Faction warfare missions

Pilots enlisted in Faction Warfare may run faction warfare missions offered by agents of the four Factional Warfare NPC corporations ("militias"). These missions work similarly to the encounter missions offered by agents of Empire corporations, although there are a few notable differences (detailed below). Note that these missions do not contribute to the core Factional Warfare mechanics (capturing or defending star systems in the war zones), although they take place in the same regions of space.

Finding, accepting and rejecting missions

The in-game Agent Finder, showing available level 2 agents for the 24th Imperial Crusade.

Factional Warfare missions are only available to pilots enlisted in the respective militia and their allied militia (i.e. the Gallente Federal Defence Union corporation will only offer missions to pilots enlisted with either the Gallente or Minmatar militias). As with regular missions, you can find nearby agents by using the in-game The Agency tool or third-party tools. Make sure to filter by the correct corporation:

• Amarr: 24th Imperial Crusade
• Caldari: State Protectorate
• Gallente: Federal Defence Union
• Minmatar: Tribal Liberation Force

Just like with agents from other corporation, Factional Warfare agents have a level, which indicates the difficulty of the missions they offer, and how much they reward pilots for completing those missions. In addition to being enlisted in the correct militia, you also need to have sufficiently high standings with the agents or their corporation to access them (this works the same way as accessing agents of other corporations):

• Level 1 agent: (no standings requirement)
• Level 2 agent: standings of 1.0 or higher
• Level 3 agent: standings of 3.0 or higher
• Level 4 agent: standings of 5.0 or higher

Unlike other corporations, militia corporations only have agents in the "security" division, and no storyline agents; this means that you will only run encounter (military) missions for them (no mining or distribution missions), and you will not get a storyline mission every 16 missions. Additionally, just like for other agents, there is a standings penalty for declining or failing missions.

Running missions

All Factional Warfare missions are combat encounter missions, which always involve flying somewhere and destroying something (usually ships or a structure). These missions always take place in low-sec Factional Warfare war zones, in the enemy half of the respective war zone (so a Gallente agent will send you to the Caldari end of the Caldari-Gallente war zone).

Rewards

Completing a Faction Warfare mission awards ISK and faction Loyalty Points (LP), which can be used to buy faction navy ships, modules, blueprints, and other Faction Militia loyalty store items. NPC enemies drop Navy dog tags as loot, which serve as a secondary FW loyalty currency and can be sold on the EVE Market. Unlike empire missions, no bounties are awarded for FW mission NPCs, and they drop much less conventional loot.

Difficulty and ship restrictions

Most Faction Warfare missions take place in deadspace complexes with acceleration gates, and these acceleration gates allow only certain classes of ship to enter. For example, a level 1 FW mission only allows Frigate and Destroyer class vessels through the acceleration gate (though any ship may warp to the complex entrance.)

Faction Warfare missions encourage PvP by openly displaying mission sites once traversed. When the mission bearer arrives, the site becomes a cosmic anomaly that is visible and warpable for anyone in the system, ally and enemy alike, with no need for probe scanning or searching. Capsuleers are challenged to be vigilant against militia player ambushes.

The NPC difficulty in faction warfare missions is one tier lower than missions of the same level from other corporations. For example, a level 2 Faction Warfare mission is comparable in difficulty to a traditional level 1 mission but may be completed in the same ships as a conventional level 2 mission.

	Frigate		Destroyer			Cruiser			Battlecruiser		Battleship
Mission level	Tech I	Tech II	Tech I	Tech II	Tech III	Tech I	Tech II	Tech III	Tech I	Tech II	Tech I	Tech II
1
2
3
4
Note: Tech I ships include Faction ships.

Enemies

In all Factional Warfare missions you will be fighting NPC ships belonging to the enemy faction (i.e. a pilot running missions for the Gallente militia will be fighting Caldari NPCs). This means that the type of damage you should deal to the NPCs, which one you should fit your ship to resist against, and which type of Electronic Warfare (EWAR) they use is predictable; therefore, you can fit your ship accordingly.

	Damage		Electronic Warfare (EWAR)
Enemy faction	Deal	Resist against
Amarr Empire			Tracking Disruption (TD)
Caldari State			Electronic Countermeasures (ECM)
Gallente Federation			Remote Sensor Dampening (RSD)
Minmatar Republic			Target Painting (TP)

• As with missions in Empire space, EVE Survival is an excellent resource for researching what a mission objective is, and what kind of NPC enemies to expect.

Ships and strategies

As Factional Warfare missions are run in dangerous areas of low-sec space, the strategy for completing them revolves around completing the mission objective as quickly as possible and moving on to the next mission, all while being able to run away from (or fight) incoming enemy players' ships. This means that smaller, faster ships tend to be used, and that players tend to limit themselves to destroying the absolute minimum number of enemies necessary in order to complete a mission (in contrast, running missions in Empire space focuses on using big ships with powerful active or passive tanks, and clearing every last enemy to maximise the bounties and loot gained).

Since the missions take place deep within the war zones, it's recommended that you first pick up a number of missions (e.g. by using a fast frigate to fly to each station with agents for a particular faction militia) before running them. The easiest way to do this is to use the autopilot to set waypoints for each agent's station (through the Agent Finder), and then use the autopilot's "optimise route" function to calculate the shortest route. Keep in mind that agents in low-sec systems are inaccessible if the system is currently held by the enemy faction; the in-game map or a service like Dotlan can help you to check which of the agents on your list are currently inaccessible.

Once you have accepted a number of missions, switch to your mission-running ship, and again set waypoints to each mission objective and optimise your route through the autopilot. You can then fly to each mission objective, destroy the ships/structures needed to complete the mission, and fly on to the next mission (not stopping to loot, and keeping a constant eye on D-Scan for enemy players' ships).

Mission-running ships

Stealth Bombers are particularly useful for running high-level Factional Warfare missions. Defensively, they are relatively fast and agile, and have a small signature radius - so not only do larger NPC enemies have difficulty hitting them, but they can align and warp out quickly if they are attacked by an enemy player. Additionally, their covert ops cloak makes travelling through enemy-held systems relatively safe and painless. Their primary weapon (torpedoes) particularly excels at destroying larger NPC enemies, and has a selectable damage type (so the pilot can deal the type of damage the NPCs are most vulnerable to).

However, Stealth Bombers are also very fragile, and so a pilot must take care to keep their transversal velocity as high as possible (and avoid enemy ships with webs); one or two lucky hits from NPC battleships will quickly destroy a Stealth Bomber. Additionally, they are most effective against Amarr NPCs (i.e. fighting for the Minmatar militia), as the Amarrian EWAR (tracking disruption) does not affect their missile launchers.

Good alternatives to Stealth Bombers (for running level 3 and 4 missions) are Cruisers, Battlecruisers, and Heavy Assault Cruisers. These ships have considerably more hit points than Stealth Bombers, and so are more forgiving to fly; however, they are also much more ponderous and so travel through the war zones is more dangerous. Also, Heavy Assault Cruisers in particular are expensive, and losing one will put a serious dent in your income from mission-running. Keep in mind to fit your ship to attack the NPCs' weaknesses; missile and projectile turret ships can therefore be used against all enemies, while hybrid turret ships are best against the Caldari and Gallente, and energy turret ships best against the Amarr. Most enemy players in Factional Warfare fly frigates and destroyers; since it's a lot easier to catch a cruiser or battlecruiser than a Stealth Bomber, it may be wise to fit your larger mission-running ships to also fight off enemy players' frigates and destroyers (e.g. using webs or target painters).

Completing missions

See also: Rewards from running FW missions

As these missions never require you to return an item to your agent, they can be completed remotely - to do so, dock up at any station once you have completed the mission objectives, start a conversation with the agent, and complete the mission to receive your rewards. This is handy as it can save you a long trip back through low-sec.

Just like "regular" missions, Factional Warfare missions pay both ISK and loyalty points (LP), as well as increasing your standings with the agent and their corporation (since there are no storyline mission, they do not increase your standings with the agent's faction). The loyalty point reward scales with your faction tier.

External links

• E-UNI Forums: Running Faction Warfare missions
• "ISK Making for the Free Folk" Faction Warfare Missions Guide (YouTube) August 2019