The Farmer's War

The Minmatar Militia has been in a state of Tier 3 and Tier 4 (75% and 150% bonus to the already outrageous LP rewards for missions, respectively) for a couple of months now, and with that came an even larger influx of LP farmers, giving the TLF more than it's "fair share," so to speak.  With a 60,000 LP reward for a 15 minute mission at Tier 3, why wouldn't they?  People with the "Winmatar" philosophy of ship violence couldn't have been happier; such a large number of farmers earning such a large amount of LP meant that Minmatar Faction Item prices dropped rather drastically, with the Stabber Navy Issue selling for a cool 36 million, making one of the arguably best faction cruisers also the cheapest.

            However, once only Sahtogas was left in Amarrian control, enough Amarrian militia corps had had enough and began to push back.  System after system fell, and as it stands right now, the warzone is still under majority Minmatar rule, but the Amarrians have a handful of systems back, including a few back in the Minmatar “homelands.”

            The funniest thing about this though was watching the Minmatar militia chat during this event.  I had snippets and logs sent to me with all sorts of gems.  The LP farmers unabashedly (probably because they were the majority now, and so FW was just the new incursions) called for people to donate more LP to the surviving systems so that Tier 4 could be held.  There were no calls for systems to be defended; for defensive plexing to occur so that systems could be held onto.  Just more and more “Aww, we lost another system today – come on guys, donate LP to the other systems so that we can be Tier 4 again!”  Day after day, as one after another system fell, there was more and more lamentations of Tier 4 getting further and further away and more pleas for people to donate LP to the friendly ihubs so that more LP could be earned.

[ 2013.04.27 01:02:03 ] Gallixia > dam we down to 3 again
[ 2013.04.27 01:02:23 ] Occasus Vim > time to make some lp and donate!
[ 2013.04.27 01:02:42 ] Gallixia > Ive done some already tonight but will do some more
[ 2013.04.27 01:03:03 ] Occasus Vim > lots of 0 systems...
[ 2013.04.27 01:03:53 ] Tsobai Hashimoto > yeah, when i get around to it im gonna get the aset pocket, get them all up to 2, will at least get us into T4 a bit
[ 2013.04.27 01:04:07 ] Tsobai Hashimoto > we have the systems to hit T5, but would need all systems at IV and 2 or 3 at V
[ 2013.04.27 01:04:53 ] Mike Flynn > someone should donate to vard
[ 2013.04.27 01:05:07 ] Mike Flynn > or kamela

The peak efficiency some were able to achieve: 

[ 2013.05.02 13:02:39 ] E Minor7 > KaiDoh Maru it same as noraml mate do watever ya like apart from need to donate at least 1m lp to hubs per week can make around 3m lp per day if ya farming it

Or this gem, which really sums up the feeling of all the logs I was sent (emphasis added):

[ 2013.05.03 14:26:00 ] Rune Ainur > FW PLEXING FLEET t1 frigs
[ 2013.05.03 14:26:27 ] Buelle Aucie > FW PLEXING FLEET
[ 2013.05.03 14:26:43 ] Buelle Aucie > FW PLEXING FLEET T1 frigs  Tannakan  NOW NOW
[ 2013.05.03 14:26:49 ] Buelle Aucie > FW PLEXING FLEET
[ 2013.05.03 14:30:27 ] Buelle Aucie > damn LP farmers need to grab a blaster and get with it!!! FW PLEXING FLEET
[ 2013.05.03 14:31:29 ] Daemen Rhandir > cnt join
[ 2013.05.03 14:31:34 ] Hades Ultro > y
[ 2013.05.03 14:31:39 ] Hades Ultro > this is urgent gents
[ 2013.05.03 14:31:51 ] Daemen Rhandir > it says cannot join fleet
[ 2013.05.03 14:36:19 ] Rune Ainur > FW PLEXING FLEET
[ 2013.05.03 14:36:21 ] Rune Ainur > t1 frigs
[ 2013.05.03 14:37:24 ] Buelle Aucie > try to join again... get in on the fight
[ 2013.05.03 14:38:01 ] Greasy Choirboy > i dont want to fight, i want to farm[ 2013.05.03 14:39:42 ] Melanie Mangeiri > Where's the fleet at? Might throw a Firetail in the fray.
[ 2013.05.03 14:44:24 ] Scripet > FW PLEXING FLEET frig fleet
[ 2013.05.03 14:50:00 ] Rune Ainur > http://raynor.cl/eve/formRecive.php?id=rKgROfg
[ 2013.05.03 14:50:06 ] Rune Ainur > Bunker bash fleet by Amarr ^
[ 2013.05.03 14:50:27 ] Rune Ainur > Tannakan
[ 2013.05.03 14:50:32 ] Rune Ainur > We must kill them for great justice.
[ 2013.05.03 14:50:40 ] scottysg1 > lol
[ 2013.05.03 14:51:26 ] Harreeb Alls > http://imgur.com/6UGPBuT in  Tannakan  bashing IHUB, we are trying to buy time, if you know anyone who can kill this pass the intel on
[ 2013.05.03 14:53:38 ] Greasy Choirboy > is there a difference between defending and offensive sites in terms of lp given?
[ 2013.05.03 14:54:20 ] Critoris Elektra Slaine > yup
[ 2013.05.03 14:54:26 ] Critoris Elektra Slaine > lots
[ 2013.05.03 14:54:29 ] Greasy Choirboy > what is the difference?
[ 2013.05.03 14:54:40 ] Leper ofBacon > if you want lp, do offensive
[ 2013.05.03 14:54:56 ] Greasy Choirboy > yeah but what is the actual difference, does anyone know or
[ 2013.05.03 14:55:10 ] Leper ofBacon > a lot of lp
[ 2013.05.03 14:55:10 ] Lando Slaine > not sure ive only done defensive once, the lp[ pwas too shit
[ 2013.05.03 14:55:13 ] Greasy Choirboy > as offensive ones are hard to come by without contention
[ 2013.05.03 14:55:27 ] Quasimoto Zin > all i konw is that its a big difference, got around 60k from some amarr small if i remember
[ 2013.05.03 14:55:41 ] Quasimoto Zin > but only 6k in a minmatar medium
[ 2013.05.03 14:55:56 ] Greasy Choirboy > is there any where good to look for some offensive?
[ 2013.05.03 14:56:08 ] Greasy Choirboy > sosala etc?
[ 2013.05.03 14:56:13 ] Greasy Choirboy > any of their systems i asume
[ 2013.05.03 14:56:23 ] Lando Slaine > yup
[ 2013.05.03 14:56:38 ] Harreeb Alls > http://imgur.com/6UGPBuT amarr  Tannakan ihub bash fleet
[ 2013.05.03 14:56:44 ] Quasimoto Zin > does anyone know if going to caldari space still works cause the amarr really don't have a lot of systems
[ 2013.05.03 14:56:48 ] Lando Slaine > use the FW tab , and go to a red system
[ 2013.05.03 14:56:53 ] Leper ofBacon > yes caldari works
[ 2013.05.03 14:57:42 ] Quasimoto Zin > so what r we gonna do about that ihub bash then?
[ 2013.05.03 14:57:49 ] Maximus Decimal > we are losing systems and you guys are still going on about the best strategy to farm LP[ 2013.05.03 14:57:50 ] Maximus Decimal > lol
[ 2013.05.03 14:58:01 ] Maximus Decimal > minmatar milita has become fat and bloated it seems
[ 2013.05.03 14:58:03 ] Greasy Choirboy > what about missions, how hard is it to get to level 4s
[ 2013.05.03 14:58:09 ] Greasy Choirboy > for the militia i mean
[ 2013.05.03 14:58:18 ] Lando Slaine > not very hard
[ 2013.05.03 14:58:23 ] Greasy Choirboy > faster than regular mission standing grind i asume?
[ 2013.05.03 14:58:27 ] Lando Slaine > yup

            It didn’t even seem to be about risk aversion.  The farmers could have easily defensively plexed and with a little attention to their directional scanner, escape any attempt at PvP by the opposing militia (or pirates.  Sometimes I get more neutrals coming into my plexes than I do War Targets [WTs]).  Sure, they might not cap the plex, but more often than not, they’d be able to stall the efforts or the Amarrians’ reclamation and hold onto their cash crops for that much longer.  Apparently, though, most of them are that stereotypical super-risk adverse (as much as one can be running openly-broadcasted mission sites in low security space) farmers whose only idea of fun in the game is to watch their wallet rise and buy more expensive mods for their mission ships for min-maxing.  I like having cool ships too, but if all I’m doing is shooting npc ships 5% faster, I don’t see much of a point.

            How do I see this ending?  I predict that the warzone will get to about a near 50% split again as this early success by the Amarrians might snowball into an ability to maintain.  Who knows, with Amarr having been in a 50% reduction to LP payouts and many mission-giving stations locking out the Amarrian players, Amarr Navy items have risen to premium prices and if done quickly enough, there might be a flood of LP farmers into the Amarrian Militia to cash in.  Ideally, I’d like to see the missions done away with.  They were important in the beginning as a source of cash flow for the FW crowd, but now that plexes pay out rather handsomely, I’d prefer to see plexes as the PvE (so long as you don’t get visitors) source of LP for FW.  That way, any farmers will be helping the militia they’re in and making contributions.