A factory-fresh ship in EVE Online should not look exactly the same as one that’s been through countless corporate wars. There should be some distinguishing characteristics. That’s why the game’s next update on December 8th is adding in new surface details to ship hulls with dirt and kill marks. Dirt, as it currently stands, is a simple system: All ships accumulate dirt slowly over time, although the effects can be cleaned off manually. Future updates are meant to include specific markers on ships from specific events, but for the time being it’s simply a matter of time since the last cleaning.
Kill marks, on the other hand, add a running tally of how many ships have been blown away by the ship in question. The marker counts kill shots on player-piloted ships and only for ships that are actual targets; blowing away rookie ships won’t help you earn a high kill tally. You can see the marks in action in a video embedded just below.
