This is on topic:
Sorry to those who don’t reddit. It’s just where Xenuria posted it.
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It would not surprise me that it was CODE alts who sent that original mail.
Scipio as per normal jumping in with no knowledge, so what is the hard counter to a suicide point and a bumper? Answer, there is none…, the only way to deal with that is avoidance, perhaps find a hisec to hisec WH or watch the bumper get entangled with someone else and then go for it.
Stale sad, on easy game play
Dom of course you don’t read anything, it is pretty obvious, you just like yapping like a small cute lap attack dog.
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So what is the state of play with hisec ganking:
- Mining ships, they are in a good place overall.
a) Alpha accounts are stuck with easy to gank Ventures, however they are very cheap., no issue here.
b) There are a range of ships with different abilities, people can chose a ship and fit to tank to be a challenge to even the most prolific multi-boxer, they can fit cheap for yield and take the losses, totally fine.
c) Orca mining, can be ganked with special effort like freighters, as the Orca is sitting at a belt and without an MWD to get into warp faster takes an age to get out, so no bumping needed for fast attack fleets, the only reason that they don’t get ganked while mining is because there is no profit in it for the amount needed to gank them. This is at the level of ganking a Macherial bumper, no profit only loss which is why the gankers don’t do it.
- Ganking of Indy’s, DST’s
a) Indy’s can be tanked quite nicely, however it is not enough for a determined gang, plenty of small groups waiting on gates, overall balance is good and they can be stopped with clever play.
b) DST’s can be tanked to a very high level, but needs deadspace modules and requires overheating at the key moment, many that ganked are fitted for another way of operating, balance is fine.
- Freighter ganking
As stated earlier the issue is to do with the huge strategic and tactical advantage that bumping gives the gankers, in effect they totally control the time and place of the engagement, it is too much of an advantage.
Using a webber to get the freighter into warp before the bumper can get on it can be (and often is) easily negated by a suicide point, anyone who says otherwise is obviously ignorant of gankers in action.
The freighter has no real options in terms of this, if a bumper is on the gate of the next system the only option is to dock up and wait it out.
Without bumping it would be more of a race to get a valuable freighter with the freighter pilot having a good chance to go for it, cat and mouse games around the jump the gate and holding cloak would make it more fun and engaging for the freighter player who has tactical options to impact the gankers, at this point -10 and the penalties caused by faction police will have real meaning.
Until CCP deals with bumping in some way that ends unlimited time bumping in hisec this activity will continue to be totally out of balance and too easy, being high reward and no risk and the consequences applied to the gankers has no impact, conclusion the entire balance is completely out in terms of gameplay, you cannot get any more high reward / no risk in terms of any activity in Eve.
Bumping has a role in other areas of play, keeping people from jumping in small gang combat and bumping people off citadels, though people can just safe log in that situation if they are tethered. Another important aspect is stopping people from getting into warp to get points on them, but that is normally a one or two shot attempt and not the infinite number of bumps used in hisec.
Perhaps hisec gates should have a tethering system like Citadels with the ability to safe log, that would solve the issue without having to change bumping mechanics.
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Aren’t you the guy that sold all your freighters because you were too scared of being ganked? Yet my industry alt hails between the major trade hubs daily and has never been ganked doing so.
Knowledge comes from experience Drac. Not from hiding behind tears.
As for bumper + suicide point. This is not what you talked about before. You talked about bumper. A web is a hard counter to a bumper.
But I’ll let the data speak for itself on the risk of a bumper + point. Will post the data in a couple of hours.
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Scipio, you are trying to hard as per normal, you said the hard counter to bumping is a webber and I said that the hard counter to a webber is a suicide point to get the bumper on the freighter and asked you what the hard counter to that was, and you replied with insults and tried to change the subject and play with words, let me repeat the question you want to avoid.
Where is the hard counter to a bumper and a suicide point?
To make it clearer the suicide point is just a means to get the infinite point of a bumper onto a freighter.
Scared, lol, because there was no hard counter to suicide point and bumper I sold my freighter and only use DST’s, my knowledge comes from experience and not being on the Miniluv blue list like you are likely to be, so your experience is meaningless.
Of course there are a limited number of freighters that appear to have been suicide pointed, one trick is to get a session change on the suicide point so it will not be on the kill mail, are you lacking in basic game knowledge mate that you don’t even know that, as if showing kills without a suicide point proves it. I always had you marked as a ganker stooge, trying that one proved it.
So scared tears, lol. The only scared people are the freighter gankers who hide behind such lame mechanics and their tears here are glorious to see.
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Drac, you might want to check on lack of knowledge.
Have you ever been killed and podded and yet still appeared on killmails? Have you ever had a fight where the other guy killed you, but you still got on his killmail when he died a few minutes later?
A session change for the suicide point has no effect on the killmail (time does though, but we can allow a generous margin in the figures to account for that) It’s a session change for the potential victim that counts.
If I agress someone on a gate and he jumps through and is killed on the other side while I’m still waiting out my timer, I won’t get on his killmail because he session changed.
Nothing to do with the suicide point. This has been pointed out to you before, yet you still don’t seem to be able to understand. Go test it and maybe some experience will be educational.
So let’s see what the data shows about the risk of a bumper + suicide point; because I at least assume you aren’t wanting highsec to be completely risk free? Maybe you are. As someone that hauls daily, I’m certainly not. The more challenge the better.
I have been blown up and the guy blew up before I was podded and I was on the kill mail, I have been blown up and then podded and not been on the killmail, you might want to check it. That being said a corp-mate changed ship part way through which would have got a session change and he showed up as his new ship with the previous systems weapon system. It is rather buggy, I have seen quite a number of freighter kill mails where I know there was a suicide point or there had been a suicide aggro on a logged off freighter which did not show to know that.
In terms of time it is very important too, and that is why you often don’t see them.
You are just trying to counter the fact that there is no hard counter to a suicide point and a bumper by saying it don’t happen much, seriously mate you will waste your time pulling up that data even with the fact that many would be missing the suicide point. It is like trying to prove that people who did not fight the Goons or PL because their Titan and Super blob did not drop on them and saying you could not take out that fleet that killed x.
There is no hard counter to a suicide point and bumper.
Oh dear the hisec risk free barb, of course I don’t want a risk free hisec, that is pretty damn obvious, so what you are saying is that gankers will not be able to gank freighters without bumping and then assign the concept of because they can’t or won’t that hisec is now risk free. Think before you use such comments, they make you look weak.
PS I should also add that recently I shot a ship that was crawling back to the gate, stopped, waited out aggression and jumped through because he might make it through the gate so we wanted point on the other side. I did not show on that kill mail.
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Another thing, you will see that I mentioned the Miniluv blue list, when I do this CODE players try to act as if it does not exist or that they are not following it because they shoot Goons or that I am wearing some sort of tinfoil hat, aka ridicule the messenger, that is total rubbish. It does exist and they do respect it.
I was in EXE at one point when it was the CFC and I was told to register my neutral freighter pilot so that it did not get ganked, my current alliance is made up of many ex-Goons, some of which were heavily involved in ganking. Some of them have talked to me about hisec ganking and hisec operations, all of them acknowledge the existence of that blue list. One of them said that CODE was made up mostly of Goons alts.
The fun part is that I have not activated my spy account which is in the Goons and is in Miniluv, but some of these players still have Goon accounts, one of which does a lot of hisec indy and his freighter pilot is on that blue list, he found it quite amusing.
CODE will deny this, they like to pretend that they are hisec players and that they have no links with the Goons and it is just some guys getting together for fun ganks. That is so funny…
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Rubbish.
My original response which you claimed I didn’t know what I was talking about was purely in relation to bumping.
You didn’t mention the suicide point until afterwards. Shown to be wrong, move the goalposts.
As for trying to say it doesn’t happen much, I don’t say at all. The data does. It’s very easy to make claims when you never try to support them with any evidence at all. It’s your usual approach to discussions. Well, I’ll go look for data and include a heap of error margin to account for both time and no one on the subsequent killmail being linked to zkillboard. But looking for evidence is far better than crying about one side and being totally blind to the stupidity of the people on the other side that get caught, while advocating to remove aspects of the game that are enjoyable for many good haulers. It’s what gives them an advantage over those that get caught through laziness.
As someone that hauls regularly, past macharials on gates, I don’t want the game made easier because people cant take responsibility for their own safety and instead come here and whinge to CCP. So as much as you want to advocate against gankers, I’ll advocate for more freedom (for everyone in the game) and more risk. We don’t need spaceville. Just leave us with EVE.
Well you can’t have it both ways, you recalled that I sold my freighter, I was webbing my freighter, my decision to sell my freighter and go DST only was based on having no hard counter to suicide point and then the bumper.
I can just as easily say what is the hard counter for when a bumper has got on top of you, negating your webber reply. Again you are playing with words and rather badly too.
So your reply it does not happen much is your only line of defence because there is no hard counter, pure and simple. Nothing to do with stupidity, or people not bothering to take precautions, the simple question is what is the hard counter to a bumper once he has got on you? See your webber reply is not relevant because a suicide point is used on juicy targets who have a webber and there are enough of those.
Waffling off on responsibility means nothing, there is no hard counter.
You get all emotional here stating that you want a hard Eve, I can get emotional too, I want everyone to have a hard Eve which is why I want bumping changed. The game is very easy for freighter gankers…
You are on the Miniluv blue list so you sail past them no issue, does that prove something, nope.
Also there’s like literally (3) people in CODE. that gank freighters, and they aren’t in ties with Goonswarm or The Imperium at all. So no, a “blue list” isn’t something that the members in CODE. that are ganking freighters considers or references.
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Another web alt, what!
It does not do anything, the point negates the webber from getting the freighter into warp enabling the bumper to get on the freighter, stacking up webbers is not going to do anything, the point gets on the freighter and blocks the warp. I think you need to think that through a bit more.
And you deleted that post…
And that’s obviously a choice you felt best, which is perfectly fine.
As to counters, a couple of points at the end, but here’s the raw data:
Start Date: 1 June 2017
End Date: 31 July 2017
Total days: 61
Suicide Blackbirds: 101
Most common system: Niarja (17 suicide blackbirds in those 61 days)
Total number of pilots: 26
Most active currently:
Eel Soup (13 suicide points)
Tarwin JR (12 suicide points)
Jackii Utrigas (10 suicide points)
Jo Turner (7 suicide points)
Andie Benson (7 suicide points)
Those 5 represent 50% of all suicide blackbirds (see below for points to counter)
Now, there may also be pilots not linked to zkill, that don’t appear on any kill, which also requires in general all the gankers to also not be linked, or >15 minutes from the suicide point to a kill.
So lets multiply the number of suicides by 10 to allow a massive error margin.
Taking the freighter jumps for Niarja, I just sat before DT in system cloaked and counted the number of freighters that passed through. It was 42 per hour.
So assuming that the number of freighters passing through Niarja is proportional the the total number of players on the server, the couple of hours before DT is a pretty low number. So we’ll go with that as an average for the whole day, even though there are much higher periods of player activity.
Assuming that is a reasonable assumption to make (and if not, provide an alternative basis for measuring average freighter movements), in that same 61 days, an estimate of 42 * 24 * 61 = 61,488 freighter movements through Niarja (conservatively).
61,488 for a raw total of 17 suicide points.
Even multiplying the number of suicide points (blackbird only) x10, that still puts the likelihood at just 0.28%
0.28% likelihood of being suicide pointed in the most active system in the last 61 days, underestimating the number of freighter movements and over estimating the number of suicide blackbirds.
0.28%
That’s hardly likely at all, however there are ways to reduce the risk:
- reduce the consequence by hauling less (make yourself a less likely target)
- add the names of the common suicide point pilots to your scouts contacts and look for them in system and then be additionally careful when they are in system (note: They don’t fit cloaks, so you’ll know if they are on gate)
- the best: use sensor boosters on your webbing ship to reduce your lock time and then use the advantage you have in timing your web, to minimise the likelihood even further.
My webbing alt fit locks my freighter in <1 second. So if I lock and web effectively, the blackbird is going to have even less chance.
But those 3 things alone, reduce that inflated 0.28% even lower.
Can it happen? Sure.
Is it likely if you are effective as a hauler? No way.
Edit:
Here’s the code used:
https://gist.github.com/scipioartelius/a18c6fb63b1296aa63b081a52f270587
It’s ugly as hell because I just wrote it to get the job done, not to look good or be optimal. It only uses the standard library of Python, so no additional libraries like Pandas, etc.
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Scipio, first of all respect for going off and doing some analysis, I honestly am not trying to be a dick but the point was that there is no hard counter, not whether my decision to sell my freighter on risk was the correct one or not, I sold it at the time because I did not like not having a hard counter.
What you have done is risk analysis on a sample of data, including some assumptions, what you could say is that my decision to sell my freighter was rather risk averse. This means that you are effectively saying that the flock of birds approach to not be an attractive kill is the counter and there is truth in that, but I am talking hard counter.
What you have shown is that suicide blackbirds used to negate webbers is a real threat, and should I ask during your brief observational period how many of those 42 per hour were being webbed? And additionally how many freighters were ganked in that 61 day period? I could go and check that but you seem to be on top of it.
I always webbed my freighter, but during my time in AG I noticed that only a very small number of people were webbing their freighters, I am not sure how much that has changed. Certainly there is a greater use of blackbirds then I observed previously.
You analysis also showed why I stopped getting involved in AG, mainly because the market was not being affected which seems to have made Ima a bit cranky, who seems to have extrapolated from that that I did not think piracy was the reason for this, very dumb that, but I digress.
I agree with 1., 2, and 3., I used sensor boosters and webs on my Loki, however I did not put inertia stabs on my freighter, which I changed in the end. As you know Eve has a 1 second update, this means that as soon as your freighter decloaks you and the Blackbird are locking it, the inertia stabs reduce the time it takes to get to into warp but it is not instant and that is where you are vulnerable. How quickly can your freighter get into warp from the time it decloaks?
Have you actually had someone try to suicide point your freighter?
My thing was not to get into a position first and foremost so that the gankers would say yum yum time to use a blackbird, however as I am forum warrioring they might just say ah Dracvlad lets blow up his freighter because they can.
Anyway as I said there is no hard counter to the Blackbird suicide point, apart from blowing up the blackbird, but then again if I was doing a move op in hisec to move something large and valuable I would have a fleet organised to blow up any blackbird tackle and blow up the bumper too. I am not ignoring the point made by some people here that people should make an effort to protect their stuff, I actually agree with them, but the issue is in terms of game balance, that type of organised groups just do not exist in hisec and never really will and most people who fly freighters are solo players.
So the point that people say you need friends is valid, but it just does not happen, I sometimes question myself in terms of saying is hisec balance in terms of the structure of hisec correct in saying that bumping gives too much of an advantage to gankers, but I try to be honest about this, unlike people like Ima. My feeling is that with the state of hisec it does, but that is a feeling.
Always dangerous to expose your thoughts like this because dishonest people will just jump onto it, but I prefer to be open with what I think and why.
Respect again for that.
PS I was replying to another post, which I decided not to bother with and did not reply to Scipio’s post which is what this was supposed to be.
I never claimed there is a hard counter to bump+point, only to bump.
In my case, no hard counter doesn’t itself mean it is an issue. The overall risk (likelihood and consequence) are the basis for decisions.
Your choice to sell your freighters is totally your choice. I don’t really have an issue one way or the other. I value my right to choose my risk levels, so can’t expect someone else not to have that same right.
Whether it is risk averse or not isn’t for me to say. The only thing I can say is that when I post in the forum, it’s rarely from a position of no knowledge (which was the claim above).
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It is point bump, not bump point. I webbed my freighter always, but the point was the killer, what I am saying is that there is no hard counter to bumping and that the point is a hard counter to webbing.
By the way I have you noted as a more thoughtful knowledgeable poster, take it that I was surprised that you seemed not be aware of the issues with kill mails and trusting them to show how many blackbirds were suicide pointing, so if you take that as a smear I am sorry. Even very old players who know a lot about the game mechanics get caught out at times, I have…
I was operating in Niarja before when I was doing AG stuff and I have to say that is an increased usage of suicide points.
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yeah, yeah. Order wasn’t implied in my post. That’s just minutae
Right I thought you were referring to people jamming the webber, which is something that has been used. Since you weren’t referring to that I deleted the post since it was an irrelevant point.
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No problem, I had not seen or heard of people jamming the webber, though I had heard of them being ganked but certainly an option, but that explains your post, thank you for the explanation which makes sense now. o7
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