Things may be warming up a bit for us in New Eden. Gaff has reactivated an account or three. I am coming to the end of a training cycle that will let him fly a Hulk at last. It might be time to leave the hanger and earn some ISK.
But I hear from other sources associated with our nominal confederation that the current favorite sport in empire space is Hulk busting.
Prey Yet Again?
Gangs of suicide gankers in destroyers have been roving the asteroid belts hunting Hulks for sport. We just can’t seem to get away from suicide gankers in EVE, no matter what anybody says. Some people just find it too much fun.
I haven’t been paying close attention to EVE, but I do tend to scan the headlines and have not seen anything about this. Has anybody else noticed this phenomena? Not that I don’t believe. After all, it the Goons had their own Hulk busting campaign a while back. But it would be interesting to know how wide spread this is.
Busting rocks in empire space may be a hazardous profession these days.
Still, I have to wonder. Wilhelm, my main, has his shield skills pretty much at level 5 across the board. I am going to guess that most miners, especially mining alts, do not have the same skill set.
Could I fit out a Hulk so that it could survive long enough for CONCORD to step in and save the day?
What is a good tank fit for a Hulk?
Time to see if my copy of EVE Fitting Tool is up to date.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
You didn’t read this? http://hulkageddon.wordpress.com/
Hulkageddon was just a more organized event that that which happens most nights now.
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Would you be better off going cheap modules with the best insurance?
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@Darina – No, I had not seen that. Interesting.
@Werit – Unfortunately a Hulk is a tech II ship which, among other things, means that the insurance payout is probably 10-20% of its market value.
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With a small shield extender, invuln II, and then T2 hardeners for EM and Thermal you can have over 15000 EHP. Believe it or not this is cap stable even with 3 MSM II’s. Well.. with my cap skills, anyway.
Generally the gankers seem to come in Catalysts, so they’re doing Kin/Therm with their blasters, so you could toss on a Kin hardener instead of EM, and get over 20K EHP vs those damage types.
Gank fit Catalysts using antimatter do about 550 damage per volley, and Concord usually shows up within 10 seconds, so they would get 3 or 4 volleys off. Assuming worst case scenario and they get 4 off, they each do 2200 damage to your 20K EHP, meaning it would take 10 of them to get you. If they only get 3 volleys off, they’d need 13 to do it.
In looking at the Hulkageddon KB, they appear to have been fielding fleets of only 6 Catalysts. And this is an organized event thingie — I doubt you’d ever really find yourself up against that many in a normal circumstance either.
IOW, if you tanked it up well, I think you’d have a good chance.
Concord usually comes in about 3 volleys,
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The other option is mining Grav sites in WH space. Once you taste arkonor, bistot, and crokite you’ll never want to waste time in Empire again!
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I think you might be looking at this the wrong way. If they want to suicide you, you are dead. Cheapfit ‘geddons and other battleships do a wondrous job of ganking as well and insurance pay out still applies.
The trick is not to be a target. I find that mining in my missions tends to keep me a bit safer than in a normal belt. The mining exploration sites, as Jaggins said Gravs, are also good, but they are a pretty hot commodity in high sec, so are harder to come by. The trick is to make them make two warps instead of just one. Most of the nare-do-wells that are doing this stuff (Hi Hellcity and Spectre3353, how’s things?) are -10, so they have to do one of two things. Warp away from a low sec entry point quickly, or the newer and more fashionable method, have an alt jettison ships at a safe spot. Then with the pirates in their pods, they warp to the SS, jump into the ship and warp onto the unsuspecting Hulk pilot. So if you put a warp gate in between you and them that makes you a much less viable target. This is the same idea as a bear attack, I don’t have to run faster than the bear, I just have to run faster than you. :) You just want to make other pilots easier targets.
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@Rieger: Oh, of course, if somebody really wants you dead and does not care about cost, you are dead.
I was more curious about what the damage threshold for their attacks might be and if a Hulk could be made tough enough to make it through an attack run.
But, yes, I would prefer to do my mining behind a mission gate, if only because the rocks are bigger.
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Create (or join) an intel channel, either for your region, or for miners in general. Then people can report gankings as they happen, giving the other miners a chance to move out before trouble arrives. If they are with other miners in the belt, tell them in local what is happening whilst telling them about the intel channel. Blog about the channel, raise awareness so you get a critical number of participants.
Just an idea…
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Suicide gankers will tend to favour 0.5 and 0.6.
You will be able to detect destroyer fleets on local before they find and point you. A lot of people will arrive at once all with dodgy security ratings.
Another good tip is to set likely suicide gankers to hostile. So pvp-centric 0,0 alliances, particularly Goonswarm, privateer corps and so on.
Use your D-scanner. If you pick up combat probes they’re coming to gank you.
Lastly pick an out of the way system. These players will be hunting in target-rich environments for the most part.
If you suspect people may be gankers dock and log. Most times you get ganked you had a clue beforehand.
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A little off topic but regarding Eve in general. I gave it a try about 2 years ago and played for about 2 months. I couldn’t help but feel the whole time that I was seriously behind everyone else and I foudn it very hard to actually figure out were I was going. Is it any different now for new players? Also what kind of recommendations do you have for people who would consider starting from scratch?
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I’m not sure there is anything you can do. The lastest in our neck of the woods was news of a roaming Geddon warped into the middle of a mining op with no turrets. No turrets because it had loaded every hi slot with a smart bomb. Boom went the mining fleet.
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“I was seriously behind everyone else and I foudn it very hard to actually figure out were I was going.”
@Vett this is very much the Eve new player experience. I recommend that you wait until you meet people in another game who also play Eve. Then ask if they’ll take you in.
Personally I started up alone but it’s a very rocky road.
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@Vett, get in to a player corp. It’s that simple. Sitting in an NPC corp will leave you without a goal. Getting in to a player corp will give you goals. Even if you disagree with the player corps goals, that is still a helping you find the things you /will/ enjoy
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One option is joining a corp specialized in teaching newbies the ropes, like Eve University. I spent a month or two with them when I first started playing; the corp has its flaws, but joining up is like having half a hundred instant wingmates. Most newbs in the same shitty situation as everyone else, but some actually know how the game works, somewhat, and make at least s token effort at teaching you!
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Abit late but hey only discoverd your great Blog today ^^
Just two pieces that i’ll chuck out :)
1) do a little flying around away from the “main hubs” as the more people in your area the more gankers will likely be around, theres some great spots to mine in empire space if you want to know a couple eve mail me in game ^^ (either to Malande or Ranold)
2) as others have said join a player corp, dosn’t always help but if your part of Eve uni or some such they can give you good advice and support :)
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I’m a month late getting in on this but I’m going to give a response anyhow. Having taken part in many suicide ganks of Hulks and other highsec mining ships, here are the steps you can take to minimize your chances of being suicide ganked:
(1) MOVE! If your ship is orbiting or aligned then it makes it extremely difficult to use the Catalyst method of suicide ganking. Normally we bring an alt in that has a high sec status to act as our warp-in point. If you’re moving, we can’t get a good warp-in!
(2) PAY ATTENTION. The only way you can ever really get suicide ganked is if you’re not looking. Anyone who watches local for a pirate spike, watches scan for a bunch of suspicious ships suddenly showing up close by or even notices ships landing in the belt can avoid any potential gank. We prey on those that are AFK mining and/or not prepared and/or not paying attention. Fortunately for us, almost every Hulk pilot is not on their toes and they sometimes pay for it.
(3) DON’T MINE IN TARGET SYSTEMS. I can’t speak for everyone, some people will go to the effort of even suicide ganking you in Jita but in GENERAL we go for systems that are one jump out of lowsec where it’s easy for us to access and where CONCORD responds the slowest. Find systems that aren’t packed and popular and that are a few jumps from lowsec. It will greatly reduce the chance of you being noticed and targeted.
Hope that helps. Good luck with your mining and I hope that we get the chance to gank you soon :)
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To the person saying that we’re -10 and can’t hit too far out from lowsec. You are very very wrong, gank dessies can easily do several jumps into highsec to gank a hulk. Indeed, my dear friend Tor Lann and his cronies ganked a hulk 8 jumps into highsec before ;)
It will never be safe, but the best way not to die when I decide to do another Hulkageddon (and you never know when!) is to NOT BE AFK.
The amount of hulks that died that might have lived had they been at their keyboard to actually TURN ON their tanks is staggering.
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@Spectre & Helicity – Thanks for the tips! That answers my question about improving my chances by fitting to survive.
As for paying attention, I get antsy when I share a belt with anybody, so I hope never to be caught unawares.
Good luck on your next event, whenever it may be!
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