Suicide ganking

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Reason: September 2019 release added 3 minute timer to initiate warp. Impossible to perma-bump a freighter now.
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Suicide Ganking is the act of attacking another ship in High Security space without a valid kill-right on them (via a war declaration, suspect timer, or otherwise).

As CONCORD will always react to destroy any ship which acts in such an aggressive manner, the aggressor is guaranteed to lose their ship - hence the term "suicide". 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 being used to gank.


Suicide gankers tend to have a target or type of target in mind when ganking, and as such suicide ganking can be broken into several categories. Roughly from the most basic to the more complex:

Shuttle and Podkilling - The act of killing Shuttles (Including the expensive Leopard) and Capsules for large killmails. Looting is optional if your goal is to simply pop the capsule, and since you can't scan you can do this with a single account! Simply gra a thrasher, lock a pod, make sure you're in optimal range, and press F1. Miner Ganking - The ganking of Ventures, Mining Barges, or Exhumers that are mining in belts. Requires 1 or more accounts to engage in, although having a scout is required if you have too low of a security status to slowly approach a target, and even more useful in order to scan the fitting of the miner so you know if you can destroy it or not. The scout can also double as a looting ship, as the cargo of a Mining Barge or Exhumer is generally low volume and can easily recoup the loss of T1 Catalysts. Industrial Ganking - The ganking of Industrials, Blockade Runners, or Deep Space Transports as they travel from location to location. Generally requires a minimum of 3 accounts, as you'd need a scout (scanner), a ganker generally in a cruiser in order to tank the gate guns and get effective DPS onto the Industrial, and an Industrial alt of your own in order to loot the wreck. If you're selective enough with your targets a relatively large profit margin can be made, although there might be large gaps of time without a viable target. Abyssal Ganking - The ganking of ships capable of running Abyssal sites in highsec, which can range from Assault Frigates, to Faction and Pirate Cruisers, and T2 Cruisers. These generally are much more difficult to gank, as Heavy Assault Cruisers and Assault Frigates have an Assault Damage Control which can nullify a large percentage of incoming damage. Usually requires 5+ accounts, but is more cost effective with more accounts. Finding viable targets can also be difficult, as it can be hard to get a scan on the Abyssal Runner and it requires a bit of ingenuity to figure out how to do this. Freighter Ganking - The classic large fleet versus Freighter fleets. This setup also lets you hit other high tank ships such as Battleships (Including Marauders, Blackops, and Faction/Pirate Battleships), Deep Space Transports, Orcas, and other ships. Usually requires 20+ accounts in order to start hitting the weakest of freighters, and can have up to 100+ before it can kill the most tanked freighters with T1 Catalysts even in Uedama. Jump Freighter Hunting - The hunting of Jump Freighters. 99% of this involves trying to catch the nigh uncatchable Jump Freighter using tricks, social engineering, or praying they got lazy and complacent. There is a lot that goes into this that isn't public knowledge because

Ships Used

Ships used for suicide ganking prioritise damage over tank, and try to do as much damage to their target for a given ship cost. Ships that are typically used include:

Starter Suicide Destroyers

The basic template will be blaster Catalysts, or artillery fit Thrashers. Two sample fits using cheap Meta modules are shown below. Tech 2 fits look essentially the same, with all guns and damage modifiers upgraded to T2 variants for a substantial boost to DPS 

[Thrasher, T1 Thrasher]

Gyrostabilizer I
Gyrostabilizer I

F-90 Compact Sensor Booster
F-90 Compact Sensor Booster
Warp Scrambler I

280mm Howitzer Artillery I
280mm Howitzer Artillery I
280mm Howitzer Artillery I
280mm Howitzer Artillery I
280mm Howitzer Artillery I
280mm Howitzer Artillery I
280mm Howitzer Artillery I
[Empty High slot]

Small Processor Overclocking Unit I
Small Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer I
Small Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer I


Republic Fleet EMP S x49
Republic Fleet Fusion S x49
Republic Fleet Phased Plasma S x49
ECCM Script x2
Scan Resolution Script x2

[Catalyst, T1 Starter]

Magnetic Field Stabilizer I
Magnetic Field Stabilizer I
Magnetic Field Stabilizer I

Initiated Compact Warp Scrambler
Fleeting Compact Stasis Webifier

Light Neutron Blaster I
Light Neutron Blaster I
Light Neutron Blaster I
Light Neutron Blaster I
Light Neutron Blaster I
Light Neutron Blaster I
Light Neutron Blaster I
Light Neutron Blaster I

Small Processor Overclocking Unit I
Small Processor Overclocking Unit I
Small Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer I


Federation Navy Antimatter Charge S x160

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.


As for a strategy for the above Thrasher, the main benefit for the Thrasher is it's much higher alpha strike and range in contrast to it's much lower overall DPS. It has an optimal range of approx 9.4km and falls off to half damage at approximately 16km. The goal with the Thrasher is to first make sure you're within range, and then to minimize the transversal to the target you're shooting if it's a smaller target- this is best done by stopping your ship for a couple seconds before firing on the target. Thrashers excel at killing capsules, ventures, shuttles (including leopards) and other ships that a Catalyst cannot deal with due to it's low range. A benefit to a Thrasher is it's ability to select damage, if you aren't sure what to shoot EMP tends to be the best ammo for most targets you'd want to shoot.


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.

System Security Rankings

Main article: CONCORD

All systems are assigned a 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.

CCP has never confirmed "official" response timers however by observation, most of the community has accepted the below as "average" values. Response time can vary by 1-2 seconds.

Security Rating Base Response Time
0.5 19 seconds
0.6 14 seconds
0.7 10 seconds
0.8 7 seconds
0.9 & 1.0 6 seconds

A few caveats:

  • 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

DPS Calculations

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.

Ship DPS Approximate cost
Catalyst (Meta Fit) 385 2m ISK
Catalyst (T2 Fit) 770 14m ISK


Approximate Response Timings 0.5 Security 1.0 Security
Base Response 19 6
Time if System is Pulled 24 11

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.

Industrials vary vastly in EHP, they can have anywhere between 4,000 and 25,000 EHP. Blockade Runners are slightly more tanky, capping out at around 39,000 EHP. Deep Space Transports can have hundreds of thousands potentially, capping out at approximately 500,000 EHP.

The Retriever and Covetor tend to have under 15,000 EHP, and the Procurer caps out at around 50,000. The Hulk and Mackinaw tend to have under 25,000, and the Skiff tends to cap out at around 70,000.

Freighters on the low end have approximately 240,000 EHP at the weakest, and can have up to 750,000 max tanked and with implants (freighter pilots often have implants). Jump Freighters can vary anywhere from 400,000 to 1,100,000 EHP with implants.

Always know the fitting of the ship you're shooting before you engage as the way any ship is fit could drastically change it's EHP.

Tactics

Scanning Alts

When hunting for high value targets, it is common to use a neutral alt either at nearby trade hubs, or further along the pipe where the gank is planned in order to use a cargo scanner on potential targets so that the gank fleet can select and prioritize ships for targetting. This is particularly useful in busy routes such as Jita – Amarr

As a hauler, if you get yellow boxed at any time on your trip, you can assume that you were being cargo scanned for this purpose, and that a gang of gankers is active in the area. If you are flying high value cargo, you may have been flagged as a target. However note that passive target modules can allow smart cargo scanners to scan you without yellow boxing. The safest is to always assume gankers know what you are hauling at all times.

You can prevent scans from penetrating your cargo by using cargo containers, however many gankers will simply assume in that case that the cargo is valuable and gank you anyway. Simple rule of thumb for safety is just to never haul more than 2bn ISK to avoid being a high priority target.

Bumping

  • Bumping is the bane of any Freighter pilot’s life. Essentially it means ramming a target ship with yours. This knocks the target off their alignment, and prevents them from warping. Importantly, this act does not trigger any suspect or criminal timer with Concord, meaning that a persistent bumper can keep a ship from warping effectively indefinitely.
  • The standard use of this is to keep a freighter (being the slowest ship to align) on grid for as long as it takes for a gank fleet to form to destroy the unlucky hauler.
  • For bumping ships the following is important:
    • High Speed - easily able to reach a freighter before it warps to start the bumping, and able to build up good momentum for the bump, assuming it also has:
    • High Mass – again, mass + velocity gives you the momentum to bump large targets such as freighters
    • High Tank – A hauler pilot may, if the bumper is squishy, simply have an alt suicide gank the bumper in order to escape. A high tank ship makes this impractical and assures the bump can continue for extended periods

For all these reasons, the most common and useful ship for this is the Machariel, and a Machariel hanging around a gate at range is a strong sign of a ganking gang looking for targets

As a hauler: The best way to avoid a bump is to use a webbing alt to allow you to get into warp faster (before the bumper can catch you). Once you are being bumped you have very limited options. If the bumper makes a mistake and accidentally bumps you into alignment with another object you might be able to warp out.

The best option is generally just to immediately click "log-out" (NOT "safe log out"). This will leave your ship in space for 1 minute after you log out, after which it will disappear, and you can log back in later once the gank fleet has moved on. However if the bumper can assemble a gank fleet inside the 1 minute log-off timer, you may still die, or if the bumper employs a Corvette as suicide ship as described below. For this reason it is best to initiate this strategy as soon as possible after the bumping commences.

Other strategies can be attempted such as suicide webbing the bumping ship, however none are particularly effective against an experienced ganker.

Corvette Aggression

  • If a bumped target initiates a log-off during the bump, the ship will remain in space for 1 minute, then disappear, UNLESS they have a combat timer of any sort. A common tactic then is to have an alt fly a Corvette to shoot the bumped target. CONCORD will almost immediately destroy the Corvette, but the combat timer on the target Freighter will prevent log-off for another 15 minutes. This can, with preparation, be used to keep even a logged off target in space indefinitely until the actual gank fleet arrives

As a hauler: There is no real defense here. If a gank fleet has gone to these lengths and prepared well, then you are likely dead at this point.

CONCORD Distraction

All methods of Delaying CONCORD's Response are considered an exploit by CCP: Exploit Notification Delaying CONCORD Response

  • CONCORD uses advanced technology to warp extremely quickly around space. However they are NOT instantaneous. If a capsuleer engages in illegal activity (combat for instance) elsewhere in the system, CONCORD will warp there to destroy them, and it will take some time for them to re-set and head to a second location (where the real gank is occurring). By using rookie ships to engage in illegal combat away from the intended location of a gank, a fleet can delay CONCORD’s response time

As a hauler: Just remember that rookie ships are not necessarily harmless. As you can see, they are used by gankers for a variety of utility tasks, and a system with many rookie ship kills on Z-Kill may be an indicator of gank activity

Citadels

  • The introduction of Citadels offers a few key benefits to gankers.
    • Logistics: Citadels can be deployed almost anywhere in Hi-Sec (besides trade hubs and rookie systems), allowing staging bases for re-shipping and free jump clones to be established nearby to a ganking area
    • Tethering: Fleets can tether off Citadels for remote repairs and invulnerability so long as no criminal timer is held. This allows faster response time for gank fleets, and a safe harbor following a gank attempt

Key Locations

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.

Trade Pipes

The key regions of Empire space (Amarr space, Caldari space etc) tend to be linked via “pipes” of systems with single entries and exits through which all ship traffic between these regions must pass, without a huge detour. More specifically, freighters travelling between Trade Hubs (the most frequent destinations for cargo) MUST pass through these pipes without going through low-sec (very dangerous particularly for Freighters), or adding on 20 or so more jumps to go around.

These pipes also tend to be lower security than “core” empire worlds, often at the lowest hi-sec security ranking: 0.5

This makes these systems ideal for ganking of high value targets such as Freighters.

Common Hi-Sec pipes for ganking include:

  • Uedama: On the Jita – Dodixie trade route
  • Balle: Key system on the Amarr – Hek route, and second choke point of the Jita – Hek route
  • Systems surrounding any of the above. Many of these 0.5 pipe systems have other 0.5 or 0.6 systems either side, for example Sivala (0.6) next to Uedama (0.5), which are often also used for ganking where targets may be less prepared and aware.

Trade Hubs

Trade hubs are some of the highest security space around (0.9 – 1.0) however they have various characteristics which make them useful for certain types of ganking.

  • Blockade Runners – Blockade Runners carry some of the most valuable cargo around, and also carry very small tanks. However they are extremely fast, and generally always travel under a covert ops cloak making them challenging to gank. The most common way they are caught therefore is on the undock of trade hubs, if they are slow to issue the warp command, or around the docking radius where lazy pilots use the “dock” command rather than an instant-dock bookmark, and land outside of the docking radius
  • 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 however
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