Crime & Punishment

Hello all. I'm a fairly new player to the game, but I've got the hang of the game mechanics pretty fast, and 21 days in, I'm 3 bil richer than i started. So you could say it has been a joy ride so far.. That was until today.

These funds have pushed me into a new adventure; keeping haulers up on their toes. Or at least I thought i would.
So i have been doing a lot of research the last couple of days the on gate camping and solo ganking in HS and came up with this fit i found in a guide:

[Thrasher, Ganker Fit]
Counterbalanced Weapon Mounts I
Counterbalanced Weapon Mounts I

Sensor Booster I, Scan Resolution Script
Sensor Booster I, Scan Resolution Script
Tracking Computer I, Tracking Speed Script

280mm Howitzer Artillery I, Republic Fleet EMP S
280mm Howitzer Artillery I, Republic Fleet EMP S
280mm Howitzer Artillery I, Republic Fleet EMP S
280mm Howitzer Artillery I, Republic Fleet Fusion S
280mm Howitzer Artillery I, Republic Fleet Fusion S
280mm Howitzer Artillery I, Republic Fleet Fusion S
280mm Howitzer Artillery I, Republic Fleet Fusion S
[empty high slot]

Small Ancillary Current Router I
Small Processor Overclocking Unit I
Small Processor Overclocking Unit I

DPS: 111
Volley: 851

I then created a new account and trained a toon to 1) Fly a Probe fitted with Passive Targeter, Cargo Scanner and a Ship scanner. 2) Fly a Mammoth to haul the goods to safety.

Tactic/Execution:

First to know, I have two laptops to control the two toons

I've planned only to attack Industrials, Frigates, Shuttles in Tech I, because i don't think i can take on more before concord shows up (20-25 sec in 0.5 right?) and a mammoth with around 2400 ehp would take three volleys. I dont know if the math is right, again i'm new, i only know the volley of the thrasher and the ehp of the target.

First i locate a bottleneck from two major trade hubs, this was 0.5 and 0.6 systems.
I take my probe and my alt (on laptop 2) and fly through the system until i find a gate with no npc ships (dunno if all will attack haven't found any info on eg. custom patrollers attacking when you get gcc, anyone knows?)
When a free gate is located in (lets call it system B), where i wanna gank my target, i find the gate in that system where the targets is coming from and jump through that gate, to camp there (Lets call it system A)
Meanwhile i have taken my main toon and my thrasher on the other laptop and jumped it to system B, and warped to the gate where my Probe is sitting on the other side scanning.
I scan only targets who is on autopilot, and when i found a target with good cargo, no fittings in a Bestower, I thought to myself that this would be a sure hit, because of the lower ehp compared to the mammoth. It showed up that i was completely wrong.
As soon as i knew i was gonna gank him, i started flying my probe two systems back to get the mammoth to be ready to scope to loot, while on my main i was already aligned and warping to 20 km of the free gate. All modules was ON and overheated, and i was ready! Meanwhile i undocked in my mammoth and was on my way back to the free gate. On my main, the bestower warped in 15 km from gate, i was cheerful. All modules blasting I locked him, and this is where it got sad for me.

Here is the log:

[ 2015.02.28 00:19:47 ] (notify) Ship stopping
[ 2015.02.28 00:19:47 ] (notify) Please wait...
[ 2015.02.28 00:29:53 ] (notify) For initiating combat your security status has been adjusted by -0,0126.
[ 2015.02.28 00:29:53 ] (notify) Mrs Whoops: You have foolishly engaged in criminal activity within sight of sentry guns and must suffer the consequences.
[ 2015.02.28 00:29:53 ] (notify) Mrs Whoops, criminals are not welcome here. Leave now or be destroyed.
[ 2015.02.28 00:29:54 ] (combat) 336 to SweetiePie 420 - 280mm Howitzer Artillery I - Penetrates
[ 2015.02.28 00:29:54 ] (combat) 233 to SweetiePie 420 - 280mm Howitzer Artillery I - Hits
[ 2015.02.28 00:29:56 ] (combat) 393 from Minmatar Sentry Gun - Penetrates
[ 2015.02.28 00:29:56 ] (combat) 277 from Minmatar Sentry Gun - Hits
[ 2015.02.28 00:29:56 ] (combat) 317 from Minmatar Sentry Gun - Penetrates
[ 2015.02.28 00:29:56 ] (combat) 439 from Minmatar Sentry Gun - Smashes
[ 2015.02.28 00:29:56 ] (combat) 372 from Minmatar Sentry Gun - Penetrates
[ 2015.02.28 00:29:56 ] (combat) 636 from Minmatar Sentry Gun - Smashes
[ 2015.02.28 00:29:58 ] (combat) 131 from Minmatar Sentry Gun - Penetrates
[ 2015.02.28 00:32:15 ] (notify) Session change already in progress.

So after all the reading on the subject i'm kinda stuck on what i did wrong here. Is it the ship, the fit, the execution? I read on eveinfo.net on the subject on suicide ganking, that i just should warp to 15 km of the stargate, then sentry guns would have harder killing me.. But i didn't stand a chance at all as you can see lol.

What am I doing wrong, I have tried be as precise as i can on how i did it the wrong way, so maybe some of you old schoolers can see the errors?

Wow, you made it down here, you deserve a bear.. go get it

It's not like you guys are at the keyboard anyway.

Well i guess your mining buddies ain't very informed about the game they are playing, if a newbro like me only playing for three weeks is telling something groundbreaking in the OP. But hey, it nice to teach some young kids new stuff.. lol

THAT IS CORRECT. EVEN THIS IS A BOT POSTING AN ANSWER. LIQ

Hi there, let's see if I can provide you some information.

First, a few Thrasher fits:
D400's double volley fit (possibly modified from Sol's)
A fit John E posted a while back
Sol's "tripple" volley Thrasher fit


Sentry gun info:



I switched to my phone so it's kind of hard to type and aggregate information. Sorry if it is confusing!

Also, switch to 250s (like in the linked fits) and fit Burst Aerators in your rigs for better rate of fire. The 280s on their own are too slow. Also try fitting some tank for those sentries. A shield booster or an adaptive invuln should do the trick.

Train into a Thorax or Vexor. You are too limited in what you can do with an Arty Thrasher.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/44670241/

If you are ganking at belts, then you would be wasting slots by fitting a tank. If you are doing it at a gate, you want to be able to get 2-3 volleys off, unless you have a friend who bumps your target out of range of sentries (must get them off grid in hisec).

Thrashers are great for ganking soft targets and the preferred choice on gates, but they do have the problem that untanked, they will not last against the sentry guns. You need to put some defensive mods on to get a second or third shot off, so if you have to go full DPS to make up for low skills, you will only have one shot. If your volly can only do 550 damage as your log suggests, your targets will be quite limited for now.

Now, rail guns do suffer from poor tracking so it may have been you did not land your maximum damage because of a non-zero transversal with your target. Make sure you are as in-line with the direction of movement of your target, and more towards your optimal range for maximum damage if possible. EFT can give you an estimate of your theoretical max volley damage.

Maximizing your damage requires balancing your tank against the gate guns, vs. your volley time. Ideally you want to explode a second after you get your second or third shot off to maximize your DPS:cost ratio. Fitting tank in these situations is often preferred than DPS mods to buy enough time for one more shot, and as was said, tanking the gate guns is much easier if you move up to a gank Cruiser (like a Vexor) with a little tank.

For a Thrasher in a 0.5-0.6 system, it will always be the gate guns that get you before CONCORD. Just make sure they are not spawned on the gate, but otherwise you can ignore them. But you will not get more than 4 volleys, usually only 2 or 3, and that will require one of the above fits. Untanked and with low skills, you will just get the one volley so really I would just start with shuttles if you are looking for profit, or autopiloting pods with a significant bounty.

While that is true. I do occasionally glance at local.
Also add persons of significance to your watch list. And keep it updated half of mine has a stack of banned Code. members on from back in the day they were a worth keeping a lookout for.