EVE General Discussion

Show me the numbers.

There is no risk about ganking anyone, let's be clear about it ... other than security status which is completely non-sense and useless against gankers.

Haulers DO actually take some risks for moving stuff in space, gankers don't face any kind of penalties or risks about their activity, and it is ... highly profitable in 0.5 systems. I understand that the nature of EVE is about shooting everyone and everything at any time ... but being a ganker you actually don't risk anything on undocking and f1'ing.


And please ... don't tell me about CONCORD, it's a reactive (not pro-active) task force and a ganking catalyst is ... what ... 10m ISK ? Look at the well known "Kusions" killboard. CCP did nothing and won't (probably) do nothing to prevent this from happening ... Ascension update gave gankers even more "free" scouts which could be run easily by tens of them on the same pc with some google'ing about it. Well done ... (i guess)

Some activities in eve are higher risk than others. mining in a 1.0 system in a tanked procurer for example. is a fairly low risk activity. worst you need to deal with is some code assholes bumping you 99% of the time.

freighter ganking is also a fairly low-risk activity. that does not mean however that EVERY activity in game should have that same level of risk associated with it. its low risk but its also comparatively low reward. think about it, for every 1 freighter that does get ganked, how many of them get through? if the value of the cargo in the freighter isn't worth the risk then why fly one?

for that matter if the risk of potential ganking is SO high, then why fly a freighter instead of say a t2 industrial, from what I hear those things are damn hard to catch.

The fact of the matter is that the risk of flying a freighter is minimal, yes you get the odd gankers out there, but if you are getting caught by them on a regular enough basis as to actually seriously disrupt your operations, then it is you who is doing something wrong, not the gankers.
Never fly anything you cannot afford to loose. this applies to EVERYONE.

Sincerely: Freighter pilot for 8 years, total times caught 1.

You guys are completely missing the point of "hisec" ideea and risk / reward system of eve, in this situation risk exists only on the lawful citizen of new eden while in the same time gankers DO NOT actually risk anything but the 10M ship they're flying - absolutely nothing is enforced on their side ... here comes the frustration of freighter pilots!

There is no such thing as "worth the risk" for a hisec freighter pilot ... you have 1B collateral with 20M reward and +1B hull - and 15 catalysts in a 0.5 system which are about 150M and they're using lawful stations and services without any penalty or risk, if you want to fight the gankers you just can't! It's next to impossible to stop them before warping on top of the victim and f1'ing ...

After explosion a neutral DST which is IN FLEET with the gankers comes to the wreck and receives the cargo transferred from a CAPSULE on grid without having ANY KIND OF RISK OF BEING SHOT WITH CONCORD ON GRID


That being said ... WHERE in the world you see risk / reward ballance here ?
It's a stupid mechanic which haven't changed and probably won't change ... just like the "famous" bounty system - completely useless.

Risk for Freighter pilots comes from other players, not from mechanics.

In the absence of gankers, freight hauling would be a completely 0 risk activity.

The same can work in reverse. It isn't mechanics that bring risk to gankers. Other players should and that begins with smart Freighter pilots.

I for one am totally comfortable with the risk that other players bring, in the absence of any risk otherwise.

It means more profits and good reputations for those that can deliver their cargo. Anyone that autopilots or doesn't take precautions to look after their own safety, deserves to be ganked.

But, if you want risk for gankers go take it to them, just as they do us.

much tl;dr. However, the first couple sentences gave me an idea. What if you could fit a module or rig that hides your loadout and/or cargo EXCEPT for that rig. So, you get scanned and all the gankers know is that you don't want to be scanned. NOW there is actual risk of loss for the gankers, rather than it just being a matter of a fixed rate of return. Make it an expensive T2 rig or something, so the freighter pilot has to judge the risk of having the rig fit on an empty freighter vs the cost of removing it. There: now life sucks for everybody.

My personal stance: gankers like to justify themselves to convince themselves that they actually matter. And on the other hand, whiners gonna whine. So alls you all's a bunch of wimps, on both sides of the argument.

I am both curious and bored. Also mostly neutral on this topic. My relatively uninformed opinion is that the risk and the penalties for the gankers seem very low.

I'm off to gather some stats...

I will likely check the other 3 freighters later when boredom strikes again. Want to buy my own freighter (donations welcome ) so good to get a more accurate idea of what gets you killed. In the last month (Nov 19-Dec 18), 84 Obelisks appear on zkillboard.

Of those 84, there are:

10 in null
21 in low
18 killed in high as part of wars

21 obviously ganked for profit:
5 with doublewrapped contents (zkillboard doesn't see what is inside doublewrapped stuff?)
3 carrying 3-5 billion in cargo
5 carrying 5-7.5 billion
4 carrying 7.5-10 billion
4 carrying 10-20 billion
None of those 18 had more than 1 reinforced bulkhead

12 that are deeply stupid and/or weird.
1 carrying 290k contaminated lorentz fluid, worth ~30 billion, which could've been hauled in 2 blockade runner trips.
1 carrying 19 plex + 12 skill injectors, and nothing else. That's not even 1m^3. In a freighter. Outbound from Jita and just jumped into perimeter.
https://zkillboard.com/kill/57983524/ This guy lost 3, including being killed by a solo orca.
https://zkillboard.com/kill/57983524/ This one lost 6. Are these due to kill rights, suspect status? I have no idea. But they're not suicide ganks.
And possibly the best one: https://zkillboard.com/kill/57837232/ Killed by the Amarr Navy on the Amarr undock in an empty freighter.

That leaves just 2 ganks where there's maybe not much profit.
1 had just over 2 billion, died to a talos, a purifier and 20 catalysts
1 had just under 1 billion, died to 4 hounds, 10 catalysts and a caracal. But again, no reinforced bulkheads, 3 expanded cargoholds despite carrying under 40,000 m^3, so only 130k damage needed to pop them.


Obviously can't check any that weren't uploaded to zkillboard. But almost every dead obelisk in the last month was in low/null, stupid enough to undock a freighter in busy system during a war, or carrying doublewrapped stuff or 5 billion+ without adding much to ehp. And even the 5 who died with less than 5 bill on board could have easily taken more precautions.

There is one thing I really think should change, and that's the ability to know if a hauling contract has doublewrapped stuff in it before you accept. Since carrying doublewrapped stuff is clearly enough to get ganked over. Don't need the ability to see what's in the doublewrap, just a simple flag on the contract itself, so haulers can choose whether or not they want to risk carrying it.

Makes sense, I think. So they shoot their own alt in a rookie ship to generate a kill right, the alt puts it up for sale? But for that to turn a profit though, someone has to be willing to pay 250 million+ to activate the killright?

First let me say you do not understand the concept of risk vs. reward in this game or probably even IRL. Risk is not just imposed by the environment, but also by your choices.

No really.

Let me explain. The Financial Crisis of 2007/2008 was a result of banks choosing to take on too much risk, either on purpose or out of ignorance. And as a result it created what is known as systemic risk--i.e. risk to the entire system, the financial system. And the thing is many of things that led to that level of risk were fairly well known for years, decades and even centuries (Walter Bagehot wrote a fairly early treaties on monetary policy well over 150 years ago, and the Scottish system of banking managed to deal with systematic risk even earlier than that...without a substantial regulatory system I might add).

As for hauling for profit, it is funny that RFF manages to do just fine and not get ganked very often. But listen to Maria Senseye and you'd think you can never haul anything anywhere ever. However, the most a gank catalyst can crap out, without implants, is about 686 DPS, and as POR, in a catalyst I can crap out 673 DPS and I have over 18.5 million SP in gunnery and 37.8 million SP in spaceship command--i.e. your typical ganker will probably be below that (and I am including overheating). So lets go with 690 DPS. And lets use a charon...with a complete s**t fit, because lets face it most ganking victims are fitting cargo expanders vs. reinforced bulkheads because they GODDAMN ******* LOVE RISK. So what is the EHP of our charon, assuming perfect skills? 179,995. Yup that's it, but hey on the plus side they have a cargo hold that will hold 1,204,741m3! So how many catalysts will it take to burn that puppy down? Eleven. Assuming CONCORD was already in system and was "pulled" it will take about 11 gank catalysts. Let's make it 12 to be sure so we are talking 120 million ISK to burn down a totally s**t fit charon. So if that charon is carrying over say 250 million ISK In cargo it is gankable.

What should our good charon pilot do? Look at how much cargo space he needs. If he only needs 409,763m3 then take off the cargo expanders and fit reinforced bulkheads FFS. That will more than double his EHP. EHP in this case will be 396,386 EHP. That means those 10 catalysts are no longer going to suffice. Now they'll need at least 22, probably 23 and that is assuming really good skills. Factor in say...oh..IDK...average skills and we are getting in the neighborhood of 30 maybe 32 or even 33 catalysts--i.e. once we start being at least slightly more prudent and factoring in reality we triple the number of cats needed to gank. Suddenly Mr. Hauler can haul 750 million ISK with considerably less risk.

What else can Mr. Hauler do to reduce his ISK? How about a scout. If Mr. Scout, who has CODE. and Goons set red jumps into ganking systems and scrolls through local...why he can warn Mr. Hauler, "Dock up, bad men in system!" So dock up and see what happens as time goes by. Eventually, those bad men will move on, logoff, etc. Then you make your move.

And what else could be done? How about a webber...even Mr. Scout could double as Mr. Webber. Now you will go into warp faster and reduce your risk further. Want to be even more careful..how about you have a booster go with your. Now your EHP in your charon goes from 396,386 to 415,761. That is a 4.88% increase in EHP. Add in some implants and you could get your EHP over 420,000.

So it IS possible to mitigate one's risk while hauling. And there are even more options depending on what you are hauling. Small volume/high value cargo...use a blockade runner. Nearly impossible to catch. Another option is the jump freighter (JF). You can jump over the problem systems with a JF.

But what we get instead are complete fools who are totally imprudent.

True story: My hauling alt was zipping along in a blockade runner and jumped out of Uedama heading to Jita. I saw a machariel sitting on the in gate in Uedama as I jump out. In the next system I see a freighter landing on the gate. I thought, "I'll be nice I'll warn him." I convo him and next thing I know I get a message saying he blocked me! So there I was tying to help this **** swizzler and he blocks me. As Black Pedro says, anyone who has sympathy for anyone who is ganked for overloading their freighter...is themselves a **** swizzler.

BTW: If you are Scottish and reading this...you have a very, very impressive history of thinking and actual practice in terms of banking and risk taking. Much better, IMO, than anything that has followed except maybe the Canadian system.