Suicide Ganking 101

From UniWiki

Contents 1 Class Information 1.1 General Information 1.2 Notes for the Teacher 2 Class Contents 2.1 Introduction 2.2 What is a Suicide Gank? 2.3 Why do people gank? 2.4 How to gank 2.5 CONCORD and empire consequences 2.6 Hunting 2.7 Protecting yourself from suicide ganking 2.8 Class Wrap-up

Class Information

This class is about suicide ganking, how to do it, how to protect oneself from it, and the motivations behind it.

General Information

Illustration link for class description on the Eve University forum: http://i757.photobucket.com/albums/xx216/ScoopIrish/ganked.jpg

This class is aimed at people within EVE University who are interested in the concept of suicide ganking, want to try it themselves (after they leave, of course), or simply wish to learn methods of avoiding suicide ganks.

• Duration: TBC
• Location: Docked up safely in a station

Class contents:

• What is suicide ganking?
• Why people suicide gank, and misconceptions about suicide ganking
• Ships and fittings for suicide ganking
• Hunting a target
• Knowing what you can gank vs. what you can't gank
• Kill rights, security status, and CONCORD
• Hunting a target
• Avoiding suicide ganks (Fly smart, situational awareness, fitting for protection, etc.)
• Q&A

Student requirements:

• Mumble registration and access - make sure you have Mumble sorted out and operational well before the class begins. Use this guide for set-up: http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Mumble
• Access to the Class.E-UNI in-game chat channel

Additional information: This class is primarily lecture delivered in the Class.E-UNI channel in Mumble, followed by Q&A.

Notes for the Teacher

Required materials:

• Class.E-UNI chat channel, to receive questions and post relevant links
• To be developed: Fittings and ships

The Teacher should be familiar with CONCORD mechanics, killrights, and security status as well as having at least a strong theoretical background in suicide ganking and its process.

Class Contents

Introduction

Welcome to this class on Suicide Ganking!

This course is designed primarily for anyone interested in suicide ganking, or how to protect oneself against gankers.

Over the next hour or so, we shall cover......

• What suicide ganking is
• Motivations for ganking
• How to gank
• How to protect oneself from ganking

(Instructor should then introduce himself or herself - covering relevant experience level and background.)

We have a few ground rules for this class:

• Please put your Mumble settings on "Push to Talk" if you have not already done so.
• Feel free to type any questions in the Class.E-UNI chat channel as we proceed - I will try to answer your questions as they come during the class. [At the end of my lecture, we'll open Mumble for any further questions or general discussion.]
• You should be [docked up safely in a station [in Aldrat if you intend to participate in the practical exercise], or located....]

Also note: E-UNI doesn't allow suicide ganking most of the time while you're a member. After you have left the university you are free to gank, and the corporation is neutral on the subject overall.

Everyone ready? OK, then - let's begin....

What is a Suicide Gank?

Suicide ganking is when a player attacks another player whom he/she doesn't have kill rights on and isn't at war with in hisec.

• CONCORD will respond after the attack has begun
• Suicide gank fits are designed to either Alpha (ie. kill with one shot), or put out a lot of DPS in a short period of time before CONCORD responds.
• Some ships and fits are particularly popular for suicide ganking, while others are more popular for different types of ganks (eg. barge killing, exhumer killing, orca killing, freighter killing).
• The attacker can be stopped by CONCORD before the target's ship is destroyed
• The attacker will always lose their ship. Avoiding losing a ship after a suicide gank is considered an exploit.
• The attacker will lose security status, and if successful, give the victim kill rights (but only if the victim didn't aggress back, this includes aggressive drones attacking the ganker)

Why do people gank?

• Profit
  • Some people have expensive fittings or expensive cargo, it can be profitable to suicide gank a ship and take dropped loot. The ganker will have to consider the potential value of the loot drop versus the value of the gank ship
• Economic dominance
  • Goon/Clusterfuck coalition Gallente ice interdiction is an example
• For fun
  • Gankers may operate alone/in small groups, or may be working towards winning a competition, eg, Hulkageddon.
  • Gankers tend to see suicide ganking as just another part of EVE's PVP model, and hunting down unaware and afk pilots takes some skill and patience
  • Gankers may find it entertaining to "extract tears" after a gank by convoing a victim or talking to them in local.
• Important note: Flying without expensive cargo or limiting your cargo value will only protect you from the subset of suicide gankers who are in it for profit. There will always be someone who will find it funny to blow up your afk autopiloting covert ops frigate with a 5 mil cargo.

How to gank

• Fly cheaply, you're going to lose your ship anyway
• Don't fit a tank
  • The exception to this is when flying a group of smartbombing battleships
• For gunnery gank boats there are two approaches, Alpha and DPS
  • An Alpha gank boat will normally fit artillery, and will either aim to alpha (take down in one volley) a target, either alone or with other alpha boats.
  • Common ships for alpha attacks are thrashers, ruptures, hurricanes, tempests, and maelstroms
  • The weapons used for alpha attacks are usually the largest artillery in their size class, eg. 280mm, 720mm, 1400mm, of various meta levels depending on the target/budget
• And for DPS:
  • DPS gank ships usually fit either Autocannons or Blasters
  • Need a high rate of fire
  • Must be able to calculate roughly how many volleys you will get off on a target in a short amount of time, and how much damage each volley will do, compare to estimates of target's EHP.
  • Must be right on top of a target due to close range nature
  • Common DPS gank ships are the thrasher, rupture, hurricane, catalyst, thorax, brutix, (and for large ships like Orcas and freighters) Hyperion
  • Common DPS gank weapons are 200mm, 425mm, (occasionally) 800mm autocannons, and ion and neutron blasters of all sizes.
• Always fit the maximum amount of DPS/Alpha-increasing modules as you can, eg. gyrostabilizers, don't spare a lowslot
• Always use faction ammo, 15% extra damage is a lot
• Check your DPS in EFT, scale up to higher meta levels (or even T2) if necessary, but remember your fit should be relatively cheap
• Use extra damage slots if possible (eg. missile slots on a rupture). This isn't always necessary on some targets, but can be useful sometimes. Drones can also be useful on ships that can carry them for extra DPS.
• EFT warrioring will help you know what you can take and can't take.
• Fit a warp disruptor or warp scrambler if your target may attempt to escape. It's generally best practice to fit a meta 0 tackle module.
• Always use T1 ships, always insure them

CONCORD and empire consequences

• CONCORD Will always destroy a suicide ganker's ship. Sometimes before the suicide gank is complete. It is an exploit to evade CONCORD. Warping before CONCORD spawns will cause them to spawn where you drop out of warp.
• Do not attempt a gank when CONCORD is already on grid, this means almost instant response time.
  • You can pull CONCORD from a belt/wherever by having a disposable alt go GCC Somewhere else in system. CONCORD will leave that grid and spawn to kill your alt. You can also pull CONCORD from belts by undocking in a noob ship while your GCC (GCC is explained below) is live, and letting CONCORD come to kill you again.
• CONCORD response time depends on the security level of the system, as does security status loss. It seems to be roughly 4 seconds in a 1.0 system, with 2-3 seconds added per point of security lower
• CONCORD will warp scramble, stasis webify, jam, and energy neutralise your cap on spawning. As soon as CONCORD spawns the game is over, not when your ship is killed.
• If the victim does not aggress back (eg. aggressive drones), they will have killrights on you for 1 month. However if they do aggress back, they get a killmail for the CONCORDOKKEN of your ship.
• Your security status will be lowered for aggression, and if the victim didn't aggress back, ship killing. It is sometimes possible to lock and kill a victim's pod in hisec before CONCORD spawns. This carries a very harsh security penalty.
• For 15 minutes after a suicide gank you will have a GCC (Global Criminal Countdown). If you undock in any ship in hisec your timer will be reset, and CONCORD/station guns will kill your ship. Other players may also kill your ship without penalty. Your pod is still not a valid target as long as your security status is above -5.0
• If you attacked someone on a gate or station, faction police and sentry guns will shoot you. They can't jam/neut you, but this can be an exception to not fitting a tank

Hunting

• You are generally searching for people who are afk, not paying due attention, or simply can't align to warp out in time
• If you are looking for barges/exhumers to gank, start in 0.6/0.5 space. Use d-scan on entering a system, warp to planets with belts and d-scan the belts to identify potential targets
  • Warping to a belt may alert the more wary targets out there
  • If you land at a belt and the target is out of range and you have no prop mod, identify a wreck or asteroid near the target, bookmark it, bounce back
  • Use covops for warpins on group targets, such as hulks when you're in a group of destroyers.
• If you're looking to gank a valuable target, fit a ship scanner and/or a cargo scanner. Consider passive targeters though there's no need for AFK targets.
  • You must have an alt or friend ready to loot the wreck

Protecting yourself from suicide ganking

• Always tank where you can. Having a higher EHP causes the ganker to need to deal more damage in the time allowed to them by CONCORD Response
• Don't fit/haul ridiculously expensive s**t, use a covops, blockade runner, or a cloaky T3 for that.
• Don't autopilot. Ever.
• Don't AFK mine.
• Don't afk in space uncloaked in general

Class Wrap-up

• Thanks for attending this class!
  • I would appreciate any feedback from people on how to improve the class
• Questions ?