Foo's faction war

To expand the areas of the game I can become competent in, on one of my pilots I have joined faction warfare, in the Gallente Militia.

For an overview of FW, please read http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Factional_Warfare

My goals, in no particular order:

• Get used to dying lots.
• Investigate the "stab fit farmers" and how to catch them.
• Get some small ship PVP experience.
• Get an idea of how to make ISK while losing ships. 

I am not here to make my ISK, the wormholes and it's PI are still are very near and dear to my wallet, but the idea of roams for the laughs did not appeal.  At least this way I can tell myself there is a goal (for the faction) that I am working towards.

Overview (friend or foe)

In highsec, my practice to date has been to ignore any neutral in highsec, and avoid flashy yellow/red pilots, and to either work around or engage war targets.  In wormhole space, I have a much simpler rule; if it is not blue, green or purple, and not an epithal at my poco's, shoot it (if flying a pew pew ship) or ignore it (if flying an epithal).  Yes we did have a neutral using our pocos in wormhole space, we let them continue to pay tax.  This is too simplistic for faction warfare.

The very first thing an industrialist will need to do is make their overview usable.  I find Sarah's Overview a good starting point but it is not enough.

I start with Sarah's 'normal pvp' tab.  I have added Entity: Capture Point and <hostile faction> Battlecruiser/Cruiser/Destroyer/Frigate.  Remember to choose the hostile ships and not your own faction's ships for when you run defensive plexes.

Next, flashing yellow is not a reason to shoot someone, especially from your own militia.  As a side note, if you do wish to tell someone not to shoot, 'Stop shooting' will be ignored by just about everyone; where 'Don't shoot friendly militia' might just get my attention.

On your overview appearance tab, move up militia and down suspect/criminal.  You can also turn on/off flashy as you see fit.  I currently have 'at war' set as flashy, and until I get more familiar, wont even bother with suspect or criminal flags.

The plexes themselves

To run the faction war PVE for Loyalty Points (LP), you run the plexes.  The TLDR version is

• Open up your probe scanners for anomalies; 
• Warp 10K to the faction war anomaly of your choice (do not warp to zero; you might get caught on gate; and 10K is close enough to use gate);
• Dscan at roughly 300,000k to see who is in the plex.
• Use the acceleration gate, 
• Destroy the NPC ship if you are offensively plexing, but leave it alive if you are defensive (i.e. your own faction)
• Orbit the 'button' within the required range (generally 30K for me so far), ensuring you can see the timer count down.
• If the system empty is full of same militia pilots, do something else for the required time, but still at your PC.  Do PI, market updates, mining, whatever.  Glance back at local every so often.  As a wormhole resident, I declare known space local to be overpowered.
• If the system has neutrals or hostiles, dscan.  Max range dscan is good to get you a picture of what might be in the system.  300,000 km dscan lets you see who is sitting/entering the acceleration gate (assuming they are not cloaky/quick).
• If neutrals or hostiles come within the 'short' dscan range, or even into the plex itself, decide to either engage or try to escape.  Consider your warp destination if you are going to flee.
• Wait the timer out.  Collect LP.  You get a notification, as well as a message in local.

The fit

Atron, 3 guns, a short scram, a prop mod (afterburner or MWD).  For tank, a DCU, one I have been running is a Medium shield extenders with 2 micro auxiliary power cores; shield resist rigs on a relatively newbie pilot.  Cheap fit (or as cheap as I can make myself fly)

A novice offensive plexes, takes a 60 seconds of fighting and 10 minutes of waiting when unmolested. 

Offensive plex rewards

Gallente are currently tier 1;  I have read that the higher the tier, the better the LP rewards, but also the lower the value of those LP as other pilots flood the stores with faction items.


5,000 Lp for doing a novice site solo.  2 of these (~25 minutes), with 27M of ISK and tags becomes a 51M  Federation Navy Omnidirectional Tracking Link

For less up front costs, 1 novice site gives enough to by 20 * 5 Electronic Engineering Datacores.  Each set of these 5 Datacores also requires 250,000 ISK; but sells for 750,000 isk. 


No, this does not mean 60M/hour; you will lose ships, run away, spend time finding sites.  But for a rookie pilot with a poorly fit frigate?  Very good.

I am currently using https://www.fuzzwork.co.uk/lpstore/ to work out what to buy.  If I ever do decide to become semi permanent in faction warfare; I will attempt to set up customs offices, and make sure there are basic replacement fits for sale all in one station; especially nearby stations with medical bays.

The PVP itself

With a newbie pilot in a basic frigate, I have died, A lot.  The PVP I have seen fits the following types:

• Solo faction ships and small groups entering complexes where there are solo T1 frigates.
• Fleets of approximately 20 hunting small groups, with an initial tackle followed by the larger fleet sitting on the gate of the previous system.
• The warp core stabbed ship escape the initial tackle.

What I am yet to see is the even fight. I have heard of such things, just not seen it yet.

With the plexing, I have rejected (or tried to reject) fights that I knew I would lose, and accepted the rest.

In my rather flimsy Atron, I have tried Meta 4 fits; I have tried the pre-built contract ships.  I have discussed fits with PVP'ers in the Foo Corps. I lose ships with alarming regularity.

The one solo kill I have was an afk pod in highsec.  The rest of the kills attributed in part to me? It would have made zero difference whether I was in fleet or not.

For the newbie Faction warfare pilot flying solo, I don't see how they are going to get kills.  I am sure there are examples where newbie pilots get real kills, but on the whole, the newbie solo pilot appears to be well paid fodder for the opposite faction. 

The questions

I understand that there is one module despised by faction warfare pilots.  These same pilots that consider 4v1 'fun' (if they are the 4). There is one module that allows small ship pilots to survive a gank (most of the time at least).  I know categorically that it is not a guarantee of protection from a properly equipped pilot.

I am not fitting Warp Core Stabilisers. I am actually looking for that mythical 'fair fight' (or at least a close one), and a WCS is only useful for running.

• Why are Microjump drives respectable where WCS are despised?
• Where are the thousands pilots WCS ships?  For Plex farming, it seems an ideal module.
• If WCS are so prevalent, why are there not more sebo/multi warp disruption scout frigates flying around (in pairs if necessary)?