Last Updated on 2024-01-11 by Kshal Aideron
Sansha incursions are a type of high end player activity. Kind of like a high tier raid in other MMO’s. If you hang around incursion runners (players who fly incursions as a main activity) long enough, you’ll hear them talk about the focus. Why do they call it an incursion focus?
The Incursion Focus Explained
Incursions exist in all 3 levels of known space (High Sec, Low Sec, and Null Sec). They spawn in a region, hang around for a few days and then despawn.
A Single Incursion Spawn is called a Focus
An incursion focus is the “spawn” of the current Sansha incursion. It’s called a focus because that incursion “focuses” on a certain constellation on the map. At any given time, there can be:
- 1 incursion in High Sec
- 1 incursion in Low Sec
- 3 incursions in Null Sec
However, when you hear incursion runners talk about the current “incursion focus” they’re generally talking about the High Sec incursions.
Each Focus Contains the Following Types of Sites
- 3-4 Vanguard Incursion Systems with 7 sites each
- 1-2 Assault Incursion Systems with 5 sites each
- 1 Headquarter Incursion System containing 5 HQ sites and 1 Mothership site
The 3 Stages of an Incursion Focus
Incursions come in 3 stages. Established, mobilized and withdrawing.
Established: when an incursion focus spawns, it starts in the established stage. The focus will start in what’s known as red bar. This means the Sansha influence is high, all of the incursion sites are more dangerous. Completing incursion sites will help reduce the influence, turning the influence bar from red to blue.
The established stage in an incursion focus can last up to 5 days. This phase can also be incredibly short at one to two days.
Mobilized: after the focus has been around from 1-5 days, the spawn will go into mobilization. The Sansha know at this point that the brave pilots of New Eden are beating them back and they’re preparing to leave the constellation. This stage is always 2 days.
Withdrawing: at this point, either the Sansha leave or pilots kill the Mothership (MOM). Killing MOM will always despawn the incursion regardless of the stage. However, if by the end of the timer nobody pops MOM, the focus will naturally go down and then respawn elsewhere. Withdrawing lasts 1 day.
In High Sec incursions, the Headquarter groups will in general wait 1-2 hours before the natural despawn time to kill the Mothership. This ensures that everyone can run the different incursion sites during the focus for as long as possible. However, if there is an island spawn, these groups will try to kill MOM as fast as possible.
Island Spawns
An island spawn happens when the incursion spawns in a part of high sec with a system of low sec on the route. Solitude is a good example of a High Sec island. Unless you travel through a wormhole, you have no choice but to go through Low and Null.
When a spawn is an island, Eve Rookies will typically stand down and let the HQ groups “burn” the spawn. They will take cheaper ships into the island (many regular HQ incursion runners will already have ships in the island spawn constellations) and try to get the Sansha influence to 0% as quickly as possible.
Once the influence is in blue bar and 1 headquarter site is run, the Mothership will spawn. At this point the HQ pilots will gather to kill MOM so we can a new spawn ASAP.
When Does a New Focus Spawn?
After MOM goes down the next spawn will occur in 12 hours at the minimum and 36 hours at the max. There have been occurrences of the next spawn taking longer than 36 hours, but it seems to be rare.
Come Fly with Eve Rookies in an Incursion Training Fleet!
Now that you know what an incursion focus is, why don’t you come on over to the next one and fly with Eve Rookies? Everyone is welcome!
Check out the Eve Rookies Incursion Fleet information!
