Considering there is just over a week to go until the Miners worst holiday, I decided I’d best get preparing for it now. This will involve getting ahold of as many Catalysts as I can (without getting silly), and getting them all pre-fitted.

Those of you who don’t know the specifics are probably wondering why a Catalyst? Why use a Destroyer hull? Well, for one, Destroyers in general are cheap to buy – depending on where you are, they can cost between 600k – 1mil. Despite this vey small cost, they can be fitted (also very cheaply) to provide a sickening amount of DPS (making the name ‘Destroyer’ very apt), espically when over-heated and fit a specific way, and the best one at this is the Catalyst:

Lows:
Magnetic Field Stabilizer I
Magnetic Field Stabilizer I
Magnetic Field Stabilizer I

Highs:
Light Neutron Blaster I
Light Neutron Blaster I
Light Neutron Blaster I
Light Neutron Blaster I
Light Neutron Blaster I
Light Neutron Blaster I
Light Neutron Blaster I
Light Neutron Blaster I

Ammo:
Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S (about 56 charges, 7 for each gun)

That’s a fitting I picked off the Eve forums. Running it through EFT, it puts out 233 DPS normally, and 268 when over-heated. Obviously, it would do more if I put Tech II fittings on, but what’s the point of that? The whole point of a suicide gank ship is for it to get blown up by Concord after your target is dead (hopefully), so fitting cheaply is the name of the game.

Now, I know there’s a difference between what EFT says a ship can do, and what that ship actually does in a combat situation, so I went out and tested it to see for myself, and to give myself practise at suicide ganking. It performed brilliantly. In fact, it performed so well, that after a few hours of doing Real Life stuff, I came back and did it again. When the second one died however, I noticed that his pod was floating there, and I wasn’t dead yet, so I podded him as well. I didn’t know the sec hit for doing that would be as severe as it was though (-19%), so I’m now currently sitting on a -2.86 security status. Goodbye 0.9 and 1.0 space!

Looting the wrecks of the former miners also made me realise how it’s pretty much impossible to lose money doing this, especially if you do it solo. The fit I posted up the top will cost you about 1.4 – 1.5mil give or take. Considering that insurance will cover about 750k of that when your ship inevitably goes pop, you’re only losing less than a million ISK for each ship, even if you don’t loot the wrecks. Almost all mining barges use Strip Miners, which fetch about 1.4 million ISK each, so if just one drops, you’ve just payed for your ship. Anything else that drops after that is a bonus.

Hmm. Better go shopping I suppose.