No policy of the HMA creates more division than that we gank other miners. So, why don’t we just stop? Why don’t we reverse-course and declare that the HMA will no longer participate in or tolerate ganking? With a stroke of a metaphorical pen, we could put all of our disagreements aside and live in peace and tranquility once more. But, we won’t for both philosophical and practical reasons.
We’ve discussed our philosophical reasons for ganking previously (see: The Predator/Prey Dynamic, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Gank). Go ahead, I’ll wait. However, for those on a time-crunch allow me to give you a quick summary. Ganking miners encourages cooperation and active gameplay while improving the profitability of miners capable of dealing with threats. However, I’d like to take a more pragmatic approach today and discuss the specific benefits of our NPSI policies.
Ganking Asserts Authority
I wanted to get this one out of the way first because it could be considered the weaker of our two arguments. However, it is still a valid point. The HMA brands itself as a “friendly neighborhood cartel”. Our mission is to bring all mining within Hek and the surrounding systems under our control. Ideally, we prefer to do this through our winning personalities and the clear advantages of mining with us. However, when the response we get is “What are you going to do if I don’t?” we need a suitable answer. Otherwise, we are not much of a cartel. Likewise, when people choose to mine independently in “our” belts they are gaining the protective benefits of our presence without needing to participate. This is not fair to everyone else who is. Simply put, in order to achieve our goals we must be willing to do what is necessary.
Ganking Increases Safety
Our primary motivation for ganking of neutral parties on belt with us is that it keeps our fleets safe. While it is certainly possibly for bad actors to insert themselves into our fleets either to attack directly or to scout for a suitable target, it is less common than one would expect. What is far more common is for that scout to operate in their own fleet providing a warp-in for hostile forces. By making sure that no neutrals are allowed to sit in belt with us we reduce our overall risk.
