Some time ago I saw this sad video on Twitch TV
(Scroll to 1:48 to see the action, otherwise bear with ice mining for nearly 2 minutes)
Watch live video from x3aro on TwitchTV
Ganking is of course part of the game, and CCP is unlikely to do anything about it. Why? If ships are not blown up, nobody would buy new ships to replace them, and mineral prices would plummet quickly. I’m sure that would make miners way more sorry than ganking.
So, can an Orca survive a gank? Can Orca make it harder for the gankers?
When fitting a ship in EVE one always has a choice: more DPS, more tank or more mining laser output. Ships have limited number of slots, so they cannot be fit to excell at everything. As a high-sec miner, one would immediately assume that he should fit for mining laser output, whereas Orca pilot would fit to expand the cargohold as much as possible. Why would they fit any tank if they don’t anticipate any combat?
See, the problem is that even if miners don’t intend to fight, someone else might want to fight them. When fitting Orcas and mining ships, the real question should be:
Is the extra cargo space/mining output worth losing Orcas and Hulks? Does the margin gained by fitting 100% towards mining output or cargo capacity cover the losses? If your answer to this question is “yes, my profit margins are so great that I don’t care about losing a few Orcas”, then go ahead, fit for cargo space, and stop reading right here. However if the margins over untanked ships don’t come close to the price of your Orca, read on.
What I should do to make my Orca harder to gank?
– Fit a Panzer Orca of course:
While this fitting won’t prevent a gank from happening, it forces the gankers to use five time as many ships to perform the gank (cargo expanded Orca only has 64,8k EHP, because Cargo Expanders and Cargo Rigs reduce hull and armor respectively). Unless someone is really determined to gank your Panzer Orca (which, knowing James315 is of course entirely possible), gankers will most likely ignore it and look for an easier target.
282k EHP with base Tech II fitting, Tech I rigs and Shield Harmonizing link II. This fit can be further improved by using Tech II rigs and deadspace mods, but the latter would again encourage the gank, so I don’t really recommend it, but yes, it’s doable.
- Adding Tech II rigs will increase the EHP to 294k
- Adding A-Type Invulns and X-Type EM/Therm hardeners will further increase EHP to 363,000
- With Estamel’s hardeners, the EHP reaches mind-blowing 380,000, but 2 billion worth of officer modules will more than likely encourage the gankers to kill the ship for loot.
Granted, Panzer Orca pilot will have to warp back to station much more often, but as I said, that’s the choice:
- excell at cargo and add lost ships into running costs,
or
- have less cargo, but reduce probability of losing the ship by a substantial margin.
There is one more advantage to this fit: it increases EHP of all barges and exhumers in the fleet. It works as if they had one more Tech I Invulnerability Field. Pretty neat, eh?
Is there anything else I could do?
Of course there is! First off, watch local. While it was not initially intended to be an intel tool, it has quickly become one and you should make the best possible use of it. If local is at lets say 15 pilots, and then out of a sudden a ship warps to your belt and local jumps to 30, this is a sign of incoming danger. I would warp out if I were you, just in case. Better safe than sorry!
Every player in EVE who did any PVP is also very familiar to the directional scanner. It’s basically a magic radar that tells you what ships and other items are in space in a given range and angle from your ship. If you have ever mined or missioned in low sec you have most likely used it as well. Yes, you have to actively scan every x seconds, and if you see a group of ships like Tornado, Brutix, Catalysts or Thrashers showing up on radar all at once, it’s better to warp out.
You can keep an align to a station or celestial, but this means your ship will be moving. Depending on how you mine, this might be a serious disadvantage. What does it do? It allows for a very quick warp out in case of danger – just hit WARP and you will be on your way.
TL; DR
Always anticipate PVP in EVE. Fit tank on your Orcas, fly tanky Skiffs for mining. Take the game mechanics available to you in your hands and play them to your advantage!
By using the fit above you agree that author of this post will not be held responsible if you lost your Orca despite fitting Panzer Orca fit. Sufficiently determined group of pilots will always be able to gank any ship in high sec, including famous Chribba’s Veldnaught. It’s only a matter of determination and amount of combat ships involved.
Festival Launcher
Snowball
Synthetic Oil
Prototype Cloaking Device I
Fedo
Hornet EC-300
Core Probe Launcher II
Synth Crash Booster
‘Limos’ Rocket Launcher I
Eifyr and Co. ‘Rogue’ Fuel Conservation FC-801
Arkonor
Expanded Probe Launcher II
Women’s ‘Structure’ Dress (black/white)
Men’s ‘Esquire’ Coat (red/gold)
Gneiss
Leopard
Long-limb Roes
100MN Microwarpdrive I
Minmatar Shuttle
Warp Core Stabilizer II
Synth Drop Booster
Miner II
Engineers at Project Crielere have proven, that this warp drive design creates too much interference for cloaking devices to operate properly at FTL speeds. First stealth generators used meta-materials to make the ship invisible in a specific band of electromagnetic spectrum (usually infrared or visible light). The ship was however still visible in other EM bands, for example microwave or gamma. Historically the second and currently used approach relies on a series of graviton pulse generators in order to create a gravity lens around the ship. This causes all electromagnetic radiation to be bent around the vessel, making it undetectable in any and all EM bands. The effect of the lens also shields the ship emissions by containing them inside the graviton bubble (using complete internal reflection). In order to keep the graviton generators synchronised and create a stable lens around the ship, ship’s computer must calculate the model of the gravity lens in real time. While the model is rather simple when the ship is stationary, it becomes increasingly difficult when the vessel begins to move. All matter that comes through the graviton bubble, including space dust and the ship thruster emissions causes unwanted interference, which ship’s computer needs to take into account when calculating the bubble model. However, when the ship enters the depleted vacuum bubble, the equations in the model change in an non-linear way, making it impossible for classic and photonic electronics to provide a solution.
Engineers at Project Crielere eventually came up with an elegant quantum algorithm that can still provide a solution at FTL speeds, but it means a quantum computer hardware is required to solve the equations. This specialized hardware has been successfully installed into several classes of ships, including Recon cruisers and Blockade Runner industrials, but is generally unsuitable for most vessels, because it requires substantial customization. It also makes it nearly impossible to use on bigger ships, such as Black Ops battleships.
By moving the warp drive polar dishes outside of the hull into a circular ring-like structure, Sanctuary engineers have removed the effect of depleted vacuum from the graviton bubble equations, making it possible to be calculated without specialized hardware. It is still unknown how exactly this circular structure actually creates depleted vacuum, because the electronics which does all the calculations is protected by advanced tamper-proof chips. Sisters of EVE also forbid the owners from tampering with the technology, voiding the warranty if external tampering is detected, and stating it that using the drive after it was modified will cause fatal injuries to those on board. I however believe it is only a matter of time until some intrepid hacker jailbreaks the electronic systems in the ring polar dishes, and reverse engineers the mathematics that make it work. This lets me believe that by applying this technology to a battleship-class hull could allow even the biggest of vessels to use cloaking technology at FTL speeds. It opens the possibility for The Sanctuary to develop a covert battleship vessel as well, which is currently unconfirmed, but theoretically possible.
Smartfab Units
Nuclear Reactors
Guidance Systems
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Tritanium
Pyerite
Zydrine
Organic Mortar Applicators
Wetware Mainframe
Ukomi Superconductors
Small Tractor Beam I
Isogen
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Data Chips
Mexallon
Nocxium
Megacyte
Broadcast Node
Self-Harmonizing Power Core
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