For the Empress! (part 1)

The Evil One announced that this year there will be Burn Amarr instead of Burn Jita, because of roleplaying reasons. I doubt if he consulted with the Ministry of Love (CFC gankers in highsec) before this decision, because Amarr is 1.0 security, so Concord reacts the fastest here, faster than in the 0.9 Jita. This will force gankers to redesign their doctrines as usual gank ships (Talos, Brutix, Catalyst) simply don't live long enough. I'd guess they move to arty Trashers and Tornadoes. I'd like to point out that Minmatar T1 cruisers (Stabber, Bellicose, Rupture) only have 4 turret hardpoints, making them bad gank ships, forcing gankers to blot out the sky with Trashers or grab deep into their pockets for Tornadoes.

May is almost over and there was nothing burned yet, despite earlier Burn Jitas all took part mid-spring. The last year wasn't a victory march for the Empire of Evil: they lost several regions and the "NPC Trash" is slaughtering them left and right. That 2.4T in ships and the highsec POCOs that my GRR project took from them is irrelevant, they didn't want it anyway. So a weakened CFC is trying a harder task than before: burning Amarr. This isn't simply a doctrinal change. Large amount of ships and fittings needs to be built or transported to Amarr, which is a trade hub, but not as large as Jita and not properly stocked with ganker stuff. Not to mention that former stockpiles (like thousands of Catalyst hulls) now have to be liquidated or transported.

These are all positive signs, but doesn't give us victory without lifting a finger. At first, the stocking and doctrinal changes affect anti-burn pilots too. For example ECM ships worth nothing against alpha gankers, as they fire their one salvo in the moment they go GCC. Jamming them later changes nothing. There are three ways to fight Amarr gankers, two announced today, the third and most important on Monday.

The first is wardecs, available only to highsec PvP groups as no one else can capitalize on it. While decs weren't effective previous years, they are now, due to removal of death-clone-jumping. Today a Goonie can't just set his medical clone to Jita/Amarr and self-destruct, he must use a jump clone if any is pre-installed in highsec or take a looooong walk from Deklein to Amarr that includes the always camped Niarja gate. Also, they have to set their medical clone upon arrival, missing this and getting podded will get them back to deep nullsec. While there will surely be convoys, stragglers, disconnectors and TiDi victims can be pointed and killed on the way, teleporting them back. So it will be a turkey shoot for highsec deccers. Since arty trashers are pretty able to defend themselves, probing them out on insta-warp or camping their station is probably not as good idea as it is against blaster Catalysts. In all years RvB joined any anti-Goon war to protect them, but in last year this was an empty action: RvB ships didn't show up during Burn Jita, probably the line members were fed up serving Goons. Also RvB usually don't operate in Amarr space, so deccers will likely not face RvB action.

The second form of resistance is troll freighters. They performed well last year and freighters received fitting options since then. By fitting tank to your max-insured freighter and placing unscannable double-wrapped cargo box in it, you can waste lot of man-hours of the gankers with trivial losses to yourself. Simply place some worthless item in a container and then courier contract this to your freighter pilot and fly into Amarr. Then fly out. And in again until they bite. Or maybe orbit the most ganked gate (probably Ashab) and troll them on local, preferably with the title of this article.