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| Incursion links |
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| General |
| Advanced |
| EVE University |
| Preparations |
| Fittings |
| Guides |
The history of Incursions is long and storied. Game balance changes by CCP over the years have both indirectly and directly changed the shape of Incursions and the groups that run them.
This page serves largely as a collection of devblogs and patches documenting the history of Incursions and EVE University's Incursion Community. While it is a very social activity, given their subjective importance, non-balance change events are limited to those that had a substantive impact on E-UNI's Incursion Community or on the larger Incursion community.
Timeline
| "Introducing Incursions" January 2011 ↓ |
"Balance restored" June 2012 ↓ |
"Battlecruisers retired" July 2013 ↓ |
"Scout sites revamped" August 2014 ↓ |
"Capital escalation" April 2016 ↓ |
"Alpha Clones" December 2017 ↓ |
"Reboot of Community" December 2018 ↓ |
"Hacking Changes" September 2019 ↓ |
"Marauders: The Third Tier" February 2021 ↓ |
"Headshot protection" June 2024 ↓ | ||||||||||
| ↑ April 2012 "The Dead Zone" |
↑ November 2012 "Incursions wiki reborn" |
↑ January 2014 "Accolades" |
↑ December 2015 "Remote Repair Revision" |
↑ November 2016 "On Grid Boosts" |
↑ May 2018 "Into the Abyss" |
↑ May 2019 "Single Highsec Focus" |
↑ April 2020 "Surgical Strike" |
↑ December 2023 "Focus headshot campaign" | |||||||||||
January 2011 - Introducing Incursions
Initially CCP ran Incursions as global events, until they were finalized and added as to New Eden in the point-release for Incursion on January 18th, followed by a few patches.
Patches & devblogs
From the devblog The Sanshas Are Coming (January 14th, 2011):
| “ |
If you like ships with lots of spikes that fly around and try to kill players, you’re in luck. Patch day is coming soon, which means you will all get to play with the Incursion feature shortly. On January 18, we will softly rub the hamsters in the server room till they fall asleep, prod them sweetly with foreign objects, and, if we’re lucky, they’ll wake up again with brand new content later that day. (If they don’t, we’ll have to place the largest order ever for very small coffins. Sadface). One important note: If, on the 18th of January, you find yourself flying around New Eden unable to see any Incursions on the starmap, there is a good reason for it. Rather than just haphazardly throwing the content onto TQ, we’ll be opening it in what we hope is a spectacular-but-oh-so-carefully-staged manner, which means you won’t see it right away. Don’t panic - the spiky space zombies are still coming, but they’d rather jump out of a cake in lingerie, swinging assault rifles by the light of fireworks while singing whatever song space zombies sing, than simply “be there” when the server starts. Keep your eye open for events and just generally things being a little “out of place” following the Incursion deployment. Anyway, we’ve been working on the Incursion feature set for a while now, and I think I speak for the entire team when I say that I cannot wait for this to hit Tranquility. Incursions will bring you the latest in space-zombie technology, and we’ve put a lot of love into it. Enjoy! Toodles, CCP Soundwave |
” |
From the Patch Notes for Incursion 1.1.0 (January 18th, 2011):
| “ |
|
” |
From the devblog Dear Incurserers(?) (January 28th, 2011):
| “ |
Incursions opened Tuesday, January 25, 2011, and we’re seeing tremendous activity in the constellations. I’d like to thank everyone who has tried this feature, regardless if you made it out of the sites alive or not. As with most other features, tossing thousands of players at them means that some things break or need tweaking, and Incursions are no different. Yesterday, we deployed the first set of changes:
That said, we’d like to continue making tweaks, fixes and balance changes. The first step is ironing out the bugs and most critical issues so we can get a realistic picture of how the feature works. From there on, we’ll evaluate the balance and gameplay, and make changes if needed. With the fixes made today, actually completing an Incursion should be considerably easier, and we’ll be monitoring the progression over the weekend. Most of us will either participating on our player characters until we run out of drakes/money, or will be on our dev characters observing. |
” |
From the Incursion 1.1.2 Patch Notes (January 27-28th, 2011):
| “ |
Incursions?
FIXES
|
” |
February - June 2011
Minor changes were made as CCP made fixes and fine-tuned some values.
Patches & devblogs
From the Incursion 1.2 Patch Notes (February 15th, 2011):
| “ |
Exploration & Deadspace
NPC's
|
” |
From the Incursion 1.4 Patch Notes (April 6th, 2011):
| “ |
NPCs
|
” |
From the Incursion 1.5 Patch Notes (May 19th, 2011):
| “ |
Incursions
|
” |
From the Incarna Patch Notes (June 21st, 2011):
| “ |
Exploration, Deadspace and Incursions
|
” |
April 2012 - The Dead Zone
In the Escalation patch CCP made many changes to Incursions. Perhaps too many, because things didn't turn out quite the way they expected.
While many of the changes were warranted and for the most part, reasonable, too many things were changed at once. The end result turned out to be a classic example of how hard it is to predict the outcome when you're making too many changes at once.
Patches & devblogs
From the devblog Carebearing 2.0[Dead link 1]:
| “ |
Incursions have been a hot topic on the forums, so Team Five 0 decided to see what we could do to shake things up a bit. After collecting a lot of valuable feedback from you guys, we decided to give the spawns more variety, without significantly altering the difficulty of any one spawn. This was done by grouping the NPCs into waves, and moving the trigger to spawn the next wave from an individual NPC to the group as a whole. This will mean that you now need to kill the whole wave to trigger the next one, rather than just specific NPCs. As well as adjusting these triggers, we’ve also randomized the spawns based on feedback that Incursions had become too predictable. Now, when you enter an Incursion you will no longer be able to predict every spawn. Feedback and our internal statistics also confirmed that Vanguard sites had an excessive reward-to-effort-ratio in comparison to other Incursion sites, so we have reduced their reward by 10% to keep them more in line with the compensation expected for this difficulty of site. This should also have the fortunate side-effect of increasing the length of Incursions in high security space. |
” |
From the Escalation to Inferno Patch Notes that has since been removed (April 24th, 2012):
| “ |
Incursions
|
” |
Changes
CCP didn't tell us anywhere near all the things they changed, glossing over many highly relevant details in their devblogs and patch notes. Below is a list of some of the actual changes:
- Timed spawns and most triggers were removed in favour of the static wave mechanics (except for the Override Transfer Array, see below).
- Completion triggers were changed, forcing you to kill off the entire wave before spawning the next one. On average this change alone doubled the completion times, halving the practical payout, which made the -10% payout reduction seem trivial.
- The Nation Commander Outpost sites now spawned Romis and Augas, in addition to the frigates.
- Assault sites in general had slightly less snipers and more brawlers, increasing the potential alpha of new waves, making them slightly more dangerous.
- The Nation Commander Stronghold had its spawns moved further out, some spawning 150-200km out.
- The Overwhelmed Civilian Facility had more ships in some waves, potentially spawning up to five Deltoles, which drastically improved Sansha's alpha on smaller ships like logistics, due to the increased number of target painters. This change was on top of the general change of increased ships per wave.
- The Override Transfer Array site had several changes, on top of the general ones, making it a proverbial mine-field.
- The Mara (logistics ship) was added to the list of ships spawning.
- Two groups of Tamas spawned with one group of Tamas triggering an additional wave of Niarjas. This could easily lead to having up to ten or twelve Tamas and five Niarjas on grid, at the same time if you made even the slightest mistake. Those spawns would of course be on top of the regular Deltole, three Augas and five or six Eysturs.
Effect on the community
People avoided Override Transfer Array sites like the plague, rightfully so given the changes. Without a hacker, good offgrid boosters, superior firepower and preferably even three logistics, you pretty much rolled the dice on those sites, risking losses everytime you went in there. It was not uncommon for systems to be deserted, fleets docked up, when you ended up with nothing but Override Transfer Array sites, much like the Nation Consolidation Network sites did and still do for assaults.
In many ways, this was the point in time where people were forced to up the minimum requirement for Incursions. You could no longer get by simply by surviving, you had to be able to quickly trim the waves which required good damage projection and webs to get enough applied dps. Applied dps was no longer simply a measure of how fast you could do sites, it raised the bar to the point where fleets who were too slow simply got overrun and killed.
For us it meant that we had to be a lot harsher when it came to fleet compositions. To ensure we had a safe environment for people to learn and make mistakes in, we just had to raise our standards. So we stopped taking ill suited ships and badly fit ones, put limits on how many battlecruisers we could safely carry in a fleet etc. This led to less fleets, alumni flying with other groups and many people simply went back to level four missions for ISK, as they were actually more reliable and rewarding.
Many who didn't run Incursions, as well as some who refused to see the reality of what these changes brought, objected to upping the requirements. Quite a bit of drama ensued, people branding our community as elitist. It took a while, but eventually they came to see, just as we had, that this was the only way to go forward.
June 2012 - Balance restored
Balance was restored, somewhat, after CCP reverted some of their changes as well as finetuned some of their changes from Escalation back in April. Vanguard communities, including ours, gained renewed strength and bounced back.
Patches & devblogs
From the devblog Incursions Update[Dead link 2] (June 12th, 2012):
| “ |
With the Escalation to Inferno release we made several changes to Incursions. We promised to monitor the result of these changes and we stand to our promise: after evaluating both your feedback and our internal metrics, we have decided to roll back a few changes. With so many tweaks made at once, it became very difficult to determine the success of each individual change. We have rolled back the following changes:
This means the reward for vanguard sites will increase to the pre-escalation rate. We feel the iterations made to NPC grouping and triggers per spawn are enough to keep the isk at a sensible level. With Escalation, we decreased the influence gain per site as well as increasing the length of Incursions. The initial reason for these modifications was that the sites were being completed so quickly that the influence bar never decreased. However, these changes combined made getting the influence bar under control an almost impossible task rather than just the challenging one we had hoped for. This is now available for testing on Singularity and we will continue to monitor the feedback closely. |
” |
From the Inferno 1.1 Patch Notes (June 25th, 2012):
| “ |
Incursions
|
” |
Changes
Just like with the first set of changes back in April, CCP left out a lot. Additionally the following was changed:
- Spawns were rebalanced (for the most part brought down to a reasonable amount).
- The Override Transfer Array changes were mostly reverted.
- The Mara Paleo spawn was removed.
- The trigger spawning additional Niarjas when shooting the Tamas was removed.
- The delayed Tama spawn was removed.
- The Logistics Control Array was moved much closer to the warp-in, making hacking easier.
- This site now behaved much like the rest with static wave mechanics.
Effect on the community
Balance was restored, more or less, with these changes. Things became manageable again and the EVE University Incursion Community (as all the other communities) began running again on a regular basis.
While sites still had more ships to destroy, the income gap before and after the patches started shrinking. This had little to do with sites becoming easier however, but more of a result of the shift to shield fleets and the fact that communities figured out better ways to achieve higher applied dps, thus making fleets both safer and faster.
November 2012 - Incursions wiki reborn
The uniwiki-pages on Incursions was mostly out of date and incomplete. Much of the knowledge built up within the community or experiences shared by people outside our community was lost when people left EVE or the community. A huge effort was made to rewrite the whole section on Incursions on the uniwiki as well as adding more information to it, in order to both preserve knowledge gained and in order to give people a good repository of information regarding Incursions.
In November 2012, a dozen new Incursions-related pages were published on the uniwiki, grouped together with a portal-like structure to ensure that people who came looking for information about Incursions would not only find it but also be guided to all the relevant pages.
February 2013
The introduction of info panels came with some changes to the Incursions info panel. The fancy icons were replaced by drab, grey icons.
Patches
From the Retribution 1.1 Patch Notes (February 19th, 2013):
| “ |
Info panels
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” |
June 2013
Odyssey brought some changes to modules that indirectly affected Incursions. The new hacking minigame was never introduced for Incursions, they still run the same old system (so you still use multiple data analyzers to increase your hacking speed).
Patches & devblogs
From the Odyssey 1.0 Patch Notes(June 4th, 2013):
| “ |
Modules
Ships
Ship Skill Requirement Changes
|
” |
From the devblog The great ship skill changes of summer 2013[Dead link 3]:
| “ |
What are the impacts of all of this?
|
” |
July 2013 - Battlecruisers retired
The changes from Odyssey sunk in and we realized that it was simply not realistic to continue dragging battlecruisers around.
Changes
The reduced efficiency of Tracking Enhancers pushed some ships and fits that barely had the range needed before, to a place where they simply didn't measure up anymore. Combined with the reduced skill requirements for battleships, the community made the decision to finally retire battlecruisers once and for all.
Battlecruisers never really measured up since Escalation back in April 2012, but we bent over backwards trying to be as inclusive as we possibly could. The changes in Odyssey was simply the last straw that broke the camel's back.
Effect on the community
At the end of the day not much changed. We didn't have many battlecruisers and the training time pre-Odyssey for battlecruiser pilots was about the same as the post-Odyssey trains for a proper battleship.
September 2013
Odyssey brought quite a few changes that affected Incursions. The medium turret rebalance gave strategic cruisers a little boost in efficiency, warfare links lost some of their potency and command ships now benefit from bonuses to two racial warfare links with the new ship bonuses (accompanied with brand new faction mindlink implants).
Patches
From the Odyssey 1.1 Patch Notes (September 3rd, 2013):
| “ |
Modules
Ship balancing - Command Ships
|
” |
Changes
The changes dropped the efficiency of warfare links, most noticeably the web ranges as well as an overall reduction in the efficiency of the shield boosts.
- Federation Navy Stasis Webifiers dropped down to 18,83km (previously 20.78km)
- True Sansha Stasis Webifiers dropped down to 20,18km (previously 22.28km)
- Max siege bonuses like cycle time reduction and resist bonuses dropped down to 25.9% (previously 35%).
- Solo boosters are now able to give both bonused siege and skirmish links with the appropriate implant bonuses, thanks to the new command ship bonuses and faction mindlink implants.
Effect on the community
Each change was rather small, but it added up and although it wasn't too noticable in vanguards, it was for assaults and up. Slightly larger signatures meant ships took more damage, slightly lower resist boosts meant they took a little more damage and finally the lowered bonus to cycle time meant remote shield boosters repaired less damage over time. The web range reduction did very little to most ships, as they orbited well within the new range. It was basically just the elusive Romis, who often hang out in the 21-25km ranges, that more often than not ended up outside the range of both faction webs.
While it was an overall loss of efficiency, the changes to command ships and offgrid boosts made it possible to give perfect boosts with just one offgrid booster. This had the fortunate side-effect that we had less of a problem ensuring that all fleets ran with a perfect booster backing them up.
The changes to medium guns also made some strategic cruisers and command ships more efficient. While they cannot match the power of pirate faction battleships, many of them end up performing slightly better than regular tech one battleships. This allowed us to open up our community to people who like flying those kind of ships, like wormhole dwellers or people who simply don't like large, bulky ships.
November 2013
With Rubicon came some changes to Marauders that made some of them lose their webbing role.
Patches
From the Rubicon 1.0 Patch Notes (November 19th, 2013):
| “ |
Ship Balancing
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” |
January 2014 - Accolades
From Frood Frooster's forum post EVE University Medals[Dead link 4] (January 26th):
| “ |
I am not a man of lots of words. There are two people who have spent a huge amount of their time for building up and maintaining Eve Uni's Incursion community. It is my honour to award them Eve Uni's Star of Outstanding Service. This is one of Eve Uni's highest awards, which we only hand out for very special contributions. Please join me in thanking Cassiel Seraphim and Kataki Soikutsu for all they are doing for Eve Uni and especially our Incursion community. The Uni wouldn't be the same without you guys. |
” |
February 2014 - The world is changing
CCP made various updates on the backend of the database, which had some effects on things like asteroid belts, incursion spawns etc.
Patches
From the Rubicon 1.2 Patch Notes (February 18th, 2014):
| “ |
Database backend
|
” |
Effect on the community
The old list of constellations and systems over at EVE Survival became out of date, so instead of relying on their Incursion Constellation Layout page, we created our own. You can find that information under Constellation layouts for Incursions now.
March 2014 - Incursions on Dotlan
The new CREST-features opened up for third party programs, like dotlan to pull some information about current Incursions; Constellation and staging systems, state (established, mobilizing, withdrawing), influence and whether the mothership site has spawned or not.
New features on Dotlan
From the Incursions incoming devblog on Dotlan (March 4th, 2014):
| “ |
CCP FoxFour announced yesterday on the forum that there’s a CREST point incoming for getting information and states about incursions. Yeah! Finally! It’s been a long time since I’ve asked for exactly one of those information layers that are public available on the ingame map but not accessible outside. The CREST endpoint is already available on SISI to test, so I digged out some of my prepared stuff (long time ago) and writing the background update daemon and the started with the initial frontend. While it’s not yet completed and of course the CREST endpoint not migrated to TQ, I wanted to share the current state and look with you here. This is what you get from the CREST endpoint:
With the ability to track incursions changes and influence over time you’ll get a nice history about all the incursions, where they happend and how they progressed over time. I only have to decide in which section I’ll pack the incursions stuff into, so I don’t overload the navigation bar or the site structure. |
” |
From the Incursions are live devblog on Dotlan (March 12th, 2014):
| “ |
CCP deployed the CREST endpoint for Sansha Incrusions today. I updated the site! Lets see how the progress tracking of the sansha influence looks like. On sisi there wasn’t so much activity. Right now I’ve not yet decided where to put this incursions section into the site navigation. Maybe Universe. Any suggestions? Links: |
” |
August 2014 - Scout sites revamped
In an attempt to bring scout sites back into the fold they received a substantial revamp. Changes were also done to the spawn mechanics of assault sites, as a stopgap measure for fixing the Nation Consolidation Network assault site. They also lowered the respawn time of Incursions, making them spawn again at a faster pace.
Patches & devblogs
From the devblog Incursion changes in Hyperion (August 19th, 2014):
| “ |
Reducing the re-spawn time of Incursions Right now when an Incursion finishes there is between a 24 and 48 hour delay until another Incursion spawns in the same security space replacing the one that ended. For example, if all of the Incursions in high sec are completed within a short time span of each other, it means that for a period of time there will be no Incursion in high sec. This change is aimed at helping make sure that Incursion runners will always have them available when they log in. You may have to move to get to it, but at least the option is there for you to go do it. More specifically we are reducing the min and max time between an Incursion being completed and it re-spawning elsewhere from 24 and 48 hours respectively to 12 and 36 hours respectively.
Scout sites are the lowest level of Incursions site available for players to run. When Incursions first launched their goal was to provide an environment for introducing players to Incursions. When we look at metrics such as how often these sites are run, who runs them, and then talk to players from the Incursion community it becomes fairly obvious that Scout sites are not achieving their original goal. Time for a rebalance! While looking at them we decided to change their purpose from being an introduction to Incursions to something you could run while waiting for a spot in a fleet running Vanguards or when you don't quite have enough people to run Vanguards. To achieve that goal we bumped up their rewards from 50,000 ISK to 3,500,000 ISK and from 50 LP to 400 LP per pilot, still keeping them less desirable to run than Vanguards. We then also adjusted the number and types of NPC you find in the Scout sites to balance out the increased reward.
If you regularly run assault sites in Incursions you may be familiar with a term known as “NCN wall.” This generally means that the system with assault sites only has Nation Communication Network (NCN) sites available to run. We are making a change that will make sure assault systems are never 100% NCN's. |
” |
Addendum (August 20th):
| “ |
Null sec Vanguard sites The following is an update to the original dev blog. We were still working out the details and ensuring it could be completed for Hyperion. We are now confident it will ship and have updated the dev blog to reflect this additional change. Incursions in null sec are almost identical to high sec. One of the only differences, aside from the space they are in, is the rewards. Null sec Incursions pay out approximately 25% more per pilot. OK so in theory null sec Incursions should pay more per hour then. Well not really. Since people running high sec Incursions feel a lot safer while running the Incursions they tend to bring much more expensive ships and fittings. The net result is null sec Incursions get run at such a slower speed that the per hour pay is a lot lower than we would like. We could just increase the ISK payout and be done with it. However an idea was proposed that we feel would be a much nicer way to balance null sec Incursions. We are going to increase the maximum number of pilots allowed in Vanguard sites from 10 to 15 while keeping the per pilot payout the same. With the ability to bring more pilots the effective DPS goes up and the speed of running the sites should increase as well. So while we get to bring the speed of running the Incursions more in line with high sec we also encourage more pilots to participate. This change will only effect null sec Vanguard sites for now. Once this goes live we will monitor closely and see if this actually makes a difference in the way we want. If everything goes well we will consider applying the change to other sites as well and possibly low sec. If everything goes horribly wrong we may also revert the change. For now though we are looking forward to seeing how this plays out on TQ come Hyperion's release. |
” |
From the Hyperion 1.0 Patch Notes (August 26th, 2014):
| “ |
Missions & NPCs
|
” |
Changes
Besides the announced changes there were some minor changes:
- The Mara Paleo had its remote shield boosting capability almost doubled.
- The preferred orbit for the Antem Neo, Vylade Dien and the Yulai Crus Cerebi was reduced to 60km instead of their usual 120 - 140km orbit.
- The Sansha rats also seem to stay on target for a longer period of time, changing targets a little less often.
Effect on the community
Overall these changes has little to no practical effect on the Incursion Community as a whole, or for the Eve University Community.
- Scout sites
- The new scout sites retain their uniqueness in the way that they have no enemies capable of warp disrupting or warp scrambling you and the overall damage is much lower than that of vanguard sites. So you could run with just one logistics or even spidertank if you want to and warp out whenever you please. Sadly they are still largely ignored by the community, much like the old scout sites. Despite the increased payout, the number of enemies and sheer amount of hit points to chew through means that you spend far too long, using far too much ammunition for these sites to be worth running.
- Assault site spawn mechanics
- The changes to assault site spawn mechanics was a welcome stopgap measure, even though it didn't fix the problem of conflicting fleet compositions between the Nation Consolidation Network site and the other two types.
- Faster respawns of Incursions
- As for the faster respawns it had very little effect on the community for now, since the ability to rapidly close an Incursions by running the mothership site is and has always been the biggest factor.
- Changed preferred orbits
- This changed the orbits for the Antems, Vylades and Yulais in all sites, including assault and headquarter sites. The effect of this change is subtle, allowing for more leeway in terms of locking range and damage projection needed to do these kind of sites, as ships will eventually come much closer. But overall the practical impact has been very small.
- Null security Incursions
- The relatively few groups that run Incursions in null security space will no doubt appreciate being able to bring more people without reducing payout, but it's not likely to generate an interest from groups who aren't already running.
December 2014 - Command Ships unlocked
Until this patch the Command Ships weren't treated like Battlecruiser-hulls in terms of being able to take the acceleration gate to the cruiser-side of the Nation Consolidation Network sites, but now they are and can freely take either gate.
Patches
From the Patch Notes for Rhea 1.0 (December 9, 2014):
| “ |
Gameplay:
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” |
Effect on the community
This opens up a few more options for doing Nation Consolidation Network sites. Instead of having to rely on Strategic Cruisers we can also bring Command Ships as well, but unlike Strategic Cruisers the Command Ships can take any of the two gates. This makes it a little easier to split the fleet more effectively.
March 2015 - Incursions on Shadowlauch
In March 2015 Shadowlauch[Dead link 5] launched with even more specific information about incursion spawns, perhaps more readily available than the information previously only available though dotlan.
July 2015 - Null security incursion incentive strengthened
In July CCP decided to expand on the null security incursion incentive by increasing the number of pilots for all type of sites (except scout sites) in both low and null security space.
Patches & devblogs
From the Summer of Sov - Nullsec PVE and Upgrades devblog (July 8th, 2015):
| “ |
Well we’ve received positive feedback about that change from Nullsec and Lowsec Incursion runners, and we’re now ready to extend that same change to Assault, HQ and Mothership sites in Nullsec and Lowsec. This means that Nullsec Assault sites will take up to 30 players before diminishing returns, HQ sites will take up to 60 pilots, and Mothership sites will take up to 120. |
” |
From the Aegis Sovereignty v1.0 patch notes (July 14th, 2015):
| “ |
Nullsec and Lowsec versions of the Assault, Headquarters and Mothership Incursion sites now allow 50% more players before rewards begin to decrease. |
” |
Changes
Total payout for an incursion fleet in low and null security space rose by up to 50% due to the extra pilots, who also contribute to faster, safer and more flexible fleets that make even more ISK/hour than before.
Effect on the community
The increase of number of pilots being paid gave low and null security communities quite some leeway when it came to fleet compositions. With additional pilots they could easily adjust their fleets to either pile on more of the same ships to make even more ISK, take cheaper ships and compensate by simply bringing more of them, or keep some specialized PvP-ships in the fleet to more effectively deal with potential PvP. It's difficult to say whether this truly made more communities consider low and null security incursions, or if it simply made it more profitable and safe for those who already did.
This had little effect on the EVE University Incursion Community though, as we primarily run in high security space.
September 2015 - Empowered capsuleers
With the Vanguard release, new capsuleers started off with roughly +350,000 more skillpoints than before (400k instead of 50k), which not only allows them to use a wide variety of modules from the get go, but also saves them the trouble of getting basic fitting and support skills injected and trained to a decent level.
Patches
From the Patch Notes for Vanguard 1.0 (September 29th, 2015):
| “ |
Skills:
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” |
Effect on the community
The role of hacker/scout can now be performed by anyone since new capsuleers start with Hacking I trained. The additional skills also reduced several trains, such as minimum skills for both damage dealers and logistics but also for valet alts and Orca alts, allowing people to get those skills trained a little faster.
December 2015 - Remote Repair Revision
With the Frostline expansion CCP made various changes to remote repairing, which simplified made no change to the overall damage repaired by these modules, but practically made them repair for more but cycle much more slowly. They also introduced falloff to various modules, including the remote repair modules and increased the grid size by a magnitude of 32.
Patches, devblogs & forum posts
From the devblog Grid Sizes & You (December 8th, 2015):
| “ |
One of those assumptions thus far has been that the base grid size of 250km is big enough to contain all the space action you can handle. However things are about to get a whole lot bigger and we need to make some room for the new enormous structures coming next year. So we are increasing the base grid size to be 32 times larger, from 250km up to 8000km across. |
” |
From the patch notes for the Frostline release (December 8th, 2015):
| “ |
Modules:
Technical:
|
” |
The referenced Remote Rep Tiericide and Falloff thread:
| “ |
Hey everyone! We're ready to get feedback on the changes to Remote Reps planned for our Operation Frostline release on December 8th. Few notes about this plan:
We're not doing a full balance pass on the other logi ships in this release, but there are some tweaks:
Range bonuses are being adjusted to match the new base module ranges and falloff addition:
|
” |
Changes
Practically these changes had the following effects:
- It was easier to clip the grid of sites warping in, making pre-loaded sites a little more common place.
- The increased cycle time of remote armour repairers meant you took 20% more damage before reps landed, buffer became a little bit more important for armour communities.
- The increased cycle time of shield had little to no effect for incursions.
Effect on the community
After a period of adjustment most things returned to normal. This changed things somewhat, but on a grand scheme it made very little difference for how we run incursions or the effectiveness of logistics.
The increased chance of pre-loaded sites had its biggest effect on assault and headquarter sites, but that was already a reality they had to brace for, it just happened a bit more often now. For vanguards this just meant that the fleet had to pay a little bit more attention and perhaps make slightly different calls depending on how close the ships were.
For logistics, the new remote repair changes made it slightly easier to balance how many repair modules to use, due to them being much stronger and thus made it easier to see if you needed one more repper or not. Some armour communities increased their buffer, marginally, to counter taking damage for 20% longer before initial reps landed, but a lot of armour communities were already running with increased buffer and this change was well within their existing buffer.
April 2016 - Capital escalation
In the Citadel expansion CCP opened up incursion sites in low and null security space for smaller capital ships.
Patches & forum feedback
From the early [Feedback Request] Capital Ships in Incursions feedback thread (April 4th, 2016):
| “ |
Hey folks. We've been talking to some incursion-focused players and the CSM about capital ships and lowsec/nullsec incursions, and we'd like to see what the rest of the community thinks. Thanks to Plaid Rabbit who initially brought up the idea to me and provided his well-reasoned arguments for the concept. With the updates to capital ships coming in the Citadel expansion, it might add some valuable options to low/null incursions if we opened the gated sites up to capital ships. Our initial discussion has indicated that it probably wouldn't be all that overpowered to allow them, and that capitals in fact might not end up being used all that much but that at least opening up the option may allow for some creative experiments and potentially some cool new tactics. We we're calling on all incursion runners for your feedback: do you think it would be a good idea to allow capital ships into lowsec and nullsec incursion sites after the Citadel expansion? I'm very interested to hear what you guys and gals think. As always, I'm especially interested in the reasoning behind your opinions. Thanks! |
” |
Followup post in the same thread (April 17th, 2016):
| “ |
Hey everyone. Thanks for the feedback. We agree with those of you who are advocating a "trial period" for capitals in incursions. In the Citadel expansion we will be adjusting gate restrictions to allow all capital ships into Incursion sites and we will be watching closely to see how this new access is used. Since we know that it takes a while for new tactics to develop, we have set a target for the end of 2016 to do a full review of how capitals in incursions are doing, including a call for more player feedback at that time. Of course if something exploitable comes up between now and then we'll always be on hand to adjust things sooner. Thanks! |
” |
From the Patch notes for EVE Online: Citadel (April 27th, 2016):
| “ |
Dreadnoughts, Carriers, and Force Auxiliary ships may now enter Sansha's Nation Incursion sites. |
” |
Effect on the community
Since the majority of the incursion runners do sites in high security space this didn't change much, as capital ships (with the exception of freighter-type capitals) cannot enter high security space.
For the low and null security communities this will allow them to use carriers, assuming they either have them in the constellation already or can safely get them there (incursions shut down all regular cynosural fields, stopping them from being cynoed in). The other ships, like dreadnoughts and force auxiliary ships are unlikely to be as useful due to their heavy reliance on Siege and Triage to be effective, locking them in place for several minutes (which instantly cancels out most of the benefits they might add due to the need to move).
Whether this is worth the risk of moving capital ships through gates to get there is debatable, but having such strong ships within a an incursion constellation where the enemy cannot simply cyno in counter-caps or more reinforcements is arguable giving the runners a stronger defensive position. Either way, this naturally had no effect whatsoever on the EVE University Incursion Community.
August 2016
Minor adjustments were made to fix some gates locking capitals out of the end of the True Power Provisional Headquarters site.
Patches
From the Patch notes for YC118.7 release (August 4th):
| “ |
Corrected an issue that prevented capital ships from progressing beyond the first room of the True Power Provisional Headquarters incursion site. |
” |
Effect on the community
Very little, as that particular site was the least favourite headquarter site to begin with.
November 2016 - On Grid Boosts
CCP brought off grid boosts on grid.
Patches
From the Patch notes for EVE Online: Ascension (November 15th)
| “ |
The old Warfare Link and Foreman Link modules will be converted in to the new Command Burst modules. For more details on Command Bursts, see the blog Command Bursts and the new world of fleet boosting |
” |
Changes
- The former off grid command links were now replaced with command bursts, which required the bursting ship to be on grid with the fleet to give boosts.
Effect on the community
The booster now had to fit a tank as well as be able to have a multi-burst setup.
August 2017
Changes were made to tighten up the requirements to get paid for a site, it's no longer enough to simply be in the fleet anymore; you have to actually participate in the site somehow.
Patches
From the Patch notes for August 2017 release (August 16th):
| “ |
Players will now be disqualified from being rewarded for participation in Incursion sites if they have not dealt any damage or assisted other players through logistics. |
” |
Effect on the community
It used to be possible to "pad" a fleet with additional members to take advantage of the fact that incursion sites pay out the same amount to each pilot in the fleet up to a certain point. So adding more people to a undermanned fleet would still pay the existing fleet members the same and simply add even more ISK by having people "sponge" payouts. So if your fleet had room for 3 more people you could bring in newbies, alts or whatever to allow them to get some free ISK without having to do anything. This change made that a bit less efficient and any additional members of the fleet would now need to do something to help assist the fleet or deal some damage in order to continue "sponging" payments.
For the EVE University Incursion Community this was a minor issue. Sometimes we had the scout/hacker come in and get some extra ISK sometimes, but these roles are already being paid and it wasn't that often we were in a position to allow them to sponge anyway. So this changed little for us.
 Bug:
|
This fix was not implemented correctly and people are still being paid simply for being ongrid without having to do anything specific in order to qualify for payment (except the old criteria of not being cloaked or in a pod). |
December 2017 - Alpha Clones
The free to play Alpha clone state had its skill set expanded, giving them access to battleships, and by extension, Incursions.
Patches
From the Patch notes for December 2017 release (Arms Race) (December 5th):
| “ |
Greatly expanded the Alpha Skill Set. Over 20 million total skill points available, including: Battlecruisers Battleships Tech II small and medium weapons Cross training to all factions available |
” |
Effect on the community
Alpha clone pilots could now pilot battleships, and most incursion groups tweaked their entry fits to accommodate the skill set they were allowed. The Uni's Incursion Community replaced T2 sensor boosters and heavy shield maintenance bots on its minimum fits with meta and medium versions, respectively.
May 2018 - Into the Abyss
Into the Abyss introduced Abyssal Deadspace, abyssal modules, and Triglavian ships and though it didn't directly touch Incursions at all, the Uni's Incursion Community went defunct following this update.
Patches
From the Patch notes for EVE Online: Into the Abyss (May 29th, 2018)
| “ |
Abyssal Deadspace is now available to capsuleers across New Eden. For a full overview of this feature see this Dev Blog.
|
” |
| “ |
Mutaplasmids and Abyssal Tech: Mutaplasmids are a new type of item which can be used to permanently alter specific attributes on existing modules. Mutaplasmids can be found in Abyssal Deadspace All quality levels can be found in any difficulty tier, though the chances improve dramatically at higher difficulties When a Mutaplasmid is used on a module, both the Mutaplasmid and input module are consumed and an Abyssal Tech module is created Mutaplasmids come in three quality variations:
Each Mutaplasmid can only be used on a specific corresponding module group. The following groups have been added:
Mutaplasmids alter attributes unpredictably by a percent value that falls within a specific range described on the Mutaplasmid
|
” |
| “ |
Entropic Disintegrators: Entropic Disintegrators are a new base weapon system used by Triglavians.
[...] Entropic Disintegrators use a new ammo type called Exotic Plasma Charge
|
” |
Changes
- The addition of a competing form of highsec, high end PvE, that didn't require a group to run or be in any particular location, but could earn a similar or better amount of ISK in loot drops
- Mutaplasmids enabled the
Vindicator to have even higher strength webs and/or better range - The introduction of the
Leshak, a ship that could, with Occult ammo, easily outpace even a Vindicator's DPS with Void, given enough time to spool on a target
Effect on the community
- Leshak
- Due to two of the three headquarters sites requiring a tower bash (9M HP) to complete, the eventual high damage output of the Leshak led it to be universally adopted by headquarters communities.
- For armor communities, its high damage and armor HP with eight low slots helped shore up armor communities' traditional downside of having less damage than shield communities. The Leshak's damage output was so good that even shield communities would adopt a ship that had abysmal base shield HP (3,500) and only four mid slots, mandating deadspace hardeners with T2 tank rigs to make it work.
- Abyssal Webs
- Mutaplasmids for Stasis Webifiers could improve both their strength and range. This could push a webifier's base strength past -60%. With the Vindi's maximal 50% web strength bonus, the already oppressive stopping power of 90% webs could now be overshadowed by >95% webs. Or, an abyssal modified Dark Blood or True Sansha web could have a range of 17-18 km, values that previously could only be acquired from an officer module.
- However, given the random stats surrounding mutaplasmid rolls, getting a module with such good stats could easily get very expensive, and as such served as another area of the fit where large sums of ISK could be invested into.
- EVE Uni's Incursion Community
- But the Uni's Incursion Community didn't feel this much, as it wouldn't run much Incursions at all following this update. Materials to build the new Triglavian ships (Leshak, Vedmak, and Damavik), mutaplasmids, and skillbooks all could only be attained from Abyssal Deadspace, meaning all of those things were very valuable in the beginning. This meant that running the higher level sites could easily fetch significantly more ISK/hr than what could be gotten through the Uni's Incursion group, without the hassle of moving or needing other people to run.
- The community lacked the numbers to get Vanguard fleets for months, leading the group to be deemed inoperative by November.
- Cassiel Seraphim, who had served as the Uni's Incursion Coordinator since the ascension of the group to Special Projects status in May 2015, and a member of the Uni's Incursion group long before then, stepped down on December 1st. With nobody interested in taking his place, the Incursion Community was left without any leadership or points of contact.
November 2018
Mutaplasmids are introduced for damage modules.
Patches
From the patch notes for EVE Online: Onslaught (November 8th, 2018)
| “ |
Introduced Decayed, Gravid and Unstable Mutaplasmids for the following module groups: - Magnetic Field Stabilizers - Gyrostabilizers - Heat Sinks - Ballistic Control Systems - Entropic Radiation Sinks |
” |
Effects on the community
Given the nonexistance of faction and officer sinks (which would later be added during the Triglavian Invasion), abyssal rolled Entropic Radiation Sinks became one of the only ways for Leshaks to improve their damage output beyond skill training and a rate of fire implant.
December 2018 - Reboot of Community
Not long after Cassiel stepped down, the Uni's Incursion Community was able to get back on its feet. A wave of new blood within the Uni that was interested in Incursions, paired with many old timers like Cassiel to fly the more SP intensive roles, were able to break past the critical threshold needed to run fleets regularly once again. Within a couple of months, Ian Tucenghi was appointed as the new Incursion Coordinator, with John Parmelee as assistant coordinator. The community was back with weekly forms and fleets, a pace that has roughly been maintained to this day as of May 2020.
May 2019 - Single Highsec Focus
The Invasion update reduced the number of foci in highsec from three to one amidst the Triglavian Invasion, while also allowing faction, storyline, and officer guns and launchers to use T2 ammo.
Patches
From the EVE Help Center for Triglavian Invasion
| “ |
Also, this new Triglavian Threat has caused the Sansha Nation to tread more carefully, lowering the amount of available Sansha Incursions. |
” |
From the Patch notes for EVE Online: Invasion
| “ |
All Tech II Ammunition can now be loaded into all Faction, Storyline, and Officer weapon variations |
” |
Effect on the community
The reduction to a single highsec focus was a significant hit to highsec incursion communities, as it now mandated a wait time of 12-36 hours during which no incursions could be done in highsec. Further, this forced HQ groups to share a single system, limiting how many groups could run at once.
For the Uni's Incursion Community, this meant for many weeks that a focus could no longer be guaranteed for the weekend, where forms had been situated around since the reboot, and that forms done any further than 72 hours in advance were speculative, since the only focus available could easily pop within that time. After a September with multiple weekends without a focus, community members started forming their own alternative activities, with ventures into lowsec incursions and triglavian invasions using different doctrines from the main highsec vanguard doctrine. These have been adopted as plan Bs when the highsec focus either isn't up or is in an unideal location for the community. Still, the fickleness of focus spawns and pops mean that plans can never be made too far in advance, as made clear in a series of weeks around January 2020 where an attempt to get a lowsec fleet resulted in multiple weeks where plans were changed back to highsec or cancelled completely less than 24 hours before scheduled form times.
As for the ammo changes, they did not appear to affect incursions much. Using T2 ammo still requires the skills to use T2 guns anyways, and T2 guns deal more damage than faction guns after the damage bonus from the specialization skill. Faction entropic disintegrators are a partial exception, as their higher damage multiplier to the T2 disintegrator means that disintegrator specialization V is needed before the T2 gun outpaces it. A niche benefit of this change is that Nightmares can equip faction beam lasers that use less capacitor to mitigate traditional cap issues that would otherwise be solved by swapping to pulses. This can be useful in groups that may neither have combat capacitor available nor run fast enough to make low capacitor sustainability a non-issue, such as the Uni's.
September 2019 - Hacking Changes
The hacking site of an Override Transfer Array was changed to use the minigame that all other cans had used since 2013.
Patches
From the Patch notes for September 2019 release (September 10th, 2019)
| “ |
The Logistics Control Array structures within the Override Transfer Array incursion site have been updated to use the hacking minigame instead of the old random chance mechanic. |
” |
Changes
- Instead of using the old hacking system, where multiple analyzers could each be used on a single can for a chance of completion, the can in the Override Transfer Array was now an intermediate difficulty can (yellow core, 70 coherence), with no penalty for failure.
Effect on the community
Hacking the can in the Override Transfer Array became harder to do quickly. What was once something that could be done with a cycling of four analyzers now needed active attention to the minigame board, and a bad setup could force restarts. This made it especially harder to multibox the hack and an ongrid ship at the same time. While the Uni's Incursion Community still runs the hack, some groups have opted to forgo the hack completely and focus fire through the entire site.
This change also means that the 
Heron was no longer any better than the other T1 exploration frigates in hacking capabilities. A fit with four analyzers could still do the hack, albeit with three of them now being vestigial. The Uni eventually updated its fits to allow all T1 exploration frigates around the same time of the Surgical Strike update.
October 2019 - Warp Drives Active
CCP gives all cruiser, battlecruiser, and battleship size hulls a significant warp speed buff. In the meantime, Emerging Conduits, a significantly easier version of Triglavian Invasion Minor Conduits, were introduced to all areas of high security space.
Patches
From the patch notes for the October 2019 Release (October 15th, 2019)
| “ |
Every Cruiser, Battlecruiser and Battleship now warps faster than before. Ship Warp Speed attributes have been increased for the following Ship Groups: Cruiser increased to 4 (was 3) T2 Cruiser increased to 4.5 (was 3.3) Battlecruiser increased to 3.5 (was 2.7) T2 Battlecruiser increased to 4 (was 3) Battleship increased to 3 (was 2) T2 Battleship increased to 3.5 (was 2.2) |
” |
Emerging Conduits were added without a mention in patch notes. They received a change on 9 October that their spawns were to be changed to reduce the ability to make safe bookmarks with them.
Changes
- All ongrid Incursion ships had their warp speeds increased by 33-59%
- Introduction of Emerging Conduits, a slimmed down version of Triglavian Invasion Minor Conduits which was available in all Highsec systems
Effect on the community
Battleships getting a 50% warpspeed buff was a welcome change to Incursions, as it sped up moves and fleet operations. Essentially a free Ascendancy set, for a group that doesn't run with the expectation of warp speed implants like the Uni's Incursion group, it significantly cut downtime between sites, and made running in large systems less of a downside.
While the Emerging Conduits were largely adjacent to Incursions as a whole, the Uni's Incursion Community was able to make use of this as a means to do something in space with Incursion ships in the case of a long or unsuccessful form. Three Incursion battleships could complete the sites, only using repair bots and buffer for tanking, so long as one was a Vindicator to be able to help with application to the Damaviks and Kikimoras which formed the core of the site.
November 2019
The Machariel received a nerf to its warp speed bonus, and Autocannon T2 ammo was adjusted.
Patches
From the patch notes for the November 2019 Release (November 26th, 2019)
| “ |
Angel Cartel Ships Angel Cartel Role Bonus to Warp Speed and Warp Acceleration has been decreased to 25% (previously 50%) Ammunition Barrage S, M, and L ammo increased falloff is now 50% (previously 40%) Hail S, M, and L ammo reduced tracking speed is now 25% (previously 30%) |
” |
Effects on the Community
A small nerf to the Machariel (after a uniform warp speed increase the month before) and a small buff to T2 autocannon ammo didn't make a significant impact on Incursions.
February 2020
CCP successfully implements the anti-sponging mechanic that was attempted in August 2017, and tiericides away meta capacitor transmitters from Incursions.
Patches
From the Patch notes for February 2020 release (February 11th, 2020)
| “ |
Changes to the qualification rules for Sansha Incursion rewards have been made. In order to qualify for the rewards, pilots must be present at the site upon completion and also have a meaningful contribution to the completion of the site. |
” |
| “ |
Modules: Performed Remote Capacitor Transmitter Module Tiericide [...] New attributes for changed modules:
|
” |
Changes
- Pilots in an Incursion fleet now must do some damage or repping in site in order to qualify for payout
- The transfer amount for large capacitor transmitters has been normalized at the meta 3 level, a nerf from the meta 4 capacitor transmitter amounts.
Effect on the community
With the anti-sponging change now working as intended, padding a fleet with members to sponge a payout would now require each character to do some damage or repping in addition to the previous requirements of being uncloaked on grid. In fact, it made it slightly easier to include ore dropping or secondary boosting alts in fleet without having to worry about them taking pay away from other pilots. This change did not cause significant issues in of itself, but the update it came with did break contesting for about a week. In a situation with multiple fleets contesting a site, nobody would be paid at the end. That means that groups that would normally contest other groups steered clear until this was fixed.
The tiericide of capacitor transmitters lead Incursion groups to uniformly drop meta capacitor transmitters in favor of T2 ones, as the lower transfer amounts of the new meta modules could not sustain many cap chain fits.
April 2020 - Surgical Strike
A uniform resist nerf, uniform battleship EHP and scan resolution buff, and a damage buff to short range guns' (blasters, autocannons, pulse lasers) T2 short range ammo, led to many fitting changes for most Incursion groups.
Patches
From the Path notes for 18.04 Release (April 15th, 2020)
| “ |
[...]
[...]
|
” |
Changes
- Uniform resist nerf on all modules, except for rigs, boosts, damage controls, and the reactive armor hardener
- Uniform buff on all short range weapon, short range T2 ammo, excluding Occult
- Uniform battleship scanres and base HP buff
Effect on the community
While a 20% resistance nerf sounds drastic on paper, due to rigs, command bursts, and the damage control being unaffected, the actual damage increase was around 5-15% for most fits. With the battleship EHP buff taken into account, battleship EHP was only slightly reduced compared to where it was before the nerfs. The higher end resist modules were hit harder by this change than T2 modules, meaning more optimal fits needed more tweaking compared to entry level fits. Most communities modified their fits either by using T2 resist rigs instead of T1, or blingier tank modules for more expensive fits. The scan resolution buff for battleships and the buff to Void made targeting small ships slightly faster and increased Vindicators' DPS, but did not cause any shift for them fittings wise.
Although not occurring immediately, the buff to Conflagration led to headquarters groups uniformly moving their non-starter 
Nightmares to be pulse fit to take advantage of it. T2 pulse lasers can still project at range decently enough with Scorch, and the extra Conflag damage helps add more DPS to tower bashes. This also represented the final straw that would push the 
Machariel off the optimal hulls list of HQ groups. Within 60km, fit pulse Nightmares can project equivalent or better DPS with Scorch than a 1400mm Mach can with Quake, while having double the tracking. In Vanguards, beams remain more ideal due to their ability to alpha frigates off, something that pulses with Scorch can't do reliably. MTAC duties in shield groups are now done by Nightmares instead of Machs.
Occult not being buffed reduced the relative DPS advantage that Leshak-heavy fleets had in contests, and reduced the Leshak's appeal slightly. Optimal fit shield Vindicators with drone damage amplifiers could push 2660 DPS with max skills and implants, coming fairly close to the Leshak's 2885 DPS at max spool with implants and T2 sinks.
Within the Uni's Incursion Community, the initial reaction was to forbid 1-mid tanks on battleships, alongside fit changes to damage dealing ships to mirror changes done by shield HQ groups. The bling tank restriction was later relaxed after taking into account that pirate battleships mitigate some torpedo damage through sigtanking. The Uni's Incursion Community has also leveraged the scan resolution buff by removing the sensor booster from its Hyperion fit, as the hull has good innate scan resolution but suffers from poor application compared to other hulls.
May 2020
The Triglavian Invasion enters Chapter 3. Some shield resist modules also receive minor adjustments, and Veldspar was removed from the Nation Mining Colony.
Patches
From the patch notes for the 18.05 Update (May 26th, 2020)
| “ |
The next chapter of the Triglavian Invasion will unfold over the coming months. Shield Hardener April 2020 Tiericide Revision Removed mining asteroids from non-mining, Combat Anomalies and Mission sites. |
” |
Changes
- The third chapter of the Triglavian Invasion begins, with Incursions not affecting any constellation with an invaded system
- Triglavian captured systems lost CONCORD protection, while Minor Victory systems posed the risk of scramming roaming fleets
- Pilots who supported Triglavian efforts similarly had to find means to move through EDENCOM secured Fortresses
- Ultralocking sentry towers further add risk to entering hostile territory
Effect on the community
Due to the third chapter of Invasions and Incursions were kept distant such that the two never overlapped, the Invasion did not have much of a direct effect initially. It just meant that pilots choosing to take part had to take precautions when moving. Similarly, the shield hardener changes did not have a major effect, since it did not Pithum deadspace multispectrum hardeners, which were the line prominently used for bling shield tank due to higher resist over its Gistum counterparts. The Veldspar in NMCs were not treated as anything more than cosmetic by groups, so its removal also did not affect Incursion groups at-large.
July 2020 - Command Ship Bifurcation
Command Ships were broken up such that each hull became more specialized for boost strength and firepower, or for strong, long range boosts and survivability.
Patches
From the patch notes for the 18.07 Update (July 28th, 2020)
| “ |
Attack Command Ship (Absolution, Astarte, Nighthawk, Sleipnir): 3% bonus to command burst strength changed to 4% bonus to command burst strength 100% bonus to command burst range removed [...] Claymore: 5% bonus to missile explosion velocity changed to 10% bonus to missile velocity 7.5% bonus to shield boost amount changed to 4% per level bonus to shield resistances [...] Eos: Command Ships bonuses (per skill level): 7.5% bonus to Drone Tracking speed 10% bonus to Drone Optimal range 3% bonus to Armored Command and Skirmish Command burst strength and duration Gallente Battlecruiser bonuses (per skill level): 10% bonus to Drone hitpoints and damage 4% bonus to Armor resistances [...] Vulture: Command ship skill bonus to hybrid optimal range changed to 10% shield hp per level Scan resolution increased from 195 to 234 |
” |
Changes
- Four command ships lost their burst range bonus, but gained an extra 1%/level to command burst strength and duration
- All command ships received a 20% scan resolution buff
- The
Claymore and 
Eos gained a resist bonus, while the Vulture lost one of its hybrid optimal range bonuses - The Eos received trait changes to give more emphasis on the use of sentry drones
Effects on the Community
Boosting roles for Incursion groups had already been focused around the Claymore and Sleipnir for shield and the Eos for armor, due to the importance of Skirmish bursts to increase ship speed, mitigate damage through lower sig, or increase web range. This update did not shift that paradigm, though the buffs to tank and targeting was a nice quality of life change.
Not even the range reduction of the Sleipnir's boosts changed much, since they were used by Vanguard groups that stayed clumped up anyways.
As a snowflake damage dealer in Vanguards, the loss of the Vulture's second optimal range makes it even less viable in that role. While still able to push out similar DPS to T1 gun, T1 battleships and apply better, it has to lean on its resist and buffer bonus harder during fitting.
August 2020
The system of Niarja falls to the Triglavian Collective, causing major ramifications on highsec topology and Incursion moves.
Effects on the Community
The number of jumps from Amarr to Jita while staying in effective highsec increased from 10 to 45, causing significantly longer travel times when going between Amarr and Caldari/Gallente focuses. This has led to some people buying a second set of ships to avoid the move.
With all Amarr highsec traffic now funneling through Minmatar space, the system of Balle, as well as the five-system chain of 0.6 systems in Devoid (Gheth, Sasoutikh, Ohide, Odin, & Esecama), which are now part of the only highsec route from Amarr space to the other empires, received increased attention by gankers.
November 2020
A bug is fixed that could cause a focus respawn to take more than 36 hours.
Patches
From Version 18.11 (November 10th, 2020)
| “ |
Fixed an issue that sporadically resulted in delayed Incursion spawn |
” |
Effect on the community
Prior to this patch, some focus respawns could take a few hours longer than the maximum of 36 hours. With highsec having only had a single focus for over a year at this point, this bug led to a small increase in downtime. It was a minor inconvenience, and its fix a minor relief.
January 2021
Continuing from November, CCP knocks out another nuisance bug.
Patches
From Version 19.01 (February 9th, 2021)
| “ |
Fixed a problem with incursions, where the info panel and the green overlay were not removed correctly at the end of an incursion. |
” |
Effect on the community
If a pilot was online inside an Incursion focus at the time the focus was liberated, the green overlay and info panel (including influence bar) would not be removed until the pilot left the constellation. This was a purely cosmetic bug, as all other features of the Incursion correctly disappeared.
February 2021 - Marauders: The Third Tier
The Bastion Module was given an effective double damage amp on Marauders, single handedly forming a third tier of Battleship in Incursions.
Patches
From the patch notes for the 19.01 Update (February 23rd, 2021)
| “ |
Bastion Module I: Bastion now increases the rate of fire for all large weapons by 50% (100% DPS increase) Bastion duration reduced from 60s to 30s [...] Ships: All Marauder class ships: Lock range increased by 30% Sensor strength increased by 9 Vargur: 5% bonus to large projectile rate of fire changed to 7.5% large projectile damage Paladin: Amarr Battleship bonus to Capacitor Capacity changed to 10% reduction in Large Energy Turret capacitor need Kronos: Capacitor Capacity increased to 8000 GJ Capacitor Recharge rate reduced to 17m and 30s |
” |
Changes
- The Bastion Module now constitutes a 2x damage amp (through doubling rate of fire)
- Vargur,
Paladin, and Kronos traits are adjusted accordingly - Battleship range buffs from April 2020 are backported to Marauders, and their weak sensor strength shored up
Effects on the Community
This update caused the biggest shift in the Incursion ship meta since Into the Abyss. No longer were the Vindicator, Nightmare (for shield/VGs), or Leshak (for HQs) top tier anymore. Marauders could now exceed all of them with ease. Even the Leshak - the crown holder of DPS since it was introduced - was now left in the dust by ships that could deal 2,5-3,5k DPS and do so immediately. As such, people with the skills and ISK to fly the gun-based Marauders flocked to them immediately. The Marauders went from an expensive HAW Dread wannabe to a force of its own, with its prices doubling from ~1B ISK to 2B ISK, though this was also commensurate with a "Starvation Phase" of minerals and an industry rework by CCP.
The Paladin, which was the only Marauder outside of multiboxer fleets to see regular usage before this buff, flourished to virtually all forms of Incursions. With twice the damage of the Nightmare, and reasonable ability to self-rep the amount of damage dished from a Vanguard site, its easy to see why.
Similarly, the Vargur went from a Machariel sidegrade to a straight upgrade. The Kronos could now reach a new DPS level of 3,5k DPS, surpassing what a fully spooled Leshak with T2 sinks could achieve, without having any delay to get there. Existing Golem multiboxer fleets became twice as potent.
This had the following results:
- Power creep leads to a slight decrease in site times
- The Leshak was shunned away in HQ groups in favor of bastion Marauders, with groups deeming it non-optimal by July that same year
- The Nightmare were similarly downgraded in stature, to a lesser extent
- Further favoring of armor doctrines over shield doctrines in HQs
- Most groups (including the Uni's) changed fitting guidelines to put more webs on Vindicators, to compensate for having more Marauders in fleet which generally have no onboard application support
Eventually, groups changed their strategies to fully take advantage of a Marauder's bastion cycles. Even though the ships can't be repaired while in bastion, Incursion rats' use of rigid one-minute aggro cycles means that it is easy to time bastion activations such that a ship is never aggroed while in bastion.
Headquarters groups further incorporated Micro Jump Drives (MJDs) to compensate for the lack of mobility while bastioned. The changes also served as another change favoring armor doctrines over shield doctrines. Both the Kronos and Paladin have slot layouts and bonuses that lean themselves towards armor tank, and could reasonably field a buffer tank in armor where they could not for shield. Shield marauders instead had to rely on expensive deadspace shield boosters, which are very powerful, especially on Vargurs, but meant a more expensive fit compared to armor, with less flexible application enhancement.
Vanguard groups, not having to deal with as much DPS as the HQ groups, could instead active tank with armor or shield using a deadspace armor repairer or shield booster. So long as waves are killed at a decent click, this allowed for Marauders to remain in bastion even while aggroed. Not needing a MWD and MJD, that meant that shield groups (e.g. the Uni) could apply an extra tracking computer and sensor booster onto their Marauders, improving their ability to shoot the frigates that comprise the majority of Vanguard Incursion rats. Thanks to this, a fleet largely comprised of T1 ships with one or two Marauders could still clear sites much faster due than a comparable fleet with pirate BSs due to the Marauders' outstanding DPS output. This, combined with other doctrine changes, brought the Uni from a group that could expect a baseline of 10 minute sites (60 M ISK/hr) to one that could reliably reach a baseline of 6 minute sites (100 M ISK/hr).
November 2021–June 2023 - Bastion nerfs
After the major change to Marauders, Incursions did not experience any major game balance changes for the next few years. The only changes of note are later nerfs to the Bastion module. CCP did not pull back on the DPS boost that the Bastion module now gave, but instead weakened its secondary bonuses over several updates.
Patches
From the patch notes for version 19.06 (July 13, 2021)
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Adjusted Bastion Module: Target painter resistance has been reduced from -95% to -50%. Sensor dampener resistance has been reduced from -95% to -50%. Weapon disruption resistance has been reduced from -99% to -50%. Bonus to sensor strength has been reduced from 1,000% to 100%. Removed the ECM Immunity. |
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From the patch notes for version 19.09 (October 13, 2021)
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Fixed an issue that caused ECM to not work on Marauders with an active Bastion module. |
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From the patch notes for version 20.07 (August 9, 2022)
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Marauders may now be Warp Disrupted or Warp Scrambled by NPCs while in Bastion Mode. |
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From the expansion notes for Veridian (June 13, 2023)
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Bastion Module Our goal is to create new weaknesses and therefore opportunities for counterplay in PvP for Marauders where they currently do not have many. These changes would lean into the class identity as being strong but immobile and offer smaller ships the chance to play around a Marauder with EWAR tools that are currently often useless in the face of its EWAR resistance bonus. Duration Increased from 30 seconds to 60 seconds. Removed the electronic warfare resistance bonus to Sensor Dampener, Tracking Disruptor, and Target Painter resistance. The ship continues to retain its incredible firepower, tank, range and application but will now have a few weaknesses. |
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Changes
- Marauders in Bastion no longer have near-immunity to EWAR
- Bastion cycle moved back to 60 seconds
Effects on the Community
As this did not impact the damage or repair bonuses that the Bastion module provided, this ultimately did not have a major impact on the Marauder's now dominant position within highsec Incursions. The move back to a 60 second bastion timer meant that its usage had to be done more carefully. But given the aforementioned one minute aggro cycle of Incursion rats, this was still manageable.
December 2023–June 2024 - Focus headshot campaign
A campaign by a group of multibox gankers to consistently headshot the highsec focus' mothership resulted in very limited availability of highsec Incursions over the course of roughly six months, straining highsec Incursion groups at all levels.
Origins
The exact origins of what started the campaign are unclear. But its leader and/or spokesman was Wrathful Hawk, a multibox ganker. He had previously earned fame (or infamy) for spearheading a highsec Orca ganking campaign in 2022. After a later period of lowsec gatecamping, he would begin targeting Incursion Bowheads in 2023 using roughly 20 Oracles plus auxiliary alts in logoff traps. Bowheads were previously not regular gank targets due to their high EHP (>600K EHP, where one T2 gank-fit Catalyst can reasonably do 17K damage in a 0.5 security system's gank window), but Hawk had found the right amount of damage and element of surprise to successfully gank them often, taking advantage of Incursion runners who would carry their bling in their Bowhead to recover the >2B ISK that ganking one cost.
While this netted many high value kills, highsec gankers often also value the notoriety that ganking can bring. And in this respect, there was an opening in Incursion mechanics that didn't fit the traditional definition of ganking, but could also be more disruptive and notorious than it as well.
How it worked
An Incursion focus ends either when it times out or the mothership (The Kundalini Manifest in highsec) is killed. There had only been one highsec focus since their quantity was reduced from three in 2019. The mothership spawned as soon as the focus reached zero influence. Highsec HQ Incursion groups could pop the focus at any time, but generally didn't until the final day, due to the shared interest highsec Incursion groups had in farming the sites.
As such, a motivated enough group could regularly headshot the focus as soon as the mothership spawned. Doing so however requires a large fleet of >30 battleships to do in highsec, fleets that typically only Incursion groups would muster in highsec. But a dedicated enough group of multiboxers, using a brick tank, box-friendly doctrine (such as Leshaks or Apocalypse Navy Issues), could form a fleet that could complete the mothership site. And after some failed headshot attempts in December 2023, that is exactly what Hawk and other multibox gankers were able to do. And once a reliable formula was found, it was repeated in many a highsec focus after.
As this was simply running the site, stopping the headshot would require Incursion runners to become gankers themselves to stop them. And since attempting a gank hangs a killright on the ganker for a month, something that could be redeemed at any time to turn the person suspect, ganking was something that was untenable for Incursion runners to do on their Incursion characters. Further, blocking the headshot would require a successful enough gank that can stop the attempt every time it was attempted. By contrast, the headshot only had to succeed once. And the doctrines chosen were neither easy nor profitable to gank.
The headshotters would also pair the campaign with a protection racket, offering to leave a focus up for tens of billions of ISK. These were largely not entertained by highsec Incursion groups, and so most focuses were headshot within a day of spawning.
Impact
In most other games, persistent content denial for an area of gameplay would be against their rules, and its sustainment a grounds for punishment by the game developers. But in EVE, it's just an act in the sandbox; players playing the game, and the game working as intended. After all, this was something that was always possible for as long as Incursions existed, and especially ripe for disruption since the move to a single focus four years prior. And focus headshots were nothing new to Incursions - groups have dealt with focus pops from other groups for as long as Incursions existed. All it took for was for one cadre from outside Incursions to take advantage of it, and take advantage of it persistently.
Hence, the campaign lasted for a long time, and resulted in a negative impact to the health of all highsec Incursion communities. Only the most elite of groups would be able to eek out runs in the short windows that a highsec focus was available, although breaks in the headshots gave other groups some reprieve. Island focuses turned from undesirable to desirable, as they were generally not headshot.
The highsec Incursion community had a representative on the CSM at the time: Kshal Aideron, the leader of the group EVE Rookies. Later into the campaign, she would relay to Incursion groups that the issue had been brought to the attention of CCP. And by June, they put out a change that would neuter the effect of the campaign.
June 2024 - Headshot protection
In the Equinox expansion, CCP issued a change that delayed the spawning of the mothership in highsec and lowsec Incursions.
Patches
From the expansion notes for Equinox (June 7th, 2024)
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Incursions Mothership sites within High and Low Security space now have a minimum amount of time before they can appear. Null Security space is unaffected by this change. High-Security space: the Mothership will not appear until at least 3 days have passed. Low-Security space: the Mothership will not appear until at least 1 day has passed. |
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Changes
- The highsec focus is guaranteed to last at least three days, and the lowsec focus at least one day.
Effects on the Community
These changes limited the ability for the headshot campaign to deny access to highsec Incursions. The campaign would end shortly after. The choice to apply the change differently to different areas of space meant that nullsec groups could still quickly headshot foci if desired to clear the cyno jamming effect, and is something that would have been disrupted had this change been applied uniformly. As such, hisec groups could return to normal operations, though they had to recover from the months of disruptions.
