Know Your Scams: Gravimetric Sensor Cluster

Setup

The scammer advertises in local:

Oh wow, look at this a module that will protect you from "nasty gankers" who prowl New Eden looking for targets. If you have this in your cargohold, and you can use it more than once, and when the ganker tries to fire on you this will cause you to warp to a gravimetric site that only you can access.

Clicking on the contract, which is typically an auction, you will see this:

What Happens Now

The mark will see the contract and may, if they're concerned about gankers, bid upon the item and continue to until they win. 

How Can I Protect Myself

Firstly, remember Rule #1, anything posted in local in a trade hub is going to be a scam and you should not accept any contract without seriously checking on the contents and issuer.

You can confirm whether or not this magic item does what the issuer says if you look at the details for the item:

You can see, after a little patient checking that it makes no mention of the "wonders" that the contract issuer says it does about being able to escape gankers. It's not even a ship module, its used in the production of Caldari Ships.

Travel Advisory : Bagodan

Are you taking a Freighter or Transport ship through Bagodan?

 

No, well move along nothing to read here... but if you are be very wary as it has, for a 0.7 system, become very hot for ganking in the past few days. I've seen a friend lose a freighter and I nearly lost a jump freighter last night myself.

 

What Happened/Happening?

 

This is just guessing by me but the recent hostilities (read: invasion) of Providence by Imperium could be partly to blame. I have followed the news about this but I had not seen the implications for traders and industrialists who pass close to providence on their travels.

 

 

 

Esescama is a nexus for people who plan to enter Providence via KBP7-G but we also have Dihra and Choonka (that I know people use) but it is Esescama that is the primary staging system for visitors.

 

Bagodan being under siege could be part of the operation to catch logistics for the defenders but also, as it may be for I no longer trade in Providence, over loaded or plain profitable freighters that have to travel this system to get to Amarr and/or Jita.

 

How is it going

 

Profitably I would say and they aren't just attacking large targets like Freighters but even smaller ships are being preyed upon.

 

As they are profiting they are staying put. I was surprised to see this kill, Royaldo is a former CEO and to see him lose this was cringe worthy. How he got caught I do not know but I think it could be as simple as auto piloting through at the wrong time.

 

You nearly got caught

 

I did, I was passing through heading to Amarr and then my home system with two jump freighters full of materials that I use in my manufacturing.

 

I didn't pay attention tot he yellow dot on the heron that was following my characters until two jumps before Bagodan. I never saw any scanning take place, I certainly wasn't yellow-boxed so it was all done passively.

 

I jumped into Bagodan and it was when I saw three Machariel's on grid, all with yellow dots, that I realised it was not a good place to be. Fortunately my other character was just arriving on gate to jump in so I aborted that and turned him around for the nearest system with a station.

 

Alas the other was in a bad situation, so I logged out.

 

What did you do?

 

Yes, I logged out. Worst case was I'd get shot and lose the freighter, almost as bad was I'd be shot but have a 15 minute timer allowing them to scan me down and kill me.

 

But I had a plan.

 

In order to enact it I needed to do so quickly AND make them think I was a newbie who just logged out and they'd have 15 minutes to leisurely scan me down and kill me.

 

I need to check the distance (in light years) between my jump freighter pilot and two cyno pilots I have for just such eventualities. Actually, they are there in case I get caught in Uedama or Niarja not Bagodan but I digress.

 

Distance is too much for one but the other is just in range so I login the character in (local is conveniently empty), and undock and light my cyno.

 

I log back in to the jump freighter pilot and see he has a kill right, he was shot and had an active timer. I enter warp and appear back on grid where I logged out. I can see local has increased in numbers, many with orange or red standings to my corporation/alliance.

 

I see a couple of ships appear as I'm exiting warp but I didn't take notice of them, I was leaving and leaving quickly.

 

I enter jump and am safe. I dock and then quit the for the night.

Feel the Burn

Niarja and Uedama, two 0.5 systems that see a large proportion of high value high sec losses. Gankers are very active here and they are systems I try to avoid, if at all possible.

Apparently the FC for MiniLove (Goonswarm ganking "arm") is stepping down so to "see him off" there has been an increase in ganking occurring.

Niarja

Uedama

It's being very profitable according to the killboard details for the past weekend. 

I wasn't aware this was happening and was told last night by a friend in the 'swarm. This meant I paid attention as I was travelling through high sec instead of using the autopilot and doing something else. So glad I did as last night I was scanned by SIX different ships in four different systems on my approach to Niarja.

I made it safely to station but I sent an alt through Niarja to see what was there and II'm so glad I did. Local spiked and a gank occurred when I would have been passing through, flashy red was Local.

Odds Finally Caught Up with Me

I was flying a freighter last night along the Amarr to Jita pipe and I had to travel through Niarja. This is a 0.5 system and frequently, much like Uedema, seeing a lot of ganking happen. 

I've never had issues before flying through here, well I do tend to be fly safe:

• never autopilot through system of Niarja
• use a scout to watch the in/out gates in Niarja
• never more than 1.5b / 2b in cargo (use multiple trips if I have more than this)
• check large kills for Niarja before arriving at system

I normally pass through quickly and without hassle but last night the odds finally went against me and I found myself in a tricky situation.

Don't Panic

You know what he'd be saying, the voice is in your head now...

I hadn't used autopilot at all on the trip so far, but I jumped into Niarja and started my warp to the next gate. It was then I noticed I was being yellow boxed by a Machariel who then proceeded to bump me downwards from my position. Instead of 12km of the gate I was now 25km.

I opened d-scan and checked what was within max range, a few catalysts were seen so I feared the worst. The Machariel hit me again and I bounced further off gate, nearly 70km from where I started.

A conversation request comes up from the Machariel pilot and I'm about to give him a peice of my (small) mind when I see three cataylsts land on gate...

The End?

But they jump through to the next system instead of engaging me!

At this point I've checked the pilot details out, he's a known "CODE lover" and proudly displays ships he's ganked and hyperdunked in his bio. I decide that speaking to him is not going to do anything and I'll certain to receive a ransom demand.

I do not negotiate with terrorists or gankers and I'm certainly not going to provide any 'tears'.

Options

I look again at d-scan and check Local. 

Local is down to 14 people, six of whom are on my overview. One is the Machariel pilot and 5 are in haulers or other non-ganking ships that are going about their business. I could be about to have 8 people in ganking ships land on me and blow me up.

My scouting alt is in no position to do anything, even if he had a web I would not be able to make it to warp speed before the Machariel bumped me again and because he's not in the same corp as the freighter pilot it would just be a wasted loss of a ship.

Solution, Kind Of.

I've been yellow boxed but I have not been attacked and there are no timers active on my screen. There are no ganking ships I can see inbound so I decide to take the option to logout. I close my client.

I keep a watch on my freighter via the scouting alt but nothing happens. The Machariel does not engage and, more importantly, there are no further ships arriving on grid to finish me off. One minute later my freighter performs an emergency warp and disappears.

I've now logged out and my ship is safe but watching the Machariel pilot I see he leaves system and then logs out himself. 

Conclusion

I sense a trap, the moment I login again the Machariel pilot will return to my position and this will start all over again, perhaps this time with ganking ships killing me. So I remain logged out and will do for the foreseeable future.

The good news is the cargo I was carrying is not critical to my activities. I was merely moving old stock and a small amount of reaction output to Jita for sale. The character flying the freighter has a full skill queue and, most importantly, nothing else to do for at least 24 days (when blueprints will be finished) but can easily be left longer without impacting my game.

A small shock but I was lucky and I've already decided that the day he does login I'll have an armour booster in system to provide some extra EHP as well as a webbing ship to get him "the hell out of dodge ASAP".

It was a "wicked idea"

So Bex said:

"Let's max tank an transport ship loaded with "officer mods", with a high passive armour tank and a set of low-grade Slaves with an off-grid booster Damnation."

At the time I wasn't sure but after thinking about it and tinkering with fits I had to admit it was a interesting, verging on wicked, idea.

 

I'd provide the boosts whilst Bex would provide the transport, officer mods from a previous kill and the suitably equipped low-grade Slave clone.

 

Singularity

 

We retired during down-time one night to test and see if we could find any holes in the idea and getting to shoot Bex is something I'll never turn down :)

 

Cue the music...

 

Bex had already thought of a ship, the Impel, and fit that would work, he suggested that gankers will be scanning cargo not ships so we should be able to get away with a maximum passive tank. I couldn't see an issue with this logic and was really just wanting him to undock so I could start shooting him...

 

The Impel undocked and once boosts went active we were looking at a tank of 240,000 EHP. Yes, TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY THOUSAND for a transport, and all for a couple of hundred million ISK.

 

We warped to a safe spot and then using gank-fit Tornado's I warped to optimal and opened fire.

 

The results were interesting... we found that gank tornados firing again a static ship really did do massive damage, the shields were stripped in four salvos and the armour was going down at the rate of 9% per salvo. However moving the target Impel really made a difference to the salvos and damaged lowered quite significantly.

 

Instead of two salvos to remove shields it was seven and each salvo did 6% armour damage, obviously this meant that for maximum survivability we needed to keep the Impel moving as it was ganked. This actually played nicely into the plan, which called for Bex to autopilot to each gate rather than warp to zero.

 

Bex calculated that it would take at least twenty gank-fit Tornado's to kill the Impel firing a single salvo each. This wasn't a situation we saw happening as most Deep Space Transports were killed by one or two ships who saw an easy untanked target, something this Impel was not going to be.

 

We retired for the night happy with the fit and setting the date for the coming Sunday.

 

Postponed, Due To War

 

Unfortunately the booster pilot was in an alliance that received a war dec the previous week, I was hopeful it would be over by the Saturday but I did not figure in the stupidity of some of my alliance, who lost rather expensive ships in high sec in the last days of the dec, and the war was extended by another week.

 

Undock, Autopilot, Profit!

 

Shoot Me, I'm a Piñata!

 



Sunday morning we undocked and started moving up and down the Amarr->Jita pipe with the boosting Damnation staying out of sight and off grid, but boosting, to the Impel.

 

Scanning was frequent at gates but nothing happened, at least at first but a couple more runs up/down and a few breaks we eventually got someone who took the bait.

 

It was only a lone Tornado and their attack only took a third of the Impel shields, we couldn't even lock the tornado in time to get on the KM however Bex did get a kill right which he was quite happy with (must be the pirate in him).

 

We did get one other Tornado just outside Amarr who tried but again failed to get through the shields but that was it.

 

Next Time, Maybe

 

Perhaps it was bad timing, it was a weekend and early morning in our time zone so night everywhere else or it may have been that pilot who scanned us a couple of times and started calling our idea out in local as we moved through.

 

It was a wicked idea and all we go was two Tornado's and kill rights but was fun and we can always do it again in the future :)