Warfare & Tactics

I think you're talking BS which takes ..months, right? I don't think people Alpha Macks, could be wrong, but I haven't heard of it. Now Alpha Retrievers ...pre Miner Buff Patch is another story; probably more of Covetors now, you could definitely Alpha a Covetor. There are a lot of discussions on how to train and successfully gank a Mack all over the internets.

Nice, good luck on your gank-fest

Faeces given: 0%.

Removed an off topic post.

Also, please do not attempt to bypass the word filter. Thank you.

You clearly gave enough faeces to make a post about it.

And posts like this are OK?








Really?!

You do know that deleting characters because of low sec status, aka training characters for 1 - 2 days to gank with that you then delete is against CCP rules right?

Cant believe i'm actually saying this but I think Cynthia has a point. Without actually seeing Cynthias comment that does seem a bit double standards. (Soz Trinket+Sync! Agree 100% with Cynthia moving on though.)

OP you have an answer, give this a go. Im not 100% sure 2 gank cats will do it but have fun trying! Get as close as you can to the target before firing, overheat from the off, make sure you switch your safety settings off before you warp in. Good luck!

Ganknados are good, a rack of 8 1400mm guns is huge alfa but you will generally only fire once before concord shows up. Blaster fit Talos however can get two shoots off before Concord shows up. With the right fit a Talos will do more damage in its two shoots than a tornado will with its big alfa.

A properly fit max yield Mack can easily still have 20k ehp to burn through. A tanked Mack can have much more.

Using battlecruisers you will be over 100m per ship for the hull and fittings. You no longer get insurance payout if you get Concordokken. So yes two tornado's or Talos should have no problem ganking a Mack but will cost you well over 200m for each gank. The mack is probably worth more but you will not recoup you losses. Catalyst are much much much cheaper but fit a full rack of small guns not large guns like the tornado and talos. I think you need 4-5 catalsyts to match the DPS of one Talos but you can buy and fit them for only a couple mil. 5 cataysts with full T2 DPS fits would probably only cost 6-8mil. Catalysts were very popular for ganking miners before the mining ships got buffed. Now even a retriever will usually have over 10k ehp, close to 20 with a max tank fit.

A successful gank is not just killing the ship. At the vey least the kill mail needs to show a bigger loss for the one you ganked than what it cost you to gank them. It is all about the kill board. If you lost more isk in ship and fitting than you target was worth it will have a negative impact on your kill board. For example, you can gank any T1 mining barge with a Ganknado or Talos but you are lossing a +120M to gank a 30M ship you have a big net loss on the kill board. Most PVPers work hard to have their kill board positive as in they destroy more isk than they lose. As far as most PVPers are concerned any killmail that results in a net loss is a fail. Even if it is a gank. You need to destroy more assets than you lose.

When the GOONS were ganking miners they did it in a way that not only gave them a positive net balance on the killmail, but actually found a way so the loot and salvage dropped from the ships they used for the gank, combined with the loot and salvage of the target, added up to more than what they lost in the gank. As in they actually made a profit. The loot was worth more than they lost. After the changes to mining ships this was no longer possible. No miners are only ganked for luls not profit.

This is why the GOONS have moved on to ganking haulers and freighters. Last I read it cost the goons about 680 mil worth of ships and fittings to gank a freighter. I assume that is after accounting for the loot and salvage for their own lost ships and the salvage of the freighter. So if the loot that drops from the freighter is worth more than 680 mil they make a profit from gankng it. A good rule of thumb is that what ever a freighter has in its cargo you can expect 50% of that value in loot, often more than that. So any freighter with over 1.4 billion worth of stuff in its cargo is profitable to gank. Hense the rule of not hauling more than 1 bil of stuff in a freighter load. You would be surprised at how many freighters still undock from jita with 4 bil or more worth of stuff in their cargo. And they still wonder why they get ganked.

Anyways I have digressed enough. Ganking miners can no longer be done for profit. But it can still be done for luls. According to GOONS last I heard the blaster fit Talos was the best single ship ganker, while a fleet of Cataysts is the cheapest. Keep in mind you will only fire a couple shots at best. Faction ammo is cheap if you only need 16 rounds per ship. I doubt 2 cataysts will be enough to gank any exhumer, but maybe a poorly fit retriever or covetor.