Pirate Faction Ship Overview

Pirate Faction Ships are expensive, high-performance ships built by pirate factions. Aside from the four main empire factions (Amarr, Caldari, Gallente, Minmatar) and the mining faction ORE, there are seven pirate factions that have made their ships available to capsuleers. Pirate faction ships require two different racial ship command skills, and gain bonuses from both. Each faction has three available ships: one frigate, one cruiser, and one battleship. The Sansha's Nation also have a supercarrier, while the Serpentis also have a dreadnought, a supercarrier, and a titan. Pirate battleships are some of the strongest sub-capital ships in the game.

Several pirate rookie ships were distributed as a promo at Pax East 2013. These were the Angel Cartel Echo, the Blood Raider Hematos, the Guristas Taipan, the Sansha's Nation Immolator, and the Serpentis Violator.

Building Pirate Faction Ships

No BPOs exist for pirate faction ships. All blueprints are 1-run BPCs. Most blueprints have a small chance of dropping as loot in exploration combat sites belonging to that faction. For example, in Serpentis Narcotic Warehouses there is a chance to find a 1-run BPC for a Serpentis ship.

The BPCs can also be obtained with Loyalty Points in a station belonging to that faction. (This is the only way to obtain Sisters of Eve blueprints.) However, most pirate factions own very few stations, and those few are often in nullsec space, making the act of earning and spending LP very difficult.

The rarity of pirate BPCs makes them very expensive, but the material requirements for building a pirate faction ship are similar to those of Tech 1 ships of the same size. This means that their insurance payout is very low compared to their cost.

The Pirate Factions

Angel Cartel

Races: Minmatar and Gallente

Focus: Speed and warp speed

Frigate:  Dramiel

Cruiser:  Cynabal

Battleship:  Machariel

Location: Curse (48 stations) and Fountain (16 stations)

Angel Cartel ships have bonuses to projectile turrets and warp speed. Each ship is among the fastest in its class.

Blood Raiders

Races: Amarr and Minmatar

Focus: Webs and capacitor warfare

Frigate:  Cruor

Cruiser:  Ashimmu

Battleship:  Bhaalgorn

Location: Delve (13 stations)

Blood Raider ships have bonuses to web range and neut strength. They can use nos modules on enemy ships regardless of their own cap level. The ability of the  Bhaalgorn to completely drain its opponent's capacitor makes it useful against capital ships.

Guristas

Races: Caldari and Gallente

Focus: Shields and drones

Frigate:  Worm

Cruiser:  Gila

Battleship:  Rattlesnake

Location: Venal (9 stations)

Guristas ships have bonuses to shields and missiles. They have a unique way of using drones: each ship can field only two drones of the appropriate size (light drones on the Worm, medium drones on the Gila, and heavy/sentry drones for the Rattlesnake), but the drones are many times stronger than normal, so that their total strength is at least equal to five drones fielded by an ordinary drone ship.

Mordu's Legion

Races: Caldari and Gallente

Focus: Missiles and warp disruption

Frigate:  Garmur

Cruiser:  Orthrus

Battleship:  Barghest

Location: Pure Blind (1 station)

The newest pirate faction ships, Mordu's Legion ships have bonuses to missile damage and warp disruption range. Their missiles travel three times as fast as normal, but last half as long as normal, so their range is effectively increased by 50%, while mitigating the delayed-damage problem which normally plagues missile ships in PvP.

Sansha's Nation

Races: Amarr and Caldari

Focus: Afterburners and lasers

Frigate:  Succubus

Cruiser:  Phantasm

Battleship:  Nightmare

Supercarrier:  Revenant

Location: Stain (75 stations)

Sansha's Nation ships have bonuses to energy turrets and afterburner strength. They can reach almost MWD speeds with afterburners, and suffer none of the penalties associated with MWDs.

Serpentis

Races: Gallente and Minmatar

Focus: Blasters and webs

Frigate:  Daredevil

Cruiser:  Vigilant

Battleship:  Vindicator

Dreadnought:  Vehement

Supercarrier:  Vendetta

Titan:  Vanquisher

Location: Fountain (79 stations)

Serpentis ships have bonuses to hybrid turrets and web strength. A single web from a Serpentis ship is enough to reduce its opponent's speed to 10% of its normal value (which allows the Serpentis ship to catch up and melt it with blasters).

Sisters of Eve

Races: Amarr and Gallente

Focus: Exploration and armor

Frigate:  Astero

Cruiser:  Stratios

Battleship:  Nestor

Location: Pure Blind (6 stations) and various locations throughout HiSec and LowSec space (42 stations)

Sisters of EVE ships have bonuses to armor and drones. They also have bonuses to relic and data analyzer virus strength. The Astero and the Stratios can fit Covert Ops cloaks, allowing them to warp cloaked. The Nestor has a bonus to remote armor repair and a small ship maintenance bay that allows fleet members to refit their ships.

Society of Conscious Thought

Races None

Focus: Versatile combat

Destroyer:  Sunesis

Battlecruiser:  Gnosis

Ships from Society of Conscious Thought do not get any hull bonuses from Spaceship Command skills. Instead, they have a role bonus for all weapon systems; completely uniform resist profiles, with equal shield and armor hit points; and an equal number of high, low and mid slots. This allows the Society of Conscious Thought ships to be very flexible, as they can use any weapon system and tank type. The lack of skill-based bonuses also makes them the strongest ships for unskilled players.

Society of Conscious Thought ships are Special Edition Ships, and cannot be earned in game. They enter the game though one-off events or promotions, such as EVE's 10th anniversary in 2013 (when each player received a single Gnosis) or the release of the Ascension expansion in 2016 (when each player received a single Sunesis).