EVE General Discussion

Depends. For miners and freighters the percentage chance is high. You can scan and have time to decide to go for it or not. You still will lose ships to miscalculation (boosts and implants you don't know about, human error, etc.), a bad warp-in, or a white knight/opportunist, a disconnect (facpo can get you), but it must be 90% plus. That said, that is the success rate for after you commit - your "success rate" for any given target is quite low. You will have to pass over many targets because they are paying attention, too tanked, moving too fast to catch, in a pocket you can't get a warp in on and so on. In those cases though you just lose time not ships.

Now, for miners the profit per gank is so low that you do not make much at all. If you loot your own wreck you might make 5M ISK per gank. With the 15 min timer, and the odd failed gank, you are talking a very poor income for a player. Sure, you might catch a silly person AFKing in a faction fit barge, but that is quite rare that you can't count on it as income.

For haulers it is better because players seem to think it is a good idea to overload thier transport ships. Freighter ganking can pay ok, but it requires a huge effort of a group of players so by the time you factor in effort in logistics, bumping and scouting, you are still less than a L4 mission payout. Still, one player's poor judgement can pay for a lot of ganks ships.

T1 haulers pay well and can be done by one or a couple players. I find it requires a lot of patience and can be quite variable depending on other players. You are also more vulnerable to interference from others scooping your loot and the like. I have only dabbled in it so I can't give you a real number, but if I had to guess all the waiting around for a viable target makes it also less than L4 mission running. But if you wanted profit, I would start ganking here, although you pretty much need to risk the more expensive gank cruisers or better for this because of gate guns.

Thrasher ganking of juicy pods can also be an income stream. The bounties on juicy pods can be significant, but typically you aren't going to make more than 10M ISK/h regularly unless you get lucky.

As to risk, a failed ganked significantly eats into your profits which are already marginal. Bringing out a Brutix or Talos can be quite risky, even if you have done the math and are sure that the blinged out Mackinaw is worth it. The loot fairy can be quite cruel too, although one hopes that if you gank enough, the odds will even out over time.

But if you stick to gank cats and thrashers, you aren't risking too much at one time. However, it is still more risky than running missions, and the pay is significantly worse. That is why you typically see only the "true believers" ganking in Eve these days aside from a few pirates that still prey on haulers - if it was profitable and risk-free more players would do it.

I make little profit, haulers, shuttles, pods, miners, my own alts, I blow em all up!
I usually let newbros get the goodies or blow up the wrecks too!
If i was hauler ganking for profit id say 500m a day but I usually shoot everything I think I have a 3% chance of killing.

Only those that hoard ISK, think that everything revolves around ISK.

I prefer to have fun and waste ISK, then to make ISK and not have fun playing.

Pass the Twinkies please.

It does sound, though, like once you "figure the ganking out" it becomes more fun for you, in direct opposition to the PVE being figured out. So I think you're lying to yourself a little.

In any case, it's a multiple-account activity that minimizes the risk by having the -10 char stay offline until it's time to go for the kill, and meta-games the combat mechanics to the limit via bumping, dragging Concord away, and other things I probably don't even know about.

And meanwhile, the target is focused on meta-gaming their profits to the limit, and as a result is completely unprepared for the combat and behaves in completely predictable ways, like an NPC.

OP, if you're trying to write a guide, it's not gonna work. It's like asking traders to tell you their trade routes and profits.

Back when I routinely ganked...

- the "success rate" of destroying a target ship was pretty good (assuming we scouted and organized properly).

- the amount of ISK rewards were pretty good (assuming we scouted our targets properly and/or actually cared about making a profit).
NOTE: it was always (and yet not) surprising to see how much people carried in their ships without taking precautions.

- the biggest pitfall was the amount of TIME that had to be sunk into each gank.
Moving pre-fit ships to the proper area, scouting the number of potential targets in the area (if any), waiting for the targets to come into the system, how "smart" the targets were (sometimes they would just randomly warp/log off)... etc.

Often, we would be waiting for a good hour between each gank (all 6 of us). And there would be days where there were no "good" ganks to be had... at which point we would just gank for "fun" and eat the cost of our ships.


A lot of people think that ganking is easy. Just hop into a cheap dessie, warp, gank, wait out the 15 minute timer, rinse, and repeat.
The truth is... it is a tedious profession that requires you to invest a fair amount of time... because your ability to succeed depends entirely on the choices (good or bad) of other players.

On the off chance this is a legitimate thread, I will give you a legitimate answer.

I go through phases of suicide ganking barges if my play time is short and I want to do something more chill than roaming.

- My success rate is probably around 90%. (9/10 ganks succeed, although when I started out it was more like 2/3)
- Failed ganks usually occur because I make a mistake (miscalculate required dps or get the warp in wrong.)
- In around 100 ganks*, only once has player intervention ever succeeded in stopping my gank attempt.
- I make no profit from it, all ganks occur at a small loss after I have scooped the loot with an alt.
- I gank out of a lowsec system with nearby high secs with my main, I don't have any kind of dedicated gank alts.
- I see it as just a fun activity (for me) that is fairly easy, doesn't take very long and helps add a little bit of eve reality to the otherwise ordinary life of a lonely miner.


*honestly it may be more or less than this, I haven't been counting. I know it was only once though because it stands out in my mind above all the others.

That's because you're Paranoid, Lloyd.

Speaking of psychosis. Serial killers describe what they do in precisely the same way. Interesting.

Paranoia is a survival trait

So in an apocalypse, only twinkies, cockroaches and Dinsdale will survive....