Legendary Pulls or Recruitment in EVE Galaxy Conquest looks simple on the surface: press a button, watch an animation, hope for gold. The game tells you there’s a 5.32% chance to get a Legendary commander file or ship blueprint — which sounds reasonable, even generous.
This post exists because that number is technically correct and still deeply misleading.
Table of Contents
Below is a practical, data-driven breakdown of how pulls, drop rates, and pity mechanics actually behave in EGC — based not on assumptions, but on thousands of real rolls, followed by official confirmation from CCP Games support. If you’re trying to figure out how to get a Legendary commander or ship in EGC without burning limited resources, this will matter.
Why I Tested This as a F2P Player
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you already know my usual approach: I tend to experience games as F2P (no, not out of masochism). This time it was long, slow, and occasionally painful in the very specific way only grindy games can be. Think less “lab with white coats” and more “conspiracy board with red strings”.
Instead of asking for internal formulas upfront, I deliberately started with no prior knowledge — very much an a posteriori approach, or “Kant but with spreadsheets” — and only later verified the results with CCP support (for the philosophy-curious: a priori vs. a posteriori).
Sure, I could’ve skipped months of recruitment ticket hoarding and just asked. But starting blind matters. If you begin with a model, it’s very easy to end up proving the model instead of testing it. This way, the system had to show its cards first.
(Yes, there’s video evidence too. I’ll attach it later. Right now it exists as a large pile of footage that still needs to be stitched into something watchable — maybe a timelapse, maybe a music video, maybe both.)
How Did This All Start?
Like most investigations in MMOs, this one began with paranoia.
After dozens, then hundreds of pulls, the advertised 5.32% Legendary chance just wasn’t showing up. I kept calming myself down the usual way — calm down, Sturm, you know the drill, that’s how Gaussian distribution works. Variance exists. Math said this was fine, even if the loot fairy said “nope”. And it worked… right up until I started pulling simultaneously on 10 characters.
That’s when patterns began to emerge. At that point, it became hard to ignore that this didn’t feel like a flat 5% experience at all.
So the first goal wasn’t to decode the full drop formula. It was simpler: prove that the drop rate doesn’t behave like a constant 5.32%, and then see how that interacts with the pity mechanic.
Quick side note for anyone new to the term: a pity system is common in gacha games. After enough unsuccessful pulls, the game guarantees a higher-tier drop. It sounds great on paper — especially if you skipped your math classes — but we’ll get into why that guarantee can be far less comforting than it appears.
The First Experiment: 700 Pulls, No Shortcuts
The first test was almost comically straightforward. Each veteran season starts with roughly 5 separate recruitment missions. I took 10 characters, and on each character I pulled 14 times on every one of those missions. That’s 70 pulls per character or 700 pulls combined.
A dataset like that should be more than enough. Based on the numbers shown in-game, I was expecting somewhere around 32–40 Legendaries.
What I got instead was 17. At that point, even my CITIZEN calculator, a trusty table companion, gave me a look.
So no, this wasn’t catastrophic bad luck. It was the system behaving exactly as designed.
That first experiment yielded a key piece of knowledge: recruitment missions are separate tracks. They do not stack. Five missions with six pulls each are not 30 pulls — they’re five fresh starts. That small detail turns out to be crucial for your pull strategy… but more on that later.
What the Game Actually Rolls When You Press “Recruit”
Before we talk about strategies, pity traps, or how badly RNG hurt our feelings, we need to establish one thing: what a single pull actually does.
And I want to pause here for a moment, because this comes up a lot. It does not matter whether you do recruitment pulls one by one or in batches of five. Apart from the five-pull option being slightly cheaper when bought with Nova Credits, the outcome is exactly the same.
There’s no hidden bonus, no improved odds, no “bulk luck.” CCP support confirmed that multi-pulls don’t affect drop results in any way — they just save you a few taps.
So if you prefer single pulls for ritual reasons, superstition, or dramatic tension, you’re not hurting your odds. The system doesn’t care how you click — only where you are in the pull sequence.
The Legendary Recruitment screen looks deceptively simple. Four rarity tiers, neat percentages, and two comforting guarantees at the bottom. On the surface, it reads like a flat-probability system with a safety net. Spoiler: It isn’t!
Let’s start with what the UI tells us — and then peel it apart.
The numbers you see in-game
On the Legendary Recruitment screen, the game states:
- 5.32% chance to get a Legendary Commander or Ship Blueprint
- 36.88% chance to get an Epic
- 37.83% chance to get a Rare
- 19.97% chance to get a Common
Below that, two guarantees:
- 100% chance to get an Epic or Legendary from up to 5 Legendary Recruitments
- 100% chance to get a Legendary from up to 30 Legendary Recruitments
If you stop reading here, the natural assumption is simple: every pull rolls against these percentages, and bad luck gradually improves your odds.
That assumption is wrong — but not in an obvious way.
Normal Pulls vs. Every 5th Pull
The data shows that Legendary Recruitment operates on two distinct pull types, even though the UI presents them as one continuous sequence.
Most of the time, you are making what I’ll call normal pulls. Every 5th pull behaves differently.
Normal pulls (pulls 1–4, 6–9, 11–14, etc.)
These are the pulls you spend most of your time on.
- Legendary chance sits at 2.1%
- No scaling
- No gradual increase
- No ‘memory’ of previous failures
If you’re doing short pull streaks (especially common for F2P players) this is the reality you live in.
Every 5th pull (pull 5, 10, 15, etc.)
Every 5th pull switches to a different internal table:
- Legendary chance jumps to 7%
- Epic fills the remaining 93%
- Rare and Common are completely removed
- The result is guaranteed to be Epic or better
This is important: This is not a reroll of previous pulls. The game does not look back and decide to compensate you. The 5th pull is simply rolled from a different probability table.
[GRAPH: pull timeline showing normal vs. 5th pull probabilities]
The Pity System (Why Short Pull Streaks Feel So Bad)
The in-game text promises a guaranteed Legendary within 30 Legendary Recruitments. That statement is technically true — but incomplete.
During the experiment, one thing became obvious very quickly: not all pulls behave the same, and some pulls didn’t seem to move pity forward at all. Long before contacting support, the data already suggested that every 5th pull was treated differently — not just in rewards, but in how the system counted progress.
CCP support later confirmed why: the Legendary Recruitment system tracks normal pulls and cycle pulls separately. Only normal pulls advance the hard pity counter.
In practical terms:
- Pulls 1–4 are normal pulls, each with a 2.1% Legendary chance
- Every 5th pull uses a special table: 7% chance for Legendary and 93% chance for Epic
- These cycle pulls do not increment the pity counter (surprise!)
- A Legendary is guaranteed within 24 normal pulls
- Because cycle pulls are interleaved, this translates to 30 total pulls from a player-facing perspective
There is no retrospective rerolling, no “checking the last four pulls,” and no gradual ramp-up. Every 5th pull is simply its own predefined roll, and pity ignores it completely.
From the player’s perspective, the takeaway is simple:
Pity doesn’t care how much you’ve pulled. It cares where you pulled.
[GRAPH: pity counter progression showing normal pulls vs. cycle pulls]
Why the UI Still Says 5.32%
GM Hazel also confirmed that the 5.32% Legendary chance shown in-game is a composite value, not something any individual pull rolls against. It’s a weighted average that already includes:
- The 2.1% chance on normal pulls
- The 7% chance on every 5th pull
- The forced outcome from hard pity
Over a very large number of uninterrupted pulls, the math converges cleanly to 5.32%. I verified this by building a simple model and simulating millions of pulls — the numbers line up perfectly. But in real play (especially with short streaks and frequent resets) the experience can feel very different.
Official Confirmation (CCP Support)
After the experiment was complete, I contacted CCP support to verify whether these observations matched the intended design. The response confirmed the mechanics exactly as they appeared in the data.
Email from CCP Games Support (click to open)
Hello, this is GM Hazel. I’m stepping in to assist you with this ticket.
Thank you for your patience. I’m happy to provide clarifications to help ensure your article accurately reflects the system.
1. Static vs. Dynamic Legendary Drop Rate:
- Pulls 1-4 (normal pulls) each have a 2.1% base chance for Legendary.
- Every 5th pull (cycle guarantee) has a 7% chance for Legendary and 93% chance for Epic.
- There is a hard pity system guaranteeing a Legendary within 24 normal pulls (effectively 30 total pulls including cycle pulls).
- The drop rate is dynamic over pulls due to this 5-pull cycle and pity system.
2. Soft Pity Mechanic (Every 5th Pull):
- Every 5th pull guarantees at least an Epic or Legendary.
- The 5th pull has a 7% chance for Legendary and 93% chance for Epic.
- The pity counter does not increment on these cycle pulls.
- There is no retrospective reroll on previous pulls.
3. Inclusion of Pity Pulls in the 5.32% Drop Rate:
- The 5.32% composite drop rate is a weighted average probability that includes:
- Base pull rates (2.1% on pulls 1-4)
- The cycle bonus (7% on every 5th pull)
- Influence of the hard pity system
I hope this helps! Feel free to ask if you need more info.
Best Regards,
GM Hazel
CCP Player Experience | EVE Galaxy Conquest
At this point, the rules of the machine are clear.
That’s where the system stops being academic and starts shaping real decisions. That’s where strategy finally enters the picture.
How to Pull in EGC: Recruitment Strategy (Especially F2P)
Now let’s turn all of that into practical takeaways. No superstition or secret sauce — just playing EVE Galaxy Conquest the way its numbers actually work.
1. First rule: this is not a fair fight (and that’s normal)
If a game needs fireworks and flashy reveals to sell randomness, it’s already messing with your perception. That’s not a moral judgment — it’s the P2W industry standard. The system isn’t rigged, but it is designed to feel better than it is. Accept that, laugh at it, and don’t let animations make decisions for you.
2. Either commit to a banner — or don’t pull at all
This is the core lesson.
The 5.32% Legendary rate only exists if you stay on the same recruitment track long enough. Short, scattered pull sessions live almost entirely in the 2.1% zone, with no meaningful help from pity.
For F2P players, that means saving is not optional. If you can’t afford to chew through the bad odds, the smartest move is often not pulling yet.
3. Every mission or banner has its own counter
Pulling “a few times” across multiple banners is mathematically self-sabotage.
Each recruitment mission tracks pulls independently. Five missions with six pulls each are not 30 pulls — they’re five resets, five pity counters at zero, and five trips back to the worst odds.
Focus your pulls. Let pity exist. Otherwise, you’re paying the entry fee over and over again.
4. Bulk pulls don’t improve luck (only your thumb’s endurance)
Single pulls and five-pulls roll exactly the same way. The only difference is convenience — and a small Nova Credit discount.
One last thing before we wrap up: nothing here guarantees you a Legendary. What it does guarantee is that you stop fighting the system blindfolded. Once you understand how the counters behave, the flashy UI loses most of its power — and your pull decisions start looking intentional instead of hopeful.
Understanding the System Doesn’t Make It Nicer
If you’re already reaching for the “refund” button: don’t bother. The drop rate is real… just not in the way most people emotionally experience it. Over huge sample sizes, the system converges to the advertised averages — and that’s the kind of math courts and payment processors tend to care about.
Do I like this design philosophy? Not really. These systems monetize perception, patience, and impulse — and the F2P players most vulnerable to that are often the ones in the worst position to begin with. But, sadly, this Genshin-style magic show is everywhere in mobile P2W. EGC isn’t an outlier; it’s playing the same playbook.
One more note: in this article I focused only on how you get a Legendary in EGC. There’s a whole separate conspiracy wall about what you get as a Legendary… but that’s a story for another day.
Let me know in the comments: did you learn something new? Do you find this kind of data digging useful? And do you think the game industry should be more transparent about how these systems really work?
Fly safe, pull sequentially.
o7
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