EVE Online English Guides

Basic Guides > Main Concepts > The Downtime

Last revision 90 months ago

The daily downtime

Definition

The EVE Online servers do not do a long weekly maintenance. Instead, they undergo a short but daily downtime period called the Downtime, or DT.

WHen

The Downtime happens every day between 11 and 11:15UTC (also called EVE Time). Depending on your dailight savings status and location on earth, this means that the downtime can happen late at night from your perspective, during lunch, or during your prime time if you're an unlucky Australian player.

From time to time the Downtime will be extended, especially right before, and in the days following, a major update.

What happens during the downtime?

When the downtime happens, all ships in space will stick around, but will attempt to warp at 1 000 000km in a random direction, and dissapear. Lorsqu'arrive le downtime, tous les vaisseaux dans l'espace y restent, mais tous sont déconnectés. The remaining time as displayed to players during the final seconds of the DT isn't always very accurate, and can vary by as much as 90 seconds at times (this is very rare), but it still remains a relatively safe way of moving expensive ships around.

If, for instance, you want to go through a stargate that might be dangerous to use, jump through it 60 seconds before DT. This way, if there are some pirates around, the ship will remain cloaked due to the recent jump (the cloak lasts 60 seconds) right until downtime. You will then have to try and reconnect faster than the pirates, or wait until the next downtime.

The downtime is also the time when the asteroid belts are "refilled".

Closing words

The downtime, despite being a technical limitation of a server that couldn't possibly run 24/7, can still be taken advantage of by players, just like any other game mechanic. Its duration has gone down from 1h to 15minutes on average over the years, which greatly minimizes the impact it can have even if it happens during your primetime.