Note: this is my draft copy of an overhauled page on Factional Warfare.

Factional Warfare

Factional Warfare (sometimes also called Faction Warfare) is a game mechanic whereby you can sign up to fight for one of the four empire factions (against its enemy faction) for control over certain areas of low-sec space. It was first introduced in the Empyrean Age expansion (2008) to offer players a stepping-stone into PvP (player-vs-player) gameplay.

Factional Warfare is primarily centered around two #war zones (areas of low-sec contested by two empires): the Amarr-Minmatar war zone and the Caldari-Gallente war zone, which each are located on the border of the two respective empires. In these war zones, players who participate in Factional Warfare attempt to #conquer star systems for their empire, and are rewarded with #loyalty points and increased #faction standings for their efforts. Additionally, as players who participate in Factional Warfare are effectively at war with two of the four empire factions in the game, they can therefore attack (and be attacked by) players fighting for the enemy factions anywhere in New Eden, as well as fight the NPC faction navies (who patrol the high-sec star systems belonging to their faction).

Joining Factional Warfare

There are two ways to join Factional Warfare (the game calls this "enlisting"): join as a solo player, or join as part of a player corporation or alliance.

Joining as a solo player

Join Factional Warfare through the Militia Office window in a station belonging to the empire you wish to fight for (in this example, the Caldari).

Any player can join Factional Warfare provided that:

They have a regular paid EVE account (trial accounts may not join), and
Their standings towards the empire faction (e.g. the Gallente Federation or the Caldari State) they wish to fight for must be 0.0 or greater. Note that only raw, unmodified standings (i.e. without taking the effects of skills like Social into account) count; you can check your standings on your character page.

You can enlist at any station belonging to the empire faction you wish to fight for by opening the "Militia Office" window (from the NeoCom or the Station Services window). Note that even through the Khanid Kingdom and the Ammatar Mandate are affiliated with the Amarr Empire, they do not count as being a part of it, and therefore you cannot join Factional Warfare from their stations.

If you join as a solo player, you will leave your current corporation (be it a player-run or NPC corporation) and automatically join one of the four militia corporations (NPC-run corporations which are populated exclusively by other players enlisted in Factional Warfare for a given empire):

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

Joining as a solo player happens immediately, unless you have roles in a player-run corporation (in which case it takes at least 24 hours to relinquish your roles and leave your corporation).

Joining as a corporation

The CEO or Director of a corporation can enlist their entire corporation (i.e. all their members) in Factional Warfare to fight for one of the four empires. As with solo players, the corporation must have a standing of 0.0 of greater towards the empire they wish to fight for (corporation standings are an average of of its all the members' individual standings, see corporation standings for more details). Enlisting a corporation takes effect after the next downtime.

It's not possible for individuals in a player-run corporation to either join Factional Warfare on their own (they have to leave their corporation and join one of the militias, see above) or to opt out of Factional Warfare if their corporation joins (if the corporation joins, every member of that corporation automatically joins too).

Factional alliances

Factional Warfare revolves around two conflicts, one between the Amarr and the Minmatar, and the other between the Caldari and the Gallente. Additionally, the Amarr and the Caldari are allied (as are the Minmatar and the Gallente), which means that pilots fighting for (for instance) the Gallente can also help their Minmatar allies fight against the Amarr (with a few exceptions, see #infrastructure hub), and attack (and be attacked by) pilots fighting for the Amarr as well as the Caldari. Additionally, that same pilot would be attacked by the #faction navies of the Amarr and the Caldari should he enter their high-sec space.

Capturing systems

An illustration of how to capture (or defend) a star system in Factional Warfare (using a system contested by the Amarr and the Minmatar as an example).

The core mechanics of Factional Warfare revolve around capturing and holding star systems in the #war zones. This occurs in two steps:

Attacking and completing #complexes ("plexes") in a system to make the system vulnerable to capture.
Once the system is vulnerable, attack and destroy ("capture") the system's #infrastructure hub (also known as an "i-Hub") to capture the system.

A system starts off as "stable" (or "uncontested"). The attacking faction (for instance, pilots flying for the Gallente attacking a Caldari-held system) must first attack and complete complexes in the system (this is known as "offensive plexing"); for each completed complex, the system becomes ever more "contested" (commonly quoted from 0% to 100%, sometimes also measured in #victory points). Once a system has become 100% contested, it is listed as "vulnerable", and the attacking faction can then attack the system's infrastructure hub. Once the infrastructure hubt is destroyed, the system is considered "lost" and will switch to the attacking faction's control after the next downtime (DT).

During this time, the defending faction can also complete complexes in the system (this is known as "defensive plexing"); for each completed complex, the system becomes ever less "contested" (or, if it's currently "vulnerable", it will revert to being "contested"), all the way back to "stable".

While a system is "vulnerable" or "lost", the attacking faction may still capture plexes, but they will not get any #reward nor affect the system's capture. Additionally, once a system is "vulnerable", the defending faction needs only to capture a few complexes to revert the system to "contested" (and therefore render the infrastructure hub invulnerable again); the attacking faction cannot create a "buffer" against this by capturing more complexes while the system is "vulnerable". Similarly, the once the defending faction has capture enough complexes to revert a system to "stable", the attacking faction only needs to capture one complex to put the system back to "contested".

Obviously, in addition to the mechanics above, pilots can (and should!) attack the other faction's pilots to stop them from completing their objectives!

Complexes

Complexes can be found via the system scanner.

Factional Warfare Complexes (commonly known as "Plexes", not to be confused with PLEX) are small areas of deadspace in war zone star systems. They are a type of Cosmic Anomaly, which means that they show up on the system scanner (but do not need scan probes to find), although once someone has warped to a complex, they will also show up on the Overview (even if someone initiated a warp to them, but cancelled it immediately).

Like all Deadspace Complexes, you cannot warp directly into them, but must first use an acceleration gate, after which you will land at the complex' beacon. At the center of each complex, a few kilometers away from the beacon, is the capture point (commonly called a "button"). An NPC ship belonging to the faction controlling the star system will be defending the complex.

Capturing complexes

In order to capture a complex, you must first clear the area (radius: 30 km) around the button of enemy ships. If you're the attacking faction, this includes killing the defending NPC; if you're the defending faction, the NPC will obviously not fire on you, and you therefore you shouldn't destroy it (even if it appears as "hostile" on your overview)!. Then you must stay inside the capture radius (within 30 km of the capture point) until the complex' timer has counted down to 0 (you can see how much time is left by selecting the capture point), at which point you will have captured the complex!

Additional ships from your faction will not make the timer count down faster; if you leave the complex, the timer will pause (but will not reset). If an enemy ship enters the complex, the timer will also pause until ships from only one faction are present in the complex, and then it will resume counting down. Note that the timers for both factions are additive - so if a Caldari pilot has spent three minutes capturing a complex, and is then destroyed by an incoming Gallente pilot, the Gallente pilot would have to spend an extra three minutes in the complex in order to capture it (in order to "undo the capturing" previously done by the Caldari pilot, so to speak).

Ships which are cloaked cannot capture complexes (the timer will pause as soon as the ship cloaks, but will unpause if the ship decloaks). Neutral pilots (i.e. pilots who are not enlisted in a militia) can enter a complex, but cannot capture it (their presence doesn't affect the complex' timer). Pilots in a militia can capture complexes in their ally's warzone, but only on their ally's behalf (so, for example, a pilot fighting for the Minmatar could go to the Caldari-Gallente warzone and capture a complex on behalf of their ally (the Gallente)).

Once a complex has been captured, it disappears from the scanner/overview and despawns after a few minutes. A new complex of the same size will spawn about 30 minutes after the previous one was captured (with the exception of large complexes, which appear to spawn at random). Therefore, if many players have been active in a system recently, it may be the case that, for a brief time, there are no complexes available to capture.

Complex types

Complexes come in four types, often called "sizes" (which is a bit of a misnomer, as the physical dimensions of the complex are always the same). They vary primarily in what ship classes are allowed to enter, what NPC defends them, and how long it takes to capture them. While each type of complex contributes the same amount to capturing a system (see #victory points), capturing larger complexes result in higher #rewards.

Type	Capture time	Allowed ships	NPC defender
Novice	10 min	T1 and Faction frigates Industrials (no rookie ships)	Frigate
Small	15 min	Frigates Destroyers	Destroyer
Medium	20 min	Frigates and Destroyers Cruisers and Battlecruisers (no T3 cruisers)	Cruiser
Large	20 min	Unrestricted	Battlecruiser

Complexes are defended by a single NPC (in rare cases, two); it's designed to be killed without too much trouble by a player ship of similar size. Once killed, the NPC defender will not respawn.

Infrastructure Hub

The Infrastructure Hub (or "i-Hub") is a structure in space which the attacking faction needs to destroy in order to capture a system. The i-Hub can be found (and be warped to) from the Overview, but can only be damaged if the star system is in a "vulnerable" state (see #Capturing systems), and then only by pilots of the attacking faction (pilots of the defending faction, pilots in an allied militia, or neutral pilots cannot damage the i-Hub).

The i-Hub has 25 million hitpoints (HP), with 7.5M HP each in shield and armor, and 10M HP in structure^[1]. This means that a medium-sized fleet is needed to destroy an i-Hub in a reasonable period of time (keeping in mind that its peak shield recharge rate is around 1700 HP/s, which is the absolute minimum amount of DPS needed to break through its shields). Once the i-Hub is destroyed (technically, once it reaches 1% structure), the system will be "lost" and will switch factions after the next downtime.

As explained above (#Capturing systems), if a system is "vulnerable", and if the defending faction can capture enough complexes, the system will revert back to "contested". The i-Hub will then become invulnerable again, and any damage which the attacking faction has so far managed to do to it is reset. Therefore, while attacking the i-Hub, the attacking faction must also prevent the defending faction from capturing complexes.

The i-Hub is also the place where pilots of the defending faction can donate loyalty points to upgrade the system, see #System upgrades.

Victory points

20 VP per captured plex (from Gamerchick). 3000 VP to to from stable to vulnerable (affected by up to 12.5% per temperate planet in the system and the state of DUST 514's war zone on those planets; systems without temperate planets always require 3000 VP)

System upgrades and warzone tier