Editors Note: This is a submission from Arenthor Doran, member of Goonswarm Federation.
While the main focus of Burn Jita is on the multi-billion ISK freighter kills, a small group of intrepid goons decided to go smaller and have their own fun. Their targets: anti-gankers and the small but valuable ships trying to run the gauntlet. Armed with the venerable Thrasher, this is their story.
DAY 1 – Friday
With the “Beast from the East” firmly grasping Europe within its icy clutches, our team of gangkers had a snow day, allowing us to start the action early. Our first kill was a bit of a flub (a non-profitable gank), with an empty pod afk on the Perimeter gate. Things soon picked up, though, with our second kill being a crow with T2 rigs and 2 sentient sig amps, both of which dropped. Blessed by the loot fairy, we proceeded to kill more.
With the main (and more to the point, publicised) Burn Jita event kicking off at 14:00 EVE, the targets dried up until we found yet another pod afk on the perimeter gate, bumping our isk ratio up nicely.
Our best kill of the day came as a shock to us. Catching an auto-piloting Buzzard, nothing seemed out of the ordinary until the pod killmail came in. Total kill value of 439 mill to end the day, which is always good to see. I do question the effectiveness of a crystal set in an exploration Buzzard, though.
DAY 2 – Saturday
With Burn Jita now in full swing, we restocked our hangars with trusty Thrashers and prepped for another day of ganking. By this point, we were all negative security status and so CONCORD weren’t the only threat. The faction police were an omni-present threat, and a swarm of anti-gankers had started to appear on the popular gates and stations.
The first four hours of gruelling agony, repeated losses to anti-gankers, going alongside the stream of flubs – unfit ships, empty pods and TiDi-management. These all combined made Saturday look like a wash early on. Suddenly, though, we found what felt like the holy grail of kills, with an unsuspecting pod. Chalk up a nice set of +5’s supported by a strange mix of good value implants.
DAY 3 – Sunday
Sunday went as Saturday, slow to start. Dodging hordes of anti-gankers and burst jamming white knights, things once again improved as they day went on. We pushed through the harassment tactics,
Our small group lacked the numbers and dps to take on freighters, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t annoy them. One notable highlight was spotting a prime target; a freighters webbing alt using a Cruor. For those who are unaware, warping requires reaching a percentage of your maximum speed, and can be achieved more quickly by using a Stasis Webifier to reduce the total maximum speed of a ship. The loot fairy also granted us the gift of a free fed navy web to ease the pain of so many empty pods.
DAY 4 – Monday
Monday was a slow day for us, with only two of our four guys still committed to the gank. By this point, most small-ship pilots had realised what was going on and wised up, bringing out low-value ships and trying to make it not worth our while. Despite this, we clawed our way to our 10 billion ISK target, and were happy with our efforts.
All told, we made 10 billion ISK worth of kills across the four days (Friday to Monday), with only Thrashers, and we had a blast doing it. This all came about because four people who fly together regularly had little interest in the huge fleets, couldn’t spend time making money in Delve during that weekend, and wanted to achieve something that we could say was ours. The end result is a total of slightly more than 2.5 billion ISK damage per person, which is far more averaged per person than the freighter ganking fleets achieved.
So, the next time you look at these huge events, and think that you can’t have an impact, think again. More fun can be had by a small group getting together and achieving their own goals than by the vast resources of a coalition thrown into considerable riches of high-sec. We would challenge you to live this game your way, and make your own fun. EVE is, after all, what you make of it. All that is left to say is MINILUV, here we come.
