Soldier of Fortune: Faction Warfare (FW)

Faction warfare (FW) is a large subset of PVP gameplay in EVE. The way it works is that players join a militia of one of the four major factions and battle players of an opposing faction for control of star systems. Gallente war against the Caldari, and Minmitar war against Amarr.

Faction Warfare Space

Faction warfare space is the region of New Eden where an opposing faction can capture systems. Most of the systems in EVE aren’t in faction warfare space (e.g. Dodixie and Jita aren’t in FW space) and all of faction warfare space is LOW SEC (security rating of 0.0-0.4).

Militia

The militia of a given faction is an NPC corporation that you can join at most faction-owned stations. You can be in a faction’s militia and a player-owned corporation at the same time.

Each faction’s militia has the following respective names:

• Amarr: 24th Imperial Crusade
• Caldari: State Protectorate
• Gallente: Federal Defense Union
• Minmatar: Tribal Liberation Force

When you’re in a militia, others in your militia will appear as purple on your overview and will have the following icon next to them in chat: . They’re generally referred to as “friendlies” or “purples” or “blueberries”.

Opposing militia members will have this icon in chat and will be flashing: and they’re usually referred to as “squids”, “reds”, or just “hostiles”. You can shoot opposing militia members anywhere and you will not be attacked by either gate guns or CONCORD. However, that works both ways. An opposing militia member can fire on you and CONCORD will NOT come to your rescue and gate guns will NOT fire on them.

Participating in Faction Warfare

Here are a few steps to participate in faction warfare:

1. Check your standing: Before you can enlist in faction warfare, you need to ensure your standing with the faction you wish to join is not too low. If your standing is too low, you may need to improve it by running missions or other activities for that faction. Your standing can be checked in your character sheet.

2. Enlist: To join faction warfare, find a faction warfare agent in one of the faction’s stations. These agents are often located in the same station where you can find the militia corporation’s office. Speak to the agent and choose to enlist. This will officially make you a member of your faction’s militia. We fly Gallente, so you’ll want to pick a Gallente station in Gallente space. You can’t enlist with Gallente in Jita.

3. Join a fleet: Faction warfare is often a group activity, so it’s a good idea to join a fleet. Fleets provide safety in numbers and can be more effective when capturing or defending systems. Here are some options for joining a fleet:

   • Check corp FW fleet times: If you are a member of a player-owned corporation (player corp), check with your corp mates to see if they have scheduled faction warfare fleet operations. This is a great way to participate with people you already know.
   • Look for standing militia fleets: In the militia chat channels, you can often find announcements about standing fleet operations. These fleets are usually open to all militia members and are an excellent way to get involved quickly.

4. Rally with the fleet: Once you’ve chosen a fleet to join, make your way to the designated rally point, which is typically in a specific system or station. Coordinate with fleet members to ensure you’re in the right place at the right time. At the time of posting this doc, we rally in Murethand.

5. Ship and Fleet Comp: Depending on your fleet’s objectives, you’ll need to choose an appropriate ship and fit. Fleet compositions vary widely, but generally, you should aim to complement your fleet’s strategy. Be sure to communicate with your fleet commander or experienced fleet members to get guidance on ship types and fits that are currently favored. Once the corp decides on fleet comp, you’ll be asked to conform to a role in the fleet. Naturally, this can change from session to session or even during a session we may ask people to hop into another ship type. These are the most common ship roles that’ll appear in faction warfare, and there can be some overlap:

   • Bashers/Brawlers
   • Deal lots of DPS at close range
   • Meant to be very close in
   • Tackle
   • Has the capability to webify enemy ships to dramatically reduce their speed, making it easier to hit
   • Has the capability to scram or disrupt an enemy ship’s warp drive, making it unable to escape
   • Sometimes overlaps with bash/brawl type ships
   • Snipers
   • Can reliably strike targets at long range (usually past 50 km)
   • In addition to turrets and missiles, snipers can fulfill their role with drones. Either combat drones that fly to their targets from a great distance or sentry drone that have long firing ranges
   • Logis
   • Provides repairs (heals shields, armor, and/or structure)
   • Provides boosts to your capacitor
   • Provides buffs to modules
   • Tanks
   • Has a large pool of EHP (effective hit points) to endure many hits from both enemy players and NPC ships
   • Often overlaps with bash ships