Faction modules

Main article: Tech and meta levels

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

This article 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.

Faction

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 in-game fitting tool or PYFA to try out fits. Remember that just because something is 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.

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

Deadspace

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 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.

Name	Modules	Drops from	Faction
Centii	Armor Resistance Coatings (including Multispectrum) Small Armor Repairer Small Remote Armor Repairer Small Capacitor Transmitter	A 3/10 B 2/10 C 1/10	Sansha
Centum	Energized Armor Resistance Membranes (including Multispectrum) Medium Armor Repairer Medium Remote Armor Repairer Medium Capacitor Transmitter	A 6/10 B 5/10 C 4/10	Sansha
Centus	Armor Hardeners Large Armor Repairer	C 7/10 B 8/10 A Fleet staging point part 3 X 10/10	Sansha
Coreli	Armor Resistance Coatings (including Multispectrum) Small Armor Repairer Small Remote Armor Repairer 1MN Afterburner 5MN Microwarpdrive	A 3/10 B 2/10 C 1/10	Serpentis
Corelum	Energized Armor Resistance Membranes (including Multispectrum) Medium Armor Repairer Medium Remote Armor Repairer 10MN Afterburner 50MN Microwarpdrive	A 6/10 B 5/10 C 4/10	Serpentis
Core	Armor Hardeners Large Armor Repairer 100MN Afterburner 500MN Microwarpdrive	C 7/10 B 8/10 A Fleet staging point part 3 X 10/10	Serpentis
Corpii	Armor Resistance Coatings (including Multispectrum) Small Armor Repairer Small Energy Neutralizer Small Energy Nosferatu Small Remote Capacitor Transmitter	A 3/10 B 2/10 C 1/10	Blood Raider
Corpum	Energized Armor Resistance Membranes (including Multispectrum) Medium Armor Repairer Medium Energy Neutralizer Medium Energy Nosferatu Medium Remote Capacitor Transmitter	A 6/10 B 5/10 C 4/10	Blood Raider
Corpus	Armor Hardeners Large Armor Repairer Heavy Energy Neutralizer Heavy Energy Nosferatu	C 7/10 B 8/10 A Fleet staging point part 3 X 10/10	Blood Raider
Gistii	Small Shield Booster Small Remote Shield Booster 1MN Afterburner 5MN Microwarpdrive	A 3/10 B 2/10 C 1/10	Angel Cartel
Gistum	Shield Resistance Amplifiers Multispectrum Shield Hardener Medium Shield Booster Medium Remote Shield Booster 10MN Afterburner 50MN Microwarpdrive	A 6/10 B 5/10 C 4/10	Angel Cartel
Gist	Shield Hardeners (no Multispectrum) Large Shield Booster X-Large Shield Booster Shield Boost Amplifier 100MN Afterburner 500MN Microwarpdrive	C 7/10 B 8/10 A Fleet staging point part 3 X 10/10	Angel Cartel
Pithi	Small Shield Booster Small Remote Shield Booster	A 3/10 B 2/10 C 1/10	Guristas
Pithum	Shield Resistance Amplifiers Multispectrum Shield Hardener Medium Shield Booster Medium Remote Shield Booster	A 6/10 B 5/10 C 4/10	Guristas
Pith	Shield Hardeners (no Multispectrum) Large Shield Booster X-Large Shield Booster Shield Boost Amplifier	C 7/10 B 8/10 A Fleet staging point part 3 X 10/10	Guristas

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. Most of the Officers are named for mission agents for their faction. For example, Estamel Tharchon is a Level 3 Security agent for the Guristas. The officer modules 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	Pochven	Zorya
Edencom	N/A	Kasiha
Rogue Drone	All Drone Regions	W-634	P-343554	F-435454	D-34343
Other	?	Shaqil

Officer modules are some of the strongest and rarest modules in-game, and as such are extremely expensive. The officers themselves deal a lot of damage and are very hard to kill. A capital ship is recommended to kill them. When killed, the wreck of the officer rat will always drop a dog tag named for the officer killed, some faction amo, and a large number of faction modules (anywhere from 4 to 8). The wreck also has a chance to drop a faction implant and anywhere from zero to more than 3 officer modules.

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 Dark Blood 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 specialized 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 PYFA 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.