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 and Serpentis factions each have a fourth ship: a supercarrier. Pirate battleships are some of the strongest 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
Supercarrier: Vendetta
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.
