Crime & Punishment

Being a fan of Gonzo Journalism, and seeing as how I have recently been curious about what CODE. is all about and why nobody seems to be stopping them, I decided to travel to Aufay and find out for myself.

First, I needed a ship. I did a little bit of planning and tried to figure out what would be the most effective platform to interfere with a suicide gank. Obviously I wasn't going to out-gank them single-handedly, so I turned to the only game mechanic broken enough to allow one ship to completely shut down several ships for the length of time that it takes CONCORD to kill someone: ECM.

I wasn't about to risk a Falcon on my first outing; the ability to move around while cloaked is nice, but the pricetag wasn't warranted in my book. Plus, there was the little bit about the targeting delay after de-coaking. Speed is of the essence to someone who only has 30 seconds to engage, and a 12 second delay would all but negate my ability to jam. I contemplated using a Blackbird or a Kitsune, but the inability to cloak meant that I was just as much a target as the poor hapless freighters CODE. was targeting.

So, as I often do, I tried something...different. I wanted stealth without a targeting delay, and I knew that my primary jamming target (Catalyst) had low sensor strength, so I decided to forgo the ECM-bonused hull and went with a Manticore: I had stealth, I had midslots, I had CPU, and I could get passable jam strength for a destroyer while still fitting a cloak and a full rack of launchers. I was quite proud of myself.

Last night (US EST), I traveled to Aufay. I didn't have much time to look around, but I can see now why it's such a good system for ganking freighters. Small, along a trade route, only two gates, and it's a 0.5 system to boot. I decided to join the channel "Anti-Ganking" to see if there was any activity, and there wasn't. (There were, however, a few suggested anti-ganking fits, and one of them was an ECM Stealth Bomber. This bumped the pride in my creativity down a few notches.)

So fast forward to this morning, right before downtime. I warp to one of the gates and see a Macharial bumping an Anshar. Two things immediately jump out at me. First, a gank must be imminent. Second, who the heck flies a jump freighter through gates in a system known to have a heavy CODE. presence? I put away my disbelief and watch my DScan and sure enough, a fleet materializes. They appear on grid and go flashy and I start locking them up without paying any mind to what it is I'm targeting; this was my first time in non-trivial combat since being out of game for a number of years and I didn't want to screw it up.

Fast forward 30 seconds and the Anshar is a wreck surrounded by a bunch of other wrecks and a swarm of CONCORD ships. I check my kill log and it turns out I did, indeed, make it on 4 killmails. However, they were mostly Taloses, so it's very doubtful that I actually jammed any of them. Oh well, lesson learned: next time, don't just go for the flashies, go for the flashy catalysts.

As fate would have it, my next time was only minutes away. A Fenrir end up on the same gate being bumped by the same Macharial. Another fleet materializes and I engage this one as well. I do a better job picking my targets and actually direct my jammers at Catalysts and my launchers at other targets. As did the Anshar, the Fenrir was soon destroyed.

Shortly before the Fenrir met it's fate, the Anshar pilot speaks up in Anti-Ganking. Here is a snippet of what followed:



Any desire I may have had to help freighter pilots not get ganked by CODE. and their allies pretty much vanished in that moment. I mean, seriously, I try to help someone in an anti-ganking channel not get ganked, and I get blocked (and later reported to a channel admin) for it?

Sigh. There are none so blind as those who will not see.

Just before downtime, I noticed that my notifications button was flashing, so I clicked it. I had received a number of notifications from CONCORD regarding the collection of bounties from the gankers I had targeted. To my surprise, I had earned enough in bounties from 15 minutes of work to mostly pay off the cost of the Manticore I was flying. This was something that I could get behind!



So what's the moral of my story? Screw the freighter pilots and miners. They don't want my help. I'm going to try my hand at White Knighting for a while purely for the ISK. I guess that makes me a "content creator" too.

While I do plan to re-evaluate my tactics now that I've had a change of heart, I think the instant-targeting-after-uncloaking of he stealth bomber will keep it as my ship of choice for now.

Looting the wrecks doesn't seem practical. The last thing I want to to be suspect flagged around a bunch of CODE. members in a ship big enough to hold loot that dropped from a freighter. I want to create content, not become content. On the other hand, raking in the bounties is virtually risk-free, and I get to keep my sec status to boot.

Greetings OP,

You'd be surprised how many people start out as white knights and quickly change sides after seeing the hateful bile spewed by the anti-gank crowd.

I predict soon you'll either switch sides, or the gank fleets will bring an arty thrasher or two and start one shotting your stealth bombers, but I'm glad you're having fun!

That was a really good read, can't say I'm shocked about the freighter pilot's reaction. The saying you put reflects it perfectly.

I don't think you even need the cloaking ability. Any small fast ship orbiting the doomed freighter will work out. The gank ships are set up to wonk a freighter - not swat a pesky frigate orbiting at speed. I doubt they would bother anyway. As long as you're not swiping thier loot or stopping them from completing the gank - you're not affecting what they are doing.

If you really wanted to help the freighter out (which they seem to not want help), try getting your own mach and see if you can bump the freighter onto the gate so he can jump. This activity may actually be both challenging and fun. A kind of reverse tug of war. Be sure to tank the mach up and have a mjd handy.

The other fun option would be to just orbit the 'doomed' freighter with a few logistics ships. Rep him as necessary. Once the CODE guys start to threaten you - feel free to make up some elaborate deep immersion role playing hoo haw about rescuing freighter pilots from (put hoo haw here - lots and lots of hoo haw... maybe make up a big web page of hoo haw and all the hoo haw that goes with the role play hoo haw - I'm just saying go deep"

That's definitely bad advice. I guarantee you a logi ship *will* be ganked. Stick with the stealthy ECM.

Wait, you mean it would be wrong to lash out at someone who tries to suggest that I did something stupid which lead to my demise, especially when said person was actively trying to help me out?

Learn something new everyday.

This :)

I am simply amazed at the sheer number of Eve players who assume that anyone who dares engage them in combat must be some kind of sociopath bully type and then totally shuts their brain down to any other possibility.

I've just lost track of the number of miners who (after a bit of a cool down period, I know how high-sec miners can get!) I have shot down multiple times and after the third or fourth kill, realized they are still not learning and taken the time to shoot them a conversation or mail with links about how to tank, how to d-scan, how to show basic situation awareness - and almost every time I am responded to with rage, threats of RL violence, personal insults, and all manner of just plain creepy behavior.

It's great that we have have a game that manages to stir up so much emotion - but it's also depressing to see how many players who have been active for many years have still not managed to turn off the part of their brain that takes in-game combat as some kind of attack against them personally and thus justifies anything they might decide to type in response.

Just train a alt or 2nd/3rd slot account into a catalyst and join CODE,

Tbh you will make more freighter ganking than by getting bountys.

Interesting isk making angle you found. Since you only need to tag in, not kill anyone, I wonder if a destroyer would maximize your bounties and reduce the risk of loss.