As of now there currently sits around 10 Tornados on the Jita 4-4 undock, all of them sat waiting for something to insta kill that happens to be carrying 200+mil of loot and that also doesn’t happen to have an insta dock bookmark. The set-up is quite simple, a Torando will sit above the 4-4 station, an alt will be cargo scanning everything from perimeter > Jita checking what’s carrying the most valuable cargo and a further alt sits on the ship with said valuable cargo in a hauler waiting to loot said valuable cargo the second it gets popped. It’s all a very quick and apparently common process.
I have tried this myself over the last week, I thought I’d see if there could be a decent profit to be made and how easy it was to pull it off successfully. Needing to profit by doing this means I would have to make roughly 180 mil from the kill & drop, this would cover the replacement of a tornado 80 mil, 40 mil towards criminal tag fund and a further 60 mil to make this venture worthwhile compared to running 0.0 anoms.
I sat my alt in a hauler off the undock, fitted with a cargo scanner, not wanting to be too ambitious, I was checking the loot of everything that autopiloted to the station rather than warped direct. Sure enough, a Nerius stopped 15km short of my alt, I made a quick scan of the loot and copied it into eve appraisal, I had glanced some blue modules so I was pretty hyped. It came out at around 300mil value, by this point the nereus had reached 5km from the dock, I proceeded to approach it with my viator in order to be at 0 for when the wreck appeared. I undocked my tornado and fired, the thing insta-blapped, I quickly scooped the loot and docked. The haul was a good one, along with a few c-types there was a daredevil blueprint, I reckoned he’d be doing low level escalations. It came about to around 400mil, which is way above what I was aiming for. I received a bounty from the dude, he put 10 million on my head, a complete waste and inconsequential.
Another day another dollar, dunking on horde isn’t cheap so I went back out to Jita looking to earn a little profit again, I happened to go during a busier time and saw already a plethora of nado’s on the undock. Obviously, like me, lured by the shiny gank killmails popping up on zkill. I decided this was too hot for me to gank as I couldn’t guarantee that I could scoop my loot, also with so many nados getting a criminal timer to grab the loot would be even more risky. Instead I sat patiently on the dock, in a battleship of all things (it has hella cargo expanders) to see if I could snag any of the loot. Unfortunately I wasn’t quick enough, and over the course of 2 hours I saw many a shiny wreck looted on that dock.
I did, however, over this 2 hours study some of the groups making the ganks, it looked well coordinated, one hauler would loot, wait out its timer and another would take its place. One unlucky soul lost 3 large skill injectors and his shiny new booster implant. He was a fellow testie F. I also noticed that some of these tornado pilots had very large bounties, one that had roughly 200mil on him. I figured I’d give back to the fallen test brother and do a little honour ganking. I checked a few killrights, and saw the usual, “Give suspect status for 200mil” obviously they podded an alt and put the killright on, so if someone activates it they’re getting paid. I undocked in a nado locked the target and shot, blowing him to smithereens. My wallet flashed, I had been paid 6 million isk out of his 200mil bounty pool. Another thing to note here, is that you don’t get insurance for suicide ganks so I took a fair loss for almost no gain apart from the self-respect of avenging a fallen bretherin.
The person I killed was also in an NPC corp, which means immunity to any kind of wardeccing. It seemed like a liscense to print isk. It was at this point that cogs in my brain started turning. The mechanics that seem under-powered could become relevant again with just a few minor tweaks some consequence and risk could be added to eve.
Bounty - This would pay out higher, at 100% of the contents value, the higher payout would mean a real potential return on your bounty investment and also make it worthwhile to actively seek out those with large bounties and kill them.
Killrights - As it stands, its too easy to pod an alt and put 100mil or 200mil to activate said killright. My proposal to alter this would be only being able to set a kill right price to the maximum of your km loss i.e If I lost a ship worth 66mil the maximum I could sell the killright for would be 66mil.
NPC corp - This would be a risky one for sure and controversial, I propose that any character in an NPC corp would be unable to initiate combat with other pilots. You would be able to attack anyone with a suspect timer however other pilots in good standing can’t be attacked. This one has lore reasons too, player corporations kick people for awoxing, some alliances kick people for failing to follow rules and for acting in a generally unsavoury manner, it happens. Being in highsec, you would think corporations like the scope and the Royal Amarr institue wouldn’t take kindly to players suicide ganking others in space. This last on compliments the recent wardec changes and gives more reasons to make the jump from NPC corps.
These 3 changes would create a real change around eve and give more tools of war to both griefers and the griefed. Thanks for stopping by.
