EVE Onion has learned that Intaki Bank representative Osk en Devoir leaked a CDI Working Group on Emergent Threats report to news agency representatives.

The Intaki Bank representative’s communication discloses that the CDIA Working Group on Emergent Threats, in cooperation with the Amarr Navy and intelligence gathered from the Blood Raider Covenant, indicates that Drifters may be shifting towards a greater awareness and interest in the competing factions in New Eden.

The leak was distributed to:

• Crossing Zebra’s Ashterothi (bypassing editor Niden entirely) who followed up his Crossing Zebras article with commentary on reddit
• Arataka Research Consortium’s Makoto Priano, Nomistrav, and Uriel Paradisi Anteovnuecci, who shared the news on Reddit and followed up with more formal coverage on The Discourse. Makoto Priano also appeared on Mind Clash #74 to discuss the leak.
• Rhivre of INN
• EN24’s riverini, who, interestingly, did not pursue the leak, but simply rebroadcast the ARC coverage

The community is abuzz with speculation. Immelman Namlemmi [IRS] further notes “all of the Drifters in Vietnam (the shattered black hole J010811 with over 70 Arithmos Tyrannos) have mysteriously disappeared.”

(“Vietnamming”, a term coined by Winthorp and Pubway Shi, refers to intentionally spawning and leaving Drifters alive to roam the Wormhole, and this system was previously overrun, as we see above.)

An anonymous source indicates that TRI pilots report the Drifters were hired by xDeathx to fight on their behalf, and one Drifter researcher points out that “Gamma” is the highest level of access, leading to the antechamber.

You, dear reader, will I’m sure, have already noticed a glaring gap in the widely-distributed leak? What outlet is missing? EVE Onion News! While news of what appears to be preparations for a new and advance Drifter incursion is of critical import to New Eden, it is the story behind the story that tells the real story.

The real news, of course, is the revelation that these corporations, allegedly focused upon investigation and news reporting, appear to be working in cooperation with one another, and with the Intaki Bank. Osk en Devoir, only very recently joining Intaki Bank after a long and mysteriously secretive career with University of Caille, wears sunglasses, and is clearly not trustworthy. Interestingly, most of the parties involved in this leak also have eyewear, or choose to exclude at least one eye in their formal portraits. Take from that what you will…

The Intaki Syndicate, an infamous criminal cartel running the largest black market in New Eden, runs one of the largest illegal currency exchanges of Caldari corporate script. The Intaki Bank, in particular, made a recent decision to keep names on all accounts secret, and inaccessible to anyone. Everyone knows that dirty money pours in and out of the bank. Is Intaki Bank the secret dirty money liaison between these “news” and “research” organizations? Who is Osk en Devoir?

“Osk”, derived from “wish”, “en” meaning “and”, and “Devoir”, deriving from “duty”, seems clearly a nom de plume. Wish and Duty? Your wish is my command? Clearly, Osk en Devoir is Intaki Bank’s enforcer, who reminds those beholden to Intaki Bank for shielding their illegitimate (RMT?) revenue that Intaki Bank holds the keys to their secrets? Is Osk en Devoir blackmailing the news and research agencies in New Eden? Or, is Intaki Bank attempting to cast shade upon these entities, in order to discredit any reports they might deliver that would disclose Intaki Bank’s subversive connections?

Whatever the case, EVE Onion, New Eden’s premier source of information, is notably absent from this list of collaborators. Even Apothne agrees: All EVE Media is Bad, but has retweeted EVE Onion, giving his clear endorsement of EVE Onion as the exception to this assertion.

Whether these other news and research organizations are corrupt, or Intaki Syndicate is setting them up, EVE Onion is your trustworthy, unfettered, and independent source.

With the recent changes to assault frigates and cruisers, CCP has turned its ship design focus onto a ship class everyone has been begging for: The Assault Corvette. After calling in a few favors and pulling some strings, I have received the planned specifications for these new ships, and as always, I am passing on this news straight to YOU!

As with most things EVE, Caldari comes first. Here’s what I know about the Spoonbill, the Caldari Assault Corvette.

Spoonbill:

Assault Corvette bonuses (per skill level):

15% bonus to Kinetic Light Missile damage

10% bonus to Insurance Payouts

Role bonus:

50% reduction in CPU usage for Civilian Modules

Begins with two Tritanium in cargo hold

Can fit Assault Civilian Modules

A Caldari ship with kinetic missile damage, how innovative! Speaking of innovation, let’s see how the Gallente Corvette fairs.

Ixion:

Assault Corvette bonuses (per skill level):

15% Small Hybrid Turret damage

10% Reddit karma

Role Bonus:

Begins with an Exotic Dancer in the cargo hold

15% reduction in TiDi effects

Can fit Assault Civilian Modules

Interesting, no doubt useful in larger battles with the reduction to TiDi. Let’s see what the glorious Amarr empire has to show us, shall we?

Preventer:

Assault Corvette bonuses (per skill level):

100% Laser Strobe effect

Energy Nosferatu, Stasis Webifier, and warp scrambling visual effects are 10% brighter and 5% more distracting

Role Bonus:

Enemy ships targeted by Energy Nosferatu effects now have a 15% more annoying low capacitor warning sound.

10% more gold plating

Can fit Assault Civilian Modules

Surely some non-disruptive gameplay ideas in that one. And now last but certainly not least, the Minmatar Assault Corvette.

Hoenir:

Assault Corvette bonuses (per skill level):

13% Small Projectile Turret damage

10% more rust

Role bonus:

50% chance of falling apart upon undocking from station

5% chance of being buffed in a future patch

Can fit Assault Civilian Modules

All in all, I believe these new ships will be a wonderful addition to the hangars of New Eden, and no doubt a valuable tool for alliances to use in the future. Unfortunately, we have no idea what new modules will fall under the “Assault Civilian” designation, but I have no doubt they will be over-analyzed months before they’re implemented, like all modules should be.

Hello everyone. In the wake of the latest major EVE update, release 1.0, several issues have arrived. No doubt working hard to squash the bugs, CCP refused to give us info on any upcoming fixes. After sneaking into CCP HQ through a wormhole, we have discovered the upcoming patch 1.2 notes, with a sticky note saying “not my problem”, which was presumably left by one of the developers. Details of all the upcoming changes are below:

PvE:

Guardian’s Gala is now 50% less fun and 90% less likely to reward the items you want. (If you are still receiving items you want at a high rate, please contact Google to fix your analytic recordings.)

Corrected escalation chance from 100% to the intended value of 0%.

Added a silver pod, for those that can’t afford the gold one.

Balancing:

Assault Frigates and Heavy Assault Cruisers have been removed due to their lack of popularity.

T3 Frigates are now in the works, expect a blog post soon!

T3.5 Cruisers are now added to the game, along with 87 new modules and subsystems, each with their own new skill to train.

Graphics:

Amarr ships are now exactly 3.5%  (per skill level) shinier (17.50% at level 5).

Torpedos have their old explosion effects back.

Minmatar ships are now actually held together with duct tape.

Structures:

Keepstars are now invulnerable, even while unpowered.

Officer Standup Modules have been added.

Standup ASML Missile Launchers have been renamed to ASML Standup Missle Launcher.

ASML Standup Missile Launcher has been renamed to Standup ASML Rocker Launcher.

Standup AXL Missile Launcher have been renamed to Axe Thrower II.

Standup AS Guided Bombs have been renamed to Da Bomb.

Citadel lock ranges have been increased to system-wide.

After thinking about it, we’re bringing void bombs back:

Void Guided Bomb Tech II added.

Void Guided Bomb II renamed to Standup AXML Guided Void Bomb Version 2.0.

Merely looking at a non-friendly ship while tethered to a Citadel will now break the tether.

Quick thinking pilots can now intercept the tether beam by flying between a ship and the Citadel.

Asset safety can now only save ships in your corporations ship replacement program, if it has one.

After numerous complaints from janitorial staff, pods are no longer able to self destruct within Citadels.

Tutorial:

Made the final mission 13.6% more dramatic by adding an orchestral soundtrack with 10% more violins.

Aura now changes her voice randomly between one of thirteen different options.

User Interface:

Eve Mobile integration added.

Dust 514 information removed in preparation for Dust 1028.

Well there you have it folks! Some expected fixes here and there, but did we just catch a leak of a new game? More details to come as soon as we can find them. Fly safe out there!

Today, Amazon Inc. announced an historic landmark with their acquisition of CCP Games. Their purchase is for an undisclosed sum solely for the rights to various minor “automation related” patents.

Traditionally, this sort of multi-million dollar buyout is associated with services such as OnLive, which was bought out in its entirety and shut down by Sony merely to obtain a minor patent on remotely accessed PC’s for a single use. Robert California, Senior Technical Advisor of Amazon went on to state that the landmark sale of a company with only one successful title was “only a big deal if you make it” and twice appeared confused with the questions regarding CCP Games’ game, EVE ONLINE.

“I don’t know anything about that,” Robert was quoted as saying. “All I know is the bots we were shown are so good that we couldn’t tell the difference between real people and bots. We just had to have it.” This caused a minor uproar among the press, but only among the few that actually knew the game itself. Considered a niche title, the inner workings of EVE ONLINE are wildly complex on their own.

Regardless, Mr. California had little to say about the property that Amazon was to establish full control over. When asked about availability of EVE on gaming services such as Amazon’s, he simply shook his head, and shrugged. “Again I don’t know anything about that, we just want the bots. We’ll probably just shut [the game] down or something.” As for the patents Amazon obtained: “it’s a legal issue and saves millions in potential lawsuits, cuts the patent trolls out early, and establishes a beachhead for the coming robotics revolution.” Acknowledging Amazon’s push towards full automation of its workforce is a rare but relatively well known part of their business model.

At the time of writing, Amazon has already been hit with two lawsuits: One from an imaginary company called “red frog” which claims its automation is a “trade secret”, and is demanding damages as well as “their fair share of the sale.” The other suit is merely a class action filing against Amazon/CCP with claims that players who “own or rent” digital space are entitled to compensation for losses with the sale potentially limiting their automation abilities within “null sec” (player owned space). CCP argues that at no time did they imply or agree that the digital space was actually owned by anyone other than CCP itself. This raises legal questions as to just who owns made up fantasyland and just what is ownership of international space.

Experts agree that, should CCP win and declare all of space already owned by them and the act of claiming space is merely “leasing”, it opens the door for commercialization of space in ways that international oversight didn’t foresee.

We reached out to CCP for comment, though with the possibility of a multi million cash-out for the closeted developer, he seems to be making no real attempts at work. He did state that he would “put up a big ass billboard in space or something” if CCP should win the lawsuit in their favor.

An EVE Onion investigator embedded with the Servant Sisters of EVE, and reporting from deep in wormhole space via transmissions smuggled in SoE shipments out to Osmon, reports that the SoE recently discovered yet another time manipulation technology, and is well-along in development of devices derived from this sleeper technology. A researcher with the Sisters of EVE, speaking on condition of anonymity said, “I am very excited that we can reduce the effect of time dilation on our rescue and humanitarian efforts, and that this technology may provide additional clues to the very origins of our arrival to the New Eden cluster.”

The first technology likely to reach production consists of a slot 11 implant designed to reduce the effects of Time Dilation by 3%. This technological innovation is anticipated to lead towards additional time-manipulation functions, including implants to improve target navigation, to allow miners to accurately predict when an ore or gas source will deplete, and to predict not only CSM election results, but also advance notice of upcoming technology advances across the New Eden cluster.

This is not the first time EVE Onion has uncovered time manipulation technology (see previous report), but this particular technology has some unique properties. The 11th implant slot location requires an external fuel source, introducing  new cybernetic and infomorphic challenges. A smuggled blueprint prototype indicates the proprietary power source used in CONCORD’s PLEX cryptocurrency chips may be integrated to power the implant. In the interest of reducing research and development costs, the SoE are rumored to be in negotiations with CONCORD to integrate with the PLEX power source by simply inserting a PLEX directly into the implant. This burns out the PLEX after a few hours of use, or when docking in or tethering to a structure. A source within CONCORD confirms they are partnering with the Sisters of EVE to bring this new implant to market under the moniker “PLEX-Ancillary Dilation Reduction Technology” (PAyDiRT).

A follow-up investigation into the CONCORD-Goonswarm time-manipulation technology recently uncovered also revealed that the Goonswarm Technology and Formulas Office (GTFO) is furthermore investigating the possibility of equipping Upwell structures with a variant of this technology. The legal division of the Goonswarm Federation management team has already registered a new technology for a structure-scale device, which would “selectively reinforce the node,” providing Time Dilation reduction effects for all pilots in possession of a current docking permission access code for a structure within range, and equipped with the Reinforcement PAyDiRT (RMT PAyDiRT) module. One fleet commander—excited by the prospect—proclaimed: “This technology provides the opportunity to apply unassailable wealth more directly and effectively to the problem of ‘Winning the ISK War.’”

What will come of this unusual alliance between The Imperium, Servant Sisters of EVE, and CONCORD? Only time will tell.