Assembly Hall

TL;DR Gallente Navy ships are used 3 times more than Caldari ships >> impacts LP values >> impacts warzone.

I know they are looking at changes for faction war and LP markets should be part of the conversation because it's very imbalanced atm. Everyone in pvp knows theres a big variance in terms of the popularity of certain faction ships and there probably always will be, but extra care should be taken with Navy ships to ensure these imbalances are not so exaggerated that they start impacting on the warzone and currently ship imbalance is having a huge impact on the warzone. I've done some research based on the number of Navy ships destroyed for the months January to August because that was a simple way to gauge the turnover of these markets, by calculating how much LP was flushed out of the market for each faction we get a fair idea of the demand for LP.

Overall LP destroyed by faction

Gallente: 1 678 780 000 lp
Amarr: 1 332 336 000 lp
Minmattar: 954 710 000 lp
Caldari: 626 605 000 lp

Gallente have consistently been 1-2 tiers ahead of Calmil and as such their pilots will have earned nearly twice as much LP over these months, so their ISK/LP payouts should be severely hurting, they should be down to selling navy cap boosters, faction ammo, and implants at this stage... but they're not, because their LP market is irrepressible. On the other hand Caldari LP should be trading for much more, especially since they put a bigger proportion of it into ihubs but not only is it not, the reverse is true. Gallente LP is worth about 20-30% more despite them trading far more of it because their ships are in high demand. To put it into context the LP cashout of the Navy Vexor was worth more than the cash out of the entire Caldari ship line up combined... how is that not broke?

I didn't spend much time in the other warzone and the gap is less pronounced but it's still too big, and it's again mostly due to the imbalance of ships in the frig/cruiser classes.

Here's a full breakdown by ship:

Faction Frigates

1. Navy Slicer: 41,281 destroyed = 412 281 000 lp
2. Fed Navy Comet: 39,150 destroyed = 391 500 000 lp
3. Fleet Firetail: 21,435 destroyed = 214 350 000 lp
4. Navy Hookbill: 11,337 destroyed = 113 370 000 lp


Faction Cruisers

1. Vexor Navy: 18,813 destroyed = 846 585 000 lp
2. Navy Omen: 9,459 destroyed = 425 655 000 lp
3. Scythe FI: 4,418 destroyed = 198 810 000 lp
4. Stabber FI: 3,890 destroyed = 175 050 000 lp
5. Aug Navy Issue: 3,030 destroyed = 136 350 000 lp
6. Exequror Navy Issue: 1,861 destroyed = 83 745 000 lp
7. Navy Caracal: 1,251 destroyed = 56 295 000 lp
8. Navy Osprey: 612 destroyed = 27 540 000 lp


Faction Battlecruisers

1. Navy Brutix: 1,227 destroyed = 122 700 000 lp
2. Fleet Cane: 930 destroyed = 93 000 000 lp
3. Navy Drake: 814 destroyed = 81 400 000 lp
4. Navy Harbinger: 738 destroyed = 73 800 000 lp


Faction Battleships

1. Raven Navy Issue: 976 destroyed = 244 000 000 lp
2. Navy Apocalypse: 927 destroyed = 231 750 000 lp
3. Tempest Fleet Issue: 602 destroyed = 150 500 000 lp
4. Navy Megathron: 570 destroyed = 142 500 000 lp
5. Typhoon Fleet Issue: 492 destroyed = 123 000 000 lp
6. Scorpion Navy Issue: 416 destroyed = 104 000 000
7. Navy Dominix: 367 destroyed = 91 750 000
8. Navy Geddon: 210 destroyed = 52 500 000


ISK is just as important in faction war as it is in any other part of space, Caldari have been the poverty militia for a long time now and it's mostly thanks to the state of their ships. Would also be nice for Calmil pilots to be able to use more of the stuff they buy on the LP store in the warzone instead of hauling it all to jita.

What I would like:

CCP to acknowledge the imbalance and make it a priority to buff the struggling Minmattar/Caldari Navy ships asap: Hookbill, Firetail, Navy Osprey, Navy Caracal, and Stabber Fleet Issue all need buffs. Having 3 Navy Missile cruisers is too much to give them all unique useful roles so one of the Caldari cruisers should be converted to a rail hull. VNI clearly needs to be nerfed.

In eve demand is driven by destruction, and the best way to gauge demand for lp in the case of faction warfare is to look at how many Navy ships were lost, and multiply that by the lp cost of each ship. It's more reliable than any metrics you'll get from market data in trade hubs. e.g. a player buys a Navy Raven from you that's 250k lp cashed in and you might forget about it and move on, but from the point of view of the overall market for SPROT lp that 250k lp isn't really cashed out until the ship gets destroyed. The player can still sell the ship to someone else at a later date effectively cancelling his original purchase, and it can change hands multiple times, each transaction registering on the graphs of trade hubs but still only 1 purchase from the LP store and only 250k lp sold. Only when the ship gets destroyed is your 250k SPROT lp consumed and flushed from the market, the player might chose to buy another or he might not it doesn't matter, he can't sell it on again. Compare the pve ships Caldari have with high volume ships like the Fed Navy Comet, or the Navy Vexor, those ships are constantly getting destroyed always creating fresh demand for more FDU lp. That's a good thing, but Caldari and Minmattar really need a couple of ships like that too or they are at a disadvantage.

Of course there are other items too, but players have no way to get consumption stats for those, and they look pretty well balanced on the face of it. Some other items like faction ammo and navy capboosters as well but those have much lower isk/lp payouts because you are competing directly with high sec mission runners in these markets unlike in ships where you get a discount, so when you're reduced to trading that stuff the bottom has well and truly fallen out of your market. Ships usually offer the best Isk/LP payouts and they are higher volume as well - either way the imbalance in the Navy ships is too big to ignore and it's bound to be affecting LP values. At over 1000isk/lp the market for Navy Vexors alone was worth about a trillion isk for Gallente millitia members since January - that's more than your entire line of Navy ships has made for your militia.

The thing is Gallente were able to flush nearly 1.7 billion lp from their market through ships, Caldari only managed to flush about a third of that, and Minnmattar just under a billion. If Caldari and Minmattar were swimming in LP from missions and all things were equal the opposite would be true. At the end of the day it doesn't matter how much lp they make it's not possible to sell ships that nobody wants. It's not just flavor of the month/year/epoch either, the t1 Caracal is the most popular cruiser at the minute, the Cerb is also becoming cancerous, and yet hardly anybody wants a Navy Missile cruiser? They were poorly designed, when you look at the stats you get from them and compare it with a t1 Cruiser you wonder why you'd pay so much extra for a hull that doesn't deliver much more than it's t1 counterpart.

The Navy Osprey isn't far off imo, it's fast and has the right bonuses for kiting and anti support roles... but it has so low dps. lower than a t1 caracal, and unlike the t1 caracal the dps is locked into kinetic. Remove kinetic lock and change the utility high for an extra launcher - problem solved. More people will choose it over the t1 Caracal because it will be clearly better as it should be for the price.

The Navy Caracal is useless. It's too slow to dictate range it doesn't have enough mids to fit full tackle and tank for brawling, and it's bonuses are poor 5%rof + 5% application means you have to use HAM's or Heavies and both are terrible weapons for cruiser size hulls because they don't apply well to other cruiser size hulls, so they only look respectable on Battlecruisers. Like i said before: trying to make 3 unique and useful Navy missile cruisers is never going to happen and as worst in class the Navy Caracal has to go it's an absolute turkey. It should be replaced by a Navy Moa with bonuses to hybrid range and dps, why don't we have a rail based Navy ship with optimal bonuses anyway? That might actually be useful.

The Hookbill, Firetail, and Stabber just need more fitting resources. The Hookbill has less fitting resources than a Kestrel despite having an extra slot to fill It should also get the same 25% dmg bonus as the Slicer/Firetail or a couple of drones because even though it has an extra turret it does less dps and it's kinetic locked.

If these ships were fixed it would bring more income to Minmattar/Caldari pilots and corps, which would make the warzones more competitive and benefit everyone.

It's hard to say how much lp people have from mission farming, and a lot of it might be on inactive accounts but you're probably right minmattar have enough to collapse any market. But I'm talking more about the demand side of it - and even though Minnie ships are cheaper and there is lot of LP out there their ships are not getting used as much as gallente or even amarr. Even worse for caldari, there might be stockpiles of lp although i doubt it because they haven't been t4 since test and they've regularly been t1 since then.

Having said all that I think Gallente have good ships, the VNI might be a touch OP, but the rest of their ships are just what I would expect from a Navy hull, my issue here is caldari and minmattar have too much garbage in their line up and it makes it harder for them to sell their LP. Caldari Navy cruisers badly need a rework that should be the biggest market but they hardly sell at all, the stabber fleet issue is also poor for a Navy hull. As for the frigates, the Hookbill isn't bad but it's not in the same class as the slicer or the Comet

While the analysis is globally correct, you forgot to include a few fact:

• Gal/Cal is twice the population of Min/Amarr. Been that way for what? 3-4 years?
• Caldari has been T1-zoned for what? 1.3 year at least. And no, the occasional T2 was not that frequent, which explain the crappy LP values.
• Sadly, minmatar ships are a pile of crap, because autocannons have low dps compared to blasters, and worse damage application than pulse and close range missiles. Also, artillery are way to hard to fit with a decent combat fit. The problem is most likely no the ships by themselves, but because of the weapon system they use.

Also, VNI is indeed OP. Versatile, can be tanked (as the vexor) with active shield/armor, passive shield/armor/hull fits. And best of all, the fact that it can deal BS-lvl dps. Which is the reason why it's used as a farming ship in null, and also the fact that it is included in lots of doctrine as both a damage dealing AND anti-support cruiser.
You may ask, why not just fix it by downgrading the dps capabilities? Well, by doing so, you'd end up with a... Vexor. It is actually not possible to balance the VNI, because it would mean making a vexor, or a totally different ship. Which is also not going to happen.

(Also, on a side note: Day four of the CSM contained things about FW missions going to be rebalanced, which means it will become easy to farm crapload of Gallente FW LPs. Behold, "VNIs everywhere" is coming!)





Are you speaking about Goons regions, before the moon rebalance? Also, Mordus Angel, or SOE stations (not sure which ones) in Goon space have preferential LP Stores. While they don't earn twice the LPs, they still do pay twice less.