Let’s say my character has a change of heart and wants to join a different NPC empire. (Say Caldari to Gallente) What would happen? After changing sides you will receive a notification that the Caldari decreased their standings with you (Maybe put you all the way down to 0 rep) and the Gallente partially increased their standings because they are cautious of you changing sides from the enemy (This effect won’t apply to changes like Gallente to Minmatar) After all of that, you will be carefully watched by Concord in case you are a covert agent. Sadly this can’t happen because it just isn’t in the game yet. What do you guys think? Should this be a feature? P.S. This will definitely NOT change your bloodline.
We are ‘independent’
RP wise you can choose to keep citizenship of course, but the closest you can come to joining an empire mechanically is faction war, which just has a minimum standing for the side you join.
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Co-Head of the United Standings Improvement Agency [USIA] here.
There is no “joining an empire” mechanic in EVE and there shouldn’t be. You don’t start off belonging to any empire and you can’t switch empires. You don’t even start off with standings - positive or negative - with any entity, not even your own faction or university corp, when you start off with a new character. I see no reason for this to change but I see several reasons why this shouldn’t change.
Right now there is no “Alliance vs Horde” or “Good vs Evil”, etc. The closest thing to such a mechanic is EDENCOM vs Trigs (you are friendly with one and hostile with the other at any given time) and enlistment in a Factional Warfare militia, in which you constantly switch sides at pretty much any time as long as your base standings with the faction is positive.
Absolutely not. Capsuleers are the epitome of independence and autonomy - they serve and give allegiance to no one but themselves. Why should immortals be lackeys to anyone?
It would go against lore for empires to actually be strict about “switching sides” - in lore, it is well established that they are relatively lax about these things. You can, for example, enlist in Minmatar FW one day and then Amarr FW 24 hours later - this is justified in lore. Why should things change that all of a sudden empires are strict about these things and are trying to control immortals?
RPers are welcome to write fantastic stories about themselves or others about switching sides, but there is no reason to impose this as a mechanic onto the game when it would be detrimental to the experience, contrary to the principle that capsuleers are supposed to be independent and governed by no one, and that empires don’t give too much of a ■■■■ in lore to begin with.
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Actually - changing sides has me thinking about a FW question. If I was a Spear Lieutenant in the Minmatar Republic, and then joined the Gallente FW. Do I have both ranks? Would I get my old Minmatar rank back if I went back?
Yes to both.
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FW ranks are treated as private decorations, meaning you always possess them at all times, not just when you are present in the militia. This means you can possess the ranks of opposing militias simultaneously regardless of which militia you are enlisted in, or even if you are not enlisted at all. Unfortunately, these decorations cannot be displayed as public like other player-made decorations can.
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The starting faction, bloodline, and career that you choose when creating your character are more like your family’s genetic history and what you learned in primary school than your political allegiance. They decide which system start off in, what skills you start of with, and what your character can look like, but beyond that they have zero impact on the game.
(Well…technically your choice of race does impact which Corvette you can get for free.)
As others have said, the only way to “join” an empire in a meaningful way in terms of game mechanics is through Faction Warfare, and you can already change sides in FW.
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This is basically already a thing, you just go do missions for the other side or otherwise do things to raise standings with them.
I guess that explains it all. Thx
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