SandBoxer.Org

Happy July patch day, capsuleers! Yep, EVE Online’s July releaseis now live. The patch includes “one of the most extensive and largest rebalances EVE Online has ever seen,” according to CCP, and includes the promised revamp of tech-3 strategic cruisers. Yesterday’s dev blog explains that the goal to balance, simplify, and diversify the T3s in the ship roster, positioning them between HACs and Battlecruisers.The highlight for everybody else is the next phase of Project Discovery, CCP’s latest pro-science initiative, in which players will basically play EVE to help real-world scientists in the search for actual exoplanets. (Thank you, CCP and EVE players.)

The studio is also touting new Firewall Breach skins, improved NPC battlestation visuals, and updated designs for the Rupture, Muninn, and Broadsword.

If you haven’t picked up a founder pack for Dual Universe, you’re going to want to rectify that soon. Novaquark wrote in a recent Kickstarter newsletter that it plans to end the purchase of founder packs come September 7th, the anniversary of the sci-fi sandbox’s successful Kickstarter.

“Obviously we couldn’t extend it forever and now it’s time to move on to the next stage,” writes the studio. “After September 7th, we will temporarily disable the Crowdfunding portal. No new pledges or upgrades will be possible once the portal is disabled. We will reopen the Crowdfunding Portal later in Q4 2017 with new Supporter Packs. Supporter Packs will include different rewards than Founder Packs and the Lifetime Subscription reward won’t be available anymore.”

So how’s the game itself coming along? Not too shabbily; this week Novaquark posted pre-alpha footage of a ship flying seamlessly from a moon to its planet. That seems to be a theme today, yeah?