Eve Online to get new ship skills, tiers and rebalancing on Feb. 19

The Retribution 1.1 update, scheduled to hit Eve Online on Feb. 19, will makes balance changes to three major ship categories: Armor Tanking, Black Ops and Battlecruiser vessels, according to a recent post on the game's developer blog.

According to a post by CCP designer "CCP Fozzie," Tier 1 and Tier 2 Battlecruisers will be combined into one category called Combat Battlecruisers, while Tier 3 ones will become Attack Battlecruisers. The later category will receive balance tweaks in a future update. All ships have been brought up to roughly the same level as the most powerful Cruisers, with some vessels undergoing weapon-swapping changes.

Armor tanking, or improving a ship's defense, is getting one new skill and three new modules to rectify system imbalances. Piling armor on rigs slows down ships and makes them vulnerable to short-range weapons, and armor and shield extenders have high damage penalties. With the Retribution 1.1. update, players will get the new Armor Honeycombing skill, which reduces penalties on all armor plates by five percent per level, and access to new small, medium and large-sized repair modules.

Black Ops Battleships are undergoing temporary usability changes to hold players over until a full rebalancing is done at a later date. These changes include extending the ships' base-jump lengths and decreasing fuel costs by 25 percent.

For a full list of changes and tweaks, check out the Eve Online developer blog.