EVE Frontier’s Cycle 7 mid-cycle patch is live with the EREV and VATRA ships and a 3D ship manager

In Brief:

• The @EVE_Frontier account announced the Cycle 7 mid-cycle update. It adds two ships, the EREV and the VATRA.
• New Feral drones, a new crafting system and a new 3D ship manager are also part of the patch.
• The update arrives roughly six weeks after Cycle 7: Vestiges launched on Sept. 29. That is later than the October slot in Fenris Creations' July roadmap.

EVE Frontier (official site) has released its Cycle 7 mid-cycle update. The patch adds two ships and swaps the old ship management screen for a 3D version.

The official @EVE_Frontier account announced it on X in a post headed “THE MID-CYCLE UPDATE IS UPON US.” It read: “Cycle 7 continues with two new ships, the EREV and VATRA, alongside new Feral drones, a new crafting system and a new 3D ship manager.”

The patch shipped on Nov. 10. The post gave no ship stats and no crafting recipes. It also didn’t explain how the new drones differ from the ones already in the game.

Ships and fitting

The EREV and VATRA are added to the hulls players have flown since Cycle 7 began. The announcement didn’t list a role, price or stat line for either one.

For fleet handling, the 3D ship manager is the larger change. In its July roadmap, Fenris Creations promised full ship and structure modularity for the mid-cycle patch, and fitting has been heading in that direction all year.

Ferals and crafting

Feral drones were reworked at the start of Cycle 7. They now follow the same rules as players and have the same knowledge and abilities. They scan, travel, mine, salvage and scavenge to reach their own goals, so they compete with players for many of the same resources. They also respond to what players do near them.

Before the mid-cycle release, Fenris held Feral Surge, a one-week community event that began on Oct. 20. The new update brings more Feral drone types, but the post didn’t give their names.

Fenris hasn’t released details on the new crafting system so far. During a Cycle 7 Q&A, developers outlined a planned “digital chemistry” approach. Recipes would call for properties, such as a certain amount of metallic content, instead of set quantities of particular ores. Different ores or ore mixes could then satisfy the same recipe, and the choice of inputs could change the traits of the finished item. The developers described many of these ideas as intended systems and said they weren’t finished features. The studio hasn’t said whether this update delivers that system.

Roadmap slip

According to the July roadmap, the mid-cycle patch was due in October. Besides modularity, that release was supposed to include temporary teams and shared storage. The mid-cycle announcement mentions neither.

The roadmap also scheduled Cycle 8 for December, focused on community and social tools. Each cycle lasts about three months and closes with a full universe wipe. Vestiges started on Sept. 29 with its own wipe. It also brought a new skills system for characters and shells, flight changes, and fog of war over uncharted systems.

Studio background

CCP Games became Fenris Creations on May 6. The studio also develops EVE Online. EVE Frontier is in early access on PC, and its blockchain infrastructure on Sui is optional.

The update comes after layoffs on the EVE Frontier team, which Fenris confirmed earlier this month. Some of the affected staff said publicly that they had been made redundant, among them people from engineering and quality assurance. Fenris hasn’t said whether the cuts will affect the development schedule.

Some players replying to the post already had plans for the patch. “We will be jumping on this in tonight stream,” @troubles_strife said.