Quick question from a non-player

Kurush

Hey.  I'm not really an EVE player.  I do like sci-fi PvP, but that mostly translates into 2142 or NS for me.  I do like to follow the game, though, just to keep informed.  I've read up on a lot of the in-game drama and the fights between the big players in there.  I'm not too familiar with the finer points of gameplay, though.

So I'm curious about one thing.  What is can flipping?  From what I gather, you use it to kill players in high sec space without CONCORD intervening.  You drop a jet can (no idea what that is), and if they don't know any better and loot it, you can then kill them, since they get flagged as stealing from you/your corp.

What are the specifics, though?  Like what exactly is a jet can and why would players go over and take items from it?

 

 

Kyleran

Any time a player jettisons a piece of cargo, a jet can is created which will last about 2 hours before it vanishes. 

Miners use this technique to store their mined ore until they can come by with a large capacity hauler ship to pick up all of the jetcans full of ore and take them back to base for refining.  Sometimes gankers will jettison a can of their own and hide nearby hoping someone will open them up and take the cargo out of them.

Jetcans have no security to them, anyone can come along and take the cargo out of them.  However, if you take cargo from someone else's jetcan you will flag yourself as flashing red to them, and the other player can freely kill you for 15 minutes w/o any interference from Concorde.

Some gankers will look for newbie miners and steal their ore to provoke the new player to shoot at them.  If that trick fails, the next thing they try is eject the stolen ore hoping the new player will take it back, which turns the other player red allowing them to shoot them, again without Concorde interference.

In the end, its a cheap way to get kills.... but certainly within the rules of EVE.

 

Kurush

Originally posted by Kyleran


Any time a player jettisons a piece of cargo, a jet can is created which will last about 2 hours before it vanishes. 
Miners use this technique to store their mined ore until they can come by with a large capacity hauler ship to pick up all of the jetcans full of ore and take them back to base for refining.  Sometimes gankers will jettison a can of their own and hide nearby hoping someone will open them up and take the cargo out of them.
Jetcans have no security to them, anyone can come along and take the cargo out of them.  However, if you take cargo from someone else's jetcan you will flag yourself as flashing red to them, and the other player can freely kill you for 15 minutes w/o any interference from Concorde.
Some gankers will look for newbie miners and steal their ore to provoke the new player to shoot at them.  If that trick fails, the next thing they try is eject the stolen ore hoping the new player will take it back, which turns the other player red allowing them to shoot them, again without Concorde interference.
In the end, its a cheap way to get kills.... but certainly within the rules of EVE.
 

 

So is it not possible to distinguish your cans from those of another player?  And isn't there a way to put passwords on cans?  Or does that take a more expensive kind of can?

sgtboz

Ships have a limited cargo capacity.  Most ships players use to mine with have cargo holds that will only hold  a few minutes worth of ore.  In order to avoid returning to station every few minutes, miners will jettison the ore.  The ore appears in space in a jettisoned container near the miner, aka "Jet Can".  As the player mines, he can drag the ore collected from his cargo hold to the jet can.  He can either change ships to a hauling ship and haul away the ore from the jet can when he is finished, or  a friend with a hauler can haul for him while he mines.

Jet cans can be opened by anyone.  Opening someone else's jet can that is not in your corp or your fleet makes it possible for that player to attack you without reprocussions from the NPC Guards (Concord).

Can flipping is going up to another player's can, jettisoning your own can, and dragging their ore into your can.  In doing so, you hope:

1.  The player attacks you.  If they do, you will most likely get a miner kill since you came in a combat ship to can flip.

2.  The player opens your can and removes ore from it.  This makes it possible for you to attack him.

3.  You have a friend or alt with a hauler come in and haul the ore away to sell.

sgtboz

You can easily tell which cans are yours vs. which are a players that is not in your corp or fleet.  Your cans have a white Icon.  Cans that will cause you to get "flagged" have yellow icons.

There is a lockable can, but the capacity is 3.9k vs the 27k of a jet can. 

Kurush

Originally posted by sgtboz


You can easily tell which cans are yours vs. which are a players that is not in your corp or fleet.  Your cans have a white Icon.  Cans that will cause you to get "flagged" have yellow icons.
There is a lockable can, but the capacity is 3.9k vs the 27k of a jet can. 

 

So it's a win-win for the flipper?  Either they get some ore, or they get the miner?

Unless the miner has some high-powered friends in the area or something?

Then again, from what I'm hearing, this technique is mostly used on the most inexperienced players.

nurgles

Originally posted by Kurush

Originally posted by sgtboz


You can easily tell which cans are yours vs. which are a players that is not in your corp or fleet.  Your cans have a white Icon.  Cans that will cause you to get "flagged" have yellow icons.
There is a lockable can, but the capacity is 3.9k vs the 27k of a jet can. 

 

So it's a win-win for the flipper?  Either they get some ore, or they get the miner?

Unless the miner has some high-powered friends in the area or something?

Then again, from what I'm hearing, this technique is mostly used on the most inexperienced players.

 

Basicaly you are right, it is win win for the agressor, unless you have some support.

If you jet can mine in buisy sections of high sec space, this will happen quite a lot. You are also subject to ore thieves who show up with moderatly agile tankeed hauling ships who just take ore from your can. There are people for whom, "ore thief" is a well paying in game proffession.

So for high sec mining, if you are jet can mining, find some out of the way system. Refine the ore to a smaller volume of minerals then haul it to the buisy market systems.

Or get a hulk, put expanded cargio rigs on it, and don't use jet cans. admittadly this is almost a quarter of a billion in isk (in game credits) and about 3 months of training so not for beginers but has a cargo hold favorably comparable to a jet can.

Also a hulk can carry 5 medium tech 2 scout drone, wich is actually a fair bit of firepower. So you can go to the buisy high sec systems and gank noob ore thieves and can flippers 

uk.youtube.com/watch

x_rast_x

Originally posted by Kurush

Originally posted by sgtboz


You can easily tell which cans are yours vs. which are a players that is not in your corp or fleet.  Your cans have a white Icon.  Cans that will cause you to get "flagged" have yellow icons.
There is a lockable can, but the capacity is 3.9k vs the 27k of a jet can. 

 

So it's a win-win for the flipper?  Either they get some ore, or they get the miner?

Unless the miner has some high-powered friends in the area or something?

Then again, from what I'm hearing, this technique is mostly used on the most inexperienced players.

 

Not really.

Jetcan mining was originally classed as something that needed to be fixed as jetcans weren't originally intended to be used this way, but CCP allowed it to remain as the ability to stockpile (temporarily) a large amount of ore on-station was balanced by the risk of theft.

Miners can easily reduce their risk to ore thieves / can flippers.

• Have a buddy (or an alt) in a hauler 500m away from your can.  Keep a single low-value item (bookmarks are popular, personally I use a unit of Metal Scraps) in the can to hold it open, have the hauler continually empty the can and return to station when full.  This is the most common option you see for people belt mining, and people mining in groups with their corps, and is what I do (I dual-box)
• Mine off-grid.  Many low-level mission sites spawn large mineable asteroid fields.  While it's not unheard of for mission probers to find such sites and flip the cans, it certainly is very rare.
• Pack a warp scram and a group of combat drones.  You see this on Hulks sometimes since they can shred T1 frigs (which are the most commonly used ships for can games) without much trouble and without giving up any mining abilitiy.
• Fit your ship with cargo expanders / cargo rigs and just run back and forth to the station.  Expensive and eats into your profits, but it's nearly foolproof.
• If a miner is being harassed by a can flipper, they can warp out, switch to a low-value, insured combat ship, warp back, and fight it out.  If they win, they win, if they lose, they lose, either way the miner spends fifteen minutes in the station afterword cooling their heels (to wait out the aggression timer) but I've found that this option actually gets you bothered *less* by pirates in the long run as they'll generally pick a fight once in a while 'cause they know you'll fight back if they annoy you enough, but will leave you alone the rest of the time because they respect you.

Can flippers face risk too, the main risk being that they'll run into a bait ship.  A good bait miner is nearly indistinguishable from a genuine noob (only his corp affiliation will give him away, and even then he's still generally taken to be a rookie who joined an established corp) and since most can flipping ships are the bare minimum that they think will get the job done (so as to encourage miners to aggress them) they stand little chance when that rookie pilot warp scrams them and the miner's friends suddenly warp into the belt to have a good time at the would-be pirate's expense.

Risk in Eve always works both ways - don't forget that.

nurgles

Originally posted by x_rast_x



Risk in Eve always works both ways - don't forget that.

 

i couldn't agree more. it is also interesting to start converstaions with so called 'griefers', they are often people the will give you a good converstaion, if you start with inquiry not anger. They may even give you tips on the problems they experience. i have met some very respectable ore thieves.

Lonesamurai1

Originally posted by nurgles

Originally posted by x_rast_x



Risk in Eve always works both ways - don't forget that.

 

i couldn't agree more. it is also interesting to start converstaions with so called 'griefers', they are often people the will give you a good converstaion, if you start with inquiry not anger. They may even give you tips on the problems they experience. i have met some very respectable ore thieves.

 

Yeah,had a few good convo's with potential can flippers, especially those that youfigure out quickly