Yeah, CCP has introduced some changes that seem to give returning players problems. It makes me think that CCP should have a welcome back page that lists the most important changes that returning players should be made aware of. That way they can get up to speed on new challenges without having to read through umpteen years of patch notes.
Anyway,
- You can find current pirate FOB locations in the agency. They spawn “diamond” rats, which are tougher than normal rats. I don’t know where all they go, but they can go to belts and upwell structures (which can be a problem if you aren’t tethered)
- The Surgical Strike patch nerfed resists (and buffed short range ammo damage). Any old fits that you have saved may no longer have enough tank.
- Any upwell structure that hasn’t been fueled for 7 days will enter the abandoned state and lose asset safety. If you plan on going on break, it is best that you move your stuff to an NPC station, or manually trigger asset safety.
- Triglavians are a new faction that kill a lot of players in different places.
- First, small trig fleets can show up in belts. A properly tanked procurer can handle them, but things like retrievers can not.
- Second, Minor Triglavian Victory systems can spawn triglavian fleets, which can sometimes gate camp. You can set autopilot to avoid these systems. If you need to jump into one, you should either scout the gate, use a fast aligning ship, or use a ship that can fight them off.
- Third, apparently systems that have trig wormholes in them can spawn trig fleets. How do you know what systems have trig wormholes so that you can go around or go in prepared? ■■■■ if I know. This is a new mechanic which I’m still reading up on. So, for now, I’m operating under the assumption that any gate could have trigs on the other side.
Alright, I think that’s it. Obviously, CCP has introduced a lot more changes than that, but I think I got all the big stumbling blocs for returning players.