CCP Games has released a new dev blog about their upcoming plans for Alpha clones. The new devblog dovetails with other recently announced changes to Alpha clones for EVE Online. Taken together, these will change the state of alpha clones in a lot of positive ways and gives a higher quality of experience. These changes include several methods for obtaining these skill points.
CCP Games & Side Effects
Introducing new features to the game usually comes with unintended side effects. These are the moments where we as capsuleers should adapt to and in common situations beat CCP Games at it. These side effects are usually foreseen by players way ahead of the game developers.
The New Alpha State
Alpha clones will get a massive upgrade to their clones which will improve their quality of life. These changes include more skillpoints made available to them.
The buffs to new Alpha Clones
- New available skills sets for Alpha clones,
- Tech II Small and Medium Weapons,
- Ability to cross-train all four factions,
- Battlecruisers,
- Battleships,
- Pirate Faction Ships,
- Train up to 20.5 million SP.
Continuing Alpha Education
Alphas will have the ability to cross-train factions, and the ability to use battlecruisers and battleships. Achieving the larger hulls with focused training is easy. Attempting to get into the larger hulls while fully cross-training frigates and cruisers from all races is not. There is a price tag attached to achieving all these skill sets and being able to train further then 5M SP. From the day you hit 5 million skill points the only way to train further as an Alpha is to inject SP. In addition to the normal injectors and small injectors, Alpha clones will now be able to buy Daily Alpha Injectors from the market or PLEX store.
Alpha vs Omega
Running a quick calculator over game time for omega of 30 days is roughly 54 million ISK a day. When realizing it is rather more expensive than training an Alpha character. Alpha characters beyond 5 million skill points costs roughly 62 million for an injector. These calculations are from the current market prizes, and obviously subject to change in market fluctuations
Daily Alpha Injectors
The new blog deals entirely with ‘Daily Alpha Injectors’. These injectors can only be used by Alpha clones, and cannot be used by Omegas. CCP Games have mentioned that the unallocated skill points won’t work on Omega skills, unless the account is upgraded to Omega status first. Alpha clones can use only one per day per character. This ‘per day’ resets each day at downtime. These injectors are not restricted per account since you can use them one day per character. As a result, they could be used by all three characters on an Alpha account.
Obtaining Daily Alpha Injectors
CCP Games have set the price-point for the Daily Injectors at 20 PLEX. To get them you will need to go through the out-of-game account management site, or use the in-game New Eden Store. These injectors are saleable on the regular market in-game.
Conclusion
These changes will create massive improvements for Alpha Clones. Purchasing skill points with PLEX (for Alpha Clones) is some thing many players will likely need to get used to. These changes to Alphas will bring many other changes further along in the game, and will hopefully attract more players to EVE Online.
