How do I defend myself when I get ganked?

Next time I’m attacked, what are some good strategies to give myself a fighting chance against getting wrecked, instead of just sitting there and taking it?

Post your killmail and maybe you could get some advice. We don’t even know if you were in a venture or a freighter.

Stormbringer | Kaizen ‘Trader’ Oramara | Killmail | zKillboard

I was tackled on the gate and swiftly finished off.

The only thing that might work is to overheat everything and burn for the gate. “Fighting back” isn’t viable.

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Ok, makes sense. I’ll try that next time. Thanks!

Fitting for buffer tank instead of active tank during travels also works to an extent. Potentially not against 5 gankers, but it makes their attack a tiny bit harder

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Looks like you were engaged in criminal activities…

The usual “strategy” is to put your head between your knees and your arms around your head and kiss your [censured] goodbye.
You only have a chance to get away at the asteroid belts where you hear them warp in.
At the gates? It’s a massacre guaranteed every time. That’s where Gankbears hang out AFK until a juicy target gets through, gankers made aware of your arrival from the last jump and wake up their buddies: “Guys, easy kill jumping through from…”
The only way to pass through a gatecamp unmolested is if you aren’t the target.
I went through gates where it was all out war and ended up jumping through. I was surprised my ship was still in one piece but I realized I wasn’t the target.
If you want to avoid Gatecamps it’s simple: forget going to Null altogether and even sometimes to 0.3 and below.
Stay where CONCORD has the higher response times and all you’ll have to deal with are the hisec gankers. At least there there’s a good chance they’d lose their ship if they attack you. That’s some consolation at least.

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Ganks are designed to leave the target no chance of “fighting back”. They usually bring so much DPS on you so fast that neither CONCORD can save you nor you can shoot back and kill something.

There are 3 main strategies:

  1. Avoidance: stay away from the usual ganker’s hotspots. There are a few systems like Uedama/Sivala where security is low and they are on the main trade routes between hubs, so there is a lot of traffic. Gankers camp or at least watch them often. Do your stuff in remote corners of godforsaken regions and probably no one will even care for you.

  2. Dodging: Cloak/MWD and learn how to use it. It will work in 99% of all cases unless you can’t cloak because there is something nearby at your spawn point or they have a very very fast and skilled decloaker, which they won’t have in almost all cases. It leaves them no chance to tackle and kill you.

  3. Deterrence: Fit maxed Buffer for traveling around. Overheat if attacked and burn back to the gate as fast as you can. You can get around 150k eHP overheated on a Stormbringer, which is more than enough against most camps. Also you can get pretty fast with an overheated MWD, so unless they use lots of Tornados they won’t be able to bring you down. They will probably shoot something else because bringing you down would be too costly. Unless they scanned you with a 5B fit of course…

Also you should always pay attention when traveling who is lurking at the gates. People will usually scan you before a gank (but not every time). Sometimes you can see them locking you, sometimes they use a passive targeter but you can still see and hear the scanner. If you have been scanned, be aware, you might have been marked as a target.

Last but not least there is option 4: Baiting them and make them fail the gank. But thats risky and you should definitely know what you are doing.

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Very nice summary, thanks.

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Because of the short timer gankers are on with CONCORD, the gankers won’t engage you if they think you have a fighting chance.

So if you want to have a fighting chance I guess you need to have a trick up your sleeve that they don’t know about, like a cloaked buddy that they don’t see, or a lot more EHP on your fit than they calculated, because of implants.

I’m not really experienced in high sec or ganking, but your best bet in any part of space if you get attacked right next to a gate is to:

  • not attack (so you don’t get a weapons timer)
  • overheat your resistances, propulsion module and beliefs
  • burn back to the gate you just jumped through
  • and jump

They won’t be able to follow you through if they have an agression timer, so you can hopefully warp to safety on the other side. If some (or a lot) of them do follow you through, just repeat the trick as long as you have hitpoints and a functioning propmod.

I can not emphasis @Syzygium’s good advice enough.

The best way of “not loosing a fight” is to make sure you aren’t dragged into one that you will lose.
And Gankers attack you because they know they will kill you. They are basically the muggers of New Eden.

As in the real world:
Don’t flash expensive things rough areas of town: Be wary of flying blingy ships in know ganking areas.
Dress appropriately: Don’t put 10bn ISK in a paper thing T1 hauler.
Watch what is happening: Don’t AFK or Autopilot.
If something makes you nervous seek safety: mark the known ganking groups red and leave or dock up if local is full of them.

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EvE gate check can give you a bit of intel. If there’s been ganking on a gate earlier it will show it.

It’s not fool proof, but the more info you gather, the better your chances.

If you know you’re going through a system or two that are known to harbor gate campers, swap to your pod, and scout them out real fast.

(I don’t use alts. If you do, you could have a scout alt that is one jump ahead scouting the gates). To help you make informed choices. EvE really is about intel gathering.

General rule of thumb, don’t fly what you can’t afford to replace.

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Join Gank-Intel in game where me and many many others post info, very frustrating when warning about 40 gankers active only to see a JF jump in and get killed. gate check that was posted by Ax’l Thorne above is good, check zkill, twitch stream Twitch is another source, even the map in the game can show kills in the last hour.

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This is what I’ll try next time.

LOL learn how to EVE better :smiley:

? They always lose their ship LOL.

As for the OP, learn how to use F10.

What does F10 do, is that the map?
Edit: It probably is, if I look dumb it’s because it’s late and I’m tired lol

Yes. Best thing is looking at ships destroyed in the last hour.

If its a huge number and its high sec, then there’s only one reason :smiley:

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All right, thanks :smiley: