The following list of *possible* patch notes has been put together with a LOT of hard work by Iron Wolf Saber, a very active member of the Dust 514 Community. I am including a reformatted version here so it is easier to read and digest.

This list is a combination of features that CCP DEVS have either confirmed they are working on, suggested they might be working on or let slip that they are working on. The information has been collected from IRC, Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Database Dumps and forums along with the 'usual' patch note stocking fillers.

Gameplay

• Fixed Gameplay Bugs - Known working on. Copy Paste Notes
• Changed Dropship collision physics to be more consistent. Hinted worked on by CCP Blam may not require build.
• Increased Squad Size to 6 - Hard Confirm - Devblog Planetary Conquest.
• Increased Corp Battle size 24 (CORP BATTLES HAVE BEEN REMOVED FOR THE TIME BEING.)
• Increased Public Battles size to 32
• Improved spawning, Hard Confirm
• Improving leaderboards, Hard Confirm.
• New Game Modes Hard Confirm, waiting on map deve blog for details.
• Added additional controller options for both keyboard and controller as well as including new control schemes for vehicles. Copy Paste notes, known confirmed.
• Allowing players to now join a desired side of a mercenary battle. Hard Confirm multiple times.
• Introduction of non-mutual corporate battles. Ante up is far more expensive but corps that do not show up or lose outright will lose money from their corporate wallets. Details where wrong, Feature is now named Planetary Warfare.

Maps & Installatations

• New Maps. Two new battlegrounds, One new mega terrain, new moods, New Sockets
• New Installation a Drone Hive, this is an area of denial mine layer most effective against vehicles. Work has been done unsure of actual function but it keeps getting lumped with turret installations.
• To the dismay of badlanders, vegetation has been added to various maps. - Hard Confirmed for Build
• Increasing map size to account for the larger player battle sizes. Presumed requirement for increased player sizes.
• Star Map has returned, complete with browsing and filtering options, and vastly improved graphics. Hard Confirm
• Renamed District 4 on Ammake II to Pike Landing. - Requested and considered by devs no additional feedback.

Skills

• Re-factored skills involving drop-suits, all drop-suits now have a per level bonus. Hard Confirm. Details Unknown.
• Added various skills to support new modules. - This is a given.
• Demolition Skill reworked. - Hard Confirm, Dev statement
• Added armor waffling skill to decrease armor mass. - Possible suggested solution to armor vs shields that was being considered.
• Fixed laser rifle skills, overheat skills should now properly reduce the heat generated while firing. Hard Confirm
• Fixed laser rifle skill involving sharp shooter, laser rifle optimal will now increase both directions. Hard Confirm

New Items

• Added Amarr Assault Suit. Hinted at being among the first set of suits racialed out. Blog will likely confirm
• Added Minmatar Assault Suit. Hinted at being among the first set of suits racialed out. Blog will likely confirm
• Added Gallente Assault Suit. Hard Confirm - Video Battle for Caldari Prime.
• Added Amarr Crusader Suit. Status Unkown, known working on, awaiting blog.
• Added Squad link Modules - Requires Amarr Crusader Suit, No Crusader no Squad Link Modules
• Added Squad Jammer Modules - Also requires Amarr Crusader Suit, No Crsuader no Squad Jammers
• Added Gallente Pilot Suit. Status or Function Unknown, known working on, awaitng blog.
• Added Amarr Scrambler Rifle, Hard Confirm - Video Battle for Caldari Prime.
• Added Caldari Gauss Rifle, Weak evidence of making into next build, awaiting next weapons blog
• Added Gallente Plasma Launcher Hard Confirm - Video Battle for Caldari Prime
• Added Minmatar Flaylock Pistol, weak evidence of making into next build, more likely than gauss rifle to make it in.
• Added Amarr Misma Grenade - No additional work as been made to this item, likely pushed back.
• Added Webifier Mines - Hinted being worked on, may not make it to the build.
• Added Cloaking Device - Being worked on, stated to not likely make it in build.
• Active Jammers is now available as equipment. No additional work has been made since first iteration of active scanners.
• Added Deployable 'force field' Soft Confirm for making into the build.

Changed Items

• Active scanners now work and are seeded on the market.
• Re balanced the Small Railgun Turret, and the Small and Large Missile Turrets: suggested to being worked on by devs
• Burst AR now fires 3 shots and has an ACOG scope. Soft Confirm plans are likely to have changed since statement.
• Lowered the tracking ability of swam launchers, it is now possible to out pilot them. Under consideration a few months ago, no additional feedback has been given.

Graphical Improvements & Additions

• Additional shader passes have been made - Known working on. Copy Paste Notes
• Graphical Improvements of effects and textures should load smoother. - Known working on. Copy Paste Notes
• Improved UI and UI Flow - Known working on. Copy Paste Notes
• Fixed various visual bugs involving ladders. Hard Confirm.

Market & Trading

• Enabling player to player trading, players can now trade any item for isk. Please note that aurum currency will not be transferable. Hard Confirm months ago.

Eve - Dust Link

• Eve online ships can now be seen from the ground via brackets. Ships can only be seen if they are near the district sattelite. Hard Confirm.
• Tactical Missiles have been added to eve side, enjoy the radiation bombardment. Soft Confirm Eve side developer statements.

Faction Warfare

• Introducing Faction Warfare, players and corporations are able to choose sides of any of the four empires and conquer planets for that empire. Continued loyalty to any empire will have its rewards such as highly advanced army level gear. Hard Confirmed dozens of times, Details to be laid out in Dev Blog.

Communication & Squad Management

• Allowing squads to open or lock their slots to be auto-filled or manual filled by players. Dev Statement
• Corporations can be added as contacts
• Standings can be set on any contacts.
• Contacts can be sorted.
• Added Corp UVTs, the ceo or directors can buy these and apply it to the corp allowing the entire corp to be able to speak on player created channels and corp channel. Stated as a thing to get done, no new updates since last mention 2 months ago.
• Eliminated the need to invite players from contacts list. Dev statement on being worked on, dev has since then moved onto other projects. Presumed completed or canceled.
• Added recently played, player list, this will clear out when logging off. Dev statement being worked on, dev has since then moved onto other projects. Presumed completed or canceled
• Players can now invite players to squad from various multiple channels such as corp channel and local. Dev statement being worked on, dev has since then moved onto other projects. Presumed completed or canceled.
• Added mailing lists, this should resolve any alliance wide or corp wide mails. Players can then make their own new mailing lists and distribute mail from there. -Most likely solution for fixing the erronous invisible mails.
• To combat mail spam, CPSA charges are being added to dust 514 and are default at 15,000 isk. Players can set them to high as 2 million or none, and allow contacts to ignore the costs.

Other Fixes & Improvements

• Improved sounds and sound system - Known working on. Copy Paste Notes
• Improvements to the 'live streaming' capabilities. - Known experimenting and working on. Copy Paste Notes
• Fixed UI Bugs - Known working on. Copy Paste Notes.
• Fixed database conditions Bugs - Known working on. Copy Paste Notes
• Improved overall speed of the game - Known working on. Copy Paste Notes.
• Improved stability of the game - Known working on .Copy Paste Notes
• Improved voice handling. Copy Paste notes
• Improved server stability. Copy pates notes.
• Improved market and fitting server responses Copy Paste Notes.
• Fixed various erroneous ammo counter readouts. - Expected to be fixed.

To celebrate fanfest CCP is holding a special event. From today - April 24th through to Thursday May 2nd they will be holding the “Mercenary Holocon” and during this event period all beta testers will be eligible to receive 3X Skill Points for every battle they fight in game! The skill point cap will also be raised accordingly.

In conjunction with the Mercenary Holocon event, they are also having a 40% off discount on 7-day Active Boosters, so don’t miss out on this great opportunity to play DUST 514 and earn extra Skill Points.

See you on the battlefield!

Experience Fanfest 2013 from the comfort of your favorite chair! You can steam in standard definition for free or you can order the live HD stream and join CCP for all three days of the festival, including extra commentary and interviews hosted by CCP Guard, CCP Sunset and friends. Join us for important announcements, major keynotes and the development plan for the future of the EVE Universe as they happen.

GMT/PST Wednesday 24th PST

• 20:45/13:45 EVE TV goes to the Symphony 21:00/14:00 The EVE Symphony 2013

GMT/PST Thursday 25th

• 11:00/04:00 Welcome to Fanfest 2013 with EVE TV
• 12:00/05:00 Retribution Roundup
• 13:00/06:00 Ship Balancing
• 14:00/07:00 EVE is Real - Bringing FTL to IRL
• 15:00/08:00 Game Design: Balancing Tears & Laughter
• 16:00/09:00 Lowsec PvP/Crimewatch
• 17:00/10:00 (e)Merging Economies
• 18:00/11:00 DUST 514 KEYNOTE
• 19:00/12:00 DUST 514 KEYNOTE
• 20:00/13:00 DUST 514 Reflecting the Universe
• 21:00/14:00 End of Fanfest Day 1

GMT/PST Friday 26th

• 11:00/04:00 EVE Economy: A Decade in Review
• 12:00/05:00 DUST 514 Planetary Conquest in Low Sec
• 13:00/06:00 DUST 514 Advancing the Core
• 14:00/07:00 EVE is Real - Asteroid Mining
• 15:00/08:00 EVE Security
• 16:00/09:00 Game Design - Live Session
• 17:00/10:00 EVE Keynote
• 18:00/11:00 EVE Keynote
• 19:00/12:00 Dev. & Ops are in a Relationship
• 20:00/13:00 Remixing EVE: You did WHAT?
• 21:00/14:00 End of Fanfest Day 2

GMT/PST Saturday 27th

• 11:00/04:00 Art Panel
• 12:00/05:00 PvP Tournament Finals
• 13:00/06:00 PvP Tournament Finals
• 14:00/07:00 EVE is Real - Space Elevators
• 15:00/08:00 Games as Art - EVE & other Games at the MoMA
• 16:00/09:00 Concept Art - Live Session
• 17:00/10:00 CCP PRESENTS!
• 18:00/11:00 CCP PRESENTS!
• 19:00/12:00 Prototyping the Future of EVE
• 20:00/13:00 EVE TV Reviews Fanfest 2013
• 21:00/14:00 Party at the Top of the World
• 00:00/17:00 End of Fanfest Day 3

The Second episode of the official DUST 514 Podcast hosted by CCP CmdrWang and CCP Frame has just dropped. This podcast is designed for you, the players, to hear more about the upcoming changes to DUST 514 – on both its development and community side.

//LISTEN TO "MERC CAST" THE OFFICIAL DUST514 PODCAST

In the second episode of Merc Cast they are talking with CCP Wolfman about the upcoming new: weapons, dropsuits, game mode variations and general maps look & feel in “The Uprising” update to DUST 514

In case you missed the very first Episode of the Merc Cast with CCP Praetorian, you can always catch up to it right here.

As detailed on the Dev Blog, CCP has removed the secondary and tertiary requirement from all skills, so each only has one prerequisite.

The skill tree is now node-based, although a list view is available if you prefer. You’ll also be able to upgrade each skill multiple times.

Thanks to the sweeping changes, players wil be reimbursed for all the skill points they’ve used to date, including those spent on inventory items, based on the market value at the time of the re-spec.

Uprising is due on May 6, and CCP has promised more details on the overhauled skill system soon, as there’ll be loads of rebalancing to take in, too.

ReGnUM brings us another tutorial video. This one shows off the strafe, and how it might just save your life in DUST 514. While most people know what a strafe is, there's a lot more to it than moving side to side. Watch and learn!

In this episode we talk to CCP Praetorian, the creative director for Dust 514, and CCP Nullarbor, a senior programmer working on the connection between Eve Online and Dust514.

We apologize for the dips in quality at times, we were plagued with network issues throughout the entire effort to record this.

In this cast, we discuss various things in the upcoming major content build such as their new terrain system, as well as things to come in upcoming hotfixes including a fix to ambush spawns, the very soon addition of racial dropsuits, and more!

As part of CCP’s initiative in providing meaningful engagement to the player community, they will be introducing a series of in-game events based on the developing background fiction that is taking place within the New Eden universe.  To veterans of Eve online this will be a familiar occurrence.  For Dust “Newburies” it will be a great new experience.

This series of events offer players a chance to participate and act out proceedings that will alter the balance of power between the 4 main rival factions within the EVE universe. So, keep an eye on dust514.org  as CCP announce more weekly events that will be rolled out in the coming weeks!

This week’s event will involve EVE capsuleers fighting to gain control of DUST mercenary clones. Read on to find out more info about this event.

// Mercenaries do battle with Caldari Navy forces; escape with Guristas help

As the Caldari Navy and Caldari Providence Directorate continues its assault on cloned mercenaries throughout the Caldari State, one embattled enclave on Vellaine III managed to escape thanks to the assistance of the Guristas Pirates. A contingent of troopers led by Koraski Hakatain issued a call for assistance which was answered by the Guristas, who extracted the enclave and made their escape via a Rhea-class jump freighter.

Further details of the events can be found in this news article.

The DUST Development Team have announced a new game mode to be released today after DT. It is a new Instant Battle category called “Ambush Off-Map Support”, hereafter referred to as Ambush (OMS).

Players will be able to select between Ambush and Ambush (OMS) in the Instant Battle section of the Battle Finder. The difference between these game modes is as follows:

Ambush: Two teams of mercenaries will fight to the death, each team attempting to deplete the available clone reserves of the other team within the allotted mission time. If the mission timer expires before a team is eliminated, the team with the most available clones will be deemed victorious.

Ambush (OMS): Two teams of mercenaries will fight to the death, each team attempting to deplete the available clone reserves of the other team within the allotted mission time. As the battle progresses, off-map support in the form of turrets and other assets will be dropped from orbit onto the battlefield to assist whichever side is able to claim them. If the mission timer expires before a team is eliminated, the team with the most available clones will be deemed victorious.

You will be able to select "Skirmish", "Ambush", and "Ambush OMS" from the instant battle tab after DT tomorrow January 29th.

Also, as part of the changes to map rotation, they will be removing the “Fetalis North Ward” and “Fetalis Central Ward” maps/game modes from current map rotation. They will also be removing the Skirmish "Skim Junction" and Ambush "Skim Junction" map/game modes after today’s DT.

A full review of this game mode will be posted once we have had a good play through.

CCP Frame has just announced changes to the Skill Point System:

Dear players,

Thank you for voting on the following options on the Skill Point system. We carefully followed the discussion and the voting process, and in the upcoming days we will be deploying the following system to the server:

Weekly skill point cap of 190.400 SP (without boosters) from fighting in battles

Players who have maxed out their cap will receive 1 SP per warpoint up to a limit of 1.000 SP per each battle

We chose to go with Option #2 (limiting skill points earned to a maximum of 1.000 SP per battle after the cap has been hit) as it was both the safer and the most popular option among the players. We will monitor the situation after the changes are live and look forward to receiving feedback from you. Once again, we would like to remind you that weekly skill point rollover system is being worked on and that this is just the temporary solution that we are implementing.

Thank you once again for your participation and feedback!

We will see you on the battlefield.

We welcome your feedback in the comments section.