Shadow of Cerberus EVE Community Forum

I don't have to outrun the bear

First, I want to apologize to those of you that have no interest in the CSM election.  All this political stuff will be wrapping up when the election ends on 17 April and win or lose, things for me will go back to normal around here.

That said, it's possible to use the election as a springboard for interesting, more general EVE topics.  I've spent parts of the last week or ten days in cloaky alts watching New Order ganks on mining barges, exhumers, and Orcas.  Unsurprisingly, there are not only some gaps in their attack patterns that you can exploit, there are more general strategies that will make you less of a soft target for ganking and low-level harassment in general.

The most egregious problem with mining in general and ice-mining in particular is how unengaging it is.  Trust me, if I do get to Iceland it's something that's going to come up -- I don't care if CCP already knows.  ;-)  Very ironically, this was only made worse by the large cargo increase in the Retriever and Mackinaw.  But the simple fact is that every part of the market demands ice in enormous quantities.  That isn't going to change.  So while I'm sympathetic to the rage that AFK mining produces, I also understand why AFK mining happens.  How else is it supposed to get done?  To use an analogy, it'd be great if someone were to invent the transporter because UPS and Fedex and the mail service having to haul packages around is dumb and wasteful of resources and boring.  But until someone gets around to inventing the transporter, someone has to haul the mail.

Often after such ganks, the gank targets are told they should tank their ships more.  After observing the Order at work, I can tell you that advice isn't going to do you much good.  If you tank your ship more, the Order will just bring more Catalysts.  Last Friday night, I saw them use seven Catalysts on one Mack.  So that's (mostly) out.  A reasonable amount of tank, sure.  But don't bother overdoing it.  You can't win the game on that basis so there's no point even trying.

Having been in mining ops myself, I can tell you the only bearable way to do it is to make it a social activity, and that's what I recommend here.  Even more so, though, you can not only make mining a social activity but use the social element of EVE to make yourself an unappealing target.  As the punchline to the old joke goes, "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you."  The Order gains strength from numbers, so you have to do the same.

Of course, the most direct way to do that is with a corp cooperative op.  And over time, I think that's the best solution both for the miners and for the game.  But of course known mining corps draw high-sec war-decs so often it's not advantageous to "corp up" if you also can't attract experienced PvPers.  You're just trading one set of attackers for another.  Still, there's nothing saying you can't cooperate with other miners despite not being in the same corp.

The simplest way to make yourself a hard target and deflect gankers onto the other guy is with cooperative tactics.  As long as you can find people you trust and can share the overall output of a mining op, there's no reason why you can't (and shouldn't) support your mining op with a few support ships.  The best first ship to add is a Scythe.  Use the double Large repper version I posted a few weeks ago.  Its thin tank is not much of a disadvantage in a high-sec mining situation and it reps more than a thousand DPS before overheating on a exhumer with decent resists.  Most Catalysts don't have a lot of alpha so this will help a lot.  The Scythe can pre-lock up to eight mining ships.

Speaking of tank, if you're worried about ganking, have your mining ships tank against kinetic damage, then thermal.  That's the type of damage the Catalysts are going to be doing and they can't tune their damage away from it.  Use active resists, and overheat them.  That adds another 300 DPS to the resistance of an exhumer being repped by a Scythe.

Even more than a Scythe or two, though, just make yourself completely unattractive to a gank fleet with this specialized ship:

[Scorpion, Defensive]
Damage Control II
'Hypnos' Signal Distortion Amplifier I
1600mm Reinforced Steel Plates II
1600mm Reinforced Steel Plates II

Sensor Booster II, Scan Resolution Script
Sensor Booster II, Scan Resolution Script
'Hypnos' Ion Field ECM I
'Hypnos' Ion Field ECM I
'Hypnos' Ion Field ECM I
'Hypnos' Ion Field ECM I
'Hypnos' Ion Field ECM I
'Hypnos' Ion Field ECM I

Heavy Unstable Power Fluctuator I
Heavy Unstable Power Fluctuator I
Heavy Unstable Power Fluctuator I
Heavy Unstable Power Fluctuator I
Heavy Unstable Power Fluctuator I
Auto Targeting System II

Large Particle Dispersion Augmentor I
Large Trimark Armor Pump I
Large Trimark Armor Pump I

Valkyrie II x5
Hornet EC-300 x5


One of the biggest holes in the Order's attack pattern is that it takes them several seconds to set up a gank.  While their warp-ins generally allow them to land within a few thousand meters of their targets, they have to close to between 1100 and 1800 meters to apply their tactics successfully, and they have to do it on standard propulsion.  This gives you some response time.  That response time is more than enough for this defensive Scorpion to lock up the entire gank fleet and make it clear you won't brook any nonsense.  They'll see you yellow-boxing them.

A full suite of green jammers are one of the two beating hearts of this ship.  With those jammers overheated, even a casual Caldari battleship pilot will have better than an 80% chance of jamming a Catalyst.  Place those jammers from F1 to F6, then pre-overheat them and just leave them overheated for the entire duration of the mining op.  When a gank fleet lands, lock them all up.  That will only take you six or seven seconds, less time then they need to set up their gank.  Once you have the entire gank fleet locked up, if you want to be particularly aggressive make sure your safety is set to green and then just start hitting F-keys.  The safety will prevent you from CONCORDing yourself: you won't attempt jams until the gank fleet goes to work making them legal targets.(1)

The second beating heart of the ship are those neuts.  Pre-overheat all of those, too.  Once the gank begins, keep an eye out for targets that you don't jam successfully.  Those targets get two neuts each.  That will instantly completely cap out a Catalyst rendering it no threat at all until CONCORD gets around to killing it.  A gank ship that can't fire guns isn't going to be ganking anyone.  The fifth neut can be placed on any legal target you like.  It won't instantly cap out a Catalyst like two neuts will, but it will turn that Catalyst into an inert brick after six or seven volleys, cutting its total damage output significantly.

In this way, this single Scorpion is guaranteed to stop three gankers, and is likely to stop seven.  Once combat starts, you can only keep these tactics up for about a minute before you run out of cap, but that's 30 seconds longer than a gank fleet can keep them up!  You only have to stay alive long enough for CONCORD to kill the whole squad.

The Auto Targeting system allows you to lock up ten targets, the Sebos are there to cut your lock time.  You can cut that further by equipping another support ship in your fleet somewhere with a Remote Sensor Booster or two.  Tank is armor, made nice and thick with T2 plates.  Those cut your speed but you have no reason to care about that.  ;-)  The Catalysts might decide to go after you.  If they do, fine: it takes a hell of a lot of them to gank you, you'll have half or more of them jammed or neuted, and if worst comes to worst, a Scorpion is much cheaper than a Mackinaw.  Launch your drones and either jam another Catalyst or put some DPS on one of them.  Valkyries do a number on Catalysts; you may kill that one before CONCORD can.

Most likely result, though: a gank fleet that sees a mining op protected by a Scorpion, particularly an alert Scorp pilot that locks up the gank fleet as soon as they land, is going to decide that maybe the next belt or ice field over is a good place to try instead.  Whatever they decide, you win.

More tips:

• The Scorp can use its Valks to clear rats.  That means you can more mining drones if you want and you're mining ore.  If you carry damage drones instead, assist them to the Scorp pilot.  As he starts attacking legal targets, your drones will help him.
• Remember that if a gank fleet can't kill you, they might decide to harass you with bumping.  There are a few ways around this.  One good way is to park your fleet in the midst of what you're mining.  This works particularly well in dense ice fields.  Ships that are nestled up to a solid object like a large ice cube are surprisingly resistant to bumping.
• Beware Brutixes!  Sooner or later, the Order is going to upgrade, particularly if group mining becomes more of a thing.  They're already using one of them occasionally to supplement their DPS on harder targets.  The best solution to an incoming Brutix gank is probably just to warp off.
• Have your expensive stuff stay aligned.  That includes the Scorpion if you use one, and your Orca.  Most belts and ice fields are laid out in such a way that it's an easy matter to align to an object off in the distance for a while, then as your range increases from the fleet you're supporting, just align to something else in the opposite direction.
• Use your directional scanner, set to ten million kilometers or so.  Just give a couple of people this job, watching the d-scanner.  If a bunch of Catalysts appear, they can wake up the rest of the fleet a good 15-20 seconds before a gank fleet arrives.  That's plenty of time to align the whole fleet.  If the number of Catalysts is excessive, you can warp off as they land.
• If Scorpions defending mining ops do become a thing, the Order might respond with a suicide Griffin.  This is fairly unlikely to succeed -- Scorps are resistant to jamming -- but you can make it nearly impossible by sacrificing one jammer for an ECCM.  If you have an Orca in your group, the Scorp can make this choice on the fly, refitting if needed from the Orca.
• Don't bunch up!  Every mining ship should stay at least 5000 meters from every other mining ship.  Don't trade Catalyst ganks for smart-bomb ganks.  Scorps can't jam those, though five heavy neuts on a smart-bombing battleship will shut those smart-bombs down real real fast.

All in all, the purpose to these tactics is to make mining more social and to make your group an unattractive target.  You don't have to outrun the bear.  As a side effect, though, it does reduce the number of people in the group that have to be alert every second.  Put a Scorp and a Scythe in your group and you know who has to stay awake?  Just the Scorp and the Scythe.  Between those two ships, they can hold off a pretty sizable gank squad without anyone else having to be there at all.  It's not something I recommend, of course... but it's an option.

Oh, and when the op is over, remember that the ice take gets split between the members of the whole fleet, and that includes your Scorp and Scythe pilots.

Stay safe out there.  ;-)


(1) True pros will set up an overview tab that only shows legal targets -- criminals and suspects -- then work from that overview.  You do that with the overview filter.  Just create a new overview setting, then set it to filter out everything except criminals and suspects.
Source: I don't have to outrun the bear