EVE New Citizens Q&A

polarized weapons will cost along the lines of faction gear ,
think imperial navy enam pricing,
they will not be cost effective for ganking.

I'm curious where you got your numbers. Are you figuring the cost by number of Catalysts required? Costs can vary widely by system sec, numbers of gankers involved, and the fits they use. Also, ganking is rarely done at the exact optimal isk efficient level, usually there is some overkill because the calculations involve some unknown variables and because gankers don't generally give a crap about isk efficiency (pretty much only the worst sort of carebears do). Also, James 315 reimburses most suicide ganking losses, so it's free for that side of the equation.

Also, only some gankers are trying to kill you for your cargo, so don't expect that if you fly with less than x many isk you will be safe. It doesn't work that way. Isk is on the bottom of the list of motives for ganking.

You are correct that there is a calculation you can do to establish the viability of a gank in a given situation - although in the crazy world of EVE you should never rule out the possibility of someone carrying out a pointless gank just for shitz 'n' gigglez.

The factor you have missed out is the CONCORD response time. This can be as low as - 2 seconds ( sec 1.0, CONCORD on grid ) up to - 22 seconds ( sec 0.5 CONCORD primed elsewhere in system ).

So, whatever figure you come up with (and I'm not going to get involved in the maths, you are clearly quite capable of it ) you need to decide what response time you are allowing for, bearing in mind that it can vary by a factor of 11 times. That means, for example, if your figure of 5k ISK per EHP was correct with a 2 sec response time, it would drop to 5,000 / 11 = 455 ISK per EHP in the wrost case scenario.

Oh. I haven't seen the BPs.

I'm not sure you need to do maths if you are ganking for profit. You would just do a ship scan of the hauler vessel and it is blindingly obvious when a pilot has overfilled their hold with ISK value in cargo

The cost of ganking is arguably not in the cost of ships & fittings to actually complete the gank but in the ISK, or time which still equates to ISK, cost of raising your sec status to make the ganking process less fraught. Of course with CODE operatives for example there is significant prestige in having & holding onto -10 sec status. In their scenario it's all about the roleplay, 'QQ', & the profit/loss ratio is largely not a consideration.

In recent times especially with freighter ganking along the 'Jita motorway' the direct profit motive has been thrown out of the window and it is open season on all haulers who leave themselves open to attack.

There are many reasons for ganking from profiteering to roleplay to business reasons & resource protection. All are viable reasons to get involved in this career option.

Fly safe.

I'd like to thank everybody for their input so far. :)

This being NCQA the broader perspective on the topic is most appreciated, however


This is beyond debate.



And this as well.



But this might not apply to newer pilots.


So what i would consider the most helpful at this point would be a rough average and maybe the standard deviation.
Just for the sake of having a point of orientation.






@Ralph: ENAM = Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane ? That'd be pretty expensive then. The material bill looks pretty much like T2 * 2 for the small versions. Blueprint prices might be kinda hard to estimate though.

@Cherri Minoa: CONCORD already being on grid actually influences their response time? I thought that was an urban legend.

In terms of suicide ganking, cost is offset by profit. If you gank a venture in your Bhaalgorn, you're really not being efficient (or smart), so it costs you a lot. If you gank a shuttle full of plex in a cheap catalyst, you make a huge profit.

It's not uncommon to get about half your fittings drop in loot after a gank so it is advisable to have an alt nearby to scoop that stuff up as well as the victims wreck loot of course.

But as I said before the ISK cost to the ganker is not in the ship & fittings cost but in the ISK or time which equates to ISK cost of regaining sec status. If you go the way of buying tags they are hellish expensive.

CONCORD just being pre-spawned in system increases their response time by 6 seconds. If they are on-grid and closer than (I think) 150 km it decreases their response time, but I haven't tested this and couldn't tell you how much.

Also, don't forget sentry guns.