The reason I promote low-sec space so much is not because I love to mine or do industrial stuff, but because my main character from 2004 is a pirate. The unfortunate reality is that CCP Games has pretty much nerfed my trade (piracy) into the ground. But, with the new changes and much love happening in low-sec space these days, things are looking very bright for the original core of piracy.
What is Piracy?
I should preface this with how I define piracy in EVE Online. Piracy for me is all about making ISK by brute force. How you force that ISK is what really defines the act of piracy. In the case of a pirate, they can either ask you nicely for it through forcing your hand (e.g.: ransoming your ship) or by simply attacking your ship and selling off your cargo.
Tactics
The tactics I use as a solo pirate is solo gate camping with roaming. My objective is to hug gates and catch unsuspecting targets mid-travel through their destinations. This may entail everything from Ventures to various PvP fitted frigates to destroyers and yes, the obvious industrial ships. I rely heavily on good scan resolution ships that pack a heavy punch such as the Cynabal.
My ship is fitted with multiple sensor boosters with scan resolution scripts and rigs topped off with thick 1600mm plates and hard hitting turrets that shred hulls. The key to my tactics is basically trying to get to a 1 second lock time on an average frigate. If this was a Fast and Furious movie, you know where they mention the "10-second car", then for piracy, we'd be looking for the "1-second lock". In my current fit, without an expensive implant, I have around 1.3 second locks on average frigates. With the big expensive implants, you're talking about 1.2 second locks.
Other tactics entail using the stealth bomber and probing out site runners who are hacking cans. Above, I found someone hacking in one of the event sites in low-sec. When I decloaked, you can see the can exploding as I completely destroy their hull. While I could have ransomed, there were others probing and local and I had to be fast. The entire encounter for me at least, was extremely rewarding.
Mining Happens in Low-Sec
I mean, this blog is really about me promoting industrial in low-sec so obviously my alts mine heavily in low-sec. But, so do many others. I have seen loads of industrial ships, imposed on a few mining ops, and see a lot of ore being moved around in the past couple of weeks. There are really good ISK valued ore in low-sec right now and that means at some point, more and more pilots will mine it. Gas for one is the most attractive. You can get around 100 million ISK in one cloud if not more. These bears are fighting over it because of how valuable it is to huff.
In Summary
To end this article, let me just say a few things. Piracy is still hard. There are many game mechanics working against us these days. The biggest offender is cloaky tactics mixed with warp core stabs. Simply camping choke points is not as good anymore and they get broken up easily. There are still many players camping the same old systems and doing the same old tactics like the infamous smartbombing mid-warp garbage to farm kills/pods. However, the roaming pirate, especially in dense faction warfare systems where people are also moon mining, gas mining, ore mining, and building things, there is a lot of good content to be found if you want to be a criminal.
Until next time, fly safe!
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