Because 99% of the time escorts are useless.
They can’t lock fast enough to actually make a difference once a gank starts, the ganker knows you have them and throws an extra ship if they really want your ship. They act as a minor deterrent while massively decreasing your profits.
And most people know how stupid that is.
Ganking is bad gameplay currently.
Note, this is the gameplay of ganking, not the fact ganking happens I’m talking about. Ganking should totally happen, and I have no issues with how many ships get ganked currently. (Some minor issues with certain groups that like ganking ventures en mass on occasion of course)
Just talking purely around the gameplay involved in a gank.
Indeed. And because of this, JFs aren’t sensible for long-distance freight through HS 99% of the time. In general: if you’re making a long trip through HS, it better be in tank-only mode, and when you’re actually freighting you switch to/from a freighter whenever you cross the border. I think this is what Destiny was implying - in far fewer words.
Except for all those cases where you need the JF tank mode to make the isk/ehp ratio good enough. DST’s have the weakness that they need their tank in OH mode to make the high EHP, and they can be caught without their tank modules even on as well at which point they are comparatively easy to alpha.
So Destiny was straight out wrong that it’s stupid to use a JF in high. Sure, some use cases can be done other ways, but because of the lack of fitting options for freighters and the above holes in DST’s they have their place in high currently.
I was employing hyperbole on the DSTs, but it suffices to say their financial liability is lower (in an absolute sense) and the incoming damage is far lower due to size.
Destiny wasn’t wrong, she was just pointing out that it folly the overwhelming majority of the time. It almost never the case that the goods you are carrying are sufficiently low volume AND precious that you would ultratank a JF and carry it all and justify the call-to-arms liability that even an empty JF brings (glory to the killboard!). From a risk assessment point of view, the infrequent loss of a low-value freighter + low value goods is a lot more bearable than the singular loss of a JF (with or without goods) in most situations. The same is true of DSTs and any other transport ship compared to the JF.
But yes, you are absolutely correct to say that there exists some situations such that you would want to use a JF. Maybe you’d want to freight a Fortizar w/ some ORE Bulkheads or something.
So let me get this straight: your argument is that because a regular freighter doesn’t have enough EHP to survive ganks, allegedly because its ISK/EHP ratio isn’t good enough, a ship that provides about 170% of a freighter’s EHP at 1,000% of the cost should be used instead?
The isk/ehp ratio is about the cost of the GANKERS ships to the Isk value of the cargo.
The hull cost is an expense to the hauler and helps make the KB look prettier, but is not relevant for the ‘Is this ship worth ganking’ calculation.
Okay, but JFs give you the best of both worlds, because now we’re examining two different ratios:
One is the ISK/EHP ratio of the total value of the ship (KB glory / grief value)
One is the ISK/EHP ratio of the profits from drops
When it comes to the stupid-expensive JFs, the innately-high first moooooooore than compensates for a low or non-existent second, especially since most JFs aren’t stupid-tanked in HS. I’d be willing to be that Joe Average EVE player flying JFs in HS is using fewer bulkheads than other low slot modules, and it’s Joe Average that gankers feast on.
So aside from the fact that you’ve never ganked before, and have no idea what you’re talking about, I’m going to point out one more time that the health margin between a freighter and a jump freighter is about 70%, so the jump freighter would need to carry 70% more in value over a normal freighter’s gank threshold to become a viable gank. That could be the rough difference between 1.5-2.0 and 3.0-3.5 billion ISK, which is not a lot at all. And many gankers would be willing to take a pay hit just to bag a high-profile target like that, out of principle.
Ok, but that isn’t the ship being stupid, that’s the pilot not using the ship to their advantage.
And if you can make the actual profit ratio low enough, gankers aren’t going to bother as long as there are other targets rolling through that day which they can profit on, or there is an actual burn jita or something going on where they just shoot anything that moves.
Even you’ve said above that there is a time to use it, which makes Destiny’s statement false. (Edit, and the above maths equation wrong for the average ganker maths, I’m sure you can find one ganker who uses different maths of course)
However all of this just reinforces how bad the ganking mechanics are, when it’s a maths equation.
Ganking is a bad mechanic because it involves math? As opposed to, you know, everything else in the game? What should it be, then? Spin-the-wheel? Maybe it should be like a visual novel game where you select one of three dialogue options, and get an outcome that depends on what you chose?
Are you even reading the words you’re typing before hitting that post button?
No, ganking is a bad mechanic because the primary gameplay is doing the maths beforehand, not piloting skill during the engagement and situational awareness.
You clearly aren’t speechless, you clearly have a lot of words to say and a lot of insults to throw, and a lot of goalposts to keep moving.
I’m actually genuinely concerned for you right now, because I think you might be having some kind of episode - I don’t remember you going off on such nonsensical tirades before. And I’m about to have an episode too, if this keeps up.
Destiny made a generalization. Generalizations are allowed to have qualified exceptions. Destiny chose not to qualify them, so I qualified them for her.
Nevyn’s smart and raises good points. No "but"s about it.
Indirect insults, like the accusations of having episodes and tirades in the very same post… they are still insults. And if you don’t realise that I’m very disappointed in you, I’m pretty sure you do know that.
