Warfare & Tactics

What is plexing?

Factional warfare complexes, aka plexes are things which affect system occupancy in faction warfare. Occupancy affects whose sides NPCs are inside said plexes and whether or not you can dock in stations located in system.

To conquer a system, you need to take about 120 plexes of various sizes until capture status bar hits 100%. This turns systems infrastructure hub vulnerable and which can then be shot and occupancy changes in next downtime.

1: Finding a plex

To locate a plex inside a system, you will have to scan it. You can use ship scanner for this and scan on planets, star, bunker, etc. It has a range of 64 au and completes the cycle in 10 seconds. If FW plex is within scan range, it always shows up as hit such as ”Gallente minor compound”. After you initiate warp, the plex beacon appears on overview and anyone can warp there.

2: How plexes function?

Plexes are essentially isolated deadspace pockets where entry is only gained by properly sized ships using the acceleration gate. There are minors, mediums and major plexes and also various subtypes of them (compound, facility, installation, outpost, stronghold) which only effects what kind of npc's spawn to plex.

For minor plexes (Caldari minor stronghold for example) you can only enter in T1 frigate or destroyer. Anything else will be stuck on gate. Medium plexes dont have minor/major in front of their name (Caldari outpost for example) and you can enter them with T1 cruiser, T2 frigate and smaller boats.

Major plexes are either "restricted" (installation, facility, outpost) which have gates that allow battlecruiser (t3 included) and smaller boats or unrestricted (stronghold and compound) where you enter with any ship, including capitals. Regular interdictors like Sabre are brutally punished here and count as T2 cruisers in regards to plex entry.

Unrestricted plexes are different from other plexes in such regard that you can warp at range to them and enter grid on the range of your choosing. It used to be that you landed to 0 in these plexes too but it was changed after the Caldari militia pulled the now-legendary low-sec doomsday in Heydieles.

Your arrival position is then determined by your angle of arrival on the entry beacon (where you would land if you warp to 0). This is not necessarily without risks as warping at range could still land you on top of the timer, where enemies most likely are massed up. Of course this might be something you want to do.

In case you are worried about loopholes to system, it is not possible to cyno inside a plex (nor warp to other member). Smartbombs do not function while in range of acceleration gate so it's not possible to camp them that way, though one can put opportunistic bomber at range and hope something comes from that angle.

Faction ships count as T1 ship of their type so even some of the overpowered crap like cynabals count as vanilla T1 cruiser in regards to plex entry. Special note: For some reason interdictors are counted as t2 cruisers like heavy interdictors so as plexing boats they are pretty bad since they can only enter major plexes.

To capture or defend a plex, you have to fly to the timer inside the plex and stay within capture range (10-30km depending on plex size) for designated time (10-20 minutes). If you leave the capture area or war target enters capture range, timer is stopped and wont be started until enemy is driven off.

In friendly plex, you only have to wait for timer to run down, in hostile plexes you get shot by npcs. All plexes spawn 3-6 waves of NPCs every few minutes. As said earlier, NPC waves are different in each plexes. For example, minor strongholds have 3 waves of NPC's which end with one elite frigate spawn, major outposts have two initial npc waves and so forth.

Continued...

5: What do I get from plexing?

From offensive plexes which are located in enemy space, you get lots of loyalty points, which you can happily use to saturate market with faction items or just fly said faction stuff yourself without risk of getting poor. Depending on plex size, you should get between 10000 – 30000 loyalty points from each.

To get the loyalty points, you have to be within capture range of the timer. When timer hits 0, the total lp is then divided between pilots within capture range. In general, Amarr & Gallente plexes can be speed tanked by a noob alt without killing rats. Caldari & Minmatar take a bit more effort due to missiles.

After a plex is captured, it disappears from scan and capture bar goes up/down, depending if plex was succesfully attacked/defedned. However, ”outposts” of all sizes constantly respawn every 30 minutes after being taken. This makes it possible to hit systems all the time.

But I heard defending systems is important too!?

It is important to note that you only get loyalty points from offensive plexes and defensive plexes only give you standing with your respective militia. Once plex closes, everyone on the grid, no matter if there is 1 or 100 ships, receives this standing boost. Amount is determined by your current rank.

Every raw 1.0 standing with your militia gives you promotion which then boosts your factional standing (Amarr empire for example) and also derivative standings with factions who like your militia like Mordu, Thukker Tribe, etc. The standings gains from these promotions are big and it's by far the fastest way to build those up, putting even epic mission arcs to shame.

So basicly this mechanism is in place to prevent one side from totally dominating the warzone since there is little interest to maintain occupancy in places far away from your base or without stations. However, systems you control and ”upgrades” do give militia wide benefits in terms of loyalty point gain and LP store prices so the ”boring defense” is also useful.

Fortunately Amarr and Caldari are blessed with two wonderful COSMOS missions where they can cash in on good faction standings. I have a habit of using barely trained alts to run defensive plexes in condors, executioners, atrons, etc.

When they reach high-enough standing with Caldari State, one can go to Otomainen solar system and do COSMOS mission offered by agent Zabon Michi which gives storyline mining implant (mining bonus +5%) worth hundreds of millions (plus bounties, plus other goodies).

Amarr has even more lucrative option in form of Akemon that gives most excellent armor hitpoint implant (+8% armor hitpoints) worth around a billion. Of course it's relatively easy to do both as member of Caldari militia too.

Gallente and Minmatar on the other hand get jack and sh.te in regards to COSMOS missions.

Note: Pirates living in Ihakana can send small percentage of isk they make from ganks to this character

6: Odds & ends = crap which was not practical to put anywhere else

Setting map to show ”sovereignty – factional warfare” opens up a good indication on what systems are heavily contested or not, based on dot size. You can also use your neocom or Militia office inside station which has rundown of current state of contestancy regarding your militia. This means Amarr office only shows systems in Amarr/Minmatar front, not Caldari/Gallente front for example

When warping to plex, best range to warp to gate is 10km. You will still land close enough to activate the gate but wont risk bumping into gate. You can get tackled on acceleration gate but "spamming" the activate gate button can still fling you past the tacklers and it seems to depend on your ship size how big "tackle window" the enemy has (quite short).

Using directional scanner to scan for 360 degree arc at range of 100000km tells you when someone is on the acceleration gate and you can make quick decision whether or not to engage. This is plexers best tool.

If a neutral (or even war target) has very high standings for said faction, he wont be aggroed by the NPC's inside a plex. (Another ”working as intended feature” according to CCP). Sadly these days one cannot check the standings of hostiles beforehand either.

The "Ihub" which controls system occupancy has about the hitpoints of a small pos except that it has a hideous shield recharge rate. To avoid going insane while destroying them, one should go with 15-20 high dps boats at least.

You can "dump" loyalty points to Ihub by warping to it and increase the system upgrades which reduce clone costs, etc. in said system. This also increases your overall warzone control points and gives your militia better benefits across the board.

"Allied militias" can defend their friends plexes and capture their enemies plexes and they get lp from those as usual. So for example, Caldari militia member could defend plexes in Amarr occupied areas of Bleak Lands/Devoid region and attack Minmatar plexes in Heimatar/Metropolis.

It is not possible to warp to an acceleration gate from the plex, such as if friendly ship is being attacked there. In these cases you must "bounce" via celestial. It is also important to note that you CANNOT warp to anyone directly who is on the acceleration gate.

For example, you if you want to warp to 10km of your friend, you will land 10km of the acceleration gate. You cannot also warp to anyone within this grid. Learn this and you might avoid this guys fate (I was inside a plex when it got killed to acceleration gate).

The End.

Thanks for the post! I wish it was made a month ago so I wouldn't miss all the rigged LP fun in Minmatar space...

Adding Bolsterbombs text about warzone control here.

System Upgrades and Warzone Control

There are two types of “upgrades” system upgrades and warzone control. System upgrades have 5 tiers and a buffer. Warzone control has 5 levels of tiers. The number of systems and the tier upgrades influence warzone control. An upgraded system receives station bonuses for clones, broker fees and industrial slots available. Warzone control effects the amount of LP received from taking a plex and how much your LP rewards cost. At Level 3 warzone control LP rewards equate to the old system.

IE: Faction Frig = 10k LP

IMPORTANT: A system can be contested and still be upgraded to lvl 5. The level of the system upgrade is NOT effected by the contestation.

Systems are upgraded by pilots contributing LP into the IHUB. Warp to IHUB at zero right click and select IHUB control Settings. Each Tier cost approximately 20k LP. There is a buffer of 50k LP that can be dumped into a system after Tier 5
When an opposing faction pilot captures a plex half that lp that is earned is drawn directly from the IHUB if there is any LP inside it. If an IHUB has zero LP the pilot still receives the full amount of LP for capturing the plex. This is why a buffer is important. If you upgrade a system to T5 with no buffer a single plex captured reduces that system to T4.

And when busting Ihub, your main task as FC is to get couple of good scouts in case of hostile cynos and remind people of their sacred duty between reload cycles.

Joanna, this Damar Rocarion's FW Plexing Guide you stole from his other forum posts!

Weren't they banned because you were using plexing exploits?

After flying with some buddies in the fed def I have found that (at least with this toon) stopping a timer or reversing it with an ally does not work. I say this because I could not stop the timer nor reverse it after a 24th imp. was chased out of a gall plex in melmaniel by me. I was also getting shot by the fed navy npc while chasing the guy out. So capturing with ally is a go, but defending with a ally is a big negative. Something is wrong with this to me.

I miss a section on how to fit your ship for plexing.