Crime & Punishment

So, life was good, then a fleet of 17 mining barges showed up. They are all new characters, some are little over a month old. They kill ice belts in what seems to be minutes. We decided to gank them. My partner and I looked over some options we had at the time. When our invaders mine ice, they mine in a group. A battlecruiser with command modules and 6 or 7 mining barges around the BC. Easy kill. We took 2 battleships, outfitted with smartbombs and capboosters. Warp in, kill, pod, done deal. We managed to strike their team several times in this fashion before they adapted. They decided to spread the fleet, 2, 3 mining barges at each asteroid. Now we can’t wipe them out all at once. Killing 2, 3 mining T1 barges and losing 2 amar battleships was not in our plans, even though we don’t mind losing a bit money and having fun but this was way too ‘in negatives’ for us. We switched to destroyers. Now we are going after each barge with 2 destroyers but still not enough time to pod the pilot. We are asking teammates to join us. "Invaders" will upgrade to exumers soon and will have drone defense. We need to stop their growth and kick them out of our system before it happens. We have people joining us shortly.
The question I have is; What other ideas would you suggest to gank these fleets? See below for facts.

System 0.5 (high sec)
Fleet is spread – can’t smart bomb
2 Fleets - 1 BC in each fleet, 7 to 8 mining barges on each BC
Using 2 destroyers at this time to gank 1 barge – still fun and cost efficient :) ... takes too long though.
More destroyers coming – same tactics
Was thinking about using cruisers – t1 fits
We want to pod them every time – not enough time, getting nueted by Navy and killed by concord (we are -10 or close)

Any ideas?

Learn from the miners normal predator much of it you'll probably have already figured out, the parts on Concord manipulation are interesting though.

If you're hitting them up with catalysts and want the pod every time then make sure at least one of you has a SEBO or 2 with scan res scripts. 2 of you should be good to kill a retriever with 1/2 way decent skills, you'll need more friends to start on the mackinaws.

If you find yourself short of fire power, ask, there's no shortage of interested parties in C&P.

If these miners have any sense at all they will be in an NPC corp to avoid wardec's. They also apparently don't know that you don't have to keep your fleet booster on-grid.

Sounds like wardec time, but they may be a 'metacorp' and all be in NPC corps to avoid that.

This sounds like a job for The Knights Of The Order...:)

Maybe you should contact them, they can throw gank Cats at you as well as tactics.

PM me, I operate in Amarr space and might be able to assist, in fact I might even be based out of the very system you mean.

Just have friends along in Ventures or Retrievers or Procurers that actually are fitted for mining ice (at least in the high slots) and that are there solely to provide you with warpins.

If you have a spare character slot, it's very quick to train into a Venture and you can even make a name that would fit in with the ice mining bot fleets (AFK Miner or Bot Aspirant or something like that, sadly Ice Beast is taken)

Or if you have a main with leadership skills, get into a command ship, sit in the ice belt actually mining from the command ship (which will look hilarious) and give all the gank catalysts an on-grid boost from warfare link modules. Noone will see the mining Astarte as a threat at all...

The humble but mighty bumping cruiser?

You seem angry, Ray. Did someone stuff a catalyst up your '==='?

Depends on how much you want to spend. If you fit meta, 8x Anode Light Neutron Particle Cannons w/ Caldari or Federation Navy Antimatter S. These do almost as much damage as Light Neutron Blaster IIs and are cheaper, plus take up less CPU and PG, so you'll have room for 2 SEBOs with Scan Resolution scripts or a SEBO and a scram. For T2, 8x Light Neutron Blaster II w/ Void S.

Low slots you'll want 3x meta Magnetic Field Stabs (e.g. Gauss Field Balancer I or Linear Flux Stabilizer I). For T2, 3x Magnetic Field Stabilizer II. Of course, you can mix and match depending on your CPU/PG needs.

Rigs you'll want 1x Small Hybrid Burst Aerator I and 1x Small Hybrid Collision Accelerator I regardless of fit.

I'm a month and a half old and I solo untanked T1 Retrievers in 0.6 space with meta fits. I still need to get my Signature Analysis to V though, because I don't have time to lock pods. BTW, I wouldn't scout targets in ice anoms in a Venture, since they can't fit ice miners. That's about as subtle as scouting with a navy BB. Use a Procurer since they have enough mid slots to fit a passive targetter, a ship scanner, and some shield tank.

Good hunting.

This should get the job done, in pairs it should murder a Retriever, in fours it should do the same to a Mackinaw. It pushes out between 330 (bare minimum skills) and 500 DPS (all 5) overheated. It might even solo a rettie in the right hands.

[Catalyst, Customs & Excise Cutter]

Gauss Field Balancer I
Gauss Field Balancer I
Gauss Field Balancer I

Sensor Booster I, Scan Resolution Script
Sensor Booster I, Scan Resolution Script

Modal Light Ion Particle Accelerator I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Modal Light Ion Particle Accelerator I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Modal Light Ion Particle Accelerator I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Modal Light Ion Particle Accelerator I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Modal Light Ion Particle Accelerator I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Modal Light Ion Particle Accelerator I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Modal Light Ion Particle Accelerator I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Modal Light Ion Particle Accelerator I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S

Small Hybrid Burst Aerator I
Small Hybrid Collision Accelerator I

If you're suicide ganking split your ammo into stacks of 120, put a stack in to your cargo and load your guns as enter warp. Each gun will get 15 rounds, which is slightly more than you need, but not enough to be a waste.

There's only thing worse than flubbing a gank because you ran out of ammo, and that's forgetting the safety.