Warfare & Tactics

Answers for Q1 and Q2 are based towards Gallente militia. Q3-Q5 are just my general opinion.

1- Where should I join? I was told Black Rise is good. - Eha, Vlillirier, Nennamaila are all good systems to base out of.

2- How do I pick a station to base out of? Do I set my medical clone to that station? - Whichever station you prefer, setup an insta-undock and an insta-dock bookmark. Eha has only one station.

3- Would this be a low sec station? If so are there ones that I can contract deliveries to? Assuming that I will be losing a lot of ships I would like to be shipping the ships and fittings to the station a bunch at a time. - Yes ideally base yourself in low-sec and if you ask around I'm sure someone will be able to aid you in getting things shipped in. You have 3 character slots on your account. You can use one for the high-sec shopping etc.... that way you don't have to worry about security status on your FW char.

4- Should I expect to stay 100 percent in low sec all the time or would I on a nightly basis be jumping between high and low sec? Are there lows sec entry points where the FW militia keeps the gate clear of pirates? - I'd say if you go into FW especially Gallente then expect to be living and breathing low-sec. High sec becomes a thing of the past.

5- As an inexperienced PvP player and on a new character with 1 mill skill points how many ships should I expect to lose per night (3 hours) if I was doing plexes? and looking for 1v1 fights? I just want to anticipate the isk loss and make sure I ship enough mods and ships. - This isn't an easy one to answer. Anywhere between 0 and everything you ship in :p every ship you undock will have the potential to be lost.


Hope this helps a bit. I'm sure some FW pilots will be able to help you further. I don't know much about the Caldari militia.

Fair enough. I would counter that I am "dedicated" to having fun and being challenged. If FW turns out to be amazing fun and I meet some cool people then I will end up being more "dedicated" to that pursuit. I can't be the only carebear player that is interested in exploring a different part of the game. And what is an "alt/main" mean? I have a level 4 mission runner in 3 different marauders, a maxed out miner, a jack of all trades character, two isktar pilots, a dedicated explorer character and an industry character running 10 lines x 24 hours a day. What is missing is almost any form of PvP and I am finally interested in moving in that direction. Maybe faction warfare is different and people either do that or nothing else. I hope that I can find a corp that can be at least a little organized in their fleets but not be super uptight and stressful about how people play the game.

Talk to somebody in Templis about Caldari, they are actually decent guys and I'm sure they have a corp that will take a noob on. If you decide to go Gallente instead, Aideron Robotics is the "noob friendly" corp, as I think Noob Mercs has shut down.

1.Black Rise or Placid.
2. If Caldari, go to Hasmijala. If Gallente, go to Fliet, Nennamaila, or Vlillier.
3.Yes, lowsec station. If you join a good new player friendly corp, they will have free JF service and fully fit new player friendly ships on corp contracts (or even free fully fitted ships in corp hangars). If they don't, you've joined a ****** corp so you should find another one.
4. Yes, if you want to truly experience FW you pvp char will never leave lowsec. You have 2 alt slots to use for highsec logistics. You should use one of them a a Jita 4-4 station jockey with minimal trade skills. The other alt slot should be a basic hauler character (industrial->transport ships for the beginning).
5. A lot. Run plexes although I would avoid 1v1's until you know what you are doing a little more. You need to at least get comfortable with the game for you to realize why you died before you start 1v1. You will loose almost every fight with so few SP's and unless you are learning,there is no point.

If all your interested is farming and Pve, then join the caldari. If you want to learn how to pvp then join Gallente or Templis.

Templis is the best caldari corp, they actually can and do fight and live in low sec and are active. All the other squids live in high sec, only fleet to do gate camping and generally suck at pvp, with individual exceptions of some good soloers of course, but since they are soloers, you wont learn anything from them.

Contrasted to Gallente. We all live in low sec, most of us are pirates, very few carebear at all, and we focus on pvp from frigs to HACs to sometimes bigger things.

For Pvp, Personally, I would recommend C: Templis or G:Rapid Withdrawal over Aideron because they are way more active across multiple timezones and are noob friendly, RDRAW fight Templis daily as those two live near each other and are very active.

giving my opinion of the best and only caldari corp worth joining is propaganda? You just mad that we actually fight back or know how to avoid you and dont sit there and let you murder our fleets. Seriously why do you guyz play if you cant have fun getting shot at too? but i guess that is why y'all live in low sec. BTW, This is just a game.

Ah Crosi, good to see you're still the knight in shining armor for Gal Mil. It truly is comforting to know that no matter how long I'm gone, some things will never change.

it depends on whether you're interested in the popular side or the underdog. make up your mind and then pick one of the 2 militias of the kind that you prefer:

Popular: Gallente, Amarr.
Underdog: Minmatar, Caldari.

basing yourself in a hisec system that neighbours a lowsec system that's part of the war zone gives you the advantage of always being able to dock at your home station. that should answer 2 of your questions.

as for your last question, loss count depends heavily on alertness and usage of tools that are available to you right in front of you: the directional scanner. learn to use it and you'll easily avoid at least 90% of unfavourable encounters.

Why so? He is new so he don't know what is what and who is who, so basing out of high-sec for a first month isn't such a bad advice.

In my experience, I learned a lot more once I started basing in low-sec. High-sec as your base doesn't give you the same risk/reward feel of even undocking when you're new. Everything seems more amped up when even undocking puts you at risk of dying and, in my opinion, is the best way to learn.

This has been a very interesting thread and I appreciate everyone's input, comments and opinion. If you don't mind I have some follow on questions:

I plan to commit this character to FW completely and i assume that means a permanent standing loss against the opposing factions. I would like to go Caldari as they are the underdogs. If all I cared about was farming LP I would go Amarr.

I agree that living in low sec is the best way.

On picking my initial new home (and assuming I am on my own for next couple of months):

1. Do I pick a low sec system currently "owned" by Caldari?

2. Should I pick one that is less contested so that the home station is likely to remain in Caldari hands? Any suggestions would be helpful.

3. Can I find one with a vibrant market for T1 ships and T2 modules? I would rather buy atrons and incursus frigs from my station than black frog them in if possible.

On mechanics:

1. Once I enlist in FW would I likely see mostly blue pilots in and around the home station?

2. Do FW enemies (red) camp the stations?

3. Do neutral (pirates) saturate these system killing FW pilots of both sides?

4. Will FW blue kill other blues when they feel like it?

On security status (I have sec status 5 on all my characters, so I know nothing about going negative):

1. Does defending myself from a non FW neutral constitute sec status loss?

2. Do gate guns fire on people in low sec with low sec status?

3. Does initiating an attack on a FW neutral cause sec status loss?

4. Do FW corps frown on a pirate level (-10) sec status? I don't want to mess up chances in joining on in a couple of months.

On joining fleets:

1. Do I just look for a public fleet using fleet finder?

2. Do I need to ask permission to join (etiquette)

3. Do I introduce myself when I join the fleet.

4. Do I just warp to fleet members to find where they are?

5. Is there a TS setup for fleets or is it all keyboard?

On being helpful:

1. Should I do offensive / defensive plexes? Starting with novice? Is this just "farming" lp or does it really help the effort?

2. Should I donate all my LP to upgrade the systems? Some percent of it?

3. Does doing FW missions help the effort or is it just "farming LP"? This increases my standing with the Militia, so thats good right?

Thanks again for all your answers!