¶ The Extensive Battlefield Guide
Guide Written By Furl0w, updated by Silvatek for new mechanics
¶ What is a “BF”?
Battlefields (BF) are a particular type of Faction Warfare (FW) complex. Circa every three hours (with a guaranteed spawn after downtime) two battlefields will spawn in 2 random frontlines. The “offensive” battlefield will spawn in an Amarr frontline and the “defensive” battlefield will spawn in a Minmatar frontline. Their location is indicated to everyone on the FW map.
Offensive battlefields will pay 150,000 LP to 30 pilots (with the payout decreasing if more than 30 are present, similarly to regular FW plexes). Defensive battlefields payout depends on how contested the system is (with 0 for a stable system to ~100,000 LP for a near vulnerable one, again scaling up to 30 pilots. Outside of personal LP, BF provides a 15% advantage gain for the faction that completes them and a decent amount of Victory Points. They are critical to holding systems and padding your wallets. This guide is here to explain how you can help, respect etiquette (more on that later) and understand what is happening in front of your eyes.
¶ The Battlefield Complex
Just like any regular plex a battlefield will appear on the probe scanner window as a combat anomaly. Once a first player initiates warp to the anomaly, a system-wide beacon will appear on the overview. Warping to the beacon or to the anomaly will land you on an acceleration gate that can be activated (just like all plexes) in a ~100km radius. BFs are NVY sites, meaning only T1 and Empire Faction ships can activate the gate. Unlike other plexes, however, a battlefield has multiple landing beacons depending on your faction.
Activating the gate will land you on your corresponding landing beacon.
The battlefield itself is a very large deadspace area, where the distances between the beacons and the points (highlighted in the picture) are around ~100km. To complete a battlefield, a faction must “hold” the points until the battlefield scoreboard reaches 100%.
¶ Holding The Points
Each of the three points (A, B and C) delimits a 30km sphere. In this 30km sphere, NPCs of both factions will spawn, fight each other and target any enemy player that enters the sphere. To hold a point and make it “tick” (as we can see in the picture, where all three points are ticking for minmatar), a player must be in the sphere with no enemy NPCs.
Originally, the hostile NPC BattleCruisers orbited outside 30km and it was best to leave them alive, but this is no longer the case. All red NPCs must now be killed or the timer will be paused. Completing a BF as fast as possible now means killing all the waves of red NPCs as rapidly as possible after they warp in, while keeping one friendly player ship within 30km.
If the point-holding ship sits just within 30km, and towards another of the points, it should be possible for a single logi ship to cover two point-holders.
Once we have a single ship within the 30km sphere on a point, there is no value in any other ships being inside, so it is best to then sit outside 30km and kill the red NPCs from range.
With all three points properly set up a BF should be finished in around 40 minutes.
Note that the NPCs have T2 resistance: Amarr NPC are armor tanked and weak to thermal damage, and Minmatar NPC are shield tanked and weak to kinetic damage.
¶ Controlling the Warp-ins
In order to be in the best position if a hostile fleet attempts to contest the BF we want to control the neutral and enemy warp-ins (landing beacons). This means having any tackle sat at those points, and having DPS ships positioned so that they can both kill NPCs at the capture points and also apply good DPS to anything that lands at the warp-ins.
¶ Illustrative Battlefield Setup
¶ Battlefield Étiquette
To qualify for a payout, you don’t need to do anything. You don’t even need a fitted ship. All you need is to be enlisted in FW and be in the BF area (within 500km) when it completes. This situation creates an incentive for what we call “seagulling”. A seagull is a player that brings the cheapest possible ship at the latest moment possible in the BF to just siphon the LP reward. For what we know, a seagull can be a legitimate Minmatar player but it can also be an Amarr player just grabbing some LP on his alt, a multiboxer that steals the LP rewards from other players etc.
Because of that, any player, even if blue, that follows the typical pattern of a seagull is susceptible to being killed on sight by militia members. And complaining about it will not change anything. If you want to avoid being killed, don’t look like a seagull.
A typical seagull:
- Enters the battlefield and sits afk on the minmatar landing beacon
- Brings an unfitted ship in the BF
- Brings a useless ship (useful ships are detailed below)
- Runs if enemies show up
- Does not respond to conversation
¶ Useful ships to bring
Here is a short list of useful ships to bring in a BF, there are ships for all SP levels. Generally speaking due to the size of the BFs, a MWD ship is recommended. Try to also avoid ships that depend too much on Cap Boosters as this is still a PvE site. Sometimes if an FC is available they will call for a dedicated doctrine (such as Battering Ram), but here is a list of ships that you can always bring to a kitchen sink BF:
- Logi: T1 logi such as the scythe or the exequror are perfect for BFs, they help to take fights, help fight the NPC and hold the points. Logi pilots are ALWAYS welcome in a BF.
- Projected DPS: Destroyers, cruisers and up that can kite and DPS at more than 30 kilometers are the best type of ship to bring. They can clear the NPCs outside of the spheres and in case of a fight use the large deadspace grid to kite around the enemy and kill. Any standard nano fit will do. For low SP pilots, the Talwar is a perfect choice. For bigger wallets, battlecruisers and battleships are a really strong support to bring and severely discourage opposing factions from trying their chance.
- Point Runners: When logi numbers are short, having ships that can hold the points by themselves is valuable. Cap stable tanked cruisers (such as the Vexor) or specialized tanky Punishers work.
- Tackle: if you are a newer player and can’t fly any of the above you can bring a frigate. You will be unable to participate in the capture of the points but you can help secure the initial tackle on any enemy that would try to come in. As a tackle, you NEED TO SIT ON AN ENEMY LANDING BEACON (neutral or amarr, look at local for what makes the most sense). Being in a frigate anywhere else is useless and (as mentioned above) could get you killed. Even better, if the system is completely blue, hop on comms (Minmatar Discord) and go plex to help push the system. We will signal you when to come back for the reward.
The standard (but not required) FL33T Battlefield composition is railgun Exequoror Navy Issues (for DPS) and Exequorers (for Logi). As this is an armor setup, it is often better for kitchen sink ships to be armor based.