If a corpmate needs to go for a few hours (to cook or whatever, the reason isn’t important) instead of docking and logging out, is it better just to have them dock and go AFK? A mission runner in the system could be “protected” by 7 corpmates in local and give the impression that if anyone attacks his PVE ship, a bunch of PVP ships will undock and dogpile the attacker. My corpmates say this isn’t likely to work because they tried it a bunch of times and no less than 7 times in recent memory the mission runner got attacked anyways so filling up local with a bunch of people isn’t a deterrent. Looking at the incidents in Zkill, I found out the victim was within D-scan range at least one gate and all stations, NPC and player. So maybe the concept of stuffing local is still viable and the system just needs to be big enough that a ganker can’t just go “hmmm… no one but the victim”?
O, look, another ‘ganking’ thread’!
But to take up your point, Tib…, the job of a ganker’s scout/loot-scooper/warp-in pilot is partly to get a feel for the system and what’s happening there, before the red-flashies arrive.
Githany Red, the ferocious anti-ganker, crams some systems with her acolytes and, even though a few ganks are averted or abandoned, the net results are insignificant. Still, they’re having fun, and that’s what matters.
But by all means go ahead and try it.
As someone said in an industry forum, fun/hour can matter more than ISK/hour. If you’re having fun doing something suboptimal, you’re getting satisfaction out of the game.
It could work. But I doubt it has a big effect.
If I’m hunting for a ratter and notice nobody is in space but him and me, I know I’m pretty safe. If multiple names (and allies of the guy I’m hunting) are in system it might indicate a possible response when I attack. It might be a trap - one of them could be cloaked next to the target, ready to decloak, tackle, light a cyno and bring in a fleet. With some effort I can check where they are though, and if I notice they’re all docked up I know none of them is cloaked.
If nobody is in local but my target and I I know for sure there won’t be a trap.
But if people are in local, they don’t show up on d-scan and my target has no history of being bait, I’d still try and attack him.
The chances of his allies being AFK or too slow to respond is simply too great to be a deterring factor.
100% true as a Builder by Hobby
Put your AFK Corp mates in space in vexors and maybe it would be sort of a deterrent.
That’s not going to work, the sentry guns have short term memory problems, so all that does it change the meal from the mission runner to the AFK and preventing this is the point of docking.
As someone who lived in null for too long I’d assume that if there’s 30 people in local, one’s the ratter and afk, and the 29 others are alts that got skill extracted to lose all skills other then those for PI and Reactions in order to PLEX their accounts, so they couldn’t help their buddy even if they were to return from AFK.
In systems w/o NPC stations, you can fly to the citadel(s) and the number of docked players there will show up, which tells you whether everyone other then the ratter is nicely docked up or cloaking / combat recon-ing somewhere
Noone will show mercy to your buddies just because it appears like they can’t use Ishtars.
T2 is dumb. Especially when you are afk in space doing nothing, hoping that you won’t get culled.
Wait… what? I’ve seen AFK miners but someone running missions I would assume would have the EVE window open.
They’re not doing nothing, and it’s not dumb. They’re orbiting their MTUs. Why would it be stupid? The Ishtar is designed to afk rat, it’s the best afk ship and also the most popular. You can also use a Gila which also is popular, but Gilas are more expensive and harder to get hands on then Ishtars, while Ishtars require more Skill Training.
Example fits:
Deploy And Forget Gila ( ~500 ehp/s passive regen, ~500 dps )
Deploy And Forget Ishtar ( ~450 ehp/s cap stable active regen, ~650 dps )
Strategy:
Warp into LVL5 site, deploy drones, drop MTU, select orbit 10km on the MTU, , though for these two propmod-less things you might chose 5km instead, alt-tab to next afk-droneboat client and repeat. The drones aggress and wreck the rats automatically and the rats can’t break the droneboats’ tank. After an hour or so, warp the droneboat to the next lvl5 site and repeat
Pitfalls:
Most times you end up losing a droneboat, a capital npc has spawned and claped it. You’ll get an audible alert of your shield breaking (unless you muted the client) and you’ll have about 20 seconds time to issue the warp command after that alert. Otherwise …
the cap spawn will add you to it’s zkill (see how that list almost exclusively has gilas and ishtars?)
From my own experience of being with Hordes in the past, the Q-GICU system, that has a considerable share of the killmails, is a good place to grab afk ratters. It’s “API Gated”, so unless you pay a ratting permit you’re not allowed to be there, and even less to shoot rats there, while the alliance has automation to detect you’ve been entering or even ratting there without permit.
Mission DED rooms finish quicker then combat anoms, so instead of the 60 minutes cycle you may want to redeploy your droneboat to the next room each 5~15 minutes, depending on the mission. Otherwise, the strategy is identical.
Lol, that one guy losing two Ishtars worth a total of 2b to the infested carrier within 20 minutes from eachother. 
(And a third time to a roaming group a bit later…)
Someone isn’t going to be happy with their afk ratting/bot.
I thought Gilas were too expensive to lose in a silly way like going AFK without a damage control. Or just doing AFK at all. I know I would never risk one by going AFK.
Le’ts make a hypothetical. Suppose this guy used Damage Control, Reinforced Bulkheads (replacing two of the drone damage amplifiers), replaced two shield extenders with an MWD and a thermal shield hardener (to make room for PG), and stuffed 3 high slots with HAMs (the high slots he’s not using) and was reacting to events instead of AFK, would he save his Gila if his response was
Hostiles in Local, Spam D-Scan to find where he is, then adjust range so I know if he’s apporaching.
D scan shows he’s moving toward me, recall drones.
If he’s moving towards me and drone recalled, warp off.
If he’s on gird, warp off even if drones are not recalled.
If tackled, fight and ask for help, but nearest nline corpmate is 3 jumps away.
Would this be enough to save him?
I didn’t think the APi allowed alliances to monitor ratting activity.
Really? I didn’t think that. Well, you’d know better than I would.
Yeah, the Gila’s a pretty nice afk boat, it’s downside is it’s price, and the fact you need to move 10.000 m^3 or pay someone to move that for you, while the Ishtar can just be assembled localy by anyone.
If you have high-skill industrials that aren’t elitists who think they shouldn’t build anything but capital ships, you might be able to have the gila constructed locally, too, but there’s a new component in a gila that hikes the price
shield passive regen is more important than non-regenerative buffer tank. Instead of HAMLs, go with rapid lights, load faction or precision charges. Since you’re aware of a potential gank, the only thing that can really mess you up is rats with warp disruptors, and those are Frigates in k-space. HAMs apply poorly to frigates, even with Javelins, and there’s no Web / TP on the Gila to help, so HAMs might be incapable of getting rid of the painful tackle frigates fast enough, while medium drones and tracking […]
…and they need to approach the rats first, too. Time you might not have.
RLMLs with precision charges can take good care of frigates.
Not in general, but in k-space you get bounties, and the alliance will be able to read where you got that bounties (it’s also in the description of the payment)
You can finish a DED faster if you play at the keyboard, but the people in null all have dozens of accounts, so they need a method that works well enough while requiring little attention.
Well, the HAMs wouldn’t fit with FOUR large shield extenders, so a trip to a friendly station or control tower is needed. But the time saved by adding missiles to the drones would more than offset a few trips, so this is still better than the AFK strat if no ganker shows up at all.
I wasn’t saying this was an optimal Gila fit by any means, although it would clear the site faster than AFK ratting even with the trips back. Heck even if he decides to take trips back at 82% shield instead of 0%, he’d still save time. I’m not asking what the best anti gank fit would be. I’m just wondering if he did what I said instead of AFK, do you think he’d live? My settup, while not perfect, will finish faster than the AFK tactic if no one ganks him and I was wondering if it would save him when I.N.K.V.I.Z.I.C.I.A decided to show up. There are some inefficiencies, like refusing to abandon drones if the hostiles didn’t land on grid, but this is still better than AFK, although I don’t know if it would be enough to save him.
Medium drones don’t do that bad against NPC frigates, who have the same sig radius as capsuleer ones. They do miss now and then, but the damage isn’t nearly as bad as heavy drones vs cruisers. Players will have more EHP than NPCs, but assuming they take the same damage, that’s not bad. And some HAMs might have scared off this cyclone, or maybe not. I have no idea. I was asking if you think that would save him.
I thought it was something the alliance of the ratter would get not something the alliance of the space you’re in gets. Well, higher up management isn’t really interesting to me, I just gather the instructed materials for the corp.
Well, if they help fund the servers, are actually AFK multiboxers and not some bot violating the EULA and provide tasty killmails for non-AFK players, I’d say they provide a nice place in the economy. This is something even I can get a solo kill on!
Thank you for satisfying my curiosity.