As the title of this thread is surviving Gankers I feel that I can detail various survival techniques that work for me.
Let’s start off with hauling:
You have to understand how the gankers operate first and foremost. The most important is to understand intel and location.
Gankers look for location first and foremost, so the undock of Jita 4-4, the warp in points from a gate to that station and the in gates to that system. As Jita has an 0.9 security level CONCORD response is quick:
CONCORD reaction time
1.0 = ~ 2 Sec.
0.9 = ~ 5,6 Sec.
0.8 = ~ 9,2 Sec.
0.7 = ~ 12,8 Sec.
0.6 = ~ 16,4 Sec.
0.5 = ~ 20 Sec.
These are the figures for a system without a CONCORD spawn.
So the preferred tool there are Alpha strike ships which would be single volley high damage which is why you will see Tornado’s and Thrashers in the main. To deal with them you need a tank to take the alpha strike, but you can also remove the risk by having instra undocks, a book mark in line with the exit of the station which you can warp to without a delay. To create this just get a fast ship and burn out with MWD on as long as you can, the further way the better.
When you have done this test it with empty ships.
Another important thing is go to Jita and observe the positioning of the gankers. Then look for a bookmark away from them, remember they focus on the warp-ins from the gates. The important aspect is that you often arrive on the outer ring of the docking points and you can have several seconds delay before you ship docks. This means that they can lock you, scan and fire. If you have a zero docking bookmark away from them and inside of the docking ring you can set destination as the station and click auto-pilot when you are in warp to it.
Outside of that we have pipes, and in those pipes system with low security are best, especially those which people have to pass through. Uedama and Odin/Ohide are the most important currently.
What they do is have ships positioned on gates along the pipes scanning ships that pass through, they are looking at your tank and your cargo. An example is Uedama where the gankers would be on the Hatakani gate in Sivala or on the other side somewhere along the pipe from Jita, most notably the route in from Urlen,
Once they have a target they will setup combat probes on the gate, they will position a suicide tackle on the gate at zero. This will normally have several points on it and setup to negate the fit of the ship they want to attack. Many will just use a one size fits all, like the tackle Gnosis.
They will point the prey then warp in the catalysts, some of which will have scrams, using the combat probes to get on top of the prey.
How to get around this?
First of all learn how to MWD cloak and do it so they cannot scan you. Many DST pilots don’t bother until they get to the risky systems but they have already allowed key intel to get out. If you do it routinely then you reduce your risk of being targeted as they do not know your fit and cargo. Do this when empty so if they go for pot luck they lose out too.
A trick I use is take stuff to a station just before the system where they gank, drop it off there and then do small trips through in a BR which they cannot catch, then continue on the other side of the chokepoint. Because they watch gates and rely on your warping into that system without a care in the world means that even if you dock up in the system before and go make a cup of tea they will miss you. Though bear in mind this only applies to gankers that have negative security status which prevents them from lurking, but we are talking about the massed ganker fleets at the moment.
So what to do if you jump in and get pointed and you do not have a cloak and cannot do the MWD trick and they have counted your warp core stabs. first of all align, do not try to warp if you get pointed then apply whatever propulsion module you have and overheat it. The fleet is close by and is ready to warp in but every second counts in moving you further away and reducing their optimal, remember a catalysts has 2.5 km optimal and goes out of fall off at around 4.5 km.
The further away from their landing point you are the more you mitigate their DPS and these gankers are just locking and firing.
The game is about percentages and everything counts. Look around you, if you see Ospreys hanging at teh gate and startring to lock you do not shoot the gankers, doing so would give you a limited aggression timer and the AG logi cannot rep you. The same goes for people who apply their bastion.
If you analyse Uedama you will see so many Marauders getting ganked and most are in their mission fit not a travel fit. These people will often just apply Bastion and die because their tank is not enough. If they had a travel fit with a heavy buffer, perhaps doing the cloak mwd trick or did not apply the bastion and instead align, and if pointed apply the overheated MWD and the MJD, they would have likely survived.
Alpha gankers are often weak in that have to target people who have no tank and fit for max cargo, so splitting the cargo up into small loads and taking that through the chokepoints with a heavily tanked ship is key. One way is to have a new fit ready in the system before dock up, change fit remove cargo and jump through, so you survive and give those kill rights to Anti-Gankers specifically certain players and corps, Githany Red is a good one to start with. Neugeniko is another that specialises on alpha gankers in Jita.
Avoiding being ganked is very possible, but you have to use your brain, though gankers will often sprout meaningless rubbish about being aligned in a belt and not the ones that really matter.
But if you do not want to lose, think intfel, think location and think what can you do if they actually try to go for you, think tank, think MWD cloak, think using propulsion.
And a final thought, if you play with friends, why not bring a Celestis that can remove the tackle ships lock range so you can warp out before the gank fleet arrives. A single ship can negate them at that weak point on their operation.
I hope that this helps.