Warfare & Tactics

Factional Warfare
• Factional Warfare upgrades no longer give extra station slots and instead reduce NPC price on all industry activities by 10% per solar system upgrade level
• The damage and tracking of Factional Warfare Complex NPCs has been reduced significantly.


I do not know how many people caught this little bit snuck in between industry giant thread-naught breeding patch notes.

Who asked for this and (more so) who thought it was a good idea? Positive change to the plexes has been way to slow in happening. As of July 21st, you could run a plex one size over your ship solo with little problem (in a PvP ready fit). Why make it easier for bot/script running warpcorestabbed farming alts to continue to disrupt what is suppose to be a group and PvP focused activity?

If anything, we need to see a shift the other way. Make the plexes a group thing, like the incursions sites. Maybe with each size increase, add then next size of NPC without removing the smaller one(s). So a medium would have the spawn of the frigate, the destroyer, and the cruiser. This promotes greater numbers needed to run larger sites. Then, for offensive plexing, have the LP payout scale up as well.
This kind of change would leave the Novice plexes alone, and easy for newer players (and farmers) to run. So be it.

Even without additional increases to the plexes, do not make them easier to run.

1. They had to change it along with the industry changes.
2. The damage and tracking of plex NPCs was already pretty low. This just makes it so the result of solo pvp is now 99% determined by the solo fight itself. The hard part about each plex is the dps check, not the offensive capabilities of the rats.

It sounds like a good change to me.

The problem with the current mechanic from the solo perspective is that you can almost never pvp in a higher class plex. So I might be in t1 frigate or faction frigate and be willing to fight a destroyer or af in a small (or even a cruiser in a medium) But now with the unkillable rat that does steady damage this is far less feasible. Hence we had well documented reduction in fw pvp after kronos but before huola kicked off.


There was a player who posted a request that the npcs not shoot unless you aggro them. I and a few others supported that idea. This might be a sort of compromise. But really its not as good as the solution where the rat doesn't aggro. Its not as good for pvp nor is it as good for preventing farming.

Remember the timer is not running if the rat is not killed so its not like this will increase ofarming much. But for those who like to pvp in plexes the rat dps sucks and this was doccumented by a reduction in pvp.

I don't think you should need a group to deal with the npcs in fw plexes. Low sec incursions are not my thing though. Others who like that sort of thing might feel differently.

The only ones I think getting hit hardest on the plexing changes is light missile ships. The time between volleys takes entirely too long and allows the npc to regen lots of it's health. I know for myself I am able to plex in a novice and small with my nano comet. I fought ~8 people last night in a large and the npc's affect on the battle was almost nothing, still in my trusty nano comet. Then again later in the night I fought a 2v1 in a large while in a cruor, was able to kill one but the other got away. The npc's affect was still zero.

Another issue I can see with the constant spawns is for brawlers. When they are sitting 0 on the warp in and the npc respawns they usually have to burn after it to kill it, leaving the warp in wide open. This is for blasters and autocannons, I think rockets or railguns should be able to reach the target just fine. There has been multiple instances where I warp in and the wartarget is 8-10km from the warp in making it extremely easy to get out to kite range and blap away.

These are just some of my observations so far since the changes.

edit: Another ship type that got the short end of these changes is the maulus. They dont have a tank and barely do any dps. They utilize their damps as a tank to just whittle down their opponent, which is a problem when the npc can easily tank your damage almost indefinitely.

Few can claim to love the Maulus as much as I. So, speaking as a Maulus perve, I mean lover, I will say that there is nothing wrong with this.

The Maulus is an ewar boat. That it could be used as a combat vessel in novice plexes of old was always something of an inadvertent design quirk. Now you need a ship with decent/good dps and not the poor dps which the Maulus was able to muster. It took forever anyway to kite and kill any pvp boat with a halfway decent tank. Nothing wrong with the increased tanks on the rats now here rectifying this plex design flaw.

P.S. If you see me lying drunk and crying incoherently outside my Captain's Quarters, you will know that my Mauluses have not only kicked me onto the couch, but out the door for my betrayal. Please do not tell them and make this possibility come true. I can't live without my honey buns.

A lot of people asked for easier rats and a lot of people thought it was a good idea.

The rats are there to put pressure on farmers using fits that promote afk or scrolled client plexing. They're not there to interfere with those people who are there for a reason.

Welcome to FW Hard Mode, my friend.

Fit ECCM, learn which rats are the jamming ones, and blap those when they come up. It's annoying but works.

I may be wrong, but if this fit:
[Maulus, Solo PvP Maulus]
Damage Control II
Drone Damage Amplifier I
Reactor Control Unit I

Low Frequency Sensor Suppressor I, Targeting Range Dampening Script
Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I
Warp Disruptor II
Low Frequency Sensor Suppressor I, Targeting Range Dampening Script

150mm Railgun II, Federation Navy Antimatter Charge S
150mm Railgun II, Federation Navy Antimatter Charge S

Small Inverted Signal Field Projector I
Small Capacitor Control Circuit I
Small Capacitor Control Circuit I

Hobgoblin II x1
Warrior II x4

is able to do 126 DPS at 9 km optimal, how Maulus can be that much weaker in damage output if even Incursus classical fit like this:
[Incursus, Incursus: ScramKite]
Adaptive Nano Plating II
Damage Control II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Small Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste

1MN Afterburner II
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I

125mm Railgun II, Federation Navy Antimatter Charge S
125mm Railgun II, Federation Navy Antimatter Charge S
125mm Railgun II, Federation Navy Antimatter Charge S

Small Anti-Explosive Pump I
Small Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Small Auxiliary Nano Pump I

Hobgoblin II x1

is able to produce nothing more then 133 DPS with less then 7 km optimal. 135 with Javelin, but your range is like 3 km then...

i fully support the change. rat RNG respawn timers should not determine the result of a 1v1 pvp fight

I'm fine in novice plexes with a 90dps breacher. Smalls are a bit rough though, but doable. Mediums cannot be done.