Warfare & Tactics

If someone sees you with ospreys, they aren't going to come in a catalyst. They're going to come with enough Thrashers (Tornados... whatever) to alpha whatever you have - so that your reps won't have time to affect the fight. If you fit a surprising amount of tank on your fleet, (say procurers), then the isk sink to the gankers will be tremendous (they'll have to bring multiple people to gank a single ship).

If you're at war... mine in a venture.

If you're worried about random ganks, you're probably better off making more money by flying less tanked ships and replacing a coveter when it goes down. The isk/hr here becomes a larger factor without a specific threat.

If someone is threatening you, you could do what you suggest to disourage a small group from ganking you - but it seems fairly pointless.

Edit: Spelling.

It's pointless because you could move a few systems over and it would become less of an issue. Now if you want to fight for territory, so be it.

No, with some shield / hull tanked procurers and an osprey or two, your gankers would have to expend a tremendous amount of energy to gank you. Your profits would be horrible, say you mine for 3 hours in said fleet - and your cutting everyone who's present into the profits.

So, in your tanked procurers your making 4-6 million isk an hour - lets say you've got two. So, 12 million isk in an hour. But your going to cut the Orca in, and two osprey pilots. So, now you have 4 people with 12 million isk/hour - so everyone is making 3 million isk / hour. You can get about the same in a venture. Just fly the venture, plus it pays for itself every trip it makes back to station. Lose them to your heart's content, and replace with minerals that the ventures mined. When a venture blows up - it's also not going to drop enough to pay for the thrasher / catalyst that your opponent dropped.

Lets say you take a different apporach and you have 3 coveters and an orca. lets say the coveters are making 8-12 million isk /hour. Every hour you maybe roll 36 million isk. So everyone is making 9 million isk/hour. Even if you get ganked in this set-up. As long as it's not more than once every 4 hours of mining each individual is still profiting (36 million in 4 hours - hey, you can buy a new coveter and fit it).

However, if their cost to gank a single ship exceeds 50 million isk (say 5-8 thrashers) then it would be cheaper for the people that are harrassing you to just issue a war dec and kill you legally. So, once you exceed their ability to cheaply destroy your ships - they can simply switch tactics and cripple you for a week. Yes, red characters can join player corporation, so you get two reds - and say 1-2 other guys that can fly cruisers - and now your looking at a 4 man crew dropping on you whenever your sitting in a belt. In which case, I would mine in a venture. Just saying.

1 it would not work unless you pay attention all the time at the screen for gankers, if you do then that would be a yes it would work because the solo osprey is a burst shield transfer logistic ship, and could easy over run the gankers, and if they attack the logistics well... good luck it has allot of tank of it self.
2 its not really worth it, because you need to micro manage it, you are more key to making an error in this situation, looking away for one second ships come in blow mining ship up come back what happend, if the logistics pilot costs you no ore lost tho, why not?
3 no it wont discourage most unless you prove to be able to deffend your self with it, i was running level5 missions once, with 4 logistics and these guys came in took our salvaging ship, and the logistics protecting it, we then fell back and jumped back in and took a few of them without losing a ship, i came back in my Daredevil with a point and we got 10 kills in total, including 3 battle ships, Dominix and Abaddon
They even came back and then we got a Armageddon kill with a few others
You see, we proved to know what we where doing and we had enough logistics support even tho we lost one. but still they came back for more, it was fun gotta say, way more fun then FW :P.... thats only why we continue doing level 5s

If you think you can defend your self its great fun once you make the ganker die for trying, but be warned hes gonna come again probably, maybe hes gonna catch you once or twice. But if i played the game only for efficiency i would not be playing anymore.... think of it what you want

it is all about risk / reward, if you field lot of support to low profit mining you will go to bankrupt.

For hisec, you might also think about seeding a couple of jamming ships into your top cover. Keep a couple of Blackbirds in one of the Orcas, perhaps, or if you're really serious, escort the miners with a Scorpion, which should hopefully also provide decent deterrent value.

This is the best advice in this thread.

Given that you're running a boosting Orca you can plug in a Shield Harmonization II module along with your mining boosts.

[Orca, Boosting Orca]
Reinforced Bulkheads II
Damage Control II

Mids - set to preference, tank over most other options preferably

Mining Foreman Link - Laser Optimization II
Armored Warfare Link - Passive Defense II
Siege Warfare Link - Shield Harmonizing II

Rigs - Set to preference, i prefer tank over cargohold personally

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A Mackinaw with a DCU II and thermal/kinetic hardeners/rigs can still fit t2 miners and 2x t2 mining upgrades. It loses a little bit of yield, still has a tremendous ore hold and runs about 40k EHP against catalyst gank attempts.

Mackinaw Setup:

[Mackinaw, Gank Mack]
Mining Laser Upgrade II
Mining Laser Upgrade II
Internal Force Field Array I

Thermic Dissipation Amplifier II
Kinetic Deflection Amplifier II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
[empty med slot]

Modulated Strip Miner II, Veldspar Mining Crystal II
Modulated Strip Miner II, Veldspar Mining Crystal II

Medium Ice Harvester Accelerator I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I

EHP against catalysts with Orca boosting - 41.7k

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This amount of tank will foil all but the most dedicated gank squads while sacrificing little in terms of yield or utility.

Further efforts can involve utilizing your orca's hangar space for fast changes to response ships. It will likely take a group most of the 10-18s allotted them to kill your tanked mackinaws and in that time if you're practiced you can swap ships and apply countermeasures fairly effectively.



Common countermeasures I've used include:

Sebo Tornado
ECM ships fitted against catalysts
Logistics ships ready to lock and rep your mackinaws


At the end of the day as long as the ganking groups have plenty of targets they will pick the soft targets over you every chance. If you **** them off and make it more than a gank of opportunity then the calculus changes and so will your strategies - but as someone who both ganks miners and has been ganked/attempted ganked in highsec the above strategy will do well by you.

The best way not to get ganked is not to be the easiest target...

If you are mining in 5 Macks and an Orca, they are going to gank one of your Macks...

If you mine in 5 Macks, a Retriever and on Orca... the Retriever will die every time...

Especially if you set it up on the belt away from your gang, set your mining lasers on and go for it...
You could even use a Badger or equally silly industrial... when the gank scout turns up you bet they are going to go after the "idiot AFK industrial"

When we gank, we actually go for the Mackinaws and Hulks first over the retrievers every time. More isk destroyed and a better chance of recouping isk from the gank. We pretty much only gank retrievers if we're flying solo or if there are no better targets available.

The advice of "just don't be the easiest target" however is spot on. Tank your stuff and profit from the tanking. The main reason I use the Mackinaws for mining instead of the other two available options (skiff and hulk) are due to the 3 lows for the Mackinaw allowing 2 mining laser upgrades + a damage control module.