Difference between revisions of "Faction modules"

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Revision as of 10:34, 28 August 2021

Main article: Tech and meta levels

Sooner or later new pilots hear about or see 'faction' modules: rare, powerful versions of standard modules.

This page attempts to explain the different kinds of faction module, and to make it easier to determine whether or not using them will be worth the ISK. It does not discuss faction ships or faction ammo.

What Faction Modules Are

Faction modules are modules that have some of their properties enhanced or modified. They may have:

  • much lower powergrid and/or CPU fitting requirements than their normal T1/2 counterparts
  • lower capacitor consumption than their normal T1/2 counterparts
  • bigger bonuses for your ship than their T1/2 counterparts

All faction modules are T1-based, which means that if you can fit the vanilla T1 module, then you can fit the faction part.

Remember that faction modules do not always make your ship perform better than it would with the T2 version of the same module. Some are simply 'better' for some players (usually underskilled but wealthy ones) because they don't require the skills that T2 modules do and/or they're easier to fit.

Confusingly, players casually refer to three slightly different categories of special module as 'faction': faction, deadspace and officer modules. It's hard to say which group is better, as it depends of the class of module, and some modules have faction and officer counterparts but don't have a deadspace version, for example. But as a rule of thumb officer and deadspace modules are better than 'normal' faction modules, and rarer too.

You can find a module's faction, deadspace and officer variants on its Variations tab.

Icon faction.pngFaction

Faction modules represent souped-up equipment produced by New Eden's various NPC factions for their soldiers' use, and therefore not normally available to the general public. Capsuleers can acquire them from the LP stores of NPC corporations, provided they have enough LP and ISK, and possibly some insignias from that faction's enemies to hand in too.

Thus the simplest (though not necessarily the quickest) way to get faction modules is to work for an agent in that faction and cash some LP in for the module you want.

As with the other categories of 'faction' modules, different faction versions of the same module will have different attributes, so, for example, the Caldari Navy Ballistic Control System is easier to fit and gives you a higher damage bonus than the Republic Fleet Ballistic Control System.

Only factions related to any given kind of module will produce it: you won't see a Caldari Navy Mega Pulse Laser as Caldari ships aren't designed for and have no bonuses for lasers. What you will see is a Caldari Navy Heavy Missile Launcher and a Dread Guristas Heavy Missile Launcher (the Empire faction and the Pirate faction), among others from another empire/faction and maybe another pirate faction too.

Determining which one is better in the faction category is tricky at best. The only way to be sure is to use fitting tools like the ingame fitting tool, EFT or PYFA to try out fits. Remember that just because something's an expensive faction module doesn't always mean it's better than the standard T2 module for you -- its advantages may only be relevant to players who can't fit the T2 version, or have bad fitting skills.

Faction Prefixes

These are the prefixes you'll find on faction modules.

  • Amarr Navy (Amarr)
  • Ammatar Navy (Ammatar)
  • Caldari Navy (Caldari)
  • Dark Blood (Blood Raiders)
  • Domination (Angel)
  • Dread Guristas (Guristas)
  • Gallente Navy (Gallente)
  • Republic Fleet (Minmatar)
  • Sisters (Sisters of Eve)
  • Shadow Serpentis (Serpentis)
  • True Sansha (Sansha)
  • Veles (Triglavian)

Icon deadspace.pngDeadspace

Deadspace modules come from rare rat drops in low sec and nullsec complex and exploration sites. 'Rare' means rare: you can go through many exploration sites and never get a deadspace drop.

Classifying the deadspace modules and their quality is easier as there are just five main groups, and they are consistent in their quality across all modules. There are fewer deadspace modules than officer modules and faction modules, though.

Deadspace groups are divided into three smaller groups each, according to the size of the rat (and the module -- frigate-sized modules come from frigate-sized rats, and so on).

Rat Type Frigate/small Cruiser/medium Battleship/large
Sansha Centii Centum Centus
Serpentis Coreli Corelum Core
Blood Raiders Corpii Corpum Corpus
Angel Cartel Gistii Gistum Gist
Guristas Pithi Pithum Pith

All of these groups sort the quality of their modules with a letter following the name of the faction. So, for example:

Corpus-X > Corpus-A > Corpus-B > Corpus-C

Usually the 'X' variants are very similar to the best officer modules and their prices may be in the billions. Here you have stuff like the Pith-X specific shield hardeners which give you 64%(!) resist bonuses. But the "C" variants may be just like T2 stuff (or possibly worse), so compare them in-game and in EFT or PYFA before splashing out.

Also, for the same module (10MN Afterburner, for example) sometimes one group's deadspace modules will be better than another's. You may find Corelum and Gistum C, B, and A 10MN afterburners, but these are not the same. For some modules like afterburners, the difference is that one deadspace variant consumes more CPU, and the other consumes more powergrid, but that otherwise their stats are the same. However, for some other modules like shield resistance hardeners, while there are Pithum and Gistum C, B, and A-Type EM hardeners, the Pithum hardeners all provide notably more resistance than the Gistum hardeners (at the cost of more CPU).

The table below shows what modules each deadspace module type covers and what site they drop from.

Icon officer.png Officer

Officer modules only drop from officer spawns (named rats) which are incredibly rare and only spawn in some belts in some regions. They are named after the pirate officer from whose wreck they came. They are similar in quality to the better deadspace modules: the Pith-X Shield Boost Amplifier is identical to Estamel's Modified Shield Boost amplifier, and the lesser Pith-B is identical to Thon's Modified one.

There are a small number of named officers for each pirate faction, who can be ranked by how difficult they are to kill (and how correspondingly high their bounty is). Estamel is the toughest Guristas officer, and Kaikka is the worst, so Estamel's equipment is always the best of the Guristas officer modules and Kaikka's is always the worst.

The order for each pirate faction is like this:

Faction Region it spawns in Best > > Worst
Angel: Curse Tobias Gotan Hakim Mizuro
Guristas: Venal Estamel Vepas Thon Kaikka
Blood Raiders: Delve Draclira Ahremen Raysere Tairei
Sansha: Stain Chelm Vizan Selynne Brokara
Serpentis: Fountain Cormack Setele Tuvan Brynn
Triglavian: Invaded systems Zorya
Rogue Drone: All Drone Regions W-634 P-343554 F-435454 D-34343


Officer modules are some of the strongest and rarest modules ingame, and as such are extremely expensive.

Faction Module Efficiency

So, when is it worth it to splurge on faction, deadspace or officer equipment? If you're a fabulously wealthy supercapital construction magnate, you could conceivably deadspace-fit T1 frigates for solo PvP. The rest of New Eden's pilots have to make some personal judgements about

  • the relative expense (relative, that is, to the size of your wallet) of the equipment you're looking at
  • the size of the benefit you get from it
  • the purpose for which you're fitting your ship, and how likely you are to lose it

Faction equipment frequently gives you a fairly small improvement over T2 equipment for a hefty price increase. As (repeatedly) explained above, sometimes the improvement over T2 is in an area you're not interested in, and sometimes faction equipment can be worse than its T2 equivalent in some respects.

For example, compare the T2 Stasis Webifier with the Blood Raider faction version:

  • the Dark Blood web has 15km range and the T2 web has 10km -- a 50% increase
  • the Dark Blood module also requires less CPU
  • but the T2 module has a more dramatic effect: it cuts the target's velocity by 60%, while the faction version only cuts it by 55%

At the time of writing the Shadow Serpentis webifier is roughly 130 times more expensive than the T2 webifier. If you're fighting within web range the effect on the target's velocity will often be more important to you than your ability to web from a longer range than normal, and so the T2 will be more useful than the Dark Blood webifier anyway.

If, however, you are fitting a Rapier T2 force recon ship you might prefer the Dark Blood to the T2 webifier because

  • the Rapier has massive bonuses to web range, which increase the difference between them: at Recon V, the faction web has 20 km more range than the T2 web
  • webbing things from long range is part of the Rapier's job in combat, so the range boost is more significant
  • the Rapier is fast, agile and can use a covert ops cloak, so you can reasonably expect it to last you for a while (especially if you're an experienced pilot, which you should be if you're fitting force recons)

As this example shows, T2 ships with specialised roles and substantial bonuses can sometimes get lots of utility out of one or two faction modules which suit their particular combat purpose.

The last reason mentioned for putting a faction module on the Rapier -- that there is a (somewhat) lower chance of you losing the ship -- is also behind the widespread practice of faction-fitting long-term mission-running ships.

Because of the predictability of missions, a cautious and experienced mission-runner has a chance of never losing their mission-running ship. Players who are setting themselves up for long-term high-level mission-running as a source of income, usually in a T1 battleship, a faction battleship, a marauder or a T3 strategic cruiser, are sometimes prepared to splash out on faction, deadspace or even officer fittings. They calculate that the greater speed with which their ship will run missions when faction-fitted will pay off the greater price in the long run.

As always, if you plan to do this you should use EFT to compare the benefits of the modules you're thinking of investing in. Sometimes fitting one or two faction modules which are key to the whole fit may be more cost-effective than fully faction-fitting your ship. For example, you may be able to fit two faction tanking modules which dramatically reduce your tank's capacitor requirements -- then you can free up slots or rig slots, which would otherwise have been used to boost capacitor recharge, to increase your DPS instead, resulting in an overall faster mission completion time.

Remember, however, that faction-fitted mission-running ships are a target for suicide gankers, so -- depending on where and how conspicuously you run missions -- faction modules may increase your chances of losing your ship even while they make it more effective.

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