Crime & Punishment

→ The effort and its results

Ganking miners doesn't solve anything most of the time. I have enough experience to say that most of them, right after getting ganked, will reship to the exact same "gank magnet" setup without learning a lesson, which is why it is pointless to destroy their ships, again, most of the time. It just doesn't work in like 90% of the cases. (But despite that, gankers keep doing their activity, and I am not saying they must stop ganking. You will see why, in Part 2.)

Please have a look at this scene. The screenshot was taken during one of my anti-piracy patrols and it corresponds to a scene at an asteroid belt, right after a successful gank. By the time I had arrived to the scene, everything was over, and as you see in the background, there's a mining barge wreck right next to a Catalyst wreck (That Cata's name was also quite original tbh). After I landed, I saw another Retriever starting to move, so I Looked At his ship, thinking that he was going to leave this belt (where a gank had just occurred) to take precautions (reship, change system etc). But then I understood the pathetic truth, the miner was actually just thrusting a little...: http://i.imgur.com/HkhfuUq.png ...in order to keep his optimal range with a valuable, money-bringing, viscous pyroxeres.
He was either completely ignoring what had just happened near him, or maybe he never noticed it actually, who knows. As you can see in this simple example, 90% of gankers activity has no effect on this kind of greedy, lazy and dull-witted miners.

Exceptions, of course, are extremely rare: Have a look, below, at these wise words from a miner who is completely different from the miner seen in the above screenshot.



If I understood correctly, this is the type of miner that CODE. seeks to create.
But how many times have you seen a miner like Percival Rose? 2? 7 or 10, maybe?
and how many times have you seen a miner like the one in that above screenshot? 100, 500 or 1000 times?

According to our records, gankological activity done by the Code itself resulted in just a slight increase on the choice of the tanky Procurer instead of Retriever, but that's it.

CODE. enforcers also notice this, even the most dedicated ones, as they start to see how small the results are compared to their efforts. A quote from EVE-O forums:



Part 1 continues in my next post.

Two Kill Reports, Lessons To Be Learned

The ganks occurring in Isanamo has been quite symbolic.
Let's take a look at these two kill reports. To make the example more “equal”, I chose KMs from the same event: Freighter ganking in Isanamo.

1) http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=22801066



In this first one, we see the bot-aspirant, lazy and careless ganker who foolishly ignores, fails to expect human opposition against himself, he cannot foresee it, and even though he foresees, he doesn't care.
This type of ganker is what I seek to destroy, reform and change: blinded and brain washed by the basement-aspirant Code, he considers his Catalyst as the true and legal spaceship that no one will dare to engage before CONCORD's always-late “baptism”.

He's so lazy that the warp scrambler remains on one of the very few midslots on the pre-fit, sologank-optimized Catalyst, when like more than half of the gank fleet already has the same module (those who are familiar with gank fleet ops will understand the notion of “pre-fit Catalyst”). He doesn't ask himself: “When I use this, how will it contribute to our operation?” Even though he asks, he won't have enough time to make a 'human' modification. As soon as the criminal timer of a previous gank runs off, the inner need for ganking will begin corroding, sucking the inside of them, just like the life-shortening nicotine does to smokers after they don't smoke for a while. Undocking in sensor-boosted Catalysts is an endless routine for them. They aspire to be ganking machines. They are machines. Their gank fleet, full of bot-aspirancy, often reminds me of sheeps or goats that follow a shepherd (and I don't think it's a coincidence that the horn of a babygoat looks very similar to the Catalyst hull).

Now please correct me if I am wrong: 1 point is enough to hold a ship with absolutely no fitting slots (therefore no WCS), the freighter, which is already being bumped (unable to align, warp). If 1 fleet member only manages to scramble the freighter, there's absolutely no need for others to fit the same boring module. Comms are there for a reason, and what is more, the brain is up there for a reason. “Who's the pointer?” is the question to ask right before undocking, so that the rest of the fleet fits their ships in a more civilized manner.

And of course, we then have the well-known, HAL 9000-aspirant sensor-booster module.
How long does it take to lock a freighter? Even without any sensor boosting? We all know why the sebo is there: being the first one to catch the pod, and therefore being the first one to post the Capsule killmail to chat channels like minerbumping, but also Local chat, Mining chat and interestingly, anti-ganking channel (which underlines another psychological issue.)

Part 1 continues in my next post.

The type of ganker that I seek to create is one that does not enforce the bot-aspirant usage of sensor-boosted Catalysts. I want to see creativity:  for example, they could bring suicide Griffins to be used on the ecm defenders, they could abandon their boring, "always-the-same" Catalysts and switch to smartbombing battleships in order to fleet up and unleash hell to jita undock on a sunday evening (yes, despite faster concord). They could, for example, bring Covetors, place them in an appropriate way in space so that after they gank them, the word CODE. appears with those wrecks. These are just examples.
See the following:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvG5FzfD22U – This example shows us how, even the newest player, with a small originality (in this case Reaper), can bring humoristic energy compared to a serious, bot-aspirant fleet full of Catalysts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-wi901uvoE - Another example of originality, difference, with gankers who don't care about the cost of the operation, but the fun of it. What could an ECM ship do to those Typhoons? Nothing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkDkRVLRPRA - Here's another inspiring sign of courage, patience and timing, despite the midslot fiasco and the ship choice. An Inner Zone Shipping Catalyst would be much more meaningful.

Also see: The Ishtar smartbombing example in one of those manifestos from James 315.

Some ask me why I jam them and ruin their ganks. “I am saving them from themselves.” I am saving them from the neverending cycle of undock-gank-nap for 15 minutes-repeat, all of that with similar setups. It is also about forcing them to open their eyes, think again and innovate or contribute to creative, original gameplay seen above.

The second kill report earlier, clearly showed the type of ganker I want to see more and more, that I want to test my jammers' strength on. I like a challenge.

After reading the Part 1, you might think that I absolutely hate the Code, and suicide gankers in general. But the second part will prove that you're wrong.

PART 2
As you can see, the first part was really about the inside of EVE, a narrower dimension, to say the least, including my personal observations on suicide gankers etc. But I often find myself thinking about and looking at the bigger picture of our current highsec: tears from carebears, priceless ganker tears that I harvest almost daily, their bot-aspirancy, lots of whining threads here on forums created by people who, instead of learning how to not get ganked, cry on the forums instead...and what is more worrying is that, some gank victims end up real-life threatening suicide gankers. This shows one single thing: these people obviously take EVE way too seriously. Calm down people, this remains, and should remain a game. You lost your Hulk in Vaurent? Don't cry. Grab a Skiff or pre-align your next Hulk while smashing D-scan and following local. (That's how I mine, even in a Skiff). You WILL have fun warping off while 3 Catas land on you thinking that you're afk.

You lost your 7b pod in Uedama while Autopiloting? Don't cry, and stop using Autopilot in a POD. And also forget Autopilot in general! The last time I used Autopilot was like a decade ago. Don't use it unless you have really good reasons: http://i.imgur.com/uDacuqN.png

You're in SPACE, how can you be safe all the time?

In fact, I imagine how it would be like if we didn't have gankological activity in highsec. I think it would be pretty damn boring.

Let's make a point clear: Although I fight the CODE. (and suicide gankers in general) for the reasons mentioned in Part 1, in the bigger picture, I do appreciate content creation efforts like the freighter ganking that has been occuring in Isanamo, and I say this with full honesty and sincerity. Again, in the bigger picture, EVE is a game, and it should mainly be about having FUN, nothing else. Maybe some of the what I call “dedicated long term gankers” do enjoy what they do, and I do enjoy ruining their ganks, too. This shows that both sides are winning EVE in a larger scale, because when you have fun in EVE, you're winning at it.

And I must admit I only had real fun in PvP situations only. When I started as a miner, I was in a Procurer with some boring modules. That day, a Mackinaw was ganked just near me. That was PvP. The next day, that memory made me fit Gallente jammer modules on all my mid slots, overheated. This was a preparation for a possible PvP situation too.

Several days later, 3 Catalysts that attempted to gank another miner near me were getting permajammed by my Procurer while waiting for the CONCORD arrival. This was PvP, too. I don't consider myself as a pure, hardcore PvPer –I am far away from that--, but you get the point.

I haven't done a mission series in years.

I hate grinding.

My decision to fit those Gallente jammers on my Procurer was the beginning of the process that created what I am today: an ECM pilot who frequently flies ecm boats, forcing his suicide ganker enemies to innovate, adapt and admit the fact that the gank is not %100 guaranteed if they don't fit their ships properly.

Part 2 continues in my next post.

42?

http://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/eve-online-news/exploit-notification-boomerang-avoiding-concord-in-high-security-space.-updated/ should cover this bit; blame the same people who think highsec should be a PvP free zone.

As for the rest, gankers are an essential part of highsec, too many people think that highsec means totally safe and that misconception needs to be corrected.

Both the gankers and people like the OP are good for Eve, player produced content is important in a sandbox.

Hmm, you have some good points but also some misconceptions, it's good to see an anti-ganker talking about content creation instead of the usual whining and gloating over whoring on CONCORD killmails without preventing the gank.

This a minor point, but I think you fully understand why our catalysts tend not to have creative names and it has nothing to do with being bot-aspirants: they are not flown for long and very rarely return to a hangar. The ships have throwaway names because they are throwaway ships, as required by highsec aggression mechanics.

Your ideal of ECCM on every catalyst is inefficient, unrealistic and possibly ignorant of the fitting parameters of a gank catalyst, to say nothing of your more "creative" astronomically expensive suggested ganking activities (are you not even aware that we do not get insurance payouts on our ships?) In the first place, there is rarely ECM on grid for our ganks. No, I do not mean 20% of the time, nor 10%, the real figure is well under 1%. A scram is far more important for securing a kill, and multiple scrams in the fleet are better because of the possibility of losing point through ECM or ship destruction (which can sometimes even occur before reaching the target grid, -10 life is unpleasant). You also misunderstand the purpose of sensor boosters, they are not for competing over the pod kill, they are to make the pod kill possible at all under the strict time limit imposed by CONCORD without a dedicated pod catcher, though they also occasionally are the difference between pointing a ship and letting it warp off.

Now about fitting: after 8 light neutron blaster IIs and 3 magnetic field stabilizer IIs we have 24 CPU left to play with if the pilot does not have CA-1 and CA-2, 31.5 if he does (CPU implants are not a reasonable option for a suicide ganker because the small turret damage implants use the same slot and while a CPU rig is possible, it also comes at the cost of dps, which is always the overriding consideration when we are not specifically aware of organised resistance). The best option for increasing the available CPU is swapping some of the blasters for light ion blaster IIs, saving 4.5 CPU each and getting 94% of the dps (but only 80% of the alpha, which does matter under highsec gank conditions even for a rapid firing weapon system like small blasters) of a light neutron blaster II. A scram is 26 CPU, ECCM is 16 CPU, and a sensor booster is 8 CPU. The fitting concessions you have to make to fit ECCM regularly on a catalyst are not worthwhile under normal conditions. In addition to everything above, I will point out that individual gankers do not normally have any freedom in how to fit their ships because the logistics of ganking demand that the FC can provide a very large number of prefitted ships which will work with little or no modification. Inexpensive spare mids for alternative fits in the cargo would be a nice addition but sadly the in game fitting tool does not save modules in cargo, something I would very much like to see as a feature.

I'm glad that players like you are creating content for gankers as we do for miners, but I think you overestimate your influence. We can only gank a small percentage of afk miners, autopiloters and other bot-aspirants at any given time and you can only attempt to stop an even smaller percentage of our gank attempts. If you want us to take pre-emptive measures against your methods as a matter of course, step up your activity, or better try to educate the lazy, whiny, wilfully ignorant players you choose to try to protect. Everything's more fun with some resistance but are you having fun? The only thing more boring than mining is watching someone else mine.

I have not had the fortune of ganking before the last round of CONCORD buffs, but I can sum up what they are currently: completely inflexible space gods who have complete control over your warp drive (from the moment you break a law), your sensors, capacitor and drone bandwidth (from the first response after they arrive on grid) and your insurance firm, making you suffer the full cost of hull replacement unlike every other method of losing a ship. Their armaments are mechanically irrelevant because you are so completely disabled from first response that there is no longer anything you can do to influence the success of the gank, but they have a ship which destroys absolutely anything in one shot because why not. The only variable we consider is the time between the offense and first response, all room for creativity in dealing with CONCORD has been carefully eliminated leaving only a thinly disguised manifestation of two rules: you have a specific number of seconds to execute a gank depending on system security and the status of CONCORD squads already in the system, and you will lose your ship with no compensation. This is boring and forces us to do certain boring things to operate at all.

"Pre-aligning" is a myth btw except in the sense of ensuring that there are no objects that you will bounce off if you attempt to warp. The visual heading of your ship does not affect time to warp.

I know one ganker that has modified his standard fit to include ECCM in the system he mostly terrorizes, because he has attracted a fairly disruptive fan club.

If the anti-ganker types want to be really disruptive, however, they should bump the gank target 5km. That requires being very attentive, but is a sure save against any catalyst gank tactic. But you need to be aware of the catalysts before they get on grid, which requires... playing EVE, not AFK mining.

I put ECCM on all my ganking Catalysts, simply to put off Faction Police. Barges have abysmal align times, to say nothing of the pilot probably tabbed out if not entirely AFK when it happens, so even if they don't panic they almost never warp out in time. It's a great thing to have in a group, certainly, but getting jammed out is a guaranteed failed gank, even if you have a scram fitted.

My midslots are typically an ECCM and a prototype Sebo, which fit perfectly with a full rack of Neutrons and Magstabs.

If you want more CPU without giving up a relevant implant, Weapon Upgrades implants are slot 10 and generally cheap.


One thing anti-gankers should try more often is Heavy Neuts. They always work, and Blasters don't work without cap.

Cheers to all the CODE representatives who manage to consistently communicate in a constructive manner both in the forums and In local. Its unfortunate but some of your members, most having a connection with or considering themselves a conference of the elite or " elite pvprs ", seem to suffer from some sort of ganking PTSD which may well be a result of an endless barrage of ganked miner rage.

The symptoms include but are not limited to:
Constantly going on the attack despite the topic of conversation.
Active disdain and accusations of carebearism at any player that does not immediately agree with any opinion offered.
A condition where the afflicted player only hears or sees "tears " whether the player they are communicating with is crying or not.
Taking things way too seriously in an internet spaceship game.
(This last symptom first being noticed in recently ganked hi-sec miners who may have unknowingly passed it on to their gankers due to the close proximity required during the phenomenon known as " content creation")

I recomend seeing your space therapist for help in dealing with these symptoms.
Taking a break from the game or engaging in some other space activitys might also be helpful.
Good luck and thanks again.

I know, right?

I *almost* stooped to the level of posting "TL:DR" after the end of the OP's comments.

Then I realised that would be pointless. The reason I didn't read the OP's comments wasn't their length, it was the subject matter and the quality.