Is Hisec ganking good for the game?

[Aisha_Katalen]

@Grokan_Eriker

I hope people like the exercise they get from moving those goalposts all the time.

First it’s “Git gud! Tank your ship, fly with escorts, blah blah blah.”

Then it’s “Yeah, you still get ganked even with all those things, but it’s good because of the interaction of game systems, blah blah blah.”

What people are talking about is risk management, not risk removal. If you tank your ships and don’t move super valuable stuff you lower the CHANCE of being ganked, especially if there’s other more worthwhile targets around. But the chance is never zero and if there are no other targets around you might get ganked anyway.

Ganking happens but it’s quite easy to not be the most obvious target meaning it probably won’t happen. However, if for whatever reason you anger a ganker you INCREASE your chance of being ganked. Being AFK, on AP or anything about your ship, fit or character can make you a target. Freighters running cargo expanders are such a thing, AFK miners are another.

[Aaaarrgg]

@Drunk_Moon

I dont think that ganking as it is right now is good for the game. I beleive a lot of new players are probably leaving the game after losing all they have or a good portion of what they have.

new players dont have anything to lose and what they do lose can be replaced in minutes ,even by mining if they are that way inclined. also If they quit eve due to a loss then they are going to quit soon anyways, they are not the type of folk that stick around…

@Drunk_Moon

The problem for me is Its to easy to gank worthy ships (Freighters/Orca/Mining T2 ships) in HS with cheap ships like the Cata. CCP should make it harder in some way.

new players are not going to be flying very expensive and skill intensive ships , a noob wont know what they are for\ have a use for them or be able to acquire or fly them.

if a new player is flying them then they are likely an alt of an established player who has spent a lot of isk and that is a perfectly valid target by anyones standards.

[GerwazyPL777]

I’m not familiar with how economy in echoes works, I’ve never played it. I liked the idea that was implemented in this game, it sounded logical - fulfilling the role of highsec as safe spawn with low risk-low profit expectations. Does it have that bad effect on gameplay there? Causes imbalance in destruction vs production?

I did quick research on echoes economy reviews and the most common issues players are massively complainining about are terrible(lack of) trade data system, problems with manufacturing efficiency using blueprints, too much simplification of fits and items and Chinese botters.

[Ramona_McCandless]

I think you just made me blush IRL you charmer

[Daichi_Yamato]

The lack of non-consensual pvp and built-in botting mean that players can farm 24/7.

There are wide complaints of inflation in echoes. And I’ve seen rumours of the devs undercutting players on the plex market to try and hide it.

But by all means, if that’s what you want, play it and see.

[Gix_Firebrand]

As I only recently came back, I didn’t know Uedama was the Tama of high sec. I made it thru in my little bestower cause I actually fit a tank and an EVE lifetime of low sec life instincts.

Since then I have engaged in standard practices and never once been ganked.

Just get gud.

[Ramona_McCandless]

@Gix_Firebrand

standard practices

There’s a phrase I haven’t heard in a long time

[Gix_Firebrand]

Yes. People just need to learn the ways of old.

[GerwazyPL777]

Isnt bestower killable by a single frigate and if tanked, killable by destroyer and has the same cargohold as lighter and faster sigil?

[Gix_Firebrand]

Good thing it was a vexor And uh, a bestower can fit a pretty good tank. He was solo, probably thought I was nub and just started to blap. He didn’t even break shields my boy.

[Scipio_Artelius]

@Drunk_Moon

The problem for me is Its to easy to gank worthy ships (Freighters/Orca/Mining T2 ships) in HS with cheap ships like the Cata. CCP should make it harder in some way.

At what point, should players be expected to actually look after their own safety?

There was a post in another thread last November that I just repeated the analysis of again now, looking at the age of freighter pilots that get suicide ganked.

Pulling the last 1000 freighter group (Bowhead, Charon, Fenrir, Obelisk and Providence) losses in highsec:

Earliest loss: 23-Dec-2020
Most recent loss: 14-Sep-2021

Total Days: 264

Type of Loss	Number
War	61
NPC, Insurance fraud, Baiting, Other	125
Possible gank	814

Mean freighter suicide ganks per day: 3.1

As an aside before breaking down the ages of the freighter pilots at the time of loss:

• The last time I counted the average number of freighter movements per hour through Uedama, the mean was 21 freighters every hour
• Even if it’s now half the that number, taking the ganks in Uedama, 99.4% of freighter movements that pass through Uedama, pass through with no problem

Even for the most gank active system in the game, moving the biggest, slowest, in some respects juiciest targets through the system has a very low chance of a problem.

The numbers don’t really match the level of perceived risk. That actual risk is much lower than many people just assume it to be.

However, back to the question in the first line of this post, looking at the age of freighter pilots at the time of being ganked:

Measure	Value
Mean age in Years	6.7
Median age in Years	6.3
Std Dev in Years	4.93

So just as last year, more than half of all freighter losses are flown by a pilot more than 6 years in the game; and 84% of losses are flown by pilots more than a year old.

On the graph below, the age (in days) is plotted for each gank. The horizontal black line, is 1 year of age:

Nothing has really changed.

Pilots that are old; and who should be experienced, aren’t prepared to do the same level of preparation that gankers do; and they lose their ship as a result.

That’s no one’s fault but their own and CCP shouldn’t be rewarding their laziness with safer play that allows even lazier play.

I would expect that if the the same analysis was run for Orcas and exhumers, the ages would be lower. Skill injectors and the ever increasing speed at which CCP likes to just hand out skillpoints allows a lot of newer characters to bypass the learning curve.

That also isn’t the fault of gankers.

[Gix_Firebrand]

Exactly. The percentage that gets ganked is small and mostly peeps who don’t prep. There are ways and means to sail right past the gankers and never be seen. Esp without a cloak.

[Complex_Math]

Do you mean to say “especially WITH a cloak”?

[Githany_Red]

@Grokan_Eriker

Then it’s “Yeah, you still get ganked even with all those things

The point about doing these things it increases your chances of survival , as someone who has saved many ships I can say all the one’s I’ve saved have been well fitted with players flying the ship (well there was one but he rage logged as gank started, we saved him from two ganks in a row , he was surprised when he logged in and still had a ship to say the least)

If you do what people suggest here and people are around to help your odds of survival get better.

It’s also nice to see large groups of ships warping together , I was in a gank spot for only 1 hour yesterday and 2 groups of freighters , one group comprising of over 10 ships the other around 5, it shows some are planning and thinking about their cargo runs .

[Gix_Firebrand]

No. The without a cloak was intentional. When you learn the old ways, you don’t even need a cloak module fitted.

[Dracvlad]

@Daichi_Yamato

On the contrary. Ganked players were sticking around longer.

Not true, inless you included that the sample was 30 day trial players.

@Scipio_Artelius if it your analysis is based on killmails then your analysis is flawed as most gankers do not report to killboards.

The issue is that hisec freighter players are often single account and they are easy kills as no scouts and no webs, their sole option is to log out and play another game. This is the fault of CCP for giving them no real mechanic to avoid loss apart from logging.

@Gix_Firebrand

Exactly. The percentage that gets ganked is small and mostly peeps who don’t prep.

I came across several solo hisec freighter players who were ganked out of the game.

@Githany_Red

also nice to see large groups of ships warping together , I was in a gank spot for only 1 hour yesterday and 2 groups of freighters , one group comprising of over 10 ships the other around 5, it shows some are planning and thinking about their cargo runs .

That is indeed good to see.

[Qia_Kare]

@Dracvlad

The issue is that hisec freighter players are often single account and they are easy kills as no scouts and no webs, their sole option is to log out and play another game.

You do not ever have to fly a freighter, though, to play Eve.

If you just want to say ‘Freighters suck because there’s not much to do when you fly one’ then that much I can agree with.

I did buy a Charon in my Eve career, but I hated flying it and I hardly ever used it. If at all possible I would make due with a Deep Space Transport, Blockade Runner, or Orca. Anything with active modules.

I would sometimes agree to use the freighter to move especially large items to or from Dodixie, our local trade hub, but this was rare. The most use the freighter got was actually to move materials into, around, or out of lowsec. In those instances I found I was not in need of buttons to click to keep myself interested. Because I am a non-combat kind of player, and person, I agreed to fly the slow and defenseless freighter while counting on others to protect me. I didn’t find it required a lot of trust on my part because, while it was my freighter, it was not my stuff in it. People gave me their stuff, I carried it, then gave it back, then I’d get some other stuff, carry it back home, and give it back.

For me, at least, a threat to a freighter created an opportunity for me, as a person who doesn’t like to shoot anything, to do something with and for other people that they did not want to do themselves. I don’t mind being shot at so much. I don’t mind being at risk of losing my ship. I just really don’t like the idea of shooting at another person.

Anyway, if we needed a large amount of junk that just had to come from Jita, and therefore go through a gank hot spot, I would contract a delivery. Not because of the ganking, though. Because flying the freighter was boring and I’d rather spend my time doing other things. If ganking was actually enough of a threat to make me feel attentive, I might do it myself with escort like I did in lowsec.

Basically, I flew a freighter only when I wanted to, and for my own reasons at the time. If I didn’t want to, I always had an option to achieve the same end without piloting a freighter myself. Since flying a freighter is so optional, I don’t really feel like the small amount of interdiction that takes place is really upsetting game balance all that much.

[Scipio_Artelius]

@Dracvlad

your analysis is flawed

Every analysis is flawed (has sources of error) and it’s very rare to find a dataset that is 100% complete.

However, if you are trying to suggest that the error is large enough to make the analysis invalid, then I’m all eyes and ears on a how that has been validated.

I already considered it (and several other sources of error) and validated that the scope of the analysis above is still valid, however it’s totally possible that I missed something, so I’d love to see any validation counter to that.

[Wadiest_Yong]

Changes come with opportunities !
Suggestion: CCPlease, make skill plans a market/contract single use item (injectable is good).
Examples:
Skill plan #1 : “Train the skills to properly fit your freighter against ganking”
Skill plan #2: “Catalyst ganking training plan”

[Uriel_the_Flame]

@Wadiest_Yong

Skill plan #1 : “Train the skills to properly fit your freighter against ganking”

It’s called training Common Sense to at least L1