Defending Miners in High Sec - This an ICSI (If Code Shoot It) compliant tactic that does not require a permit or any ISK to use.
From NRDS to you High Sec
When a gank takes place CONCORD shows up, usually after the gank has taken place for any real defense to happen. So what is CONCORD really good for you ask?
The question is how do you get CONCORD to the help you?
1.Create two alts on your main account and train them to use a T1 weapon non-civilian weapon.
2.Drop a can in the belt that you are intending to mine in with your main character.
3.Log out and then back in with your Alt.
4.Attack the can with the Alt so that CONCORD spawns into the belt.
5. CONCORD will attack your alt destroying but will remain in the belt.
6. Return with your mining character and mine in peace.
Repeat 1 through 5 every time CONCORD leaves the belt.
With CONCORD already in the belt CODE and the two or three ships they use to gank your mining barge will not be not as capable to destroy your mining barge as easily because CONCORD will respond immediately.
Using more alts to attack the initial jet can will cause more CONCORD to spawn at one time.
So put CONCORD to use and become an NRDS Compliant CONCORD agent today.
The same mechanic can be used to protect a stargate with CONCORD to keep CODE from ganking.
You can’t use more alts to attack the jet can at the same time, especially Alphas, since they can only have one toon logged at a time. And if you log out the toon that just attacked the jet can and log in another alt to attack it, Concord will already be there to nuke your alt and no additional Concord forces will arrive. Not to mention all that CODE has to do is pull this same trick elsewhere in the system to pull Concord away from your location. Like I’ve said a hundred times before, carebear ideas rarely work out in the carebear’s favor. You want to avoid getting ganked by CODE? Fly a tanked Procurer or Skiff, or simply don’t be AFK. And lastly, Concord does nothing to keep players from bumping you for hours on end…
Alphas doesnt fly barges. So this has nothing to do with alpha characters neither I see him mentioning this.
This tactic can work quite well unless atackers have exceed number of ships (like 8 catalysts for one poor retriever, its not that uncommon especially with CODE) or unless they scout the target with cloaky scan alt first (which is not always a case).
Even if they see the concord. They eiher have to ignore you, bring exceed number of ships or pull the concord away from you. If they pull concord by ganking someone else or just citadel w/e you should notice the concord is no longer guarding your belt and leave or re-pull him back to you with alts.
This tactic is probably the best you can do if you want to still mine in the gank attractive ship.
On the other hand, if everyone would do that then it wouldn’t work unless miners would work together and spawned it in same time. Also, if you spawn concord in your sector, gankers get more time for their gank if they attack someone else in that sector. But considering that one corp/multibox operation will stay on one belt it shouldn’t worry you.
I was once in a system plagued by gankers, I worked out some anti-gank tactics that sort of worked, even had cordial chats with the bat-sh**t loony-tunes Code players. But it was still an inconvenience and I needed, as now, a secure hi-sec mining system to replace what got shot up in my ill-fated endeavors in lo/null-sec. And the point of this post is that there are quiet little systems with asteroid belts heavy with high value ore where Code never comes. It takes some degree of time and patience but these systems can be found. For the last few months I’ve been mining a system where the most dangerous attacks came from spawning Gurista (sic?) hordes where the best defense is simply to GTFO before the big guys arrive. This system (never mind where) will work until it no longer works, then it’s time to find another system. But they are out there, all you got to do is find them.
Again, that has to be coordinated and can be easily circumvented by ANYONE doing the same thing in a different belt, or planet, or the sun, or the gate, or… You see where I’m going with this, right? Getting miners to coordinate to do anything useful is like trying to herd cats. Even with your proposed solution, all the gankers have to do is bring a few more ships. In the end, you won’t save one single Retriever, Covetor, Hulk, Or Mack. There are only two mining ships that stand half a chance against gankers, and those aren’t it. And the players you are trying to protect from the gankers are the ones flying paper-thin, untanked, max-yield mining ships. Simply fly a tanked Procurer or tanked Skiff and you will have near-zero problems from gankers. Ever. It’s that simple…
This sounds a lot like a known Exploit, which is to delay a CONCORD response:
Committing a criminal act and delaying CONCORD response for an extended period of time.
Commonly involves leaving empty ships or drones in space that CONCORD focuses on before dealing with the attacker. This exploit is not limited to drones or ships and applies to any item or method which might be used to delay CONCORD.
It is also considered an exploit to commit a criminal act and prevent ship loss to CONCORD by any means.
//source
While it doesn’t explicitly mention what you are describing but it has a very similar effect of “Manipulating CONCORD”, and as such I would very much like to caution anyone of using this tactic as it could possibly get you punished in one way or another.
You may want to double check that with your CCP GM friends before you accidentally start a whole report flood because some ag folks think pre-spawning or moving CONCORD violates that rule (hint: it doesn’t).
Well it’s always good to be careful around certain game mechanics (and you should file a petition and ask if you have doubts), what Dryson proposes has been declared ok by a lead GM in the past:
Whether such a strategy is effective or useful is another matter, but spawning and moving CONCORD around a system is allowed, and how can it not be? It would be a logistical nightmare (not to mention unfair) to punish players for CONCORD behaving exactly as coded into the game. I mean how does one decide if one player is acting or colluding with another player to move CONCORD? For example, if I commit a criminal act in a system, is another player not allowed to gank in that system until downtime because I spawned CONCORD and they gain some seconds? Or is a miner who comes along hours after I log off not allowed to mine in a belt under the protection of the CONCORD ships I spawned?
If CCP doesn’t want players to be able to influence the position, and thus the reaction times of CONCORD, they are going to have to change their game.
@Black_Pedro That’s all well and good, but that post is 4 years old and a lot of things have changed since then. There are no guaranties. All I did was vocalizing my concerns and nothing more.
The tactic is a “grey area” and that’s why I would caution the use of it, that’s not saying that it is an exploit but only that it could possibly become one (if it becomes common practice and enough reports of doing it, by potential gankers), and may already be considered an exploit by some people.
Sure, a “grey area” that has been publicly declared as kosher in the past. As I said, your caution is admirable and I suggest that anyone who wants to use defensive spawning of CONCORD as a tactic file a support ticket to get the all clear before risking their account. I just wanted to make sure all information was on the table as good intentions such as yours can be how rumours get started.
That said, I personally move CONCORD around all the time, like almost every play session, for years, and have never received so much as a warning but no one should take my word for it . I encourage anyone and everyone who is thinking about using such tactics to file a support ticket and be very specific about what you want to do (maybe link that old post?) to get the ok in advance.
I don’t think being intentionally vague about what is an exploit and what is not is helpful at all, given the fact that you can actually lose access to the game over such things. This was absolutely clear for years and no “gray area”. The tactic of pre-spawning and moving CONCORD is used by gankers and miners alike and it is as Black Pedro pointed out just the way CONCORD reacts to criminal activities.
This is the way CONCORD works. No one is bending or breaking any rules. This is no gray area at all.
Please confirm.
Actually no, what you did is you made a vague comment about a game mechanic being a bannable offence in you role as an official ISD. People will not take this as “just your concerns”, they will link your comment for years all over the forums to make people report each other and in general claim that the other guy is cheating and should get banned.
Please check with a GM what the official stance is on this and then clarify your post.
Look, I just try to be helpful here. People will weaponize this in ways which you do not want.
This isn’t a grey area. Pre-pulling CONCORD does not count as delaying CONCORD. This has been petitioned and discussed in minute detail many many times. ISD giving out bad advice contradicting established GM precedent.
The bad part about trying to be a rule-following pilot is that if you petition and as this question they will absolutely refuse to answer it.
Yeah think we deserve a clear answer on this, especially since I was temp banned for 15 days in the last year for doing something that other gankers do. I’m gonna double down on this and say that it’s now your responsibility to be clear on this especially since now you had an ISD member giving his insight on it.
Other than being at your keyboard
If I see a miner trying to be clever like that I put my first ganker in a throwaway atron to eat the CONCORD spawn and proceed as normal. The Code Always Wins.
If gankers are reporting the practice then the gankers are in fact designing an exploit to ensure that their gank always succeeds and the player loses out without any way to keep the gank from happening in the first place.
Basically the gankers are free to gank a target calling in CONCORD but no one else is allowed to gank and fail the gank because they are an Alpha pilot that then pulls CONCORD to the attempted gank that is exploit that gankers will use to say that players are pulling CONCORD to belts and gates in to make certain that their gank does in fact fail or at least is hindered.
Basically CODE is allowed to gank anything they want too. But when a counter that involves the same tactics that CODE uses of pulling CONCORD away to another location to decrease their response time to where the gank is taking place then it is okay.
That is an exploit and is showing favoritism to the ganker much like BoB was shown favoritism and given free things by some of the upper management of CCP years ago.
The gankers were the first ones to notice ISD Sakimura’s inconsistency and call him out on it, because if it affects miners and carebears, it’ll affect us too. I’ve submitted a petition about it. GM Lelouche set a precendent in 2014 and it’s not appropriate for an ISD to be officially voicing “concerns” that contradict it unless the policy really has changed.
You can be banned for questioning what the ISD has commented on.
And I wasn’t attacking the ISD.
The end results are different. But both involve pulling CONCORD.
So how can CODE’s use of pulling CONCORD be considered legal but when the same tactic is used to pull CONCORD in defense of the miner it is considered an exploit if enough gankers complain?
How is using numerous Alts to pull CONCORD like CODE does prior to a gank to decrease CONCORDS response time to the gank any different then a Pull that pulls CONCORD like CODE does to where a gank then fails leaving CONCORD in the belt to then attack CODE gankers or someone who comes along and destroys a jet can?
The real whiners are in fact CODE because they want to be freely able to gank someone using the Pull CONCORD method. But when the Pull CONCORD method is used against them then it becomes a problem.
Cheers