What is this I hear you ask, well if you are asking what high sec can flipping is then you really need to read this article. Can flipping is a tactic used by high sec pirates, they steal your belongings in a jet can to make you attack them and then they kill you. Below is an in depth description of how this works and what to do when it happens to you.
Generally high sec can flippers will target miners and not only solo miners; they will target a mining fleet. Generally miners sit in an asteroid belt in their hard earned mining barge, usually a Hulk. To save time these miners will jettison the cargo hold into a jet can, they then either fill the can and return to station to use a hauling ship to collect their hard works booty. The other way is the miner jettisons the booty into a jet can and a corp mate or alt character is hauling to station for them.
You are happily sitting in the asteroid belt mining and a ship appears on your overview, you see him approaching your jet can, but you are a simple miner and your in high sec he can’t touch you so you ignore him. Next minute you look at your overview and see that this ship is now glowing red, the dirty scoundrel has stolen from your jet can. You release your drones shouting I’ll teach you not to steal from me. You tell your drones to engage. This will teach you your shouting, ahhh hang on what’s going on, my drones are disappearing. I think it is time to get out of here, what??? I can’t warp. Oh no he has me warp scrambled, what do I do now I have no more drones and the ones I had are almost gone.
I will make a run for it, so you align to the station and hit full speed. Oh no my shield is dropping, you look around and see all your drones are gone and the scoundrel has turned on you. Your shield is now gone and your armour is disappearing rapidly, Your hull is going so quick you barely have time to do anything and BOOM your HULK is gone and you are sitting in your pod. The pirate now takes any modules that dropped in your Hulks wreck and warps away. While he is warping away he is already posting your loss on his killboard as a trophy.
By this stage most pilots are outraged and warp back to the station and get into a ship to try and seek revenge against this pirate. What you have to remember is this pirate is more experienced and you will more then likely just lose another ship to him. This is how the high sec pirates get kills.
Now here is what you should have done, when you saw the ship in your overview you could have simply ignored it, well you probably did until he stole from your jet can. When they steal from you there are simply not many options, simply most miners only train mining skills. This means even if you wanted to go and get a ship to fight the pirate he will kill you anyway, simply because he has trained to kill other players not asteroids. Best thing to do is ignore them and either keep mining and hope he doesn’t steal anymore. Usually they cannot steal more because they have no room in their cargo bay. The other option is to dock up and wait for the pirate to leave the system.
Below are some other scenarios pirates use to kill high sec miners and mission runners. The first one is usually targeted on solo miners; these are miners that jettison into a jet can. They fill the jet can and then go to station to collect a hauler to get their mining booty. When the miner gets back in his hauler there is a ship there glowing red because he has stolen the miner’s booty. When the miner asks why he stole hi stuff the other pilot says he is sorry and he thought someone had left it behind. The pilot that stole the miner’s loot then drops it in a jet can and says he is terribly sorry and warps away saying you can take it back.
Well the miner opens the jet can and goes to take it back the miner will get a warning that he is about to steal from this other pilot, but the other pilot said he could have it back so he takes it anyway. Well now the miner is flagged to the other pilot for stealing, flagged means you are glowing red to the other pilot and the corporation he is in. The miner is about to warp away when the other pilot is now back and warp scrambles the miner and promptly proceeds to blow the miner and his loot up. If you are caught in this scenario make sure you ask the pilot that took your loot to ABBANDON the container so you are not stealing. Basically if the jet can, wreck etc is not WHITE or BLUE you will be flagged for stealing if you take anything from it.
Also related to the solo miner who is jet canning and filling then hauling to station is to steal and re drop. Now if the miner names the can, usually miners do this to keep tabs on timers. They name the can the time it is dropped so they can make sure it is empty before it self destruct timer is reached. What a pirate does is warps in while the miner is away collecting his hauler. The pirate then scoops all the loot from the miners can; this makes the can disappear because there is nothing in it. The pirate then jettisons the loot again and renames the can the same name as the miner had it. When the miner returns he sees the can with the same name and then tries to take his loot. Well the miner now gets the stealing warning and the miner is thinking what the? This is my loot I cannot steal it and some will look around the belt to see if anyone else is there. But usually they take it back thinking it is an error or no one is there anyway. Then all of a sudden someone warps in and starts shooting the miner, BOOM ship and loot gone and another trophy on the pirate’s killboard.
There are many more of these types of high sec piracy traps that pirates use to kill miners. If you are a miner you need to be careful and always read messages and not be neve enough to think it is a bug. Your hulks are worth a lot of ISK make sure you look after them and there will always be high sec pirates can flipping miners for the kills.
