Tribal Wars Guide To 3000 Points

[Kiliano Ratha]

Factionwarfare (FW) is a game mechanic whereby you can sign up to fight for one of the four empire factions (against its enemy faction) for control over certain areas of low-sec space. It was first introduced in the Empyrean Age expansion (2008) to offer players a stepping-stone into player-vs-player (PvP) gameplay. In 2022, the Uprising expansion made sweeping changes across many Faction Warfare mechanics, and the Havoc expansion (2023) added the ability to enlist with the Guristas and Angels pirate militias to fight against the empires and participate in Insurgencies.

Faction warfare is primarily centered around two war zones (areas of low-sec contested by two empires): the Amarr-Minmatar war zone and the Caldari-Gallente war zone, which each are located on the border of the two respective empires. In these war zones, players who participate in Factional Warfare attempt to conquer star systems for their empire, and are rewarded with loyalty points and increased faction standings for their efforts. Additionally, as players who participate in Factional Warfare are effectively at war with one of the four empire factions in the game, they can therefore attack (and be attacked by) players fighting for the enemy faction anywhere in New Eden, as well as fight the enemy NPC faction navies (who patrol the high-sec star systems belonging to their faction). In addition to fighting their rival empire militia, players who participate in Factional Warfare are also at war with one of the two pirate militias as part of the Pirate Insurgency. Members of the Amarr and Minmatar militias are at war with the Angel Cartel, while members of the Caldari and Gallente militias are fighting the Guristas Pirates. In insurgency warzones, empire militia members can capture plexes to increase Suppression, and pirate militia members can capture plexes to increase Corruption.

There are two ways to join Factional Warfare (the game calls this "enlisting"): join as a solo player, or join as part of a player corporation or alliance. You do not need to be a part of Faction warfare to fight those who are enlisted.

Any player can join Factional Warfare provided that their standings towards the empire faction (e.g. the Gallente Federation or the Caldari State) they wish to fight for are 0.0 or greater. Note that only raw, unmodified standings (i.e. without taking the effects of skills like Social into account) count; you can check your standings on your character page.

You can enlist at any station belonging to the empire or pirate faction you wish to fight for by opening the "Militia Office" window (from the NeoCom or the Station Services window) for empire militias, and by opening the Insurgencies window (from the Activities section of the Neocom) for pirate militias. Note that even though the Khanid Kingdom and the Ammatar Mandate are affiliated with the Amarr Empire, they do not count as being a part of it, and therefore you cannot join Factional Warfare from their stations.

A player enlisting while a member of an NPC corporation will leave that corporation, and automatically join one of the six faction militia corporations (NPC-run corporations which are populated exclusively by other players enlisted in Factional Warfare for a given empire):

An unaligned corporation may allow individuals to Direct Enlist[1] in Factional Warfare without enlisting the entire corporation. If corporation settings allow for it, members of the same corporation can join opposing factions, becoming legal Militia War Targets to each other. Corporation leadership can limit the factions that members are able to join in order to prevent corpmates from becoming war targets to each other, to focus on aiding a specific faction, or for any other reason. With Direct Enlistment enabled, corporation members may enlist and unenlist in faction warfare at will with any faction that their corporation allows for and that they have sufficient standing to enlist with.

Enlisting or retiring individually using Direct Enlistment happens immediately. Once you have Retired from a FW militia you may not enlist in FW again for 24 hours, after which time you may re-enlist at will.

The CEO or Director of a corporation can enlist their entire corporation (i.e. all their members) to Factional Warfare, and the executor of an alliance may do so on behalf of the alliance. If part of an alliance the corporation retains the decision to join Faction Warfare, so an Alliance can not prevent a member corporation from joining. However, due to wars being shared between alliances and their member corps, if a corp joins a militia, the entire alliance is enlisted as well. It is recommended that, if the alliance does not wish to be enlisted, corps who want to participate in Faction Warfare should either leave their alliance or enable Direct Enlistment so their members can freely join a militia. While individual pilots can join and leave the militias at any time, corporations and alliances will have to wait some time before they are joined into the warfare and may fight on behalf of their chosen empire. As with solo players, the corporation must have a standing of 0.0 of greater towards the empire they wish to fight for (corporation standings are an average of its all members' individual standings, see corporation standings for more details). Enlisting a corporation takes effect after the next downtime.

It is possible for third parties (those not enrolled in Faction warfare directly) to fight those who are. Sliding into a complex or aggressing a capsuleer enrolled in faction warfare will generally give a Suspect Timer (see that page for exceptions). It will also decrease security status and decrease standing with the targeted faction. Third-parties will not receive Faction warfare rewards like Loyalty Points (LP).

Before the Allegiance update (patch notes 2023-03-14.1), the Amarr and the Caldari were allied (as were the Minmatar and the Gallente), which meant that pilots fighting for (for instance) the Gallente were able to help their Minmatar allies fight against the Amarr (with the exception of infrastructure hubs), and attack (and be attacked by) pilots fighting for the Amarr as well as the Caldari. Additionally, that same pilot was attacked by the NPC faction navies of the Amarr and the Caldari when entering their high-sec space.

Factional Warfare revolves around two conflicts, one between the Amarr and the Minmatar, and the other between the Caldari and the Gallente.The majority of the actions take place in two areas of low-security space, each of which is contested by two empires, known as "war zones".

The Amarr-Minmatar war zone extends into parts of the Devoid, Bleak Lands, Heimatar and Metropolis regions, while the Caldari-Gallente war zone extends into parts of the Black Rise, Citadel, Essence, Verge Vendor, and Placid regions. The high-security systems on the borders of the war zones are often used as staging areas (as players fighting for the enemy militia cannot enter them without being attacked by friendly NPC faction navy ships), although many player corporations also use systems inside the war zones themselves as home bases. The core Factional Warfare gameplay of capturing systems and running missions takes place exclusively within the war zones. Dotlan has very useful maps of the war zones.

A system starts off as "stable" (or "uncontested"). The attacking faction (for instance, pilots flying for the Gallente attacking a Caldari-held system) must first attack and complete complexes in the system (this is known as "offensive plexing"); for each completed complex, the system becomes ever more "contested" (commonly quoted from 0% to 100%, sometimes also measured in victory points). Once a system has become 100% contested, it is listed as "vulnerable", and the attacking faction can then attack the system's infrastructure hub. Once the infrastructure hub is destroyed, the system is considered "lost" and will switch to the attacking faction's control after the next server downtime.

During this time, the defending faction can also complete complexes in the system (this is known as "defensive plexing"); for each completed complex, the system becomes ever less "contested" (or, if it's currently "vulnerable", it will revert to being "contested"), all the way back to "stable".

While a system is "vulnerable" or "lost", the attacking faction may still capture complexes, but they will not get any reward nor affect the system's capture. Additionally, once a system is "vulnerable", the defending faction needs only to capture a few complexes to revert the system to "contested" (and therefore render the infrastructure hub invulnerable again); the attacking faction only create a small "buffer" against this by capturing more complexes while the system is "vulnerable". Similarly, once the defending faction has captured enough complexes to revert a system to "stable", the attacking faction only needs to capture one complex to put the system back to "contested".

Factional Warfare Complexes, commonly known as "Plexes" (not to be confused with PLEX) are small areas of Deadspace in war zone star systems. They are a type of Cosmic Anomaly, which means that they show up on the system scanner (but do not need scan probes to find), although once someone has warped to a complex, they will also show up on the Overview (even if someone initiated a warp to them, but canceled it immediately).

Like most other Deadspace Complexes, you cannot warp directly into them, but must first use an acceleration gate, after which you will land at the complex' beacon (Open Complexes (see below) do not have an acceleration gate, but are still a deadspace grid); you cannot light a cynosural field inside or on grid outside a complex. As of the Loyalty to Lowsec Update in March 2020, pilots who are not active Faction Warfare participants will have to go suspect in order to take the gate[2]. The gate may be activated from up to 100km away (but warpins are measured from the beacon and may vary as all warps do, so warping at 100km does not guarantee you will be able to slide immediately).

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