A Special Dev Blog Breakdown in honour of the release of Planetary Interaction to the Test server and a Blog from CCP Hammerhead about Bon Jovi…
Living on a Prayer
CCP Hammerhead brings us a dev blog about 80′s power ballads and planetary interaction. The new stuff went live on SiSi (the EVE public test server) before the blog went up so I would advise you to go and have a crack at it. Remember though that what you’ll see on SiSi is still rough around the edges and under development.
CCP Hammerhead, in between singing Bon Jovi, goes on to give us a rundown on what we can expect to see if we do log in to SiSi. It doesn’t look like much really. We’ll have access to the planet browser/scanning interface) but not much else from what I can gather from the blog.
The Dev Blog also details some of what they’re planning for the processes and infrastructure you can place on the planet, and how you get the stuff from the planet into space. The details are understandably sketchy at the moment but here are a few things you can expect to be building planetside:
- Planetary Command Center (PCC)
This is your planetary base of operations that allows you to control all the other bits and pieces of infrastructure that you’ve built. - Extractor PINs (Planetary Infrastructure Nodes, working title).
These are mines and harvesters which extract the resources you’ve found. - Storage PINs.
Silo’s, warehouses, etc. Places where your extracted/manufactured stuff is stored. - Process PINs.
Factories, refineries, etc. Turn extracted materials into refined or finished goods for trade. - Trade Hubs.
Used for trading resources between players on the same planet or goods shipped in from other planets. - Spaceports and Space Elevators.
These will be upgrades to the PCC, which in vanilla mode can launch cargo rockets but not much else. Spaceports will link to trade hubs and the other PINS to bring goods in as well as export them out (implied, not definite). The space elevator will be the pinnacle of the Spaceport/PCC upgrade chain and very difficult to get/expensive to build. The idea is, explains Hammerhead, that elevators will be rare and not every planet will have them.
All these PINs will be connected in networks which will define the flow of materials and goods around your planet (again something not yet available on SiSi) and there will be schematics which will define what you can build/process. Trade agreements were mentioned but whether these will be an ad-hoc affair or regulated by a mechanic wasn’t made clear.
There are already some great screens up of the new PI system and even a how-to video from EVE University. I Embed the latter below for your consumption:
H/T @TitusBalls for finding this.
I’ve stripped this out of the normal weekly Dev Blog Breakdown as it seeme to be worthy of its own post. People are already on SiSi and having alot of fun with it. I can seriously reccomend going and having a poke at some planets. Some basic info for those new to the test server can be found here as well as all discussions of what’s currently happening on it.
From what I’ve seen of it it certainly looks interesting and has the potential to build up into a complex and varied Sporadic Strategy Game. Though I’m still dubious about the limited options that pilots in space have for disrupting planetside activities (via blockades or piracy). I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.
M out
Mor PI commentary:
The rest of this weeks Dev Blogs will be broken down as normal tomorrow
