The thing that you can discover about Eve, something a lot of veterans already know is that it can be played almost entirely as a PvP game.  You can indeed make enough ISK in Factional Warfare to cover your losses.  If you stay smart I am pretty sure you can make a tidy profit.

The leitmotiv of all PvPers is without doubt do not fly what you cannot afford to lose.  Sticking to this leitmotiv is quite easy,  in factional warfare all you need to do is jump into a Rifter or some other frigate and get yourself busy fighting, looting and salvaging on the field.  The latter in particular is essential to cover losses.  Especially when those T3 wrecks appear.

Let me take you through the figures.  This period of time involves the fate of one Destroyer, two Rifters and One pod.  It starts with an invitation to join a bunch of crazy pirates going out looking for fights flying my destroyer.  We killed a few boats but the inevitable happened I lost the destroyer.  Destroyers seem to be very squishy, very much an early target because they chuck out a lot of DPS and relatively easy to kill.  Of all the ships I have flown they are the most expensive ship and they invariably end up in some sort of loss.

Alright so here are the figures:

Losses

  • Pod loss 17,987,038 ISK
  • Rifter  9,747,030 ISK
  • Thrasher 15,200,536 ISK

Total Cost 42,934,604 ISK

ISK made from Kills and loot: 52,000,345 ISK

So a small profit of around 10million ISK in the time period which was around two to three weeks steady playing time, I still have one Rifter left and I hope to hold onto that for a short while longer.  This is not the whole picture by any means.  By plexing I have made 18,638 loyalty points to the Minmatar Milita which is close to the value of a Stabber Fleet Issue which are currently selling for around 55million in Rens.  This means that with a few more nights out, if I can stay alive in my brawler tackler, then I should be showing a nice PvP profit.  Not billions of ISK by any means but bear in mind I haven’t needed to PvE at all – bar shooting the odd belt rat if the target looks worthwhile.

Clearly to achieve this I have been forced to shift my playstyle.  I now find myself rarely soloing, I miss that, but the changes in Factional Warfare through Inferno have been very positive. Factional Warfare is very active and there is plenty going on in the field.  I find myself tackling and trying to catch the Amarr or any hostile pilots we come across.  It has been good to snag a few but most of all it has been really good to discover how to try and survive better whilst playing an active role in fleets.  I think I will write about that in a later post.

My losses have been my own fault.  The Thrasher loss was something I expected. It didn’t bother me at all.  Although the grid seemed to load very late at the time, it was a loss I was happy to swallow especially for the experience of running with those pirates for the evening.  The rifter loss could have been avoided.  I was in a plex trying to engage some Amarr when Ropf came in I managed to overheat out of scramble range but was heading nowhere having failed to align.  So when I switched to align he snagged me again and that was it – Pop!  Props to Ropf he was certainly quick enough to target and pop the pod.

So it has been a blast and at the lower tiers Factional Warfare – I am very pleased to say is a great spot for new players to get straight into the action and learn how to work in a fleet.  The important thing to realise however is that whilst this might bag you some ISK and you will have lots of fun you will not learn as much about PvP and how to fly your ship as you will when soloing.