The annual genocide against hulks in high-security space is almost upon us, but there is still time to prepare. Whether you are a ganker, miner, or trader, Hulkageddon offers a wealth of opportunities. But there are also dangers. The most obvious danger is to miners, whose profession is a much riskier proposition during Hulkageddon.

This is a guide to fighting back against the gankers in a surprisingly hilarious way: reverse ganking.

Reverse Ganking

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style="font-style: italic;">Turn the tables on the suicide gankers by fighting dirty.

The basic mechanic of suicide ganking is to attack a ship in high-security space with enough damage that the target dies before CONCORD can destroy the attacker. Because of the way insurance payments work, and the brief delay before CONCORD spawns, most suicide gankers that pick their targets carefully can expect to suffer only a mild financial loss, plus a largely irrelevant reduction in security status.

This means that until their security status gets too low to travel in high-security space, they can frolic through the asteroid fields of high-security space, willy-nilly, blowing up any Hulks they see. There will usually be fifteen minute breaks while the ganker waits for CONCORD to cool off, but otherwise it is a generally foolproof endeavor.

The flaw in the plan is this: most miners will not fit tanks on their hulks because to do so would compromise their ability to mine. A fully-tanked hulk that is in a solar system with .7 security status or higher can usually survive the attentions of a single suicide ganker long enough for CONCORD to show up. Thus, all you to need to do to kill a ganker is withstand his attack for a few seconds.

The Fitting

The hulk can actually fit a pretty decent “buffer” tank, meaning a tank that does not continually boost itself up and relies rather on having a lot of hit points with good damage resists. The fitting given here assumes that fitting skills are not maxed out, and thus gives up one of the strip miners from the high slots. If you have excellent skills or fitting-boosting implants, you can cram the third miner on there by downgrading some of you mid-slots to named modules. Note that there is some small hit point loss, and that implants can be lost to smart bomb attacks, even in high-security space.

• High-Slots: x2 Strip Miner I, and Salvager I.
• Mid-Slots: Medium Shield Extender II, Heat Dissipation Field II, Invulnerability Field II, and
• Ballistic Deflection Field II.
• Low-Slots: Damage Control II, and Micro Auxiliary Power Core I.
• Rigs: x2 Medium Core Defence Field Extender I.
• Drones: Mining Drone I drones for veracity, or Warrior I drones for killing NPC spawns.

All told, this should cost about 190mil ISK in Jita, and have about 30,000 effective hit points. Note that the prices for hulks and the associated fittings are often much higher during Hulkageddon, and are already about 40mil higher than they were, last month.

Tips And Tricks

• Do not stay within 36km of the warp-in point of a given asteroid belt. To do so would look suspicious to a ganker that expects his prey to take at least a modicum of precaution.
• Some (but not most) gankers will scan your ship to discover what modules you have fit.
• Do not stay still even when mining. If nothing else, orbit a jet can so that you can have at least a bit of speed and transversal velocity, relative to your attacker. Every little bit helps.
• If a player attacks you and is killed by CONCORD, yet seems poised to try again, it is likely because he has backup.
• Any time a player seems especially peeved by your survival, it is probably a good idea to post the related chat logs to the Ten Ton Hammer forums so that we can evaluate and enjoy them.
• Dock up and replenish your shields (or wait until they replenish), each time you are attacked.
• If you keep Warrior drones out, they will likely attack the person that attacked you. This will usually result in you receiving the ganker's loss mail, even though it is CONCORD that actually did the killing. This is a great way to actually get kill mails from the whole process.

Final Thoughts

Most solo battleship suicide ganks will probably not be able to nab you, even if they get three volleys off (the higher the security status of your solar system, the less likely there will be more than two volleys). The real risk is that an organized fleet with a mass of ships will be able to keep pouring on destroyer attacks until you are dead. This is unlikely to happen in most cases, due to the grassroots and disorganized nature of Hulkageddon.

As long as you keep an eye out to make sure there are not multiple people in your belt planning to gank you all at once, you will probably be okay. Best of luckto you.