Warfare & Tactics

Basically, Most gankers fly in gank fit Catalysts. Not much tank, not much ammo. You see them on gates, on station, in belts, etc.
What ship would be the next best thing to pop them, economically, or maybe next hull size up?

Thorax?
Vexor?
Another Cat?

Gimme some thoughts or real experience if you have it.
Thx in advance.

The goal isn't to wallet tank. It is to kill cats, with something less than a BC.
Think suicide gank, escalated.

I don't mine, and I don't protect miners, (Though I have an idea evolving)
I was thinking that ganking Catalysts and associated gank ships could become a new endeavor. Like, nobody does that, and there's a Cat on every other gate these days. Hundreds of 3 month old toons in one man corps. I bet they'd cry more than actual miners do.
Some guys hunt miners... I want to hunt the hunters.

This isn't going to work.

To start with, you're looking at trading 2mil ISK T1 fit destroyers for other 2mil ISK T1 fit destroyers. If this is worth a 15 minute timeout and gradually tanking your security status to you, then I guess that's your decision.

However, a more practical problem is where to find them. Catalysts don't gank on gates because gate guns will kill them. Even if you found one there, you wouldn't be able to gank them for the same reason. If they're in a belt, they're probably in the process of murdering something already, so you could use whatever you wanted to stop them, but your odds of running into a gank-in-progress are fairly low and you will probably kill yourself over the tedium before you catch one.

People who are already suspect are going to use neutral scouts to find their targets. The Catalyst itself is going to undock from the station, immediately warp to an in-line bookmark specifically to avoid vigilantes in fast-locking ships, and them from there warp directly to their target via a warp-in provided by their scout. Unless you've managed to predict their final destination, you aren't going to get a chance to interact with them.


Basically, if it was practical or easy people would already be doing a lot of it.


EDIT: If you want to actively counter ganks in your own belt, do what the Astral Fleet does and just park a Scorpion on top of your barges. ECM mixed with Heavy Neuts are two big fat middle finger to Catalysts and the Scorpion itself is far too thick to bother ganking.

Or an arty thrasher

I'd actually lean towards this, cause range and alpha.

No, gate guns will smoke undertanked destroyers in seconds. The targets are either being bumped out of range of the sentries, or the gankers are just using enough dudes to overwhelm them and won't care in the slightest if one more gets picked off.

That said, if you were looking for a place to whore on Catalyst killmails, chilling out in Uedama and waiting for a freighter to get bumped would probably be a good place to start.

Virtually nothing you shoot at a catalyst will kill it before it is done ganking. You'll just be whoring killmails which is a) embarassing and b) doesn't stop the gank.

Falcon, ecm, sebos, long point (if trying to catch them on stations or their insta bookmarks).

Keep Falcon cloaked until you see catas and they aren't 2k from you. Sebo, lock, jam, point (just in case they haven't GCCd yet). Profit.

I say to keep cloaked because if you just dangle a Falcon in front of our faces we'll gank you instead of the Retriever you are protecting. We're mean like that.

Disco Rokh, Hilarious and expensive, and about the only suggestion not made here

Oh really?