On December 5 CCP released the latest patch for Eve Online. This brought sweeping changes to alpha clones. From the number of skills they can train, ships they can pilot and how they train skill points. All these areas have been addressed in these Patch Notes. What I’m going to cover is the Agency event which started alongside the update.
The Agency Event
The main addition for Alpha clones within the arms race update was that of access to battlecruisers (BC) and battleships (BS). To help provide alpha clones access to these new ship classes, an agency event was added, which pays as a reward the following:
60 points: one BC and BC skill book set for your race (Drake, Myrmidon, Hurricane, Harbinger).
120 points: one alpha skill injector, containing 50,000 skill points.
180 points: one BS and BS skill book set for your race (Raven, Megathron, Typhoon, Apocalypse).
The bulk of the reward points are earned from the completion of the new rogue drone sites. Which come in three forms; Nest, Den and Lair. Each site features many waves of rogue drones. Lairs feature the most, Dens the second most frequent followed by Nests. It’s also good to be aware that you only find nests in high-security space. So, if you want better chances of loot, you will have to head into low security or null space.The event requires you to complete any version of these sites and kill rogue drones. There are also some other agency chains which are based around ratting in asteroid belts (which the drones sites also counted for) in addition to some industry based. We’re going to focus on the rouge drone chains.Due to the sites being open with no acceleration gate, pilots may fly any ships in the sites. My experience in the sites saw many Gila, Cynabal and some t2 ships. Ships which at this early stage of the expansion, would perhaps be out of reach for basic alpha clones. My alpha is currently under the five million skill points ceiling. As such, I was flying around in a rapid light missile Caracal. There was no way I thought that I could compete with the omega clones.
After warping to a site and landing just as it was being completed, before I had a chance to warp out, the final drone was killed and I was also credited that I had completed the site. Intrigued, I headed on to the next site in the system, where I was swiftly joined by other pilots. After a few minutes, the site was completed and again, it was flagged as completed for me. I concluded that you don’t have to deal the final blow, or be in the biggest fleet to be credited for the completion of the site.
The second reward chain required you to kill rogue drones, and for this one, you are required to deal the killing blow. This was easy for me as well, using the same Caracal fit as above with rapid light missiles. During the waves, around 15-20 drones spawn, each needing 1-2 missiles to kill. With a high rate of fire and the ability to spread my missiles damage, I was able to wipe out the drone group collecting enough kills for the reward.
All in all, the rewards did not take long to fully unlock for a player in the know. Even with the slow start I had, (not knowing you don’t have to deliver the final blow for the site to flag for you) I was able to unlock the BS container within a few hours of play time.
Rewards
As stated earlier. The main rewards for completing the agency quests is access to the new ships you can fly, as well as the newly added alpha skill injector.
The issue I have with these rewards is that no guidance is given to new alphas. It’s simply a case of, here’s the ship and skill book, off you go. To a new player, going from a cruiser into owning a BC and then a BS within mere hours of each other, as well as offering no guidance to how they should be fitted, feels like a missed opportunity.
In the last expansion, Lifeblood, players were able to complete resource wars sites, which they could use the loyalty point (LP) gain from to receive a new ship with fittings. This I feel would have made a more relevant and indeed better reward. Giving players a guidance on how their new ships should be fitted as well as letting them use it right out of the can.
Another issue I had was the lack of rewards. You can earn 300 points, but only receive rewards up to 180. It would have felt more rewarding to have something for hitting 300 points, such as another injector, or some fittings for your new BC/BS.
Conclusion
I enjoyed the arms race event. It provided easy access for alphas to get their first BC and BS, I feel that there was not enough information for players going into this event. Rewards towards the top end felt light, and I would love to have seen more rewards at that tier since the points go up to 300 but rewards stop at 180.
