Metaliminal Storms

Metaliminal Storms are roaming environmental effects that slowly move around in nullsec space, applying bonuses and penalties to all ships in the affected systems.

Mechanics

Each storm is centered on one system. That central system and all systems exactly one jump away from that system in the stargate network form the storm's core. Those systems which are two jumps and three jumps away from the central system form the storm's periphery.

The core systems receive the strongest effects, while the peripheral systems receive a weaker set of the same effects. Additional PvE sites spawn in core systems, to incentivise players to enter the core and to provide a local benefit to balance out the disruption caused by the storm. These additional sites do not spawn in the periphery.

The central system at a storm's core is always a nullsec system. Since some nullsec systems border lowsec or are near highsec, it is possible for the periphery to include lowsec or highsec systems, and possible (but less likely) for the core to include lowsec or highsec systems.

Like real-life storms, metaliminal storms slowly move around. The central system of a storm moves once at some point between 24 hours and 48 hours from its last movement. When it moves, it moves one jump in a semi-random direction. The storms are designed to avoid retracing their steps unless no other route can be found.

EVE-Scout maintain a Storm Tracker using player reports, which you can use to work out where storms are happening at present.

Storm Types

Presently, there are four different types of metaliminal storms. Their names and effects are listed below, with brief discussions.

Gamma Ray

Gamma Ray	Strong	Weak
Explosive Resists	-25%	-10%
Shield HP	+25%	+10%
Remote Shield/Armor Rep Amount	-90%	-50%
Capacitor Capacity	+25%	+10%
Signature Radius	-25%	-10%
Spawns Extra Rogue Drone Sites

The capacitor capacity bonus and remote logistics penalty might encourage pilots away from remote support towards local active tanks. The signature radius reduction will help any small ships avoid damage by speed and signature "tanking". The explosive resist penalty is bad news for T1 armor tanks, which are already more vulnerable to explosive damage.

Electric

Electric	Strong	Weak
EM Resists	-25%	-10%
Capacitor Recharge Time	-25%	-10%
Virus Coherence	+25	+10
Scan Probe Strength	+50%	+20%
Cloaking
Spawns Extra Relic Sites

The blanket prevention of cloaking is possibly the single most dramatic of all metaliminal storm effects, and has the potential to shift tactics and ship choices. The virus coherence and scan strength bonuses, plus the spawning of additional relic sites, encourage players into exploration, but the cloak block will make explorers much more obvious as they go about their business. The scan strength bonus might make it more convenient to do exploration in atypical, more heavily-armed ships. The penalty to EM resists is bad news for T1 shield tanks, which are already more vulnerable to EM damage.

Plasma

Plasma	Strong	Weak
Thermal Resists	-25%	-10%
Armor HP	+25%	+10%
Weapon Damage	+50%	+20%
Turret/Drone Tracking	-50%	-20%
Missile/Fighter Explosion Radius	+50%	+20%
Spawns Extra Triglavian Sites

The headline in Plasma storms is the combination of penalties to damage application with bonuses to raw damage, which might encourage pilots to fit tools such as webs, tracking enhancements, and target painters to help their boosted damage apply.

Exotic

Exotic	Strong	Weak
Kinetic Resists	-25%	-10%
Scan Resolution	+25%	+10%
Mining Laser Cycle Time	-25%	-10%
Warp Speed	+100%	+40%
Local Armor/Shield Repairer Cycle Time	-25%	-10%
Spawns Extra Ore Anomalies

The boost to mining laser cycle times and the spawning of extra ore sites are good news for miners. The faster cycle time on shield boosters and armour repairers is a decidedly mixed blessing, increasing the power of active tanks but also increasing the burden they place on the capacitor. The warp speed bonus is subtler but might affect in-system hunting tactics: in an exotic storm's core, interceptors will move around a system at breath-taking speeds.

History

Metaliminal storms were announced on 4 August 2020 in a news post, and were unleashed on 20 August.

Within EVE's lore, the storms emerged amidst a Triglavian Invasion of empire space, with the Triglavian Collective seizing control of systems from the empires and transmuting stars for yet unknown ends. The initial storms were variants of the types found in Abyssal Deadspace, with added effects from their deadspace counterparts.