So shortly after setting up our roadmap for the remainder of this year, we dived right into its development. Well, right after figuring out what to do first (with your help), putting out some server fires (not literally, don’t worry) and trying to not die in the summer heatwave (managed). Anyway, here’s what we have in store for you in our upcoming patch.

Beta 1 reworks

After the rework of Alpha 2 islands, Beta 1s are next in line to receive the teleport and highway network treatment, and of course the new assignments and field terminals. Those of you who follow the relevant testing topic have already seen the new network proposals, and provided some useful feedback too (thanks!).

So here are the before/after maps for Hokkogaros, Domhalarn, and Norhoop. These will soon hit the test server (with a few smaller changes based on your feedback) and be part of our next patch.

Distress beacon changes

In the last patch we have temporarily disabled the deployment of distress beacons, in order to allow us to finally remove some much hated mechanics that have been implemented a long time ago to battle the unwanted tricks players could do with beacons.

Distress beacons will be re-enabled in our upcoming patch, although with some significant changes:

• New teleport anomalies will start spawning on all zones, which are a side effect of enemy teleport activity. You will only be able to deploy distress beacons in the close vicinity of these, which will basically “hijack” enemy teleport jumps and pull them out at your location.
• Once a beacon is activated, the anomaly will despawn and enemy NPCs will start spawning like before. So one anomaly, one beacon.
• Teleport anomalies will have 3 levels, which will limit the type of beacons that you can use with them. Level 1 beacons can be used anywhere, level 2 only on beta and gamma, and level 3 will be gamma only.
• Levels are the equivalent of stripes that we’ve had so far too on the icons. Beacon names and icons have been already updated to be more straightforward, so you don’t have to wonder anymore whether “platoon” or “commando” is the higher one.
• Teleport anomalies will also emit significant interference (on beta and gamma), so it will also affect PvP a bit. They are destroyable though.
• The multiple activators requirement will be removed, all beacons can be activated solo.
• The volume of distress beacons will be reduced from 1 to 0.1 U.

Reworked artifact scanning

Another mechanic that we wanted to give priority to is artifact scanning, mostly due to the relatively high amount of help requests and reports about players getting stuck with it or not really understanding how it worked.

The new artifact scanning breaks away from the triangulation method, and is much more similar to directional geoscanning:

As you can see on the screenshot, the scanner provides a list of the artifacts in range like before, but additionally to the range it also gives you a bearing indicator which will guide you to the scanned location. Note that I wrote “scanned location”, since the results can have a significant deviation, depending on your distance from the actual artifact and the accuracy rating of your equipment.

In practice this mechanic still requires multiple scans to narrow down the exact location (unless the random gods really love you), but it should be much more straightforward and intuitive than the old one.

Both the new distress beacon mechanic and the new artifact scanning method will hit the test server in a few days, so you'll be able to get a feel for them soon.

Terminal facility balancing

This is also coming in our next patch, involving some number juggling around terminal and outpost facility efficiency points. Currently there is not enough difference between Alpha and Beta facilities to warrant serious Beta-based facility usage in light of the much higher risk, so we’d like to balance this out a bit. (relevant forum discussion can be found here)

Here is how the new facility points will look like:

Alpha 1 main terminals:

• All 0 (no change)

Alpha 1 outposts:

• Current: 0 / 50 (higher on selected facilities)
• New: 0 / 25

Alpha 2 main terminals:

• Current: All 50
• New: 25 / 50

Beta main terminals:

• Current: All 50
• New: 50 / 100

Beta outposts:

As you know the facilities here can be manually upgraded 3 times each, using a maximum of 10 points at the highest stability (1 point per 10 stability).

• Currently the levels are: 0 - 50 - 100 - 125
• This would be changed to: 50 - 100 - 125 - 150

(Meaning even if you don't spend any upgrade points, all the outpost facilities are at 50)

We’re also working on a facility downgrade option for Beta outposts, so you won’t have to destabilize your own outpost if you want to change around your facility points.

And last but not least, we’ll boost the relation factor in facility efficiencies. With the rebalanced relation progression in assignments, its current influence feels like not enough gain for all the fuss, so we’ll more or less bring it in line with the facility and extension factors.

Closing

So all the above mentioned stuff is coming in our new patch, which is currently slated for around early/mid October.

I’ll leave you with a picture of our freshly updated internal tool, which we’re using to create robot templates by mixing around their body parts. (You don’t want to know how the old one looked, it didn’t even have a 3D preview.) This is in preparation for the new Syndicate robots mentioned in the roadmap blog, and it really speeds up figuring out the good/useful combinations.

We’d also like to put this this tool into the test client so you can play around with it and show us your ideas, possibly even create a contest around this.

This post is intended to provide you with an overview on what we are planning for Perpetuum during the remainder of this year. Before we venture into the realm of tl;rig (too long;read it goddammit), some general notes:

• Our goal is to do smaller but significant updates, and a lot of them.
• The list that you see here is in no particular order. We still have to prioritise it, and we also consider your feedback on what you would like to see first. UPDATE: We now have a poll for this.
• The listed features and changes are in varying states of development. Some have a pretty solid concept that only needs to get done, but there are some where details are floating in the air. I’ll point these out individually and probably take them for a spin on the forums.
• The list does not mean that we won’t do anything else if something more important comes up, nor that we won’t take any of these ideas back to the drawing board if some serious concerns arise. Your feedback is very welcome.

I’ll try to be as concise and to the point as possible because this is a long list. When we select to do a batch of these or make any progress, we’ll have detailed individual posts about them. If any particular feature or change catches your interest and would like to know more about, feel free to post a forum topic and I’ll try to answer it the best I currently can.

New features & significant reworks

NPC reworks

• Static spawns will be replaced by free roaming spawns of roughly the same sizes everywhere
• A few larger caravans will probably stay too, if they are not interfering too much
• We will make good use of the random NPC system developed for assignments here
• Alpha 2 and upwards will have red (aggressive) NPCs only
• We are looking into the possibility of enemy NPC groups fighting each other on the islands

Loot rework

• The current loot table system in unmaintainable
• We are developing a new random loot system
• This will also bring some significant loot balance changes, like drastically reducing the amount of “trash” items dropped, and a rebalance of kernels

Distress beacon rework

• Distress beacons have caused a lot of headache for us which have resulted in the introduction of some pretty nasty mechanics
• The new system would start with the introduction of “alien teleport anomalies”, which would periodically spawn and despawn in random locations on all islands
• These anomalies would be visible objects (no scanning needed), and distress beacons (which would be repurposed into “teleport hijack beacons” basically) would need to be deployed and activated next to one of these. They wouldn’t work anywhere else.
• Activating the beacon will spawn in the enemy NPCs just like now, and close the anomaly (so one beacon per anomaly)
• Currently existing beacons can be used in the new system, you don’t lose anything
• Multiple anomaly types that limit which beacon can be used, to be able to differentiate alpha/beta/gamma usage
• Makes us able to remove the “no loot when NPC is destroyed by explosion” and “NPC teleport” mechanics

Artifacts rework

• The current artifact scanning mechanic is not intuitive enough, a lot of players struggle with it
• The new mechanic would be a bit similar to directional scanning
• Instead of the artifact result list showing distances, it would instead show you realtime bearing indicators (the small compass thingies that we have in the landmarks list too)
• These would lead you directly to the scanned coordinates, you only need to keep your compass straight while moving
• The catch is that depending on your scanning efficiency and your distance from the artifact, the scanned coordinate might be somewhat off, so once you arrive at your result, you’ll probably have to do another scan, and repeat this process a few times
• This mechanic will always have a certain amount of inaccuracy, to not make it too easy
• You’ll probably be required to find the exact tile, being just near to it when scanning will not spawn the artifact like now

Field rescue

• Losing robots once and for all is a bit too hardcore
• We’d like to introduce a mechanic that would allow you to keep your robot when it’s destroyed
• It would stay unusable, unless you repair it using either materials or NIC
• The robot would keep track of the number of destructions, and each repair would be more expensive than the previous one, up to a point where it’s not worth to repair it anymore and scrap it for good
• Basically “number of lives” for robots
• Makes insurance obsolete
• Industry concerns: given that this would probably make players take more risks and encourage PvP, ultimately the number of robots lost for good and consequently manufacturing demands should not change significantly
• Details still need to be worked out, especially what would happen to modules

Syndicate supply drops

• Big loot containers dropped in random but pre-announced times and locations
• Probably beta islands only, to encourage PvP events
• Loot will have a relatively large spread regarding value and volume too
• Plot twist: you can only loot it while you’re not in combat
• Possibly could work on Alphas too if the location is not preannounced, but instead putting a visible beacon on the location that can be seen from afar

Geoscan result sharing

• Automatically share your tile-based geoscan results with squad members
• We’re looking into the possibility of each mining cycle updating the results on the terrain, so you would only need to scan initially, or when you move to another location

Steam trading cards

• Trading cards, profile backgrounds, emoticons, the whole package
• Helps with game discoverability

Buddy program

• If you invite someone and he/she buys the game, you both get extra EP or credits (to be decided, maybe both)
• Account buddy-linking and confirmation will happen ingame due to Steam not having support for this before/while purchasing

Field terminal courier services

• Get your items sent instantly from a remote field terminal storage anywhere in the world to the terminal you are in
• Convenience service - pay with credits
• Price is based on volume and distance - sending a full Scarab load of goods across the world instead of actually using a Scarab will be expensive

Tier 5 modules

• Completely new tier of items
• Production only - randomized module stats on manufacturing, using predetermined min/max stat values
• Resulting modules are NOT always better than lower tiers due to the randomness
• 3 new gamma-only minerals (1 for each faction), 3 new commodities using the new minerals plus epriton and colixum, required for the manufacturing of tier 5
• If the system is a success we will consider reworking all tiers like this, of course all using different min/max values and spreads

New market system

• The current market system works only with uniformised modules, this won’t work with tier 5
• A new, auction house-like service is needed, which will allow the trading of unique items
• Current market system may be removed once this is done

Syndicate robots

• Hybrid robots “lite”
• We were never really able to turn the idea of hybrid robots (mixing around different robot parts to create new robots) into reality due to balancing issues
• Basically the story is that over the years on Nia, the Syndicate was able to research alien robot technology, and create a new line of custom robots using various parts, combined with Earth technology
• Literally a fourth faction - a whole line of new robots, but using existing robot part models
• Specialized roles - better in something, worse in something else, you know the drill
• Obviously bonus for machine guns
• Only way to acquire them is through the token shop, by purchasing CTs
• Still very early in development, ideas for roles are welcome

Syndicate News Central

• What’s going on on Nia and with the Perpetuum Project - at a glance
• Statistics, player and corp level toplists
• Advertisement space for players or corporations
• Intrusion event news
• Helps promoting the feeling of being part of something big

Robot paint

• One of the oldest items on our todo
• Still intend to do it
• Really

Balance & smaller improvements

Industrial facility balance

• There is not enough difference between Alpha1/Alpha2 and Beta terminals, so we’ll dive into the balance of facility efficiency points and make some changes

Robot speed balance

• Robots received a large speed boost in the past, now with the teleport and highway network changes we’ll revisit this, and probably reduce base speeds a bit across the board (about 10%)
• Mechs and heavy mechs will receive special attention here, as their current speed capabilities are somewhat more than it would be warranted for their class

Mineral field balance

• More mineral fields on Alpha islands, but with reduced mineral amounts (we won't remove any mineral types from Alphas though)
• Intended to cut back large scale mining operations on Alpha without hurting newbies or casual players

T1 prototyping

• T1 modules are special because they don’t have prototype variants, but prototyping them still employs the heavy material multiplier, which doesn’t make much sense
• We’ll remove that multiplier for T1 items, but still make sure that mass-producing them stays a bit more efficient than prototyping

Corporation production folders

• Much requested feature, you’ll be able to select source and target storages/folders for corporation production processes

Financial divisions

• The other much requested corp feature, to be able to create multiple corporation balance divisions and manage member access to them

NPC restricted areas

• Due to the switch from static NPC spawns to free roaming ones, we’ll create areas where they won’t go, to prevent nasty surprises when deploying or arriving on the zone
• This means mostly the vicinity of terminals and teleports
• Note that this will only prevent them to pick a roaming destination inside these areas - if you aggro them they will still follow you inside these areas

Gamma turrets vs NPCs

• You’ll be able to set gamma turrets to shoot NPCs
• Note that when turrets are set like this, NPCs will also attack them
• Relevant forum topic

Squad assignment issues

• We’re aware of the squad membership issues regarding assignments, where you always have to leave your squad if you don’t want to get the negative relations from others
• Our solution is that we’ll try to modify reward distribution so that it will only include the members who actually contributed to the assignment in some way

Module diminishing returns

• Look into ways on how we can battle the current trend of cookie-cutter fittings like 4 tunings/4 ECMs/etc.

Lighting reworks

• Some visual updates to lighting, make it all look a bit more pretty
• Possibly update the skydome too

External main terminal usage

• Make it possible to use main terminals and outposts externally, like field terminals
• Storage/assignments/equipment change

Remote market transactions

• This depends on how exactly the above mentioned new market system will be implemented, but the intention is to make you able to create and modify market orders remotely

Intrusion changes

• Pair up intrusion times, so selected outposts/SAPs will always open at the same time
• Makes controlling multiple outposts much harder for one corporation
• Possibly make intrusion times public for everyone, remove intrusion scanning - feedback needed
• Relevant forum topic

Specimen processing SAP rework

• You hate this
• Rework it so that it would require you to deliver items from the SAP to a randomly chosen item delivery point nearby (or the other way around), similar to transport assignments

Equipment in killmails

• Include robot equipment in the killmail API

Log pagination fixes

• Fix the pagination of various logs and stop the “click through endless empty pages because nothing happened” silliness

Item linking in chat

• Be able to link items into chat for bragging rights or referencing

Closing

So this is it for now, our plans for this year - although some of them could seep into 2016 already, we’ll see. We hope there are many things in this list that make you excited for the future, we certainly look forward to them.

Again, feel free to open forum topics for any of the features or changes above, voice your concerns, make a suggestion, or simply express your approval - your feedback is important.

Those of you who follow the random assignment testing forum topic already know that the next batch of islands is ready. This time it’s the Alpha 2 islands (Hershfield, Tellesis, Shinjalar) which get the highway/teleport network rework treatment, along with the new field terminals and of course the random assignments, ranging from level 0 to 5.

For those who didn’t know, the good news is that the package will hit the live server this Friday, the 24th of July (together with a few fixes, as usual).

Next up in line is the package of Beta 1 islands, but more on this below.

And as a bonus, we have some nice pictures for you. For a few weeks now you have been all around Alpha 1 islands thanks to the new mission system. We're happy to present you with some heatmaps of where exactly the new system took you. It's a pretty visual proof that the new system indeed works as intended.

Coming up

Beta 1-2 island reworks

As I mentioned above, with Alpha 2 islands done, we’re immediately moving on to Beta 1 and then Beta 2. There are a few things to consider when doing Beta islands: teleport placement, teleport connections, and highways can have considerable effects on PvP and outpost warfare, so we need to have a clear concept before making any changes there.

We already have some discussion going on about this here, so if you have good insight on Beta warfare, you’re more than welcome to share your thoughts.

Spark teleport removal

Once we’re done with all the islands, we will remove the spark teleportation mechanic from the game. Spark teleports have been introduced in the past as a band-aid for long walk times, but now with the teleport and highway network improvements, their negative effects (instant power projection) will ultimately outweigh their benefits.

Token shop updates

The Syndicate Supplies shop will receive some long awaited additions:

• The new requisition slips, discussed in this blog post
• Direct purchase options for T2+ and T4+ items
• Industrial distress beacons
• A new feature that will limit the purchase of selected items to a minimum faction relation

An important note here: most of you probably know that the old assignment system allowed a few easy shortcuts to gather a lot of faction tokens over a relatively short time. We didn’t want to remove these from players cause they haven’t been exactly exploits, but we still need to get the token economy to a healthy status before we introduce new items.

In order to achieve this, we will increase both the token prices in the shop and the token amounts given as assignment rewards by a factor of 10. So in simple terms, this means an artificial, one-time inflation.

This will happen in about a month from now (we will post additional notifications once we’re close), so we advise everyone to spend their stored faction tokens on currently available items before that.

Roadmap blog incoming

On Tuesday we had a long internal discussion about where we want to go from here. It is clear that we need to make a switch from our very long development phases lasting over multiple months to more frequent updates with relatively small but significant features and improvements.

So we have assembled a list of over 30 items, including new features, actual new content, and various improvements and balancing changes. Expect a long blog post in a few days.

Friends, it is time to prepare for our annual ritual, during which our wallets gain sentience, slink out of our closely guarded pockets and offer themselves as monetary sacrifice to the great lords of Bellevue in hopes of a plentiful digital Summer wherein we may joyfully reap the crops of electronic entertainment while overdosing on caffeinated drinks and dubstep.

Yes, it is our favorite vaporous vacation vendition, the Steam Summer Sale and this time we offer you a whopping 50% off on Perpetuum and all in-game items starting from June 11 to 22, both on Steam and on our website; a great opportunity to buy several copies of the game and thousands of credits to various members of your family, your pets, your dentist, your high school crush, your lawyer, your probation officer and Dave the Guy from Grocery Store on The Corner.

Perpetuum 3.6 release

It's been a long and bumpy road, but we're finally there. Our truly random assignment system aka. Assignment system revamp Stage 2 will hit the live server on Monday the 15th of June, along with a healthy number of general updates and fixes.

Public testing of the patch has been going on for almost 2 weeks already, and those of you who have been following development saw almost daily updates and fixes. I'd like to take the opportunity here to thank everyone who participated in the testing - your feedback and bug reports helped us a lot in speeding up development, and certainly made this a better patch.

Testing will not stop though, since in this first patch we're only releasing the new assignment system for the three Alpha 1 islands: New Virginia, Attalica, and Daoden. As soon as we finish reworking the other islands, you'll be able to see and test them first on the test server.

The order of release will be Alpha 1 islands (in Monday's patch), then Alpha 2s, Beta 1s, and finally Beta 2s, the latter ones receiving assignments for the first time ever.

The testing forum topic can be found here, the first post of which also serves as preliminary patch notes.

We hope to welcome a bunch of new players during the weekend, and some of us devs will probably pop in to general chat too, so see you there!

The development of our new assignment system is approaching its final phase, so I wanted to give you an update and list a lot of things that the previous blogs missed. To recap, the first one explained the basic mechanics behind the new assignment template system, and the second one talked about the new assignment categories and the island reworks connected to the new system.

This one will be about the little things that make it all work together, but most importantly we’ll also have a look at how squad assignments work in the new system.

Field terminals

I’m happy to report that one of the larger features of this patch, field terminals are finally alive and working. When you get in range to them on the terrain the 3 buttons for storage, assignments, and equipping will show up.

A field terminal storage works pretty much like a private storage in a terminal - it permanently stores your items and only you can access them. The only difference is that this can be accessed from the terrain.

You can of course also request assignments from the terminal, which will hopefully drastically reduce the time you used to spend moving to and from terminals between assignments.

Finally, it allows you to equip your robot right there on the terrain. It uses the same equip window that you are used to, and you can equip items from both your cargo or the field terminal’s own storage too. There are of course certain limits to when you’re allowed to do this - having a PvP flag, being in combat, or having an activated module will all block usage.

Assignment NPCs

When we wanted you to kill something in the old system, we could only set the exact type of NPCs and the quantity that you had to destroy... anywhere. This had the consequence that we had to create artificial objective radiuses to make sure that you destroyed the NPCs at the location we wanted you to do it, and not 2 meters next to the assignment request location where it’s the most convenient. Ultimately this created a lot of problems when the NPCs wandered out of the objective area, and when you killed them outside, the objective wasn’t triggered.

The new system works very differently:

• We don’t use the fixed NPC spawns anymore - NPCs are spawned by the assignment when you get there, basically as a hidden "reach position" objective.
• It also allows us to spawn an NPC group that isn’t necessarily made up of a uniform type of robots.

UI improvements

This in turn made it necessary to explicitly mark the NPCs that are the targets of an objective. So now they conveniently have the objective letters on them, and similarly in the landmarks list as well. This way you’ll know exactly which ones are involved in your assignment even if there are other similar NPCs around.

We have also made the same improvement for building objectives, like item dispensers and switches. Hopefully this solves the occasional newbie confusion about clicking the objective letters which do nothing.

There is also a brand new assignment summary panel when you successfully complete one, listing all the rewards in detail. The picture of this panel indicates a few other changes which I’ll explain below.

The return teleport

As mentioned in the first blog, we’ll provide a return teleport option when completing an assignment with the aim of loading off your loot at a terminal or generally finishing an assignment-running session, without the need for boring walks.

The current plan is that the teleport option will be available for 5 minutes after successfully completing an assignment, for all members of your squad, and it will place you near a main terminal or outpost of your choice, on the same island. You won’t be able to select an outpost that you are not allowed to dock in, standard no-combat/no-PvP teleport usage limits apply, and furthermore you’ll also lose the option when you leave the island where you got it (which includes docking).

This is a very delicate issue because we neither want it to compete with mobile teleports, nor have an impact on beta island PvP, so extensive testing is needed here.

Improved objective mechanics

We have a new objective type which is basically a rework of the old and rightfully hated “scan this enemy with your chassis scanner”-task. The new mechanic doesn’t involve any modules - you simply need to complete a target lock on an NPC, which will "scan" it, and drop an intel item into a container that you can pick up. This is further improved by the objective marking feature that I mentioned above, so in the case of multiple scan objectives, once you "scanned" a target the objective letter will disappear, letting you easily keep track.

Kill objectives will track the actual destruction of the target, not the kill. This makes sure that even if someone else kills your assignment target for you, your objective will still progress. Assignment-related NPCs are also tagged upon spawning, so loot will always drop for the assignment owner.

All assignment-related items will now drop into a special container indicated with a blue icon, so you’ll easily find the required items even during a massacre. More importantly, since the NPCs will be specifically spawned by the assignment itself, you won’t see assignment-related items in random loot anymore.

Production objective mechanics have undergone a massive overhaul in order to make them work in random assignments. Mass production objectives and CTs used as an objective target will all scan through the whole assignment and properly include the items that you gather during the assignment as actual production components. Assignment CTs in the factory will wear off after the objective is completed and the production line will be automatically cleared, so you won’t have to extract the CT and deliver that too, which caused a lot of confusion in the old system.

Item dispensers are more intelligent now too: in the case of multiple items they will now try to give you as much as possible and hold on to the rest, instead of simply telling you that the whole batch won’t fit your cargo. This is important for higher level assignments where item quantities scale up to increase difficulty. There you’re supposed to use robots with large cargo holds, but it’s also possible to complete the transports in an Arkhe, if you’re willing to do multiple rounds between the supply and the delivery location. It’s even more important that this way multiple players in a squad can complete the objective in cooperation.

Assignments in squads

Doing assignments in a squad has always been gimmicky at best, sometimes even detrimental. The new system allowed us to make some long overdue upgrades, hopefully to the point where you will want to do all of them with your friends.

• No more “Request for squad” button. If you are in a squad, any assignment that you request will also show up for all your squadmates.
• If an assignment is provided by another squad member, it will say so right before the assignment name, complete with the provider’s name.
• Only the assignment provider can abort an assignment.
• The assignment owner/provider has to be online and present in order to do it. Otherwise the assignment will be put on hold and no objectives can be completed as long as this is the case.
• MOST IMPORTANTLY: everyone present and in the squad can contribute to any objective and complete any assignment that is shared through the squad. Objectives that require multiple kills or multiple items can be cooperated on freely.
• We will have separate assignment categories that are designed to be done in a squad. (Though you will be able to solo them if you have the patience or need the challenge.)
• NIC and relation rewards will be shared among any squad members present, but all item rewards will go to the assignment provider (this includes tokens).

Relation rewards

We would like to create a proper way of progression through assignment levels, since currently there isn’t much difference between going from level 1 to 2 or level 4 to 5. This is mainly due to the fixed way of giving out relation rewards, but in the new system it’s much easier to create reward scaling based on assignment levels.

As a result, your relation toward a particular megacorporation will progress faster on low assignment levels, but will gradually slow down as you go through the higher levels.

We’ll also re-introduce relation penalties towards a competing NPC megacorporation when doing assignments. This will happen in a rock-paper-scissors method, so the 3 megacorporations will be paired up and an assignment will provide positive relations for one and negative relations for another. Due to this, the “Diplomacy” extension will return to provide a way to reduce negative relation hits.

Syndicate Supplies

As a final bullet point, I’d like to tell you that we do have plans on improving the offers in Syndicate Supplies along with the new assignment system.

One of the plans includes an iteration of the lovely boxes you got to know as AIDs. The new items are called Requisition slips, they would be purchased with faction tokens, and in principle they would work the same way like AIDs, but limited to certain item tiers and categories, in order to not make it all that random. Say, a "T3 Pelistal weapon requisition slip", which would give you a randomly chosen pelistal weapon from tiers 1 to 3. Or an "ICS Officer requisition slip" which would include T4+ items, but the purchase of which would also be tied to a minimum relation towards ICS.

Closing

Well this post got a lot longer than I thought, but I hope you can see that we worked on a lot of stuff. Unfortunately some things that need to be done only come up once you’re in the middle of doing the features, even when you laid down the concept and designs beforehand. And then you think "we need this to make it right", while trying to avoid a serious feature-creep. So this might delay things a bit into April, but we really want to make this as good as we can, as it will be a pivotal part of the PvE experience.