Faction Warfare - Those Halcyon Tier 5 Days Are Over

It is entirely ridiculous that an Incursus can tank a major outpost, all on its own. Without breaking a sweat. From what I hear, a one day old alt flying a 10mn afterburning Rifter can do the same. That's more ridiculous, but any single frigate being able to survive a major plex, tanking 20+ cruiser and battlecruiser-sized enemies, is simply goofy.

I'll take the easy LP, for the time being, but this needs to be fixed. I can't imagine that working as intended is something CCP is going to claim in this regard.

More on this later, though.

On Friday I had the pleasure to read an article by Khalia over at My Loot, Your Tears. Basically it's a tutorial on faction warfare plexing, but using the warzone control tier system to your advantage. A very informative and surprising read. I had no idea that LP store prices dropped so dramatically on a tier by tier basis. Ridiculous drops. Prices reduce 50% per tier. If something costs 1000 LP at tier 1, it costs 500 LP at tier 2, and 250 LP at tier 3. WTF! is an acronym (with appropriate punctuation) that immediately comes to mind.

I paid dick-all attention to loyalty store costs and how the tiers affected those costs, mainly because common sense told me that the price difference between tier 1 and tier 5 was going to be, at most, 25%. If something cost 1000 LP at tier 1, it was going to cost 750 LP at tier 5. Oh, how wrong I was. With CCP, assumption is the mother of losing out on billions of ISK. It's mind-boggling to think that under the current system, something that costs 1000 LP at tier 1 will cost 63 LP at tier 5. That's wonky Iceland math from their banking boom era. And to think, that tier 5 warzone control for the Minmatar was a common occurrence the last two weeks (thanks to Goons taking advantage of wonky math.)

The days of tier 5 zone control are over for the Minmatar. The gaming of the faction warfare system, that Goonswarm took advantage of, has been plugged. Minmatar now have to earn their warzone control the old-fashioned way, by not relying on Goon ingenuity and Goons having more LP than they know what to do with.

(Now, I'm not here to bitch about what a bunch of Goons did to the system. I don't really give a rat's ass. They took advantage of a CCP oversight. More power to them. They did the research and testing, they deserve the spoils. Goons certainly shouldn't be bitching that the holes they discovered were patched. No reasonable person can think that earning billions of ISK per hour per person was a system working as intended. And to the people bitching at the Goons? Get over yourself, it's jealousy that you didn't have the wherewithal to think of it yourself.)

So, I doubt I'll see tier 5 warzone control again. I think Minmatar can easily maintain tier 4 control for long stretches, at least until the Amarr get more people. Yes, they have Fweddit, but since Fweddit is as concerned about capturing systems as rabbits are to be hit by trucks, the population disparity between Minmatar and Amarr still, functionally, exists.

As long as you're with a faction that can maintain high warzone control (and this, unfortunately, means that more people will flood to Minmatar than Amarr), there is still good ISK to be made by offensive plexing. But since the Amarr hardly hold any systems, you have to head up to Gallente-Caldari space and plex the hell out of Caldari controlled systems.

Which is what I've been doing this weekend.

While the iron is still hot, while Minmatar can maintain tier 4 warzone control, I'm going to make some good ISK. I'm not making the optimal 161 million ISK per hour, but I'm doing okay. And at least having fun doing it.

Incursus: Major Plex Tanking Montage (click for fullsize)

The plexing itself isn't fun. That's just orbiting a button for 10-20 minutes (depending on plex type). That's not exciting. But when a Caldari does enter my empty system, they invariably try to figure where I am, with intent to kill. They don't manage to nab me, but there are a few close calls. That you have to enter a plex via an acceleration gate is a godsend. Doubly so when they land 100km away. There's time and then more time to make your escape. Some enemy icons in system, check d-scan, range 400000 km, 360 degrees. Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em.

I certainly wasn't going to fight anyone in this:

[Incursus, Caldari Plexer]
Small Armor Repairer II
Armor Kinetic Hardener II
Armor Kinetic Hardener II
Armor Thermic Hardener II

1MN Afterburner II
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II

Light Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
[empty high slot]
[empty high slot]

Small Capacitor Control Circuit I
Small Capacitor Control Circuit I
Small Auxiliary Nano Pump I

Hobgoblin II x1

The gun is mainly for show. In a major plex, you're target jammed 99% of the time, so there's no chance of shooting at any rat. (When they remove ewar from plex rats in the Inferno 1.1 update, shooting will once again be something you can do, if you want, one of those entirely optional things.)

I did learn at least one optimization of the process. Whereas tanking a major plex is worth more ISK per hour than a minor plex, your chances of completing a minor plex before some Caldari wanders through the system is much greater than completing a major plex. (The numbers: 10 minutes to complete a minor plex for ~11500 LP and 20 minutes to complete a major plex for ~28500 LP.) So whereas you earn more doing majors, you'll complete more minors before any Caldari can interfere. You get nothing if you plex a major for 15 minutes and then some Caldari runs you off. You just wasted 15 minutes of your time. You could have earned 11000 LP in those 15 minutes doing a minor, then started another (which means you would have only wasted 5 minutes of your time.)

The money to be made is pre-Inferno Incursion stupid money. It needs to be fixed. Making this sort of ISK should require some actual effort.

P.S. If any of you Fancy Hats are out there: I'm in your systems, plexing your outposts.