Ganked Again

I got ganked again the other day. A fairly significant loss this time, just over 2 billion, by far my biggest ever. It'll take a couple days to recoup the loss.

Lately I've been moving a bunch of secondary trade alts off the main hubs to new locations and took a chance doing something I don't normally do. I got away with it on 4 out of 6 alts and then got caught by an undock camper on the 5th.

Normally I don't fly stock out of main hubs myself and especially not in T1 frigates. I do however routinely use T1 and Covert Ops frigates to fly loads worth up to about 500 million into the hubs with no problems.

Normally I just ship stock out in billion ISK lots via Red Frog Freight. It takes longer but it's extremely safe and reliable. Between all my alts I ship a lot via RFF, they've never lost a shipment of mine yet and just in case they ever do, that's what collateral is for.

With a couple exceptions (a heavily tanked T3 cruiser and a blockade runner) I never fly with more than a billion in cargo and very rarely with more than about 500 million. That's flying regional buys into the hubs, not out of the hubs. In the past I always, without exception, sent cargo out of the hub via RFF a billion worth at a time.

The naming convention I used for many of my trade alts probably didn't help. Their very names make it obvious they're traders who might be carrying valuable cargo. When I made those particular alts I wasn't planning on ever using them to move cargo at all. They were supposed to stay on the hubs mostly station trading and never undocking but the plan changed.

It probably didn't help that it happened during peak time either with more players on than when I'm usually on. I rarely make valuable cargo runs during peak times, not only is that the least safe time but I'm usually busy with work then too.

Having never been ganked at a main hub before I'd gotten rather complacent about flying in and out of them. Since I'm always flying stuff into the main hubs rather than out of them I never had any trouble with undock campers at the main hubs and forgot to consider them.

With the alt moves I'd just been cancelling their orders, loading up the stock (mostly skill books and deadspace/faction mods), heading off to the new locations and relisting everything there. Anything bulky I'd courier out but the light stuff would all go with me. Anywhere from 1 to 2 billion worth of stock went with each alt.

I knew I was taking a chance but didn't think it was all that dangerous. Besides, it was only going to be 6 trips, all in different areas, and then it'd be back to business as usual using RFF for shipments between hubs.

The 5th time I loaded up just over 2 billion in cargo, undocked, hit warp and my ship died instantly. No chance at all it happened just like that.

Instalock Thrasher. He must've shit himself when he saw what my poor little Vigil was carrying.

I might have to move away from using Vigils too. I've talked about them often enough some gankers may be on the lookout for Vigils now. Especially at the main hubs.

Anyhow, lesson learned. It won't ever happen again, I won't fly a load like that out of a major hub myself again. I'll courier it out just like I'd always done before.