Suicide ganking: Difference between revisions

As [[CONCORD]] will always react to destroy any ship which earns a [[Criminal Timer]], the aggressor is guaranteed to lose their ship - hence the term "suicide ganking". However, CONCORD does not react instantly, giving the attacker time to try and destroy their target. The aim of suicide ganking therefore is to destroy a higher value target than the value of the ship or ships being used to gank. Frequently, this manifests in a maximum DPS destroyer destroying a [[Mining Barge]], a cruiser destroying an [[Industrial]], or a swarm of destroyers destroying a [[Freighter]].

Knowing how to gank in the T1 Catalyst above is benefitted by knowing the capabilities of the ship. It an optimal range of 1.4km, and falls off to half damage at approximately 5km at maximum skills. The goal is to get as close as possible and to engage before the target warps off, this is best done by utilizing a friend or an alt in a ship that can provide a warp-in, either via a probe scan or by approaching the target, and then having the gank catalyst warp to the friend or alt in fleet. Every meter you can get closer to the target, the more damage you'll do before CONCORD destroys you. When you're at a close enough range, approach the target, activate your warp disruptor, then your guns and webifier immediately after.  

In general for suicide ganking, you don't need to bring that much ammo since you're going to end up dead anyway, just enough has been added into the cargohold of the above ships to ensure that you have plenty before CONCORD arrives.

All systems are assigned a [[System Security|security ranking]], from -1.0 to +1.0, visible in the top left of your screen, next to the system name for the system you are in. High Security systems range from 0.5 to 1.0. The higher the security rating of a system, the faster CONCORD will respond to criminal acts, and therefore the less time a ganker has to destroy his target before CONCORD appears and takes him out.

* This assumes that the criminal act is the first recent act in the system, and therefore that CONCORDare a "fresh" spawn. If they have already spawned and are on-grid elsewhere, their reaction time will be slower (around 5-6 seconds additional time) - smart gankers can exploit this as explained in the tactics section below.

* This is only the time to arrive. Once on-grid, they will lock the target (around 2 seconds) then aggress the criminal for up to 15 seconds with high damage weapons, and capacitor neuts, before they one-shot the ship if it is still alive. While most gank ships cannot tank Concord damage (or the capacitor neuts) for more than a few seconds, it is important to note that additional time is required after Concord arrives for them to actually destroy the criminal ships

The table below gives very rough calculations of the total damage applied by typical gank ships (as per the fits above, with max skills) in various sectors, assuming CONCORD is already on grid elsewhere in system – i.e the maximum possible time is available for ganking.

Multiplying the DPS of a ship by the seconds you have before the CONCORD response is a good way to approximate the damage you can do before you're destroyed. Just keep in mind that the overall raw DPS will be slightly higher than the estimate, but range and tracking issues may reduce the overall DPS.  

When looking for a gank location, you are essentially looking for high traffic, or high value traffic, and also for low security status which allows you the most time to execute the gank before Concord responds.

*Freighter Undocks – Most freighter pilots try to avoid ganks on the undock by using an instant-undock in dead space from where they prepare their actual trip. If an instant-undock is known, or can be scanned down, then the freighter can be ganked in dead-space, with a lower Concord response time than on gates. This requires a considerable fleet to successfully gank before the Concord response in systems like Jita, Amarr, Rens, and Dodixie.