Gone off the reservation

Another day, another dollar, another whiner in local.  If you don't know what I am on about read this first.

In order to judge whether ganking is as easy as they say it is, I joined forces with the resident CODE agent around Osmon - Agent Liek DarZ.  Yes in a moment of miner whiner driven insanity, your author went rogue.

One quick email to agent DarZ and a little while later I am on my way to a gank.  Now in truth, this is not the first time your author went ganking.  But seldom as slick as this.

Get your ass to xx station.  Trade window goes up as I dock.  Accept T1 destroyer.  Get in ship.  Message to undock at count of 0.  2... 1... 0... undock.  Take fleet warp to gate with instructions to jump on contact.  Take fleet warp to another gate, jump on contact.  Take fleet warp.  Message to overheat and activate guns. Targets name gets posted in fleet.  Land at optimal, lock... and the rest happens automatically.  I was slow, so I get the kill mail.  Also I am too slow to target the pod.  Warp to station.  Undock in rookie ship to "pull concord".  Dock again and wait out aggression timer. While we wait I chat to Agent DarZ.  He has been at this for a very long time. Look at his kill board.  No seriously, go and take a look.  Way more losses than kills (you get shot by CONCORD twice for every gank - once with the gank, and once when you undock your rookie ship per above).  ISK efficiency of course the inverse.  The asymmetrical nature of that stat of course the chief bone of contention.

Name redacted to protect the guilty

I ask if I may post my observations in this blog and offer to run it by him first.  Sure he says - I can do that, but he doesn't care to censor me in any way.  There is nothing secret about what he does.  Too true. Every step we took in our gank is documented.  Everything from basic catalyst training and fitting, to advanced catalyst, thrasher and vexors.  There is even a nice section on "managing" CONCORD.

We chat about the philosophy of CODE.  The complacency of care-bears.  Anti tanking.  Whether or not he thinks ganking is too easy or not.

The way he does it, certainly makes it seems ridiculously easy, but your author has been around the block enough times to know that is not the case.

What we have here is an individual that has put an enormous amount of time and effort into perfecting his technique.  Intimate knowledge of his environment as well as his targets.  In short, a player that has done the hard work, put in the time and should be rewarded for his efforts.  Whatever your opinion about the philosophy of ganking - at least lets have respect for that.

In Agent Darz' case he runs 4 clients.  Most of his targets are identified with D-Scan (he only rarely uses probes).  He has perches for most of the systems around Osmon and can scan any system easily.  He ship scans his targets beforehand to ensure that he brings enough dps to guarantee a kill, and get gets the warp in pretty much spot on every time.

When the gank goes down he normally controls 2 dps characters - and snags the pod in the vast majority of the cases.  In addition he usually scoops the loot with a 3rd.  For the uninitiated - this requires a certain amount of coordination across multiple screens - something your dimwitted and slow deliberate author has trouble pulling off.

If that still seems all to easy, well then the below is posted especially for you...

Agents of CODE are cowardly you say and only in it for the easy prey they care not about the ISK dishonourably they enter the fray. In PVP, not so easy the fight will go in a tournament they might not even show In miner space grief they sow always land the final blow Regarded as the most dastardly clan in all the realms of the LAN If ganking is your plan an agent from CODE is your man

Where CODE is concerned most of the targets happens to be industrials or miners, but as Agent Darz points out - a target can be anything - he links a Caracal kill as an example of a "moving" target of opportunity, although those happen less often.  In passing he mentions that he doesn't really care about the ISK.

He has been ganking for a long long time - I ask him what keeps you coming back and not getting bored?  "Some people actually start to be cautious, so there is challenge. But there is also new ones all the time" he says.  He continues that he just needs a target : "The harder to kill, the better"

Of course the ganker is but one side of the story.  Your author is only too well aware of the ostential reason for his roguishness - miner whining.  Well in this case not a peep.

In fact when I tried to contact marian64 Sukarala the convo gets rejected.  A second try sees me permanently banned from contacting him.  A pity as I really would have appreciated his perspective. I take a cursory look at his and his corporations' kill boards - as far as the corporation goes, not too bad (lots of losses but at least a good number in low/null/wormhole space).  As far as marian64 himself goes - could be a noob with a good couple of highsec losses.

This is the point your author realises he will never be CODE agent worth a damn - his conscience gets the better of him and he refunds marian64's 30 million ISK loss







Forgive me Agent DarZ for I have sinned...




As part of my redemption I send an email to his CEO - with an apology and an offer to sacrifice a tanked ship to marian64 and the rest of the corp in highsec if they so choose (gets rid of the kill right too).  In truth I'm struggling to figure out what the character of the corp is - no idea whether that would appeal or insult.

So does this mean your author has turned around and slunk back to the care-bear den from which he came?  Not quite.  With kill rights against him waiting to be activated PVE is out of the question - who knows what he will get up to!