after yesterday's event, I wanted to write up a few lines about the new Homefront Operations that CCP introduced just a few days ago.
Mind you: I believe those sites will still see some changes, so take everything you read here with a grain of salt.
Homefront Operations
There is a total of six (6) different types of Homefront Operations. Each type will have 4 different versions, depending on which empire space you are in. The only difference between the versions is the type of pirates you face in each site. The base mechanics are all the same.
- Emergency Aid
- Dread Assault
- Raid
- Suspicious Data
- Metaliminal Meteoroid
- Abyssal Artifact Recovery
- All sites will appear as green sites in your Probe Scanner Window. You can also find all sites in the new "Operations" menu under Neocom -> Activities -> Operations
- Some sites seem to pod you (kill your capsule - so make sure to use a clean clone)
- New volumetric clouds in the sites seem to create graphic and performance issues with some players.
Ship restrictions/recommendations:
From the testing, it seems like the biggest allowed ships are Faction Cruisers, while Pirate cruisers (e.g. Vedmak, Stratios etc.) are NOT allowed.
For smaller ships, the restrictions on pirate ships seems not to apply. So you can bring e.g. a Kikimora.
We have tested all sites with regular T1 fit cruisers.
Summary of each site
Emergency Aid
Your aim is to keep a friendly target alive. You will have several rats on grid with you. Killing those rats simply results in new replacement rats to spawn.
This means the Emergency Aid site can be run solely with Logistics ships. T1 Logistic cruisers like Ospreys or Scythe work well.
Dread Assault
The aim of the Dread Assault is to cap up a friendly Dreadnaught on grid. Once again, killing enemy ships is somewhat futile, as they simply respawn.
Enemy ships apply neuts, so it is recommended to bring T1 Logistic cruisers with three (3) remote cap transfers.
In our test, having 2 medium cap transfers on the friendly dread and using 1 medium cap transfer on friendly T1 logi cruisers seemed to work just fine.
Once the Dread is capped up, the site is complete and all enemy ships will be destroyed by the Dread or warp off grid.
Raid
Your objective is to collect loot from a respawning hauler and bring it to a friendly transporter.
The first hauler will be on grid when you warp onto the site. Haulers will generally try to warp off and if they successful warp away, you will have to wait for a new hauler spawn.
This means you will want to have at least one fast, long-point ship (e.g. Condor) with you and one hauler (the quicker the better) than can haul 3500m3 from the dead hauler(s) to the transport ship. Remaining ships should be DPS + Logi.
Suspicious Data (The only site we did not test during yesterday's event)
The aim of this site is to kill a single ship. However, the ship only gets vulnerable once 3 data cans are hacked. My understanding is that the vulnerability period of the ship is only temporary and the data cans need to be continuously hacked for keeping the target vulnerable.
I assume a single T1 explo frigate combined with some DPS and Logi can run this site. More testing/info needed
Metaliminal Meteoroid
The objective is to mine all asteroids. As in all other sites, killing rats is pretty futile, as they simply respawn.
We had good success with 3 ventures + 2 Logi cruisers.
In addition to the payout of the site, the (event) ore can be sold to NPC buy orders at 5000 ISK/unit. The site contains around 20M ISK worth of ore.
Abyssal Artifact Recovery
The objective is to mine as many asteroids as possible and find valuable artifacts that can be sold to NPC buy orders.
This site is probably the most challenging, as you will have increasingly more difficult waves spawn on you and it seems near impossible to "outlast" the increasing number of increasingly difficult rats.
You will be inside a Bubble (can't warp off) when entering the site. Once you feel like you are taking too much damage, it's time to burn out of the bubble and warp off.
Hence, 3 ventures with Logi support seem like a good solution to run this site.
Summary:
The sites offer versatile group content with some new mechanics that haven't been seen in PvE content before. They could serve as a great entry-point for beginner FCs and all sites require Logistic ships.
If you want to optimise your ISK/h, the Metaliminal Meteoroid and Dread Assault sites seem to be the most efficient ISK/h sites. With a good set-up, both sites should be able to be completed in around 5 minutes. The Raid sites seem to be pretty decent as well and probably come in a close second after the MM and DA sites.
As written in the Intro, I believe the sites will see some more iterations of changes by CCP. For now, please use this forum thread to add more info. And as always, feel encouraged to help keep our Wiki (Homefronts) up to date.
Things that need more research/testing:
- Spawn and respawn of sites. Is there a pattern? Where to find most sites?
- Optimised fits and set-ups to cheese the heck out of the sites - I assume that an efficient set-up should be able to make about 80-100M per character per hour. (comparable with Sov-Null ratting and other high-income activities like Incursions)
- More input needed on Abyssal Artifact sites and Suspicious Data sites
- Which sites attack your pod?
