All the Clones!

Reading through the minutes of the recent CSM Summit my attention was drawn to the discussion regarding medical services of Citadels in Wormhole space. It's long been a bone of contention that W-Space occupants have no way of switching clones in W-Space, even if they have a Rorqual, so they might take full advantage of the various system effects or capitalise on a particular ship's bonuses in the instances of PvP. The ability to have a Talisman clone to switch into in the event of catching a Capital ship is something I've longed for and now it looks like it's on the cards.

The minutes are ambiguous, but as far as I can decipher you will be able to switch clones in the Citadel, but not jump to them from outside the system as you can in K-Space. Moreover, any clones you have installed in the Citadel will count towards the maximum number you have the skills to posses, regardless of where they're situated. Importantly, the twenty four hour timer between jumps would not apply to clones in the Citadel, thereby allowing you to switch from your Hacking clone, to your Slave clone, to your Talisman clone or your Mining clone at your will. It's not without risk, of course. Such clones can be a significant investment and if someone effectively sieges out your Citadel you're going to lose the lot so I would't go investing in a bunch of High Grade Implant sets just yet. As far as I can tell however, if you get podded in W-Space you won't wake up in a fresh clone in the Citadel; you'll still wake up in K-Space.

In other news, there is talk of an Industrial Command Destroyer coming so that those mining via Frigate/Destroyer sized Wormhole connections can have those 1337 boosts. I already wrote about this recently and considering the Orca is only marginally better at boosting than the current selection of Combat Command Destroyers, I wonder how they're going to introduce such a ship without making Orcas all but redundant save for their cargo carrying capacity. Add to that the recently leaked image of what appears to be a Capital Mining Drone and there are some exciting changes to W-Space afoot for the Industry focused players in Anoikis. The Rorqual itself is getting a unique invulnerability ability to protect both itself and its fleet for a brief period to allow a defence fleet to come to their rescue should they be tackled. Frankly, anything that will get Rorqual out of Forcefields is a positive move.

There was even a bit of talk about the Noctis and how Mobile Tractor Units have made them obsolete. CCP seem to be under the impression that the rising value of salvage materials for use in Citadel construction is going to be the Noctis' savior. Sorry to burst your bubble, CCP, but it's won't do a damn thing. People will still use an MTU and a 5 Million ISK Destroyer to clean up their wrecks ahead of a 100 Million ISK Noctis. I'd suggest giving it a +2 Warp Strength and increasing its agility to rival that of a Blockade Runner, then you'll likely see people using it again. Hell, even that's probably not enough of a buff.

From what I've read, it looks as though our CSM representatives have done a decent job of representing W-Space interests with the notable exception of the Watch List changes. They're coming, like it or not and not one of the CSMs raised an objection worth a damn.