Eve Online.... Dev Blog on Alpha's #3

The latest and apparently the last dev blog from CCP about the Alpha Clones lists the latest changes and address's a lot of the outstanding issues. Clone States - Post CSM Summit Roundup clarifies and adjusts the skills of the new freely playable clones (Freely Playable Clones ©™^;-p).

No simultaneous logon's. No real surprise here, the temptation of free accounts and unlimited simultaneous logons (logins?) would having created an Army of Alpha's. CCP would have too many problems for sure.

Safeties will be locked to stop criminal acts IF they see any huge increase in "negative activity". Again no surprise there, I'm glad they didnt' just straight out block things. Ninja salvaging may continue in an Alpha form.  Between the simultaneous logins and safeties it was always going to be one over the other, the simultaneous logins were always going to be the greater evil, or rather the greater source of abuse min/maxing.

If you are a full Omega and lapse to an Alpha you will still have access to continue activities you started as an Omega. But anything you try to do or start again that is usually not allowable as an Alpha will be blocked. This includes trying to install more than one jump clone or install implants. If you have implants as an Omega you can use those implants as an Alpha but you won't be able to install those greater implants freshly as an Alph. There was one exception, Planetary Interaction, If you have it setup it will still be active once you turn Alpha but you will have no access to change it, setup new planets or import/export goods until you become an Omega again. Alpha's will need to sub in the first place in order to learn the P.I. skills.

Clone State exposed in the API, which CCP tried to indirectly refuse but it seems the CSM forced them into it, at least it looks that way. I like the way that the word "exposed" was used. I've always felt that API's left your character bare naked to the recipient. Like getting a full medical, 'bend over please sir'. 'Is that a barrel!'

There is also a "small manufacturing tax applied to Alpha industry jobs", understandable for industry curbing but in reality it would be a pain to relog so many accounts to take advantage of this. I wonder how small the tax will be. It also makes me wonder what CCP thinks the earning potential of an Alpha to be.

Alphas won’t be able to fuel star bases, is no surprise but does open up some questions for Alpha only corp's or corp's that loose Omega members with the rights. I'm sure this will have some interesting consequences.

Skill Extraction will be allowed for Alphas. But only for Alphas that were once Omega's. The alpha set of skills will no be extractable. It also states that they are worries about skill extraction down the line which makes me think that Alpha's are going to accrue skill points passively even after they reach their Alpha skill set limit (a lot like Dust 514's passive skill point system).

They also changed a few skills:

• "Adding Infomorph Psychology at level I – this allows one jump clone for Alpha characters, a very helpful tool for new players, especially if they want to dive head first into a distant nullsec corp
• Increase skill requirement for Entosis Link I module to Informorph Psychology II (was Infomorph Psychology I) – to allow Alphas to use jump clones we must also make this change to prevent Alphas from using Entosis Links
• Raising Drones skill to V for Caldari and Minmatar (was III)
• Add Gas Harvesting II to all factions – no reason for Alphas to not have this activity available
• Lower Electronic Warfare to III for all factions (was IV) – not sure how this was at 4 to begin with but it’s safe to say we would rather not make tech II ECM an Alpha capability"

So they have added Infomorph Psychology so you can get one clone. Not a bad thing. My new characters have that skill to 2 so I'll still have access to both clones once they change to an Alpha state.
As a side effect they had to change the Entosis Link I pre-requisite which has no change on Alpha's, which as still denied the use of Entosis Link modules. No surprise and no loss as it would be abused in game.
Thankfully the Drones gets increased from level III to level V allowing a full flight of 5 light drones. This will significantly impact my mission runner if/when he gets a Gnosis. I'm glad that this change brings all the races to the have same drone level potential. It makes sense.
Gas cloud harvesting like some other skills is nice to get but expensive to buy the skill book. I doubt that many Alpha's will get this on their own without Omega support.
They also lower Electronic Warfare for all factions, which seems like it was a CCP oversight on the skills front. I wonder how many people would have picked up on access to ECM tech II modules as an Alpha. Now we'll never know and that's for the better.

Overall in short the skill changes are good, all races of Alpha's get a jump clone and can train drones to V.

With luck there will be a presentation at Eve Vegas to go over the Alpha clone as well as the New Player Experience.