EVE New Citizens Q&A

As my signature will attest to, I'm part of a group that goes around hunting mining ships in highsec and blowing them up. I also sell mining ships, to ensure that targets have access to replacement equipment at a price that I find acceptable (to me).

From our perspective in the New Order, we will prioritize killing a Hulk over everything else. Mackinaws are a close second. Then Retrievers, Covetors, Prospects, Endurances and Skiffs are about equal (a Skiff is a preferred target over the other four but it's much harder to kill, we usually need 7 to 15 pilots to hit one and if we have that critical mass we'd usually rather hit Orcas and/or Freighters).

Procurers and Ventures are the ones we bother least with.

Now you have no reason to trust me, but people who aren't gankers will probably chime in and verify this information is accurate.

As a side note, a low skilled new player absolutely CAN blow up mining ships for fun and profit - a humble Atron with very cheap fittings can kill a Venture, Prospect or Endurance before the space police turn up. You'll have to deal with the wrath of the law (including a 15 minute 'ban' from highsec) but there can be ISK made doing this.

And just to re-iterate, you can get killed "for the glory", which actually means if they use a ship that costs them 600k to kill your 80 million mining barge, even if the Concord police comes and punishes them by destroying their ship, it still looks good on the killboards that they use to track PVP rankings and see who's best. Plus, your 80 million mining barge may drop some of those expensive mining lasers in the wreck it leaves behind, and even a single 3 million ISK mining laser can refund their 600k ship 5 times over.

So, high-sec is not safe, and "best" depends.

If you're after the ISKies, the Venture or Prospect. Low/null/WH gas is excellent ISK. I believe the best gas can earn you 90m/hr. But you'll need semi-decent scanning skills to find gas sites. You can also ninja mine mercoxit in WH ore sites, which make about 20-30m/hr, IIRC.

The Endurance comes second. I haven't mined ice out in null, but in low sec, you can make about 25-30m/hr mining glare crust.

while true, they are (as a rule) hilariously bad at it.
there have only been a handful of dedicated groups that were not wildly inept
and im pretty sure none of them do it anymore.

id say its a concern but far from a pressing one, just use a procurer and largely get ignored.

Even a cursory glance at CODE.'s KB tells us that SG is still very much alive and well, bumping time notwithstanding (which is more of a concern when ganking freighters than ganking miners, though of course still relevant). Anti-ganking - IMO - won't and indeed can't evolve, as the necessary tools simply don't really exist, unless CCP drops them in the game somehow. You never know, though...


However, I feel that, for the OP, it's good SOP to live and act in New Eden as if there is a persistent threat lurking. These skills are valuable and are never wasted time - awareness of one's environment, always being at the keyboard, aligned or orbiting, checking local, etc. etc. Regardless of whether the actual threat is real or not, it will always pay dividends to be aware, awake, and ready for trouble!

True. But if you KNOW that your stuff is in that freighter (see: you are doing a corporate move to a new location or you are an industry/trading corporation and assist each other in various ways) then "warm fuzzies" aside... there is a "reward" of sorts for helping a friendly freighter not get ganked; your stuff arrives at its destination.

This is why competent industrialists/haulers for "good" PvP corporations hold a lot of clout. If they ask for help, you had best show up and help them as they may be ferrying that "special something" you asked for!