A couple of things:
Current Orca ganking campaign
With the current ganking campaign in response to Hateless’s ■■■■■■■■, Vengeful Hawk (and alts) don’t gank 24/7, nor does he gank right across highsec.
In terms of when he is ganking, it’s EU/US time, so if you are outside his specific gank window, then you have a huge safety advantage in an Orca just because it’s an Orca:
Additionally, as he doesn’t gank right across highsec, these (and surrounding) systems are generally the ones to stay away from at the moment:
If you can play outside his playtime and/or play in areas of highsec that he doesn’t operate in, then your chances of being on the ganked list are very low.
There’s good reason why he ganks in those systems. It where a lot of people mine, because they want only a short haul to market. It’s a perfectly valid choice for them, but exposes them to greater risk.
If you are ok with a slightly longer haul to market, or have industry set up a bit away from Jita, etc., then you can not only lower your risk, but also have less competition from other miners.
General approaches
- find a dead-end or pipe system and protect yourself with an alt as eyes
- don’t mine AFK
- don’t just mine at the warp in point to a belt (cloaky ships won’t be affected by this, but otherwise you’ll have plenty of notice of a gank scout moving towards you
- fit tank so it takes as many gank alts to kill you as possible (that will be a deterrent to many ganks) - I would personally just go for max yield and not worry about tank, but if you want to minimise all risk, or expect to have times where you’ll be AFK, then fitting tank helps
Just taking the first 2 of those points will make you virtually ungankable in a practical sense. No matter if a ganker wants to target you, you’ll be gone and not vulnerable well before the gank ships are even in system.