In 2019, CCP Games implemented a quality-of-life fix stating that ships will automatically enter warp after three minutes of attempting to align and reach the required warp speed. Two of the stated reasons were:
--Ending Infinite Griefing / Gridlock: “The 3-minute hard cap ensures that ships cannot be permanently held hostage without aggressive combat modules being used.”
--Forcing Commitment to Gank: “If attackers want to keep a ship pinned down for longer than 3 minutes, they are now forced to commit combat modules. This effectively eliminated “free” indefinite tackling via physics abuse.”
While this was a good change to address those issues, it is easily being circumvented by ransomers, web-duel scammers, and gankers. With only 5 or 6 toons with -10 sec status in a corvette, they can cycle through their toons, gank disrupting a freighter every 3 minutes that they’re bumping. The freighter can now be held indefinitely, “freely”.
I’ve witnessed multiple times that gankers tie up 2 or 3 freighters in this fashion. They gank one, and keep the other freighter or 2 on grid until their 15-minute criminal timer expires when they can go gank again. A couple pilots complained to me that they were held for over a half hour.
Here are two ideas I had:
--If a ship gets gank disrupted before the 3-minute auto warp kicks in, then there’s a 1 or 2-minute absolute auto warp that kicks in regardless of any warp disruption…unless the ship dies first of course.
--The ship gains a ramping up warp core stabilization (maybe +5) every 3 minutes so that it takes increasingly more ships to hold it down longer and longer.
I’m curious for people’s feedback on tweaks that could be made, if any, to the mechanic.
The bumping ship (usually a machariel) continually keeps the freighter from aligning so it can’t get into warp. Before the 3-minute auto warp timer kicks in, a toon in a corvette, or any cheap ship, flies to the bumper and “ganks” the freighter. The ganking ship does little damage to the freighter before being killed by Concord, but because it used a combat module (warp disrupt or warp scram) to disrupt the freighter’s warp, it resets the 3-minute auto warp timer. That now bought an addition 3 minutes that the freighter can be bumped, and the ganking ship is now on criminal timer for 15 minutes. 3 minutes later a second toon in a corvette comes out and does the same thing to the freighter before the auto warp timer kicks in. Now the freighter will be tied up for 9 minutes. After a 3rd, 4th, and 5th toon have done the same thing, the freighter will have been held on grid for 18 minutes, and the first toon will be off its criminal timer, allowing it to start the cycle over again.
Yes, this is exactly the tactic used when I was recently mach bumped and subsequently ganked. Using the corvette to reset the auto-warp completely negates the function of the auto-warp timer. Personally, I like the ramping warp core stabilization I think it provides a reasonable middle ground.
What they really need to do is ban all the gankers using broadcast input. I am not against ganking but it is out of control with 1 person running 20-30 toons using broadcast input. As someone who likes to mess with gankers a bit you can sit on gates and see which ones do it. Ganking should be in the game but it is getting where people are quitting the game because it is so overpowered.
But how is the game supposed to know the difference between a suicide corvette attack vs. any other situation. It sounds like it would need blanket allowing warp after 3 minutes in high-sec, no matter what. Or maybe after 3 minutes you gain “warp stabilization” which is enough to overcome brief pointing by a single vessel
proof of that? proof of everything firing at once, or every few seconds? several players have shown they can control that many toons without using input broadcasting.
You’re wrong, Clint. The 3-minute auto-warp fix works fine. Gankers cycling toons is not a loophole—it’s a deliberate trade-off: they invest multiple accounts, negative sec status, and criminal timers. Holding a freighter for 30 minutes means they’re burning their own time and risking CONCORD. That’s not “free.”
Your proposed “absolute auto-warp” or ramping warp core stabs would kill emergent gameplay. Ransoming, bumping, and even legitimate PvP tackles rely on sustained disruption. You’d be buffing freighters to near-invulnerability for anyone who can wait 3 minutes.
Stop trying to change the game for people who do the wrong thing. The mechanic already solved the real abuse (perma-gridlock via physics). What you describe is just standard ganking with overhead. If you don’t like it, fit stabs or fly in a fleet get good
Totally agree, I was ganked down to 1 bar of hull, the gank fleet wiped, I tried warping off 3 different times but each time this shitty mechanic prevented it even though I got the audio “warp enabled”. Eventually the ganker got the last hull down, F#$%N frustrating…
I don’t like getting ganked. I don’t like gankers. But you know what? I don’t cry about it, I learn and adapt. Try that for a change, and quit your whining…
This thread isn’t about ganking. Let’s try and stay focused here people
I have no personal issue with ganking. I’ve ganked a few times in my career. The point is, is being held on grid for 15-30 minutes or more by a bumper in order to be ganked good gameplay or not. And if not, then what are some good solutions to the mechanics?
