So, you’re saying that a ship that specializes in mining should be just as good at dealing damage as a combat ship that is fit for maximum damage… and that would be fair.
Anyway, for anyone who cares, ganking is asymmetric game play. It’s like those horror games where one player is monster who hunts a bunch of normies. The normies get various advantages like alarms, traps, or the ability to hide, but are generally ■■■■■■ if they get caught. Well, same thing for Eve. There is actually a ton of stuff that you can do in order to reduce your chances of being ganked to damn near zero. However, if things progress to a point where a ganker actually attacks you, you’re pretty much done for. You’ve already failed to use most of the tools at your disposal (but not all), and it is relatively easy for a ganker to assess whether or not he can succeed at the gank -which brings up another interesting point worth addressing.
So, PvP’ers of all types will try to assess whether or not they can win an engagement before taking it. However, the nature of ganking makes it considerably easier to make quick and accurate calls. You don’t have to factor in a ton of variables, or try to weigh the importance of incomparables. Instead, you basically have two simple formulas. One determines whether or not you can succeed at the gank, and the other determines whether or not the gank is expected to be profitable.
So, yeah, it’s super easy to assess whether or not you can gank someone, which can give the impression that it’s easy to gank. But what you’re really seeing is a selection bias. Most targets are either too hard to gank, and/or not profitable enough to gank. And so gankers watch them fly on by, while they wait for a suitable target. Funny, how nerf gankers seem to ignore everyone who doesn’t get ganked.
Believe it or not, it’s actually pretty easy to effectively neutralize the threat of ganking. But if that’s the case, then why do so many people think otherwise. Well, some people just don’t know any better. I try to point them to guides, such as the how not to be ganker bait section of this thread. Some people are blame shifters, who blame anything and everything but themselves for their failures (including balance and mechanics), some people just don’t want PvP, or “non-consensual PvP” in Eve, and some people just want to lower their risk or increase afk-ability. And so they do thinks like argue from a position of ignorance, do all sorts of funky mental gymnastics in order to try to support their position, and/or just straight up argue in bad faith.
I have done an absolute but ton of hauling and PvE in HS, yet, I have gone about 6 years since the last time I was ganked. So, when people come here claiming that ganking needs to be nerfed, or that they need to be buffed, they’re really saying something completely different from what they think they’re saying -they’re saying I don’t know what I’m doing, and rather than try to learn and grow as a player, I’d rather ask for me to be buffed and/or my enemies to be nerfed.
