EVE General Discussion

bring a lot of friends with you.

^This

I'm also new to the game too but would like to add my 2 pence worth on this. So,

1 - Remember that many of the folks making YouTube vids are going to be experienced pros and you might have overlooked something...even if they didn't mention it.

2 - It's not easy to gank large freighters unless there are lots of you in high dps gun platforms, so you personally need to have good skills so that you can do lots of damage, lose your unblingy ship to concord and then still profit from the loot.

3 - From my short time playing this game I've come to the conclusion that when in high sec then it's about lasting long enough till Concord show and kill.....low sec is about not getting caught in the first place. If I know this then everyone does, pretty much.

4 - Haulers and miners have their tricks too to avoid what you are trying to bring down on them.......like haulers can spot a double wrapped (gank) contract and bells start ringing, so when they get close to a gank spot (say the bottle neck area at Uedama) then they dock and wait till asap after down time and then go as it's hard to organize a gank so fast then.

5 - I watched Johnny Pew YT vid on this and they have like 40-50 gankers to take an Obelisk out as I think concord spawns 3 ships for every ganker...need to be good, in the right ships and have high dps.

There are way more experienced players than me that could add a lot more but just wanted to point out that there is much to consider and get right.

Freighters are really slow to go into warp. Locking a target is not considered an aggressive action and neither is bumping another ship. Target lock the freighter, bump it to break it's spool up to go into warp, shoot it twice with 8 destroyer guns, immediate warp out of the system, warp right back in, repeat. You might not get one 5 times, but #6 could be a big payday, so just keep doing it. gl

Was the boomerang tactic not nerfed? Last time I had one I couldn't warp off with a criminal counter. And I hear hyperdunking has been hit with the nerfbat as well, so there's probably no known way right now to suicide gank a freighter with a single ship.

OP: I do not know which video you watched, but don't blindly rely on those. Suicide ganking has changed a lot over the years, and you probably can still find guides suggesting the use of tempests or maelstroms for suiciding, which is horrible these days. If you have a friend to help you or a second account, log in to Singularity and try it out with different ship types. Typically people gank using Catalysts, Thoraxes, Vexors, Brutixes, Taloses, Thrashers and Tornadoes. The Gallente ships usually go with Blasters and work best if you have a long time (for example in a 0.5 system). The Minmatar ones go with Artillery, and they work even in 1.0 systems, if you can kill your target with one volley. The Thrasher is pretty much only good for Shuttles, Noobships and Pods, but for those it's a no-brainer.

Figure out how long Concord will take to arrive in your target system (it depends on the security status and if there's a Concord spawn already around in system or not. For example, in a 0.9 system that doesn't have a Concord spawn yet, you will have 6 seconds, if there is a Concord spawn that is not on grid, you will have a couple seconds more. If there is a spawn on grid, you are probably toast after one volley of your guns) and calculate how much damage you can do with your ship in that time. Keep your cycle time in mind, not the raw DPS (unless your cycle time is 1 second :) ). This will determine what you can potentially kill.

Now, try to assess how many HP which type of ship typically has, either by scanning your target with a ship scanner and a passive targeter or by looking up common fits. That way you will learn what's within your weight class and what is not. If you are flying a Catalyst for example, look for badly tanked T1 industrials and mining barges (except the procurer).

Once you have found a suitable target, get into your optimal range, pre-heat and pre-cycle your guns and scram, so they will all hit at the same time and then start targeting. This is important, because the Concord response timer will start ticking as soon as you activate any aggressive module on the target, no matter if it does any damage or not. If you did your homework, the target will go pop and so will you. Have a friend or alt scoop the loot and scurry off, as by doing that, he will get a suspect timer.

With a Talos, you can get around 6500 volley with a cycle time of 4.16 seconds or so. In a 0.5 system, you will have about 19 seconds, which is 4 cycles or (on paper, mind you) 26000 damage. 50% of that is kinetic, 50% is thermal. So, if you are solo, you can potentially kill something that has less than 26000 EHP against this kinetic/thermal resist profile (assuming it's big/slow enough for you to hit properly). If Concord has been spawned before in that system, you might even get a bit more out of it, but I'd say anything beyond 30000 EHP is out of your reach, unless you bring friends.

Yeah CCP fixed that years ago.

yes I was reffering to the industrial ones, not the big freighters but the easy ones to get, like tayra and such

well I been trying to gank at the gates in high sec...should I gank at the stations instead?

hmmm first time doing it? haven't done this......you learn with your mistakes right?

Either is fine.

Depending on the security status you will either get exploded by CONCORD or by the gate guns. Either case make sure you are in range and have low traversal to maximize your damage and just let 'er rip. You can look at your combat log and see how much damage you did and if you are doing something wrong.

If you are not scanning their fits you may fail a lot as some industrial are actually tanked are will be tough to kill, while others will be paper-thin and explode if you just look at them.

You might want to start with Thrashers and target shuttles until you get comfortable (see: http://www.minerbumping.com/2014/01/thrasing-and-vexing.html ). Then you can move up to using gank cruisers (like a Vexor or Moa), or the king of alpha ganking, the Tornado. For hunting industrials, the Tornado is where you are going to want to eventually end up.

Ganking off station/gate in lower security space (0.5-0.7) opens up the possibility of using the high-DPS blaster gankers (Catalyst, Vexor, Brutix and Talos) because of the lack of sentry guns and slower CONCORD response. However, the industrials with the juiciest loot are only going to fly Station -> Gate -> Station and thus you are better off with the high alpha gankers like the Tornado if that is your primary prey.

If you gank on gates or stations there's another factor to keep in mind: The sentry guns will react much faster than Concord. As soon as you aggress, they will start hitting. If you are in a cruiser or bigger, they likely won't kill you before Concord arrives, but if you are in a destroyer, they will.

As has been stated, alpha tends to work best in that case, but you won't kill much with a single thrasher. If you know your target has something worthwhile in it's cargo, you can try a Tornado, which has a volley of about 10-11k and can murder most T1 industrials in one shot. A Thorax or Vexor with a cheap buffer tank might work as well. Just try it out on Sisi.