Not much has been said about those freighters in Uedama. Yes the APIs are verified and GoonSwarm Federation’s Bat Country Corporation has been nailing some sweet-kills with a few of the freighters price-tags getting close to the cost of a Titan hull. Not that it hasn’t been due lack of warning, if you take the time to read the “crime and punishment” thread on EVE-O or for Gods sake check eve-kill at least once per week you would notice the solar system to be the perfect hunting ground for freighter killers, in this post I’ll explain a bit how and why they have been nailing those good kills.
Theory and Practice of High Sec Freighter Bumping and Ganking – a Primer on Recent Events.
One or more scouts scan the incoming freighters prior the gank in nearby solar systems, usually the ones leading to the Uedama solar system is a “hub” for traffic between Gallente space and the Caldari trade hubs. More sporadic activity has been seen in Once a target juicy enough has been selected the killer team takes position on the corresponding gate.
One of the members of the killer team pilots a bump-friendly ship, say a heavy-plated nano Machariel or similar ship, a single bump from one of these beast can take even a large capital ship a few kilometers out of its original position – the added bonus is no Concord aggro for these ships, so an expensive baller is a good option. The purpose of this gank the idea is to get the Freighter ship moving and out of alignment, preventing its warp and giving the killing team time to get at their optimals for maximum DPS.
For high-sec ganks like the past Hulkageddon the Catalyst destroyer had been the ship of choice for gankers. Since a Freighter’s base EHP ranks around the high hundred-thousands hit-points, the killers use high DPS battle-cruisers instead. The preferred ships seem to be either Cannon fitted Talos or Neutron Blaster Brutixes or Mega Pulse Oracles.
Doing the Math
Losing a small fleet of Brutixes cost next to nothing compared to the high payouts the freighter drop to the point of spending 500mil in fitting those battle cruisers quickly turn into a nice investment with loots values rounding from a few billions to tens of billions. So getting good payouts is not a matter of “if” but a matter of “when” given than all the variables are available to the gank team.
Griefing the griefers
While a few tactics has been tried to get implemented by discerning freighter pilots – tactics as sending scouts and keeping known gankers on the watch-list, the gankers have also adapted their tactics to great effect. It is not weird to see log-on traps executed, with the bumper holding off the freighter long enough for the killers to log in and take the shots.
Given the impotence of these counter-measures, other pilots have resorted in shooting the freighter wrecks before the loot could be scooped, a sort of scorched earth tactic of sorts – to much controversy on the forums.
Anyhow, up to 350bil in damages has been scored by the Bat Country team this month alone:
The ganking tactic is so effective that a small 20+ ganker team could easily be scooping close to the monthly income of several Tech moons in just a matter of days. So don’t be surprised if this practice becomes a bit more widespread. Freighter pilots, you have been warned. Also, in before bumping get NERF’d.
A 50bil Charon
[Eve-O forum resource]
Update
One of our commented elaborated a bit on the mechanic:
1. A freighter is caught on a hisec gate (uedama for example).
2. The freighter is bumped off the gate before it can align and warp.
3. A rookie ship commits aggression on the freighter thereby being concorded. This means that said freighter now have a 15 min logoff timer in hisec.
4. Freighter is ransomed and shot when far off the gate, without being able to save itself by logging off (due to the 15 min aggression timer gained by a criminal act – freighter is scanned down if necessary after the emergency warp).
Interesting, I was wondering why the rookies on all the killmails, beside kb padding.
- R