Most of the talk around Cradle of War has been about Ansiblexes and the rewritten Faction Warfare insurgencies, and we have already covered both. But the patch notes for Version 24.01 hide a long list of smaller changes that will affect corps, hunters, wormholers and new players. Add a Fenris Creations dev blog about agent data, and there is plenty to unpack.
War declarations cost 500 million ISK
Declaring war on a corporation or an alliance now costs 500,000,000 ISK, up from 100,000,000 ISK. Bills that already exist stay at the old 100M price, while new bills and new wars use the new cost. A later note, dated 8 October, says the "Laws of War" window in Corporation management now shows the correct war cost after the change.
The patch notes mention an Astrahus Quantum Core, worth 600,000,000 ISK, as a point of reference for the new price.
Marauders and Black Ops get lighter
Fenris Creations cut the mass of every Marauder and Black Ops battleship, with inertia modifiers scaled so align times stay the same. The new values, in kg, against the old ones:
Ship | New mass | Old mass |
|---|---|---|
Kronos | 118.4 million | 148 million |
Vargur | 120 million | 150 million |
Paladin | 128 million | 160 million |
Golem | 125.6 million | 157 million |
Babaroga | 114.4 million | 143 million |
Marshal | 112.5 million | 150 million |
Panther | 111.6 million | 148.8 million |
Python | 106.3 million | 141.7 million |
Redeemer | 112.7 million | 150.3 million |
Sin | 106.3 million | 141.7 million |
Widow | 113.3 million | 151.1 million |
The Babaroga also got cheaper to build: it now needs 4,800 Zero-Point Field Manipulators instead of 6,666, and reprocessing returns 2,400. A 22 September hotfix corrected the inertia modifiers of the Paladin and Golem.
Pochven wormholes and NPCs
Extra-Pochven wormholes now change phase every 30 minutes instead of 60, with a warp-in point 75 km from the wormhole. New "scout" roaming NPCs appear when you first warp to one, and roamers linger after the wormhole closes.
Intra-Pochven wormholes are sturdier: base mass is 750,000,000 kg (was 100,000,000 kg) and base lifetime is 12 hours (was 4.5).
Observatory Flashpoint optimal fleet size drops to 12 from 15, a 20% payout reduction. Vigilance Points go from 10 to 12, a 20% increase.
On 6 October, Drifter and Sleeper NPC lock times were rebalanced in Pochven.
Rampant Drone Fabricator
Hybrid drone drops are down 50%, while Fabricator data rises 33% in C1-C3, 25% in C4 and 20% in C5/C6. Fabricator data can now be spent in new Pochven LP store offers at Triglavian Collective stations, including the Hybrid Drone Specialization skill book and several Radical mutaplasmids. NPCs engage from further away and are immune to warp disruption, and Interdictors take only 20% of normal NPC damage.
Ship balance pass
Frigates and cruisers saw a round of bonus tweaks: Harpy optimal range bonus up to 15% per level, Hawk now has a 7.5% all-damage bonus, Ishkur gains a 10% drone tracking bonus, Vengeance adds a 7.5% Light Missile damage bonus, Cerberus swaps its kinetic bonus for 2.5% all damage, and Sacrilege, Eagle, Deimos, Vigilant and Phobos all received stronger bonuses. The four Lancer Dreadnoughts (Bane, Karura, Hubris and Valravn) also received higher resists, for example Bane's shield kinetic resist goes from 47.5% to 55%, and Hubris's from 55% to 70%.
Friendlier start for new characters
New characters are now created with level 0 skills for the ships and weapons of the other three races. The total starting skill points are unchanged, but new pilots no longer have to buy the racial Frigate, Industrial and Small Turret skills before flying other empires' ships.
Agent memory: old missions will be cleared
In the dev blog "Keeping Memories Alive" (29 September), Fenris Creations explained it is moving NPC agent memory off legacy pickled Python data, which is tied to the Python version, and onto a new, transparent format. Agents track about 100,000 missions per day, and their memory table is one of the largest in the database.
The move happens in three phases, and the last one has no firm date, only "months, rather than days", with a reminder promised before it lands. What matters for players:
Standings are separate and will not be reset.
Unlocked agents stay available.
Agent interactions from before 29 September that are not refreshed afterwards will have their jobs cleared in the final phase.
Research agents contracted before that date need at least one mission completed with that agent, once per agent per character, to stay active.
If you rely on old research agents, running one mission each is a cheap way to be safe.
Why it matters
The war dec price is the headline. Five times the cost changes the math for mercenary corps and small groups that used wars as a cheap way to farm kills, while the Marauder and Black Ops mass cuts make those ships easier to move and align. Pochven gets more reasons to be visited, and the agent memory work is a reminder that old data in EVE has a long tail.
Outside the patch notes, the community feedback thread for Cradle of War is still active on the official forums, and the Crimson Harvest event runs until 3 November.