Since Game Update 15, there has a new way to identify who the controlling faction is and where they are in control. The Rebel Alliance and Imperial forces wage wars on many different battlefields and their victories are rewarded with control of these region. Regional control is rewarded with Planetary Control.
- /gcwinfo opens the User interface for the Galactic Civil War Information. This will allow you to see the percentage values of each faction from the regional scale, up to a complete cross server leader board.
- The skies above occupied planets will display Capital ships belonging to the controlling faction. The more control a faction has, the more ships will be displayed. The skybox will display Star Destroyers (belonging to Imperial Faction) or Mon Calamari Cruisers (belonging to the Rebel Faction).
- Regional control will be shown with dynamic NPC spawns. Cities will be full of factional troops and banners if a faction has majority control of the city.
- GCW officers from the winning faction will receive rewards for their hard work, and officers of the losing faction will face severe penalties.
- Joining the new GCW chat channel will allow players to monitor control changes on all regions. You can not communicate with other players in this chat channel, it is intended only for communicating percentage changes concerning Faction Control.
Gaining Regional Control[]
The entirety of a planet's surface is divided up into regions. These regions are shown on the Planetary Map and are either centered around a major NPC city or a Point of interest. Each planet also contains: one "extra" region that comprises of all of the space that does not fit into any other region; a "space" region that encompasses all of the planet's space sector; and PvP, PvE and Battlefield scores. The control of these regions is shown in a pane to the left of the GCW information window as "percentage control". Using the Hyperspace map will also show an icon representing control of the "space" region. These percentage controls are calculated as follows:
- Any GCW points scored in a particular region contributes to the faction's score.
- The points that a faction can score in a region are not capped.
- A faction's points are shown as a percentage of the total number of points.
Imperial Regional Faction Percentage = [(Imperial Points)/(Imperial Points + Rebel Points)]*100 Rebel Regional Faction Percentage = [(Rebel Points)/(Imperial Points + Rebel Points)]*100
- The point system is designed to "auto balance" over time, which means that there is some form of decay in the points. If neither faction visits a region for a certain period of time, their scores will revert to zero and the region will revert to 50/50 control.
- Points can also be scored through Factional Presence. The factors which determine each players contribution to the Factional Presence are:
- Being Present and actively playing the game (ie. not cloaked/incapped/dead)
- Character Level
- The number of other Factional Presence eligable players in the vicinity
- GCW Rank (+10% per rank)
- City bonuses that apply to Factional Presence scored within the city's boundaries:
- Player City Allignment overlap (+100%)
- Player City Allignment rank (+10% per rank)
- Player City Allignment age (+5% per year based on city founding date)
- Bonuses for being near a Factional Base (see below)
- Bonuses for being in a region defended through the Regional Defender system
- Opposing Faction Control Dominance
- The less control a faction has in a region, the more it will gain when a faction member enters the region via Factional Presence.
- Note: Factional Presence does not grant GCW Points directly to players, only to the region in which they are.
As well as killing NPCs in regions of the planet, there are many other ways to gain factional points that were in place before the launch of Game Update 15.
Player Bases[]
- Main article: Faction Base
These player placed bases can be placed by players and can be destroyed by the opposing faction during occasional windows of vulnerability. The number of bases that a planet can support is split in proportion to the percentage control of that planet. A player can only place a base in a region that their faction currently controls (i.e. more than 51%).
These bases aid planetary control by giving a bonus to the GCW scores and Factional Presence contributions of same faction players within a certain radius. The bases come in two forms, PvP )or Special Forces) bases and PvE (or Combatant) bases.
PvP Bases[]
- Can be placed by any factioned player.
- Can only be entered by Special Forces players.
- The inside will be populated and protected by powerful NPCs.
- Will have a 3 hour vulnerability window but this window will only occur every 2 days (48 hours).
- Will register on the planetary map, visible to all players on the planetary map and in the GCW chat channel at the time the base becomes vulnerable and invulnerable
only to players of the same faction. - Can be destroyed by those who can get inside (Special Forces).
- The method of Faction Base destruction will remain the same as it is currently.
- When a player purchases a PvP base they will receive 2 PvE bases for free. These can be sold, traded or placed as needed.
- Factional bases will no longer cost lots. You will be limited to a maximum of 3 bases per player.
- PvP bases give larger percentage bonuses to GCW point scores over a larger area than PvE bases.
PvE Bases[]
- Allow all players to participate in the GCW.
- Any factioned player can place a PvE Base.
- Defended by NPCs on the base's perimeter. Players may add turrets as desired.
- Can be entered by Special Forces and Combatant players.
- PvE bases are always vulnerable. When they are defeated, they will explode.
- Will register on the planetary map, visible only to players of the same faction.
- Can be destroyed by those who can get inside (Special Forces and Combatants).
- The method of Faction Base destruction will remain the same as it is currently.
- PvE bases are distributed to PvP enabled players as part of a PvP base purchase. They may be given freely among friends and guilds/PAs, traded, or purchased on the open market.
- May also be purchased from Faction Recruiters, at a lower cost in comparison to PvP Bases.
- Turrets are currently bugged and may not be placed (a publish was made to make it so turrets were donated anyway), turrets at this point may not even still function.
City Patrols and Stronghold Cities[]
- NPC cities on all planets now include an ever-present force of patrolling guards of varying difficulty. These include factional NPC's, as well as neutral a police force, which will be loyal to the current faction in control of the city's region.
- Neutral police force NPCs may occasionally scan players passing by. They are loyal to the faction that is currently in control of the region. If they find that you are an enemy of the controlling faction or that you have illegal goods (spice or sliced equipment), you will either be fined, attacked, or lose faction points, depending on the situation.
- Players that are On Leave run the risk of being detected and exposed to Combatant status when scanned.
- Patrolling guards continue to respawn until the other side wins back control of the region. At this time the guards of the other side will spawn as the occupying force is killed.
- Two cities on each of these planets will never change faction. These are considered the stronghold cities of that faction.
- Corellia: Bela Vistal Imperial (Always elites), Vreni Island Rebel
- Naboo: Dee'ja Peak Imperial, Moenia Rebel
- Tatooine:
Bestine Imperial, Anchorhead Rebel (Bestine now changes with faction zone control). - Talus: Nashal - Rebel (Always elites)
- Factional patrols will shoot opposing faction Combatants and Special Forces on sight. Be prepared to fight or run when you are in a city controlled by the other side!
- The strength of the guards will depend on how tightly the planet is controlled. If one side has a significant advantage over the other, the guards in the cities will be much more powerful.
Invasion Cities[]
With Game Update 15, the cities of Bestine, Dearic and Keren became Invasion cities. Every hour few hours they will be invaded by waves of factional NPCs and give staging grounds for players to gain large amounts of GCW points and Tokens. The faction that controls the region at the start of the invasion become the defenders (not, as some might believe, the faction that won the previous battle). The first city invasion starting at noon Eastern (9 am Pacific/Wast coast time) is Bestine. The next hour is Dearic, then Keren.
Space Battles[]
- Main article: Space Battles
Game Update 20 finishes the work of Game Update 15 and launches new space battles in which capital ships slug it out in the reaches of space in order to wrest control from one side to the other.
Planetary Control[]
Gaining control over individual regions is not the end of the story. Enough control must be maintained over enough regions before a planet can be claimed by either faction. There is some confusion over the formula that governs Planetary Control because Update Notes and Friday Features seem to tell separate stories, however, experimental data from Test Center confirms this formula before the system hit the live servers.
Planetary Control percentages are equal to the average of the average of the regional percentages. The GCW points scored in each region in any of the ways previously mentioned do not have a direct effect on the planetary score. Therefore it is not possible to own a planet by scoring vast numbers of points in one region and leaving the other regions alone:
Imperial Planetary Control Percentage = Sum of all Imperial Regional Faction Percentages / Number of Regions on Planet. Rebel Planetary Control Percentage = Sum of all Rebel Regional Faction Percentages / Number of Regions on Planet.
In this particular example (using screenshots taken before individual regions were given names), the Imperial's 57% of control of Tatooine has been worked out by calculating:
(38+52+53+50+66+50+34+75+64+52+93+86+58+54+55+44)/16 = 57
The Rebel's score can also be verified in an identical manner.
Note: Space sectors have the power to affect the score more than ground regions, because their contribution is five times that of a single ground region.
Consequences[]
Winning or losing a planet has consequences in the new Galactic Civil War. If a planet is controlled with a percentage over 70%, then the following will take effect:
- GCW officers of the controlling faction will have 0 shuttle wait time.
- GCW officers of the losing faction can only board every other shuttle, or pay a 50000 credits surcharge (each time) to avoid waiting for every other shuttle.
- GCW officers of the losing faction must pay a surcharge for shuttle travel if either the departure or the arrival planet is 70% controlled by the opposing faction, whichever is greater. The amount of surcharge is 500 credits for each % above 70%.
- If the planet has more than 1 Starport, only 1 Starport will be available for interplanetary ticket travel (both outgoing and incoming) to GCW officers of the losing faction. The 1 Starport that is available is the one that is least controlled by the controlling faction.
- For GCW officers of the winning faction, cloning sickness duration and removal cost will be reduced by 50%. Each additional 1% control above 70% will provide an additional 1% reduction in cloning sickness duration and removal cost, for a maximum of 80% reduction in cloning sickness duration and removal cost for 100% control of a planet.
- For GCW officers of the losing faction, there will be a wait before the cloning sickness can be removed by the droid in the cloning facility, or pay a 50,000 credits surcharge to skip the wait. The wait is 60s, plus an additional 2s for each additional 1% control above 70%, for a maximum wait of 120s for 100% control of a planet.
- Remember, travel perks and restrictions and cloning sickness perks and restrictions only apply to GCW officers, i.e. those of rank Lieutenant or higher - not those of the Officer profession.
Metagame[]
As well as Regional and Planetary control, the scores can be calculated for Galaxy Control and Galaxies Control. These are both calculated using the same "average" formula given above. Galactic Control and Game Wide Control do not, as of yet, have any influence over the game, other than substantial bragging rights.