For an expansion called "Catalyst" it is funny to me that the spaceship versions of the Catalyst do not get any attention. Or perhaps I missed them in the patch notes? Instead we are getting lots and lots of mining updates, a few new ships, a Dotlan Map inside the game, and some minor updates/fixes to Faction Warfare. Even Christopher Nolan is getting a new ship called the Odysseus. (That joke is for film fans who are anxiously waiting on his new film next year!)
I know most of you do not come to this blog for exciting mining news, but this expansion is chock full of exciting mining news. New ships that plug right into that gapping space between the Venture and a Barge, which is nice to have. And an actual, new, hard-to-believe-it-took-so-long-to-do Mining Epic Arc thingie. Whatever those are. Plus Phased stuff. I honestly don't know much of anything about mining, but I know people are excited and well they should be. Truthfully, it looks awesome. And even I can appreciate this new ore scanning technology that allows you to scan belts and sites without a specific module needed.
Of course I look at patch notes for potential changes to Player Versus Player content and Catalyst is extremely bare when it comes to those. These new ships will take some getting used to, as always, and I'm anxious to get my hands on an Odysseus to see what kind of trouble I can get into with a Cloaking Battlecruiser that can run links. That should be interesting. No one expected the Astero to turn into a rugged Frigate combat platform - so I'm looking forward to this new ship and what its potential might be for carnage.
Carriers are getting some very nice looking visual upgrades, which are long overdue. And some changes to how Fighters work, ranges, etc. But I still worry that the days of Carriers running missions or showing up in Low Sec are well behind us. Even with the recent changes to micro jump drives we haven't seen more of them in space and I doubt this will have much impact either. There hasn't been a day in the last year when I thought to myself, "Now is the perfect time to undock my Carrier!"
I'm not surprised that Breacher Pods are getting nerfed slightly, that was obviously going to happen. But you have to scroll way down the patch notes to get the FW changes. Finally it looks like at least some players will need to defend their plexes, as NPCs may be pointing people inside of them. The scourge of un-fitted ships just sitting inside earning LP is staggering and stupid. Hopefully this change goes a long way towards making that a thing of the past. I hope. It is a start, but I would argue it doesn't go nearly far enough towards fixing the issues that have popped up since the Insurgency started.
All in all though, this looks to be a solid expansion. And despite my own play-style preferences I am glad to see my mining/industry friends getting some much needed love. They deserve it.
Hopefully next year we'll be getting that -10 Pirate Battleship and some T3 Frigates. Oh and Pirate Frigates can enter +1 sized FW plexes. Those are just some of my requests.
Where are those new CSM members?