Regular or Unleaded?

Since the beginning of EVE, one of the more frustrating issues when trying to balance ships has been that there was only one ‘space' available for all of the stuff a player needed to carry along - the ‘Cargo' Bay.  Cargo is traditionally defined as: ‘The freight carried by a ship, an aircraft, or another vehicle.'  In EVE it has become a catch all for anything and everything that you could stuff into your ship.

This problem exacerbated itself when we introduced jump capable capital ships which needed massive amounts of ice products to fuel their jump engines and siege / triage modules.  In order to facilitate this, capital ships were given giant ‘cargo' bays and players were quick to capitalize on this.  More recently, Black Ops battleships have run into problems with having similar abilities to capital ships but we could not justify giving similar, huge cargo holds to battleship sized hulls.

We have always wanted the ability to create specialized storage spaces on ships dedicated to a specific purpose.  Thus, the concept of ‘bays' was born.

The first priority of this initiative is to give ships that require them a ‘gas tank', not to be confused with a bay for storing actual minable gas, which we may introduce later on.  This allows us to balance certain ships properly and even improve several of them with regard to their intended roles.

A few points to remember:

·         Fuel bays = ice products.

·         Fuel bays are an addition to the normal ‘cargo bays' on ships.

·         Jump drives can pull their fuel from either the cargo bay, the fuel bay, or both.

So here is an overview of how we're going to implement the first wave of this new feature.

Black Ops

Black Ops battleships benefit from having some very cool capabilities but suffer from a lack of available space to utilize them fully.  Primarily, Black Ops can open a jump bridge for certain ship classes to covert cynosaral fields in cyno jammed systems.  In order to facilitate this feature further, we have given all Black Ops battleships a 1,000 m3 fuel bay to draw from in addition to their normal cargo bay.

There has been some discussion on if this is a large enough fuel bay for this ship class.  Black Ops are intended to be a link in a larger chain of mayhem, and their ability to send a squad of Recons or Stealth Bombers ‘behind enemy lines' is nothing to scoff at.  At the same time, we urge you to remember that Black Ops are a battleship hull and should not be bridging entire fleets solo.

Dreadnaughts

A very long time ago, a corp mate sent me a screenshot of something he had done with his Moros:

"Check it out!"

"What did you do to your Dread??"

"Isn't it awesome?!"

There were T2 Cargo Expanders and even cargo rigs involved.  All in all it seemed rather horrible and a complete perversion of a ship whose sole purpose was to do more OMGWTFBBQ damage than any other ship in the game.  Not much later, the term ‘honor tank' (maxing out a ship for pure hauling capability) became part of the EVE lexicon.  Nowhere was this concept more abused than in turning of one of the most focused PvP ships in EVE into its diametrical opposite.

To resolve this we are giving Dreadnaughts an 8,000 m3 fuel bay while keeping the cargo bay large enough to accommodate plenty of ammo for prolonged sieges but not so big that Dreads can be continue to be converted into mini-Jump Freighters.

Carriers & Motherships

One of the most versatile ships in EVE will receive a 3,000 m3 fuel bay (5,000 m3 for Motherships) while their cargo will be reduced to approximately 25% of current values.

Carriers are intended to be, first and foremost, fleet support ships.  They have a respectable offensive capability in the form of their fighters and are able to bring other fitted combat ships to the front lines.  Additionally, Carriers are able to serve as ‘hospital ships', repairing everything from damaged allied vessels to starbase force fields.

What Carriers are not intended to be are cargo ships and transports.  While they can be still be pressed into this service on a limited basis, it is not their designed role.  The same applies to Motherships.

As an aside, all unpackaged battleships volumes, with the exception of the monstrous Machariel, have been reduced to less than 500,000 m3.  This allows Carriers to transport any two (and Motherships up to five) fitted battleships of their choice in their ship maintenance array.

Titans

All Titans will be receiving a 60,000 m3 fuel bay while their cargo will be reduced to approximately 25% of current values.

Logistics Love

The Rorqual and the Jump Freighter will both be receiving a 10,000 m3 fuel bay with no changes to their current cargo capacity.  No longer will your cargo of exotic dancers and janitors have to suffer the smell of fuel isotopes next to their cages... erm... quarters.

Industrial Love

As a bonus, we're also introducing ‘Ore Bays' for your oversized mining ships.  Ore Bays are storage space for... ore.  The Orca will receive a 50,000 m3 Ore Bay while the Rorqual will receive a massive 250,000 m3 Ore Bay.

The Future

Some of you may have seen and tested the Ammo Bays, or ‘Magazines', on SiSi that we put on Dreads and Titans.  Due to some technical issues those have been removed from the 1.5 release but you will see them again in the future.  We also have the capability to add specialized holds for minerals, gas and many other ‘types'.  You'll see these leaking onto the test server over the coming months and we look forward to your feedback on them.

• CCP Abathur