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Alright, so the latest expansion from CCP is out!  I got it installed last night and logged in.

And it was, for me, not as wonderful as I had hoped.  However, the main reason was probably because my pc is a couple years old, and could use a memory upgrade (researching that now..)

First, though, gotta work it with the things I liked:

New skins – Every NPC and lots of Caldari and Gallente ships got a new skin.. with logos.  Pretty sweet, and I’m betting this is the first iteration of what might allow corp logos on ships.

Engine Trails – Yes, they were there and they look good, though from what I’ve seen thus far, they are all blue 😦

PI (sort of) – the interface was a lot simpler (it was actually so simple, it took me a while to realize how simple it was).

Warp Effect – Oh, this.. was awesome.  Period.  I especially loved the distortion effect.  Plus, whoever thought about actually blocking out space when you were travelling through a planet should get a few kudos as well.  Very nicely done.

Shots that Miss – Yes, finally.  Also very well done.  It looks right and it is informative (yes, now you don’t have to look at your transversal all the time…).

New Salvager/Tractor Beam Sounds – Kind of annoying, but at least it was an interesting change.

Space and Nebulae – Yeah.. Eve now feels Awesome again..

Bookmark System – They should have kept it bookmarking, but I guess “Save Location” is good enough.

Now, the things I didn’t like:

New font/Scalable UI – Yeah, Scalable UI didn’t work so great on my 21″ monitor.  Or rather I should say the combo of reducing the UI to 90% and the new font didn’t work all that well in my opinion.  The 100% had the windows too big, but I could read the smallest text and the 90% had the windows just right, but the text in the interactive menus was just barely legible.  Actually, they weren’t legible, I was just able to decipher what was meant because the words used were still the same.  The good side is that once I get a 24″ monitor, I think it will look quite nice.

PI Taxes – Definitely cut into the profit, and I had hoped that the bandwidth changes would help allow me to establish more extractors.. but, it didn’t.  So, net loss there.

Graphics Issues – About a half an hour in, I started to experience HUD loss.  This usually happens to me if I’ve been on for about 8-10 hours, so I was a bit disconcerted to see that happen so quickly.. especially since a big deal was made about how more efficient the graphics were than previous.  Now, I well know that Eve and ATI cards aren’t exactly best of buds, so after a bit of PC cleaning and using a box fan at half power, I managed to reduce this issue and it happened after about a hour and a half, and not nearly as severely (I nearly lost my Vargur the first time around).  There was a recommendation made by CCP in regards to Radeon graphics cards and I made the change but haven’t been able to test the results yet.

Customs Office BPCs – Having some Concord LP, I decided to see if it was worth getting one of these.  So, I bought one thinking it was a BPO.. yeah, it wasn’t.  Just a single run BPC for 6k LP and 20mil isk.  Guess what?  Jita had them for sale for 22mil isk.  Yeah, looks like a decent reason to do Faction Warfare.

Things I plan to try soon:

Hybrids – When Friday rolls around I’ll have Medium Tech 2 Blasters and Railguns under my belt, so this means I’ll be messing around with the Brutix and other Tech 1 cruisers while I train up Gallente Cruisers V.

And things I plan to keep watching:

Supercap Changes – This was a big deal to me for a long, long time.  We’ll probably not see any appreciable effect for at least six months or so.

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All in all, I’ll probably need to review some how-tos on PI so that I can make it more efficient (though, even with the increase in taxes my profit is still pretty decent, especially for using High-sec planets), and I’ll be waiting a few weeks for the Tornado prices to drop where they need to be before I buy one.  It will still be a few months before I get a chance to fly any of the other Tier 3 Battlecruisers..  😦