One of the many disciplines of general infiltration, highsec awoxing is an activity that involves joining a target corporation then subsequently killing their members. The name “awox” was originally popularized following a string of kills by a character named “Awox,” who would use characters with blue standing to arrange tackle on friendly entities. Now, the term is used to refer to all kills where one or more perpetrators has positive standing or is in the victim’s corporation or alliance. This is primarily done for fun and sometimes profit, and can be highly enjoyable whether it’s successful or not. With this guide, an alt and a few hours training, you’ll be ready to start highsec awoxing.
GETTING STARTED
All you need to be able to start awoxing is a character whose reputation you don’t mind tarring. A slightly altered gank Catalyst, with a Damage Control and two Magnetic Field Stabilizers will do a great job at killing most mining barges. Most destroyers will do the job, with the Cormorant and Thrasher also being powerful. These basic fits only require nine hours of training, although training further will increase your effectiveness. Once you’ve trained for a destroyer, you can move on to a cruiser, which will give you more firepower and allow you to take down many ill-fit missioning ships.
If the enemy decides to fight back your destroyer won’t stand much of a chance, assuming a basic level of competency on their part. This is where it would be handy to have an alt or friend in a T1 logistics ship; they are massive force multipliers. Remote ECCM can come in handy if they are pesky enough to use ECM, and remote sensor boosters are great for catching incompetent people’s pods. Don’t forget; if your victim is in your corporation, you don’t suffer a security status penalty for either the kill or the pod!
FINDING A TARGET
After you’ve got your awoxing character equipped for the job, you’ll need to find a target corp. This isn’t as hard as it might sound, and there are several ways to find potential victims. The ingame recruitment tool is great for lazy people; with just a few clicks it will return a list of tens, if not hundreds of suitable corps. Other ways of doing it include using the recruitment section of the Eve Online forums, or just clicking through names in local till you find an ideal corp.
Desirable attributes in a potential corp include activity, idiocy and ignorance. Fortunately, you’ll be able to find all three of these and plenty more in most highsec corps you encounter. There are more specific points you’ll want to look for depending on what type of corp you want to infiltrate; for example, if you want to go for a mining corp, one that has regular Orca-supported operations would be ideal.
Sometimes the easiest part of the process (and sometimes the hardest part) is actually joining the corp. A less experienced corp will commonly display something along the lines of ‘all new members welcome just send in a blank app’. Due to the nature of these corps they’ll probably have less expensive targets and fewer of them. Although a corp that asks for an API key and some text may seem more intelligent, it’s likely that they’re just as ineffectual as the others. Don’t be scared off by corps asking for API, they’ll usually only use it to check your skills, or they won’t actually use it at all. If you get the feeling you’re dealing with more thorough people, it would be a good idea to uncheck the wallet journal box if you made any significant donation from your main. When they ask you questions such as ‘why do you want to join the corp?’, give a reason that suits your character’s age, composition of skillpoints and the corp’s background. Ask questions about the corp, it makes you look interested and can also give you valuable information such as the frequency and vulnerability of corp ops.
HUNTING THE PREY
So you’ve made it past the first hurdle and you’ve managed to join your target corporation. Now the explosions can begin. If you have enough firepower ask when the next corp op will be, whether it’s mining, mission running or incursioning. Once you know how long you’ll have to wait, how many people will be there and what ships they will be in, you’ll know whether it’s worth waiting for and whether you’ll actually be able to succeed. You’ll probably need a friend/alt in a logistics ship to take down Orcas or mission runners as they will either reship into combat ships or already be in them.
If you decide it’s not worth waiting or they don’t have any ops, you’ll need to find a target to execute. If they have a HQ, travel there and kill whatever you can before they notice. If it’s a mining corp and the miners are AFK you may be able to score multiple kills before they realise what’s happening. Look out for funny responses from AFK miners such as ‘What happened to my ship?’ or ‘I don’t remember docking’.
Once your corp realises you’re an awoxer, it doesn’t mean the fun is over. In fact, it’s only just beginning. While you’re soaking up tears like a sponge, you can carry on your killing spree. Some corp members don’t pay attention to corp chat, don’t use it at all or assume they’re safe because they’re far away from HQ. You needn’t use locator agents to find targets that are absent from your home system though, the ingame map has a function that allows you to see all corp members currently in space. Open the map control panel, go to Information under the Star Map tab and click ‘Corp members now in space’. Undocked corpies will appear as lights on the map, and you can simply right click, set destination and travel there. Note this method has a couple of drawbacks, namely that the information is delayed by up to 20 minutes and it only shows people that are in space (not docked).
THE FUN BEGINS
After everyone’s docked up in fear and you’ve killed anyone stupid enough to remain undocked in a mining barge, it’s time to extract isk and/or tears. Some people will get fantastically angry at the loss of some pixels, and some won’t care. The best tears come from corporations that have a strong sense of community, as friends of those you’ve killed will try to be an internet tough guy. Internet tough guys will generally deliver a sustained flow of tears over a surprisingly long period. If you’re not getting the reaction you want, throw some light trolling in for a few minutes, give it a stir and you’ll get some simmering anger.
The key to generating rage over a longer period of time is to stay in corp. You can’t be kicked while you’re in space, which means to avoid being killed while you’re away or sleeping all you need to do is cloak up. If you don’t have access to an Orca or Ship Maintenance Array, you’ll need to either equip one while you’re hunting or dock up quickly to put one on. The latter is somewhat more risky as you can be kicked while you’re docked. Check your logs for tears of frustration if you do this overnight, if you’re really lucky you might wake up to find the whole corp deploying scan probes to try to find you. Unfortunately if you can’t log in after downtime but a director can, you’ll be forcibly ejected with no say in the matter. If you’re in the lucky position of being able to log in immediately after downtime, you can carry on indefinitely.
Awoxing can also be surprisingly profitable. Potential income sources range from ransoming to elaborate courier contracts. Depending on the circumstances it may be a good idea to honour some ship ransoms. For example, honouring a ransom for a Retriever increases the chances an Orca pilot will actually pay up, which you can then dishonour for increased tear potential. You can always ask for a ransom to leave the corp, they’re a lot more likely to oblige after a couple of days of you striking from the shadows every now and again. When done right, awoxing can be more devastating to a poorly organised corp than a wardec, so set the price high if you think the CEO is rich.
If you know someone in the corp has a freighter, the courier contract scam is a great way to make some isk and tears, but requires some alertness and firepower. Set up a large courier contract (75km3-7003 with non-rounded digits) with as high a collateral as the freighter pilot is willing to accept and a generous reward. As soon as you notice the contract has been accepted, sit on the route somewhere between the starting point and the destination. When he jumps in, activate your guns, ask for a ransom then carry on shooting. Once he’s dead he’ll be unable to complete the courier contract and you’ll make collateral+ransom in profit. Expect anger and disappointment from the freighter pilot.
MOVING ON
After you get kicked, your enemy’s tear udders have been depleted or you’ve made the corp a smouldering wreck, it’s time to find a new corp to join. You don’t need to start a new character to do this; you can join many different corps and kill numerous ships while still having the majority of corps open to you. If you get asked questions about your employment history, it’s easy to shrug it off with multiple scenarios. “This one collapsed, this one went inactive, this one didn’t deliver what it promised, this one got wardecced and disintegrated” and so on. Uploading your kills to a killboard is a terrible idea as competent recruiters might see them, if you have to brag use the ingame killmail system.
It’s generally a simple rinse and repeat, you just need to remember to play it cool if they pick up on your history. There are times when previous employers you’ve had will try to warn your current CEO of the grim fate that awaits his corp. If you want to avoid being kicked because of this use the same cloaking technique you’d use if you were being hunted. You might find you’re a bit more time pressured as your employment history grows thanks to eagle-eyed corp members and annoying ex-CEOs.
THE REVERSE SAFARI
The process described above is commonly referred to as a safari. A reverse safari is where the prey comes to you rather than you coming to the prey. All you need to do is set up a corp with a friendly sounding name (but not suspiciously caring) and make an advert. A little spamming the Recruitment channel – however much of a cesspit it is – never hurts. Sooner or later you’ll have some people in your corp. There are many advantages to reverse Safari-ing; you’re more likely to get kills on a well-travelled character, you can get prey to come to you and word of your nature is less likely to get out since you can kick a target from corp immediately before he has time to warn everyone. Unfortunately tears will be less plentiful as people are generally less likely to rage in a private convo than they are in corp.
COUNTERING AWOXING
If you’re the CEO of a corp described above, you’ve probably recoiled at the thought of one person completely crippling your corp, driving away its members, stealing their isk and milking their tears. But there is a simple way to prevent any of this happening: don’t let them into your corp in the first place. Awoxing is fairly uncommon but if your recruiting standards are lax, it will happen to you eventually. Don’t be overly suspicious though, just because someone’s had multiple corps in a few weeks doesn’t necessarily mean they’re an awoxer. Having multiple kills on corp members does. Use your brain. Once an awoxer is inside your corp, it can be very tricky to get rid of him. If he can log on after downtime before a director can, he can stay there for as long as he likes. Warning other members of him is likely to be ineffectual, some people won’t get the message and some people will ignore it.
WHY SHOULD YOU DO IT?
Having read all this you’re probably thinking, “Why should I bother?” As previously mentioned, awoxing is a great source of entertainment, isk and tears. You may like it or you may not, as is the case with all other activities in Eve, but I highly recommend you give it a try to find out if you do enjoy it. If you’re looking for help and advice the Belligerent Undesirables channel is a great place to hang out with fellow space-villains. The Belligerent Undesirables blog, ran by Psychotic Monk, is also a great place to visit if you want to look at awoxing’s fun potential. If you do decide to take the plunge, good luck.
This article originally appeared on TheMittani.com, written by Tubrug1.
