Phoebe Madness

As reported on here, here, and here, a huge amount of changes are coming in Phoebe. The ability to now see bookmarks in space, including on grid, is mind blowing. It changes scouting, it changes solo and small gang PVP, it changes FCing, and it makes having good bookmarks such as tactical bookmarks all the more important. What's maybe even better, you can now open the save location tab with a hotkey...and as someone who has made a few thousand bookmarks in EVE, at least, this is a change I've wanted for years. Oh, and a multi-sell ability? Insane. Annnd, the skill queue is now unlimited. Phoebe is easily the best of the releases in the new release cycle.

Some players complain about the past two years of EVE's "quality of life" changes...These "mere" quality of life changes are some of the best things to happen to EVE since I've started playing, though, and I'll gladly take dozens more releases which only contained such improvements.

I am a huge fan of the jump distance changes, especially after the most recent tweaks. The latest update to the jump distance change should help logistics crews, as JFs will have a 10ly range instead of a mere 5. Still, while the actual impact of these changes are hard to predict, they certainly make the universe a lot bigger (except, maybe, for wormhole residents...who will now become some of the most mobile groups in EVE). The distant edges of null sec are about to get more remote than anywhere else in game, perhaps including many wormhole systems. Even FW war zones get a lot bigger. Interestingly, some areas of low sec will become incredibly isolated from capitals. As an example, take Saminer, for instance. Though only 8 jumps from Amarr, with a 5ly jump distance, only 3 (!) other low sec systems can reach Saminer:

Getting a JF here will be no major issue: Travel from Amarr two jumps away to Tash-Murkon and with max skills you are at this low sec pocket in one jump. However, getting other capitals here becomes much more of a hassle. The only jump route into the pocket will be via Gyerzen, which opens up to many more nearby jump options. Black ops ships are getting a max jump range of 8ly, which might be enough to preserve their niche. A large "dickstar" POS in a LS system like this starts to become a hugely unattractive target.

The point is, the jump distance and fatigue changes do not just make space bigger for null sec, they make it bigger for low sec as well. While industry in low sec is still mostly a joke, the changes make it significantly safer for low sec groups to "occupy" remote parts of LS, such as systems like Saminer. Many LS groups and individuals--myself included--have gotten used to doing most logistics via wormholes, often using either low sec to high sec wormholes or low sec to low-sec-bordering-high-sec wormholes. Becoming even more cut-off from capitals, though, means that geography significantly starts to matter. Hopefully these changes will mean more people in space, more people taking gates, and more people taking risks they wouldn't have taken when capitals from the other side of the universe could pop on top of you at any point, short of an empty system besides yourself.