I was flying on autopilot with a small load of Caldari Navy Heavy Assault Missile Launchers onboard. Nothing unusual, I fly on auto with more valuable cargoes than that
My route was taking me through Litiura an 0.5 sec system I'd noted was often solo camped by a destroyer. He'd taken shots at me a few times before but his efforts were quite laughable. He'd never come close to killing me, not even when I was afk. So I wasn't too worried about it but I was planning on going manual for the jump through Litiura just to be safe.
Then the phone rang... Since it was work related I had to answer. By the time I got back I was in Litiura, the camper was shooting at me and had me a sliver into hull already. If I'd gotten back just a few seconds later I would have easily escaped but I was too late and he got me.
According to the combat report I lost 315 million ISK, however that's assuming the missile launchers are worth over 300 million when in fact I only paid 175 million for them.
With the cost of the ship + rigs (I got the rest of the fittings back) I actually only lost about 176 million though I did also lose the opportunity to make 130 - 140 million profit on the cargo. Barely worth taking the time to pick them up, I almost left them for the next day.
Whether you count it as 176 million or 315 million, it's still just a small loss for me and won't cause me to change my routine. Considering I've only been ganked in hisec twice (in total on all my characters) in over a year and didn't lose very much either time (the first was for about 75 million) I'm not at all worried about it. I make more in a single day than I've lost to hisec ganks the whole time I've been playing Eve (over a year now). That's an acceptable risk I'm more than willing to take.
You autopiloted an untanked Frig with 300M?
ReplyDeleteI think the ganker will run locator agents from now on. Use a tanked industrial for autopiloting!
No thank you. Industrials are primary targets for gankers and they're slow, easy targets too. I'd lose far more that way. They'd make doing pickups take far longer too and as you know "Time is money friend."
DeleteFrigates aren't even on the radar for most gankers. In addition speed and alignment time are generally better than tank for avoiding ganks. Speed and alignment time *are my tank.
Locator agents don't worry me. If that ever becomes a problem (and I doubt it will) I have several other pilots in the area that can do the pickups just as easily. Also that particular pilot will be flying covert ops soon.
Speed and alignment is nice, but a MSE is not out of the question.
ReplyDeletenot like you need to be capstable running the MWD for 2 cycles to hit the gate do you?
Actually the rechargers aren't about cap stability for MWD approaches on auto. They're about keeping cap high so low skills alts flying manually can chain warps repeatedly and make the long warps all in one shot.
DeleteI don't just fly hisec either. I fit for manual flying in low/null where the real danger is, not for the once or twice a year fluke gank while on auto in hi. Flying a frigate as transport in low/null I'll take speed and alignment time over a little tank every time.
Besides, keeping the MWD and fitting an MSE would mean dropping a nano for an MAPC and make alignment time worse.
I should have mentioned this in the original post but better late than never.
ReplyDeleteLitiura is an 0.5 system on the routes to several low/null gateway chokepoints like EC-P8R / Torrinos, Ichoriya, Aunenen, etc., so it does make sense for hisec gankers to hang out there.