, a revised voice chat system, and many new or tweaked gameplay elements.

In case you missed the earlier articles; Part I was an introduction to CCP's big moves and plans for the game. Part II was about the panel debate between Richard Bartle and Jessica Mulligan on CCP's plans to democratize the world of EVE, and Part III described "Ambulation" in detail. The articles aren't purely informative; WarCry weighs the consequences of each change. If you play EVE, you'll find that this series is one of the best summaries of the changes on the horizon. If you don't play EVE, it's exciting reading anyway because of the audacity of some of CCP's plans.
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EVE Fan Fest 2007 videos - Make your weekend an EVE-flix one

November 16, 2007, 6:45 pm
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How would you best describe the EVE Online 2007 Fan Fest? I'd say it was filled with players that talked about ships, consumed copious amounts of alcohol alongside the developers, drooled over the Trinity II expansion, drank more alcohol, some pew-pew and a few bruised hairy man boobs egos afterwards, and it all went down in Iceland. I'll sum it up as a frozen mixture of freakishly-EVE debauchery. I'm still bummed, no "mozom" Fan Fest action for me this year; not that I would want my corporation to obtain proof I mingled with some hostiles, and later use said evidence to black mail me as a spy unless I paid a lofty 25 billion space-bux fine.

Thankfully, for those of us not in attendance or those wanting to relive the panel discussions, CCP came through on their earlier promise to feature full-length videos from this year's EVE Online Fan Fest. Currently, 12 videos are up for viewing, and length times vary, some go for 20 minutes and others that last a little longer than 60 minutes. It doesn't cost a dime to watch them either. If you are too lazy to click over and to see the EVE-TV guide, I have you covered with the line-up below. If you would rather read coverage from the Fan Fest, I recently updated the ultimate EVE Online Fan Fest link wrap-up with a few more links.

  • Day 1: EVE History; Oveur on Trinity Expansion; Hilmar on World Domination; CCP Panel, Dev Q&A Session
  • Day 2: Council of Stellar Management; Alliance Panel Discussion; Dr EyjoG on EVE's economics; Ambulation Info
  • Day 3: Tuxford on the development and history behind the in-game ability Heat; How to PvP like an expert with Eris Discordia; Pann gives tips on running an EVE fansite; Tony G discusses his work on the EVE Novel
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CCP launches official Trinity website

November 20, 2007, 8:15 am
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CCP launched the website for EVE Online's Trinity expansion today. It's a sleekly designed website with a well produced promo-video (including clips of the shiny new graphics), video interviews with a few dev team members, a feature list, and screenshots and wallpapers. And of course it has EVE's usual dark, intelligentsia-aimed Sci-Fi motif going on.

None of the information is new if you've been following the news super closely, but hardcore EVE fans will undoubtedly want to check it out anyway, and if you haven't been keeping up with Trinity news, it's a good place to get the low down on what CCP will be doing in the expansion.
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New Trinity trailer makes Sci-Fi geeks gasp in awe [Updated]

November 26, 2007, 5:00 pm
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CCP just released this two-minute trailer for EVE Online's upcoming Trinity expansion. It's a longer and cooler trailer than the one that was shown at the Fanfest in Reykjavik. Trinity is adding a lot of things, but one of the most significant is a major graphics update, and that's what this trailer focuses on.

The new shader effects are very impressive, especially when they're exhibited with such epic music. It looks like EVE is reclaiming its crown as the best-looking MMO on the market. While it's easier to make spaceships and planets look realistic and amazing than it is to make humanoids look convincing, the new EVE visuals are still awesome.

Assuming nothing goes wrong, Trinity will go live next week.

[EDIT: GameTrailers has posted the trailer in HD. Commence drooling.]
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EVE Online: Trinity expansion launching December 5th

November 28, 2007, 10:30 am
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First CCP teased capsuleers stating the new EVE: Online Trinity expansion was coming "some time" this winter. Our anticipation soared to a new high after it was divulged in the EVE's quarterly economic newsletter Trinity would launch November 27th. That date conflicted with the first week of December announcement given at the EVE Fan Fest held in gloriously frozen-to-the-bone Reykjavik, Iceland. Finally fixing their implants, CCP has definitely marked December 5th as the official date for Trinity to launch.

The date is official -- this is it, and hot damn I'm looking forward to it. You, I, with EVE, in a shiny new Trinity. Let's hug it out in the station as we drool over the shine or you can just blow up my Dominix. The most tremendous thing coming in Trinity is the graphics overhaul. Diggity, diggity. There is not one word in the thesaurus that can describe how much I'm looking forward to EVE's new graphics update. Over 50 man years invested into this graphical insanity, that's how much time the art team poured into the project -- the EVE art team didn't really start remodeling EVE's graphics back in the late 50's. It was enough craziness to make van Gogh roll over in his grave and chop his other ear off! Every station, ship, stargate redone!

Gameplay wise, a plethora of space crap. Yes, you heard me right, good space crap. New Tech II ships for various classes; over 200 brand-spanking new agent missions that tap into various areas in the game so even the miners won't feel left out; new toys for the intrepid explorers; new rookie player experience; tons more features and game play enhancements that run the gamut. You can check out more details, including developer videos discussing the expansion over at CCP's official EVE: Online Trinity website.

[via, Business Wire]
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EVE Online: Trinity expansion preliminary patch notes

November 28, 2007, 7:30 pm
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While the EVE Online: Trinity expansion prepares to take the world by storm beginning on December 5th you might as well get a jump start reading the preliminary expansion patch notes. Important notice: The EVE Online servers and official forums will be unavailable for the duration of Trinity's deployment -- scar it into your brain to keep from forgetting! Everything will shut down at around 6PM PST and will be brought back online by 6PM PST the next day. We'll have you covered with reminders prior to the launch. Hint: Train a skill that takes longer than 30 minutes, preferably with one that takes over a day! (This hint was brought to you by CCP).

The patch notes are over 8,000 words in length; don't let them scare you off! The wall of text has been wonderfully formatted and broken into two pages.

EVE: Trinity Features, Improvements, and Balance

http://myeve.eve-online.com/updates/patchnotes.asp?patchlogID=156

EVE: Trinity Changes and Fixes

http://myeve.eve-online.com/updates/patchnotes.asp?patchlogID=155

EVE: Trinity Quick Highlights:

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EVE Trinity: New graphics engine calls for a video card checkup

December 4, 2007, 3:05 pm
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Traders, Smugglers, Pirates, Miners, Capusuleers from every walk of life! Today marks a momentous occasion in the EVE Online universe. At approximately 6PM PST the EVE servers will be brought down and fitted for the new EVE: Trinity expansion. The downtime is estimated to last 24 hours, which means this is probably our last heads up beforehand to train a time appropriate skill in advance. The amount of new content is intense as Trinity is EVE's biggest expansion ever: New ships, tweaks, tutorials, new everything, and of course, the grand-daddy of Trinity's enhancements: The long-awaited graphical overhaul featuring EVE's new graphic engine dubbed Trinity 2. Confused yet? All that matters is that every ship, stargate, and station remodeled to sweet perfection.

There is a downside, and that is not everyone will be able to enjoy the new radical graphics. Players who do not have a Shader Model 3.0 or DirectX9c compliant video card will be left in the space dust with the classic client. EVE players with DirectX9c and video cards that support Shader Model 3.0 will be able to use the shiny new doodad client. The important thing is everyone can still play EVE Online regardless or not your rig meets the requirements to run the new graphics. What is SM 3.0 and how the hell do you know your video card supports it? To answer that, with the help of the EVE forums, I have compiled the necessary information to help you find out.
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EVE Trinity premium client patch woes: How-to-fix botched XP boot.ini file

December 6, 2007, 12:21 am
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CCP is on the verge of earning the title of having the worst expansion launch in the history of the genre. An echelon of EVE players who downloaded and patched EVE Trinity's premium client from the classic client are reporting serious debilitating computer issues as a result from the patch after rebooting. The premium patch deleted an important file needed to boot! While I would love to rip CCP a new one over this, the more pressing matter is to post a fix and help spread the word. The premium patch client was already taken down, but there are players who already patched, still in the game that are in for a rude-awakening when they reboot their computers. EVE players who already downloaded the premium patch client, upgrading from the classic client and are using Windows XP will need to take the necessary measures to repair their boot.ini file. The boot.ini overwrite does not affect Vista users.

  • If you are using the classic client, or installed the premium client via the full client download you are not affected.
  • If you upgraded from the classic client to the premium client, using the content upgrade via the patcher, or the stand alone patch may need to take the necessary precautions to ensure your computer's stability.
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EVE Online: POS Warfare temporarily banned

December 9, 2007, 3:00 pm
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EVE Trinity is chock-full of the disastrous space bugs, which is highly unfortunate for all my EVE brosefs. Did you survive the reboot? (I'm still waiting for the shirts.) Those who pilot dreads and want to pew-pew some cyno jammers better hold off, or you could be slapped with exploiting that won't look very good on your *cough* spotless record. In this latest round CCP has finally acknowledged the problems with player owned structure warfare and their solution is to essentially ban players from playing this part of the game until further notice.

On the bright side, shooting player owned structures is one of the most mind-numbing things to do in the game. Repairing structures ranks second! Trust me if you never participated in POS warfare it's not very exciting. But honestly, for those that do this is still pretty jacked-up. There is no easy solution for the developers, what else can they do besides bringing the servers down? That and I guess fixing it. I like fixed shiny expansions that let me harp on other things in the game besides a case of the MMO bugs.

Should the servers be taken down? Implants poofing, POS warfare, UI issues, graphical instabilities, and the list goes on... Hopefully, CCP fixes these more serious in-game bugs by tomorrow, well, that's a stretch. The EVE developers were so hyped up and energetic over Trinity, and their players were very supportive. I bought into it, I can't help feeling let-down. Now that EVE Trinity is actually out, its plain sad to see all these bugs. It's a true shame, a lot of hard work went into EVE Trinity.
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EVE Trinity: Starbase Warfare switched back on

December 10, 2007, 4:00 pm
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Game on. Extending EVE's routine downtime has paid off as CCP announced earlier this morning a lift on the POS Warfare ban. The EVE popo (GMs) also issued a warning that players who exploited the cyno jumps and camped out when jammers were not functioning properly to resume their furtive cheap shots until the ban was lifted will be punished accordingly. Any players who end up losing or whom have already lost a ship as a result of another player found guilty will be reimbursed.

Yesterday, I wished for a quick-fix, and I doubted it would happen by the next day. I get to eat my own words because even if some serious bugs remain, (such as friendly brosefs not being able to use your corp's jump bridges) the ban was lifted and to a certain degree numerous POS warfare space bugs were eradicated. We can only hope that CCP continues the rampant squashing to improve the EVE Trinity player experience.

In spite of all the pitfalls, it's not all doom and gloom. CCP sounded off the bells and whistles yesterday as EVE online reached a new concurrent record on the Tranquility server. The new number stands at 41,690 accounts simultaneous floating somewhere in EVE space. I believe Second Life still currently holds the all-time record for simultaneous users on one global server, but from our coverage it looks like their server structure always has some type of problem.

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EVE Trinity: CCP's take on the boot.ini debacle

December 13, 2007, 4:00 pm
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In a recent EVE Dev blog, Dr. Erlendur S. Thorsteinsson, big shot Director of the EVE Online Software Group shed some light on the installer code that ended up bricking computers running certain Windows XP installations. I'm not a programmer, but I can tell the EVE: Trinity installer code was a wee-bit sloppy from reading the following discussion thread. The good software Doctor also poses several questions and answers to instill a little clarity on what CCP is doing to make sure this doesn't happen again.

According to the Dev blog 215 players contacted CCP directly for assistance. Other numbers are missing, left to the wayside, numbers much bigger than 215. How many premium patch clients were downloaded prior to the applied fix? CCP has those numbers, but in this case, Thorsteinsson leaves an impression that CCP is downplaying the boot.ini fiasco as something that more or less only affected a handful of players. As seen in this thread and many others like it, tons of players took their own initiatives without contacting CCP at all. Anecdotal evidence alone would put the number much higher, into the thousands, but probably not in the tens of thousands. CCP has gone on to implement better testing (you know normal Windows XP installs their players actually use) procedures to improve QA procedures and practices.
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EVE Trinity: Boost patch to bring balance to the EVE force

December 19, 2007, 6:00 pm
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Once in a blue moon random EVE developers will brave the frontlines and answer cries in space. No preparation, no scriptwriters, nothing but the ums and ughs that lead Capsuleers to the path of enlightenment! These adventures are known as the Live Dev Blogs. This trip focuses around EVE Trinity's aftermath. Mindstar MC's the event, directing questions to Hammerhead, EVE's Lead Game Designer and Zulupark, whom holds a Game Designer a title. If you missed out on the live version CCP recorded it and has posted it on their website -- our heroes drone on for about an hour.

I started transcribing the Live Dev Blog and then my brain exploded at around the second sentence. I quickly realized it was going take days, no years, to extract and present the information in type. Luckily, an EVE player by the name Jameroz is a better transcriptionist than I. If audio isn't your deal, you can read the text in full here. Jameroz is also accepting any ISK compensation since it took him all day to transcribe this. I listed the worthwhile points after the break if you don't want to slog through the audio or the full text.
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EVE Trinity: Preliminary "Boost Patch" notes

March 9, 2008, 6:00 pm
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Most EVE Online players are heavily anticipating Tuesday's patch, one that is so massive in size it is bound to take over your computer and brick it. Surely, I jest. The unlucky few that won't ever be satisfied or pleased are Amarr players. I can't say I blame them, during an older EVE live-dev blog the devs insinuated the miracle patch would fix everything. "High-five guys, this is going to be so awesome that even the Amarr players will shoot space rainbows from their asses." That's not an exact quote, but I remember the overall tone from the developers being very enthusiastic.

With such a huge patch CCP wants to make sure that every change listed makes it in this installment. The notes were pulled from the official site until further notice. That's not stopping us from posting them anyway. If you'd like to get a jump start on reading there's over 7 thousand words to mull over after the jump. Disclaimer: the following notes are preliminary. The notes might see various changes, but I'm sure these are solid. The final notes should be published on the EVE site sometime tomorrow.
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EVE Trinity 1.2 patch notes: Junk In Space!

April 13, 2008, 2:00 pm
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NASA must be envious. They'd probably pay billions to just set a timer to their space junk and have it poof out of existence in thirty days. The difference between NASA and CCP is that CCP can do something about their junk. According to the EVE Trinity 1.2 patch notes, starting April 16, anchored containers which are not in the vicinity of a starbase and have not been interacted with will be given a thirty day timer. At the end of that, if nobody has touched them, they will just be given a short trip through a wormhole into the Dimension of Unwanted Trash. Further, at the first of every month, abandoned drones, fighters, shuttles and rookie ships will be scrapped as a hazard to navigation. With the trash gone, bookmarks pointing to them will become invalid. To save y our bookmarks that point to junk, go through the list and redirect them to coordinates in space (right-click in space next to the container) instead of some random orbiting piece of space debris. Be sure to do this before Downtime on the 16th, because they will be poofed when EVE comes back up if you have not switched them to coordinates before then.

If your ship takes more time to undock in the morning, it may just be getting old. Or it could just be that in a re-balancing, your ship had fewer equipment slots than it had the night before. You may no longer leave a station until you remove the excess equipment. Along with the Junk In Space initiative, EVE Trinity 1.2 also includes a huge number of UI and game fixes. They even managed to close a few exploits -- and the world is a better place for us all.
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