Create an *ACTUAL* Downside to Player Piracy

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
103

Like you, I also wasn’t around for James315 himself. I took away a different message.

High sec needs to return to its dangerous roots, with pilots willing to be dangerous for whatever cause they wish — revenge, honor, vigilante Justice, piracy, fame, riches, etc — and there needs to be less players that treat the game as a job to min-max away, who behave basically indistinguishable from bots. Until you blow them up, that is. Then things get interesting because it’s like blowing up their livelihood to them because they treat the game like a job — at which point their repulsive character finally has a chance to be on display. Not all of them do, but a fair amount do. These are the kind of folks that think to themselves „I am a good person“ and never had to face adversity from anyone to actually have their own behavior prove themselves wrong. Are those the kinds of people worth defending and associating with? Up to each of us individually to decide.

That’s the message I take away.

3 Likes
104

Another lie. The profit margin for my style of ganking is not there at all anymore (that’s why I went to LS) and I can’t be bothered to wait for hours on a HS gate for a 5 bil freighter to come through.

105

I can appreciate parts of that, to some degree. I don’t know when the JAMES315 thing went down, but I’ve played this game on and off since 2008, the thickest stretch between 2010 and 2014. I don’t recall suicide ganking being as prevalent or as profitable as it is now.

Obviously that was a while back, and I might have missed it. Prices have changed too, so that might add to the sticker shock of seeing “this pirate kicked 1 Trillion ISK”… I remember the first Rattlesnake I bought was ~480,000 ISK which was damned expensive. I tagged along with any incursion fleet that would accept a Drake for weeks jut to buy the hull. Ended up losing though, due to a corp war.

I lost a few ships back then, but never against a fleet of one player on ten pilots, not expecting to survive… Usually it was gangs of three or so, which seems reasonable. What happens now is rather absurd.

106

If this is what you want then, not all of this, but a lot of it could be achieved, in-game and in-story, by having Concord redefine hi-sec to 0.6 or 0.7, on the basis that with the increase in Faction Warfare and the Tryglavian invasion, this is all they can afford/be expected to cover. This would end most of the “safe” routes between Empires, and compel capsuleers to take appropriate risks when undocking.
You would also want means for planetary industry sites to be fought over, and for MTUs and Depots to be raided, thus forcing people properly to defend them,

And, before you ask, I live and work in hi-sec,

107

like eve , ganking has evolved , and been fine-tuned . if it wasn’t profitable , many players wouldn’t do it . many do gank at a loss , for their own reasons . ( like your friends in MMH , who secure Abud to have exclusive mining of the ice belt ) .

you’re getting distracted by a couple factors ; multi- boxing , which is irrelevant to other players . it doesn’t matter how many players control a fleet , only how many ships in that fleet . that’s the only factor that has in-game affect . you don’t like it , obviously , but ignore that eg. 10 paid accounts contribute more to eve online , than a player with one account .

you overly focus on high-value ganks , which are the vast minority . have you looked into the big picture ? is ganking , eve-wide , considering all factors ( bad drop , failed ganks , stolen loot , cost of tags etc.) profitable to the extent you portray it ?

finally , you fail to follow one of the basic tenets of warfare : know your enemy .

you know they have basically unlimited funds , and usually fly cheap ships . you’ve already determined you can’t hurt them fiancially . and you’ll likely never profit , hunting them .

yet , you seem intent on intervening , that option is part of eve , and if it can entertain you , good !

tl/dr … you can’t stop them , you can’t run them out of money . but you can piss them off and waste their time .

as suggested , fit a jamming ship . you’ll have to learn to anticipate their target , get good on d-scan , and have some luck .

but if you do manage to jam out enough dps that the gank fails , you’ve effectively cost their entire fleet and made the op a total loss . many ganker corps aren’t API linked , and don’t show their losses . I’ve had several complain that I’m “whoring” on concord’s kills .

those are really your only options , but i tell ya , ganker tears are the best …

1 Like
108

Why on earth did you lookup my killboard? That was silly of you.

Tell me dear person who looks at killboards. Is it easy to activate killrights on multiple players who hang out together as a gang? or is it a pain in the ass?

109

I believe the problem with ganking is the fact that, ganking targets (at least industrial and hauling) can’t proactively do anything about defending themselves. They can only be reactive. Watching local for spikes, marking known gankers as red, warping back to station to protect themselves…these are all reactive solutions. And none of those options promote PVP. I don’t think ganking should be nerfed or banned or anything like that, I think all gameplay styles should be encouraged…whatever keeps pilots in the game.

I mean think about this, if you have a mining fleet out in an asteroid belt and a ganking fleet warps in on you. There is nothing you can do, but hope your tank is good enough to last until concord comes to get you. That’s lame…lets say that same mining fleet has an escort of pvp fit ships…thats not going to change anything. The expensive mining ship will die before you can stop the gankers. And then concord will be the ones to kill their ships, not you. That’s lame…maybe if you had enough pvp ships on grid to counteract the ganker ships…maybe. But all of this means you have to have a bunch of ships on grid doing nothing until maybe a gank fleet comes your way.

To be fair, I don’t know the solution…but I feel like that is the problem. There just isn’t any real options for industrial and hauling ships to proactively protect themselves…

In the case of hauling, I see all of the advice that floats around is don’t fill your ship, don’t transport more than X amount of isk, don’t do this, don’t do that…well all of that seems lame to me too. Having these ships and then the only way to use them means don’t actually use what they are intended for is stupid.

Like I said, I don’t have any idea what the solution is, but I don’t see many people talking about this part of it. It is always “nerf gankers” or something like that. I think that right now, the game works in a way that is maybe unfair to non-pvp ships. I’m not sure that is the right way to put it. I just think there should be options that can help promote better gameplay all around and promote pvp as a whole.

110

Tell me, dear player who has no clue about HS PVP, why would you activate a KR on a toon below -5?

111

https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Electronic_Countermeasures

112

What do you mean with “unfair”? Both are constructed for different purposes, so they excel on different fields. Ever tried to haul 500.000m³ of Ice Blocks in a Catalyst? Isn’t that “unfair” as well then?

No, if you do any activity, you need to teach yourself the risks of that activity. They can come from NPCs, from the environment or from other players. And you need to take precautions not to fall prey to those risks. Gankers often use numbers, coordination, knowledge and preparation to do their job and to successfully avoid being their victim, any industrialist or missionrunner should do the same.

There are many ways not to end as a wreck, people just have to use them. Its absolutely not as difficult or even impossible as some people claim. It’s harder to do solo, but no one forces people to play solo in a massive multiplayer game. If they really insist to do it solo, well, then they must do all the preparations themselves, yes. But as a corp or with some friends you can easily set up a mining/hauling/missionrunning operation that is nearly ungankable.

2 Likes
113

That is potentially an answer, I hadn’t thought of that. And I don’t know pretty much anything about ECM or EWAR so I don’t know if that even could be an effective strategy. How realistic is it to protect a fleet of miners with EWAR ships, how many would it take to stop a gank, of like 10 catalysts? Can you even do that before they begin the attack and take out your ships? Wouldn’t that cause you to become the aggressor? Could you even lock and EWAR them before they kill your ships?

Like I said, I know next to nothing about the specifics of Jamming and EWAR…

114

Like I said, I think “unfair” isn’t the right word. I’m not sure how to describe what I see/feel about it. A large part of them problem is that I (and many others) don’t know enough about all the mechanics of the game to know how to do it right. But do any of those setups not involve you running away if a ganking fleet comes into system? What can a corp mining fleet do to stay on field and survive, that doesn’t rely on NPC intervention? And also doesn’t rely on having huge amount of ships on field doing nothing.

I could understand having a couple combat ships on field to protect a fleet, even 1 to 1 for a ganking fleet, but is that possible/reasonable. Could 10 combat ships stop 10 ganking ships before they destroy your industrial ships?

And what about bump ganking? How can you realistically defend against that? You have to have an another player/alt that gets a timer? Or you are out of luck…they are abusing an exploit with no risk…and you have no recourse? I wish I knew more about all of the mechanics and tactics to actually know the solutions, but from the onset it seems extremely one sided…

115

Are all toons that have attempted a gank <-5?

116

This brings up the first question: Why would you even want to stay on the field if you know the opponents bring combat ships and you are in mining ships? I mean, if you have a spoon and you see anyone coming at you with a machine gun, would you look for ways to “win” or simply avoid that engagement? If you are a deer and you see a wolf, just run.

Fit tank instead of yield. Use Skiffs instead of Hulks. Use overheat. Use Shield Command Bursts. Store Combat Ships inside the Orcas and switch to them when gankers warp in. Yeah, your mining pilots would need to learn to fly these, but if you want the fight, learn the tools. In general you have to decide how much you want to invest for your protection (and again, isn’t it just easier to warp off and blueball the gankers?). But if you for whatever reason want the fight, well, then you need to live with the idea that most of the protection measures like additional tank, logistic ships, ecm ships, combat ships will be wasted if nothing happens.

That depends on the type of gankships used. An Oracle for example can kill 4 Catalysts before CONCORD is on scene in a 0.5sec system. I tested that in Uedama. The Cats will still apply some damage before they die, but you can easily calculate that one Tier3 BC (Tornado, Naga, Talos will also work) efficiently removes 2 destroyer’s or bombers DPS from the gankfleet. If they gank with Tornados/Talos its different, because these are able to apply most of their damage before you can down them. However if they use these, they have paid a high price for the gank.

Again, depends. He tries to tire you with his bumps, make you stop mining or pay him to be left alone. Are you willing to play this game longer than he does? You can bring your own counter-bumper for example, if he is good, he can intercept quite a few hostile bumps. You can prepare the mining area with lots of bookmarks 200km away and everyone stays aligned all the time, so if one is about to be bumped, he instawarps off and immediately warps back to the belt. Yes that costs some cycles, but the hostile bumper will get frustrated. Or switch to MiningFrigs and orbit the roids with MWD. He will not bump these very successfully. Then lets see who has more patience. See it as a challenge, not as a disturbance. If you can make him give up, you will talk and laugh among your corpmates and friends about this day by far longer than the few ISK you lost would have lasted.

Knowledge comes with time. Rely on the fact that loss is nothing horrible, it simply happens if someone with more experience and a better plan engages you. Try to learn from it, replace the ship and move on. Don’t get frustrated, try to find out how the gank could be successful and decide if you want to invest into preventing it the next time (with time, effort and ISK).

And yeah, ask others for help, there is a solution for almost every situation in EVE, one way or another. Good luck.

3 Likes
117

“What can a fleet of vulnerable non-combatants do to remain on the (battle)field and survive,” feels like an unrealistic expectation to me.

That’s not to say it’s impossible to do, but if you’re expecting to accomplish it without expending more effort than it is worth, you’re likely to be disappointed.

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118

Except you can’t always get off field. Your orca is stuck in the belt even if you can get your miners out. So I ask again,

119

No, it isn’t. You can fly aligned between two safespots and still boost the whole fleet, tractoring in their jetcans over the whole belt. When the Orca is full, warp to a safe, compress, come back. Really nobody forces you to keep the Core running all the time if you have no means to protect your 2B ship in case of an attack. Thats your decision, and sometimes someone takes advantage of it.

1 Like
120

That’s what I’m asking, what can you do to protect your ship in case of an attack? I don’t realistically believe or want a miner to be able to fight back and win against strictly combat ships. That would be ridiculous. But would it be so ridiculous to have an industrial command ship that could protect you and your ships.

I mean, the Orca is nearly a capital ship as it is. Why not be able to have legitimate protection/defense capabilities. Obviously there would need to be give and take for balance.

Also, I really dislike the notion that an element of the intended gameplay is essentially unusable/unplayable because of the ability of some to circumvent/exploit game mechanics. It takes away from the game, instead of adding to it.

121

The „exploit“ is actually „intended game mechanics“. They could have patched out ganking in 2004, and it’s year 2023 and still here.

Ganking is „intended gameplay“ and you don’t want to do it for whatever sandbox reasons are. Ok. On the other hand, greedy min maxing mining „exploit gameplay“ to maximize mining yield is balanced by that „intended gameplay“ enough so that people don’t feel safe doing the „exploit mining gameplay“.

I don’t believe any of it is „exploit“ I just wanted to reverse the use of your propagandist rhetoric to show how extremist it sounds. There is no „intended“ gameplay (it raises the question: „by who: the devs or players“ which is a red herring because it doesn’t matter, players will just do it in a sandbox), that’s just a made up term for a sandbox game.

1 Like
122

I don’t understand how wanting to max out gameplay in every other aspect is fine, but for mining it is greedy.

A ship designed to do a thing is intended gameplay, there are modules and ships specifically designed to get the max of a thing, whether that is DPS, Mining, Shields, etc…that is “Intended Gameplay” and not an exploit, they literally spent the effort to put those things in the game. Using a way a mechanic works to do a thing that is not intended is an exploit.

Being able to bump someone away from concord so you can kill them was not a thing specifically coded into the game. Figuring out how to “pull” concord to give you 11 seconds instead of 6 to gank someone is not intended gameplay. It is something players figured out worked and use that, that is like the definition of an in game exploit.

A ship that is designed to haul the most amount of cargo, and can be fit to haul even more, is an intended gameplay mechanic. A ship with max mining yield bonus with modules, implants, and bonuses that raise those stats are intended gameplay. A ship with bonus to drones or bonuses to scanning or bonuses to shields, etc…those are intended gameplay.

Nothing about bumping or ganking is designed intentionally, they are “exploits” payers have found to do a thing, just because they haven’t patched it does not mean it was intended. If you believe they designed those aspects intentionally, you give CCP WAY too much credit.