The Plan (Faction Repair Advice)

[Long_Espresso]

@DeMichael_Crimson - hoping you can help answer this you mastermind you.

I’ve just gotten started on the plan. I’m fairly new to Eve, but I enjoy the idea of having high rep with the four main factions. I’ve read your plan thoroughly but I feel like I must be blind.

I am a Caldari, and am working on career agents. I’m current working on Gallente, as it was my lowest - and have managed to bring all 4 main factions to around 1.4-1.7.

My question is: When do I switch to my original faction alliances (Caldari & Amarr)?

For example: I understand I need to do the following:

(level1)
(1) Complete all 15 Career agents w/ Gallente
(2) Circle Agents w/ Gallente
(3) Data Centers w/ Gallente
(4) COSMOS w/ Gallente

THEN

(1) Minmatar Career
(2) Minmatar CIrcle
(3) Min Data
(4) Min Costmos

THEN WHAT?

At this point I think I will be negative with my original faction & alliance. Do I move back to do the same Level 1 process w/ Amarr & Caldari?

And THEN move to level 2s?

I can’t find at what point you go back to your original faction & alliance?

Thanks so much for your advice ahead of time.

[Do_Little]

Faction standing has limited value in the current game. It’s useful for mission runners and reduced brokerage fees at NPC stations but otherwise, you should aim to keep your standings in the neutral range so you are free to travel throughout Empire space. Many people use the plan to repair standing damaged by running too many missions for an opposing faction.

You haven’t mentioned the Sisters of Eve Epic Arc which will give you roughly 8% standing boost for the faction of your choice (with no derived standing loss) and can be run every 90 days.

All standing gains are a percentage of the difference between your current standing and +10 so the law of diminishing returns applies as your current standing increases.

[Long_Espresso]

I probably should have mentioned that I was looking to focus on mission running. Is there no reason for me to have high status across the board outside of the brokerage fees - or does it allow for more missions to be available wherever I am in highsec?

[Do_Little]

You need +1 standing for level 2 missions, +3 for level 3 missions and +5 for level 4 missions. Missions are basically the same across factions so there is no need to have high standing with everyone.

Many mission runners decline missions that require shooting other empire factions and may also decline storyline missions that result in derived standing loss with opposing factions. The goal is to acquire loyalty points that can be exchanged for high value items in the LP stores.

Other than missions and brokerage, I can’t think of any benefit to high faction standing. We used to need high standing to anchor player owned structures and for jump clones but CCP has eliminated those requirements. In a way it’s a pity since it flattens the terrain. Every place in Empire is basically the same as every other place. It would be more interesting (personal opinion) if there were places you were welcome and places the local police shoot you on sight!

The missions are very old content and will become boring after you’ve run them a few times. Recently introduced PVE content like the Abyss and Invasion content is a lot more lucrative and procedurally generated so there is more variety. Invasion conduits are designed as group content for fleets and there are a number of player corporations that specialize in running them.

[DeMichael_Crimson]

Hello Long Espresso,

Welcome to Eve, I hope you have a long rewarding career here. That’s great to hear you’re working ‘The Plan’ and that you now have all 4 main Factions close to equal standings. Also please excuse the following wall of text.

I should mention that ‘The Plan’ was initially created for the repair of negative standings which is the reason why it states to complete all level 1 Event Agents for that Faction and it’s allied Faction. For a new character, ‘The See-Saw’ section would be more important then following the initial steps laid out in ‘Work The Plan’.

@Long_Espresso

My question is: When do I switch to my original faction alliances (Caldari & Amarr) ?

The thing to remember while working ‘The Plan’ is to keep checking your standings after completing the mission series of each Event Agent. That means each Event Agent, not all the Agents in that group classification.

For a new character starting off with the Career Agents for each Faction. While running one set of Career Agents, keep checking the Faction standings after completing each Career Agent. If the standings are fine after completing that set of 5 Career Agents, then continue on to the next set of Career Agents for that Faction. If the standings for the opposing Faction are tilting to very bad negative status, then switch over and do one set of Career Agents for that opposing Faction. Continue checking the standings and working the Career Agents by switching back and forth as needed to bring up standings for all Factions as equally as possible.

The main thing to remember is you want to always maintain access to all other Agents of the same level so you can switch over and start working the opposing Faction when their standings get down close to the point of no access.

This is very important for the level 2 and higher level Agents. Always try to maintain an equal standing with all Factions by switching back and forth when needed. Now this doesn’t really matter too much for the level 1 Agents since they can always be accessed but you definitely don’t want to create a big standing spread between the two teams of allied Factions, most importantly you don’t want the Faction standing to drop to -5.00 or lower since that will cause Faction NPC’s to attack when in their space…

For Example:
You’re doing the level 2 Event Agents (Data Center) which require +1.00 standing for access. While working the Gallente Data Center Agents you see Caldari Faction standing drop down close to +1.00 standing. Even though you still have some Gallente Data Center Agents left to complete, switch over and start working the level 2 Caldari Data Center Agents. Now when the Gallente Faction drops down close to +1.00 standing, you then switch back and complete the rest of the Gallente Data Center Agents.

Now if Caldari standing is still very high and well above +1.00 standing after completing the Gallente level 2 Data Center Agents, then switch over to the Minmatar level 2 Data Center Agents. When the standings tilt back the other way, switch over to the opposing Faction Data Center Agents, Caldari if they’re not completed or if completed then Amarr.

Basically you’re doing a Tug-Of-War game between each team of Factions, you constantly switch back and forth between the Agents so that no team gains a big advantage in positive standings.

So as a new character I would work one set of Event Agents for a Faction and then do that same set for the opposing Faction, then do those Agents for their allied Factions in the same order, alternating between each allied Faction.

The order of Factions presented here is just an example.
Career Agents:
Gallente
Caldari
Minmatar
Amarr

Then I’d do that same order of Faction with the Circle Agents, then the same order with the Level 1 Data Center Agents and the same order again with the level 1 Cosmos Agents. Then go back to the same order and work the level 2 Data Center Agents followed by the same order for the level 2 Cosmos Agents. So on and so forth until all agents are completed.

Also always check the standings and switch over to the opposing Faction when needed in order to maintain access and bring them all up equally.

Along with reduced Broker Fees, high Faction standing allows access to all agents within that Faction. However Cosmos Agents will require a higher amount of Faction standing than regular Agents as listed here. The only exception to using Faction standing for access are R&D Agents which require both Corporation and Faction standing.

By the way, there’s an active thread for questions and comments pertaining to ‘The Plan’ posted here.

Anyway, I hope this clears things up. Good luck and may you have much success.

[Long_Espresso]

Thank you SO much for the clarity.

[Jerry_Falcone]

There is a corp around here, that can help with corp standings, which can help open up gateways to epic arcs, similar to SOE, to help with standings as well.

[Archer_en_Tilavine]

Co-Head of the United Standings Improvement Agency [USIA] here. After you’ve completed COSMOS/Data Centers per The Plan (or one-time FW promotions, which also offer faction gains as well), you’re left only with epic arcs and storylines to further raise faction standings. Storylines are the only always-available method for raising faction standings (and are also the only method available for every faction). These can be be rapidly generated via certain blitzing methods - I’ve gotten 6x L4 storylines in one day before, for example. The thing to keep in mind with storylines is that they do have derived standings, which means that completing a storyline will affect other factions positively and negatively as a result. There is, however, a specific order in which to run storylines such that you can raise and maintain standings with opposing factions simultaneously and have them all simultaneously positive and with very high standings (I’ve determined this mathematically), though there is a limit to how high you can go without the help of non-derived boosts (at least 5.43 between the four main empires with Connections and Social at L5, though there are two readily available ways to go significantly higher than that). Without going into too much detail, in general you want to complete storylines for factions in the order of lowest standing first (though there are exceptions to this rule, namely in regards to the special role SOE faction plays in letting you ‘cheat’ a little). I cannot possibly emphasize enough that order matters: AAACCCGGGMMM and ACGMACGMACGM storyline orders will give you a different results in the end with regarding to faction standings of the four main empires: one will result in very askew standings, the other will raise them all simulanteously.

What I’m describing is analogous to the See-Saw described in The Plan except that it is considering a larger selection of factions (perhaps even all of them) and is using this more-or-less exclusively as your means of raising standings (as opposed to storylining just enough to unlock agents for The Plan): you will focus exclusively on the lowest factions first, and once they start to level out your storyline order will resemble more of a round-robin so your standings are raised more quickly than they are lowered (again, there are notable exceptions). I should also note that if your standings are already high and you want to maximize them to make them as high as possible, you should complete Career Agent/COSMOS missions AFTER you’ve reached the mathematical upper limits attainable via storylines (assuming you want to be that aggressive).

If you would like to discuss this further, or if there are any ways in which we can help raise your standings, kindly join the USIA Discord and I’d be happy to have a chat with you.

[DeMichael_Crimson]

Yeah, there’s two reasons why I suggest doing the Career Agents first.

1. Career Agent missions can be completed very easily and quickly.

2. Players with low negative standing will see a much larger increase in standing from those missions compared to players who already have positive standing.

I’m sure you already know this but I’ll just post it anyway for other players who don’t know it.

As standings to a particular NPC entity increases, the amount of standing gained is actually lower then the raw amount that’s listed. For example, a 10% standing gain will raise 0.00 neutral standing up to +1.00 standing whereas at +9.00 standing, a 10% gain will only increase it to +9.10 standing. When raising negative standings to positive, the actual amount gained is much larger. For example, a 10% gain will raise -9.00 standing up to -7.10 standing.