Skiffs can reach a very high EHP. With a damage control and reinforced bulkheads, you can sacrifice yeild for tank. You have a lot of mid slots for shield modules too. If there is a HS ice field that almost every time after downtime has an orca and 3 mackinaws plus 1 to 15 Retrievers, 1-6 Endurances and 1-5 procs depending on the week, is this enough to ignore gankers? If the macks have been killed off by gankers before, you know they haven’t paid off the local gankers. So by being a Skiff, that means you’re safe right? No one in their right mind would attack a Skiff in a 0.7 system while there are so many juicy targets. So unlike the Retrievers that need to actually pay attention to grid, the skiff can just AFK right? And if the skiff can AFK knowing all the other miners are the ones who will die, the ice rig can make sense right? I know AFK mining is usually a bad idea, but when so many miners are on the same grid are juicer, why would anyone go after the skiff if they scan and see only t1 modules (and ice) that drop as loot?
You are only “safe” as long as no one comes around that just wants to make a statement.
I have seen Orcas being ganked even while being maxtank-fitted (aka Shield-Commandbursts running, Active Hardeners, T2 Rigs etc…). That thing had like 700k eHP and offered not more than like 30 million ISK in loot.
Gankers scacrificed 12 Talos for it, just to make sure the guy understands he isn’t safe.
You can claw back some of the yield with the Ore modules. They’ll make you a target, but no more so than this thread already has.
Not really.
Say you are AFK in a Skiff.
Gankers arrive.
The other miners notice.
They warp away.
A lone Skiff is AFK in the belt.
Who will the gankers target?
Well now I feel kind of silly when you mentioned that and you have a great poimt
Nothing is un-gankable - Nothing. The best you can do is mitigate loss by being aware, not being AFK, having known ganker corps and alliances set to red, watching local & not flying what you can’t afford to lose and go ahead and slap a higgs anchor onto that skiff and align so you can warp out instantly.
Yep. even the Procurer is safe. If you build the Procurer/Skiff as tank like you are supposed to then nobody will pop it with or without other targets. I been in indy since 2010 or 2012 idk and never had a suicide ganker kill my Procurer and sure as hell never lost my skiff to a suicide ganker. Many years ago I joined a suicide ganking team and I lost my patience with them because they only wanted to pew pew ventures. “pirates/gankers” are normally so fking scared of pvp its not funny.
The Procurer/Skiff are Tanks the role they have is to mine in dangerous places so the are expected to not die. If you want efficiency use one of the other ships. You want to not die use the Procurer/Skiff.
edit After years and years I feel 110% safe afk mining in HiSec in a Procurer/Skiff.
Not the skiff if it is tanked.
They’ll go for the easiest target, which if the Skiff is the only available target because they aren’t paying attention is going to be the Skiff.