The Orca is a double-edged Sword
Published on 04. Dec, 2008 ... written by Jacob Mei, Tags: Articles
by Jacob Mei …
Picture credit: h.jumpers
As I said in a previous article: The Orca: More than meets the Eye!, the Orca would eventually become a feared sight in the space lanes and pvp oriented players have not wasted any time in putting the Orcas ship bay to devious use. Already a rather lengthy thread has surfaced in which miners have, rather ironically, been assaulted with the assistance of the Orca functioning as a pirate carrier for their aggressors.
In a nut shell, according to the OP, the pirates are using the Orca to hold their readied ships in a safe spot. The pirates, all with a -10 sec status, warp to the Orca in their pods, get into their ships, and quickly warp to the miners where they then kill them all (and in several cases inadvertently pod them due to the pirates use of smart bombs). Concord comes in, blows away the pirates ships, pirates retreat back to the Orca and wait to repeat. Also according to the OP it would seem the pirates are using industrials to salvage the wrecks, likely bringing the booty back to the Orca with its massive storage bay.
This sort of activity echoes recent pirate activity in parts of the world in which pirates are using speed boats, launched from “mother ships” to quickly over take and capture target vessels. Perhaps the pirates here in eve got the idea for their Real Life counterparts (a rather humorous thought).
It should be noted that this is not new as pirates have done this for years but their mothership of choice have been freighters. What they would do is take the ships via freighters to a target system, dock up at a station or POS and then move the ships one at a time to the safe spot. The only difference to this tactic now is that the Orca provides mobile transport as well as gang bonus.
CCP has not yet commented in the article about this tactic and one would hope that any comments they do make will be stating that the Orca is working as intended as any nerf would likely result in the complete removal of the Orcas high sec Carrier potential and would only force pirates to return to using freighters to move their ships to target systems.
Miners should take note of this tactic and instead of complaining should adapt. Always watch local, be aligned to a safe spot so the moment combat ships show up your already away, have a tank on your ship, fire off 360 degree scans every few minutes looking for strange Orcas and a large number of combat ships that would typically fit in the Orcas bay and always be aware of your surroundings. The moment something seems out of place you should be getting ready to hit that warp button.
I honestly hope CCP allows the Orca to remain as it is, as I cant see any sort of mechanics they would introduce that could not easily be circumvented (such as the Orca being a loner as opposed to in a gang if CCP were to make a chance where all ships that are part of a aggressing gang are flagged.)
Hopefully this use of the Orca is proof of concept and we will soon see high sec fights with Orcas functioning as carriers way off in the distance as opposed to station hugging combat.
Related articles:
- The Orca: More than meets the Eye!
- Thread in the EVE-O forums
- EVE’s ‘Orca’ mining vessel facilitates suicide ganks against miners @ Massively.com
8 Responses to “The Orca is a double-edged Sword”
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rantuket: great write up! looking forward to the remainin...
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Dagda Morr
04. Dec, 2008
I hope the Orca is allowed to continue being used like this – there is no exploit or abuse of a mechanic, just people figuring out how to use a provided tool in a slightly different way. As was pointed out, there is not an increased risk of these sorts of ganks happening because of the Orca, only that the mechanics are slightly different. Miners should be aware that this can happen and adapt to it in much the same way they have adapted to using the Orca for it’s positive benefits to them.
John Doe
05. Dec, 2008
The orca being used as a ship transport isn’t an exploit, the problem is more that the ones using it are circumventing the downsides of high-sec suicide ganking (the sec rating loss). Even with -10 security status they are still able to go about their merry suiciding of ships on barges as if they had +10 sec status.
I suspect there will be a change in CONCORD mechanics as a result. It’s a bit odd that -10 pilots are allowed to jump into 0.5 and up in the first place or that pilots with bad sec ratings don’t have an “escort” even while in pod.
Anyway, it’s wonderfull how creative eve pilots are sometimes =)
Jacob Mei
05. Dec, 2008
John Doe, I agree that it is rather odd that those with -10 can even get into high sec, from what my pirate friends have told me a -10 is more of a sought after badge of honor so sec loss is no penality to them. That said I wonder if sec penalty loss continues to be added after -10. IE if in the unlikely event the player want to “fly straight” would they have a sec standing of say -15 to work on or is -10 the hard bottom, though then again if they are at -10, odds are they wont bother to try to get it back up to possitive standing.
In regards to CCP implimenting something, thats a very fine line. Those with a -5 or below are already KOS even in their pods so simply being in high sec is a risk to them (though to be honest I would imagine a small one given how fast pods are entering warp). The thing about the way the map is set up is you can go everywhere regardless of your standing with a faction, you just need to accept the consinquences if you do though. Perhaps something like concord shooting at the pod if it doesnt leave the system after X amount of time might curb this sort of behavior but as with everything thats going to step on a fair number of toes.
John Doe
06. Dec, 2008
Jacob, afaik -10 is rock bottom, same with positive sec rating being a max of +5(it used to be +10 so some people can be above that)
Anything CCP would do would have to be considered carefully, to me however it seems easier for the criminals to locate victims and harder the other way ’round. Well, rather it takes equal effort but the chance of locating targets is greater for the criminals then for the victims to locate the criminals in a busy local channel.
I believe a good change could be an escort of concord ships that show up on every grid a -10 warps towards (but doesn’t stick around after he leaves) hopefully preventing him from affecting anyone in high-sec by CONCORD’oking him the moment he gets into a ship that can’t nearly-instantly warp out. Would still allow the person to take a high-sec shortcut in a shuttle/capsule but not punish him by NPC’s podding him(though that could be ok in the harsh ‘reality’ of Eve imo).
M4g3ll4n
08. Dec, 2008
Honestly, since the response time of Concord is quite fast atm. We use remote reppers to avoid sucide ganking. So, this ORCA tactics won’t change much. I honestly like to see pirates finding new tactics to adapt, so do Miners.
eman lluf
19. Jan, 2009
Concord doesn’t kill pods.
Well. Lets change that.
NEW scale. Minus 100 to Plus 100.
IF you are under minus 10, concord pods you.
Instant lock, Instant fire, Instant kill.
Period.
No mercy, No trial, NO BS.
Just finish off the minus 10 or bigger.
But eve won’t do that.
Eve LOVES pirates. They want criminals.
Eve is a pirate game. Plain and simple.
Criminals rule eve.
asashi
16. Dec, 2009
yes eve is a pirate haven. even a new player 3 days or so into the game in a shiny new bestower cant even go pick up a mod he purchased a few jumps away without getting ganked in high sec. if i remember correctly concord used to target jam u when they engaged u. apparently this is no longer true.. and if its not true then that would mean ccp did this intentionaly.
Duh Da Lee DudeRights
17. Feb, 2010
Heh – miners are still waiting for station walking so they can blow up pirate Orcas and freighters in their docking bays…again no exploit, just alternative ways of using EVE features.
Pirates are romantic everywhere. and so are mobs.
But truthfully miners alts have a minor chance at blowing Orcas in free space if there are enough of the miner alts. However, pirate freighters will always be immune since they just have so damned much structure.