Crime & Punishment

go run some more numbers in spreadsheets and keep adjusting it a bit to arrive at your preconceived conclusion that ganking is absolutely free of risk when the reward aspect is absolutely unpredictable

1) Kill the bumper is a ridiculous counter... To stop from being ganked I have to sacrifice MY ship and security status to concord. All you're doing is pushing costs onto the wrong people

2) is fine although an imperfect solution
3) doesn't work... They're going to shoot you down in somewhere between 20-30 seconds. Logoff keeps you in space for what? 1 minute? I can't remember the timer but it's definitely more than 20-30 seconds
4) As I already discussed, this is (apparently) a very good solution. But man does it require a level of knowledge about undocumented game play elements that's bordering on the insane
5) Best solution (though doesn't prevent random grief ganking but that's okay by me)
6) Also a great solution

So you've got 2 decent semi-solutions (which honestly should stop 99% of the problem) and the red frog workaround (not so much a solution but a perfectly valid workaround).

I really think the bottom line on this is this!! Anyone who can fly a billion + ISK ships is not new to the game, and they should know where the gank spots are, it is real easy to look, takes far less time then it does to buy a new ship with billions of freight.

Like "newbies" mining in hulks in the starter systems, eh ~

the root of the problem is that so many of you seem to think that freighters are the only way to move multibillion ISK loads of cargo

the fact is that the Orca can haul high-value loads very easily and there are ways of concealing your cargo when flying a freighter, i.e. double-wrapping, and the only gank gangs that will bother with gambling on a double-wrapped haul are the ones who can afford to lose ~1b in ships on a crapthrow like that

Personally I find that a well made Lamb Vindaloo tastes, and smells much better 24 hours after purchase. Not so 24 hours after consuming, however.

I suppose... but if you're going to include Counters like that then, "Take a shuttle to Jita and engage in station trading without ever leaving" is also a valid "counter". The fact that we're even talking about "killing the bumper" is proof to me that there's something wrong with that particular mechanic.

[quote=Taedrin]
3) The OP isn't talking about alpha strike suicide ganks. He is talking about suicide ganks where the bumper keeps the freighter pinned down while a stream of suicide gankers are logged in/logged out. I would imagine that this takes longer than a minute.
/quote]

I was confused by this as well and didn't understand it. The OP was a bit of flamebait / trolling so I was kind of leaving it behind. But why would you conduct a gank session that way? The only logical "phased" combat approach would be to have alpha fleet one fire it's two volleys that are calculated to kill an unboosted, un repped freighter. If that doesn't work, beta fleet fires it's two volleys to finish off the target. So MAYBE you're talking about a 40 second engagement with some bumping needed?

The only phased attacks I have ever seen are on either side of a gate when the first wave fails to kill the freighter by a small margin. Furthermore, though alpha is used occasionally among the rare suicide gank in high true sec systems, pirates drive by a profit motive almost always use DPS in a prestaged 0.5-0.6 system since the required number of ships is much lower.

It's much like the lone gunman argument in security. Alpha like a determined lone gunman is nigh unpreventable. Fortunately lone gunmen and alpha suicides are rare. All legitimate strategy discussions revolve around high DPS.

A Neutron Blaster Cannon II with all gunnery skills at IV gets off I think 3-4 volleys before concord shows up, at which point they neut and ECM you. You are smart and have fitted and overheated ECCM so you have a couple more volleys, meanwhile your Hobgoblin IIs are ignored and continue to fire away merrily. It's more complicated then that, also gate guns, but it gets the point across. Either way you need significantly less ships if you use high DPS high ROF blasters than if you use high alpha artillery.

Note: concord is not an instant death, it's inevitable death. You will be hit with an infinite point, a heavy neut, and a lot of webs. The DPS is high, but not instantaneous.

No problem, here to help. Also, since the profit margin is often so thin and the pirate is dependent on all the ships deliver as much DPS as possible it makes counter strategies like blackbirds or logis viable. Nothing ruins a pirates day than a freighter jumping out at 5% structure because some ******* good Samaritan. Except for maybe getting the wreck blown up before you can scoop it.

Note to self: Open alt corp offering safe escort through Uedama.