You have been with the militia for a few weeks now. You learned that the group you are hanging out with wants to take over System X so you board your favorite Vexor and head out to the frontline. To your dismay, when you arrive you discover that all there is is a lonely scout-1 plex, probably being captured by an unfit Bantam. Is this some sneaky plot to sabotage you? Or maybe the game is rigged against your faction? Not at all, you have just been hit by the nasty end of roaming plexes mechanic. With this post, I'll try to explain how it works so the next time you can adjust your strategy to optimize your plexing efforts.
The numbers game
While it may not be obvious at first sight, given the size of the warzone there is a limited amount of plexes that can spawn. To be exact, there are limits on how many plexes of each type can spawn in a given system type (like Caldari Frontline). Only Scout Navy 1 and Small Navy 1 plexes are 'static' - if they are completed, they will respawn in the same system they were completed in after a certain amount of time. All the other plex types go back to the "Spawn Pool" to be redistributed when the timer ticks down. Each plex from the pool will be spawned in a system of the same type as their system of origin but are NOT guaranteed to spawn in the system they were completed in. Statistically, given the number of active frontline systems, it will most likely respawn somewhere else - if there are 5 systems of the matching type you only get 20% that it will respawn in the original system. Here's a handy graphic, courtesy of Legend 083:
Practical application
Let's say your militia wants to take system X. You make a coordinated effort to clear all the available plexes in the system. The plexes go back to the pool and get redistributed across all the frontline systems of the opposing faction. Contrary to popular belief your next course of action should be to divert forces to systems OTHER than the target. Keep plexing other frontlines while monitoring the number of sites in the target system. When you get a decent amount back where you want them, make another concentrated push. This should result in spikes of Victory Points which paired with a battlefield spawn or two could move the contest level by up 10%, hopefully catching the defenders off guard.
You can also use this system to help you on the defense. If you are trying to hold your ground in one specific system, you should try to complete all the plexes in there while leaving another frontline that is the furthest from your stronghold untouched. This should result in an accumulation of plexes away from your home, at worst stretching your attackers thin, at best making them too annoyed to bother with farming systems 15 jumps apart.
Conclusion
While this post is certainly taking some shortcuts to sell the idea (for example, we completely ignore the effect of advantage on taking systems), the goal was to keep it simple enough to understand even for less experienced players. Knowing what to do when the plexes are gone you will be better prepared for the next assault on enemy positions.
Thanks to all the contributors across Gallente Militia who fact-checked this post
Opmerkingen