Territorial Policies

Currently the Red Swarm Federation and associated allied entities controls about 1/3rd of 0.0 (at least in terms of space that’s worth anything).

Some people like the article in May’s PC Gamer claim that we are now doing what BoB did by installing vassal corps and alliances in our space to hold it, but in truth what we do is vastly different. While BoB charged for their space and expected the rent to be paid promptly or the renting alliance would face expulsion or military action, the Swarm gives out the space freely to allies with no strings attached. There is no demand for money, nor any firmly stated terms and conditions other than “Don’t go ‘fuck goons’ or we’ll not be happy”.

The space belongs to Goonfleet if it’s GF sovereignty, so Right of Refusal operates but further than that, allied players are welcome to use Swarm space as they please within reason.

Assistance is rewarded

We do not expect our allies to turn up to everything that the Swarm does and we’ve been proud of the fact that we are a very liberal alliance with no mandatory participation, a laughably low tax rate and free repairs in all our stations for allied pilots. Conversely we will try to defend our allies if they get in trouble but up to a point only.

KOS, an ex-swarm alliance used to own some space in the South East which was given to it by the Swarm to maintain. Some of the POSs were reinforced and the Swarm stepped in to assist because they could not handle it on their own. This happened on a few occasions until it was discovered that a lot of the time the towers were being terribly timed for reinforced mode and weren’t being fueled.

At this point we stopped wasting men and resources saving those towers and simply took them over.

With the change in CEOs a new policy was introduced regarding standings: “If you are not useful, you are not blue”. This means that unless you have a reason for having positive standings set for your corporation, then standings are reset to neutral.

For instance: BRUCE (a PvP alliance living in Fountain) used to have positive standings set, until we went through our allied lists and realised that they had not contributed to the Great War for months, choosing instead to use the fact that BoB was distracted fighting the Swarm in the South to take space in Fountain and proclaim a tactical victory for their alliance.

I have to say that I, for one, approve of this. It gives everyone a clearer understanding of why we are allied with certain factions other than “oh we have positive standings with them, not sure why”.

I do wonder where this will lead though…

For more insights in to how the Swarm operates, tune in next time!