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ATR, with
their powerful
time for your FSD to become available and boosting towards your attacker
again, during which time you will be means they frequently have to turn weapons, take so
fired on. If you submit, your FSD will to attack you, reducing the amount long to show up
cool down in mere seconds. of time they can keep weapons on
you. Running away in a straight line, that they may as
Then the question is: should you go on the other hand, gives your at- well not exist.
back into supercruise (low wake), or tacker a nice easy shot — and worse
jump to another system altogether still, allows them to shoot out your
(high wake)? The answer nearly al- engines if your shields go down.
ways is to high wake. There are good
reasons for this: That said, if in a ship significantly
faster and/or more agile than your
1. You cannot be mass locked when
you high wake. If the ganker is in a nearly the only thing that mass towards the attacker when your FSD It must be stressed, however, only
Cutter and you’re in a Type-7, it will locks a Cutter is another Cutter, so is charged. It is likely when you go low wake if you are not mass locked
take so long to get back into super- as long as your opponent is in any into supercruise, the ganker will also (and you must be certain), and if you
cruise you will probably die before other ship, your FSD will charge very immediately charge their FSD. How- have a very strong ship that can sur-
your FSD charges up due to the mass quickly. A Cutter with good shields ever, you enter FSD in the same di- vive being interdicted multiple times.
lock. However, you are immune to can also take several interdictions: rection as you were going in normal
mass lock when high waking. at a recent community goal, a Cutter space, so it is likely the ganker will be Other resources
belonging to the East India Company facing away from you and will have to
2. The ganker probably doesn’t have with engineered prismatic shields turn around to get behind you again, Traders are strongly encouraged
a wake scanner, won’t know where suffered no fewer than six interdic- giving you valuable time. A second to view the holovid made by Cmdr
you’ve gone, and can’t follow you. On tions in one journey, but only lost a technique is to immediately drop Rinzler of the notorious Smiling Dog
the other hand, if you low wake, you single ring of shields in the process. out of supercruise the moment you Crew (‘The Git Gud Guide To Trading
will probably be interdicted again. The Cutter in question had 2.7 GJ of enter it. When the ganker gets into In Open’) a couple of years ago on
shield strength, and a very strong supercruise, they will not see you this subject. It makes many of the
3. Even if the ganker has a wake scan- engineered hull, while carrying 728 on their scanner, and it’s quite likely points discussed here and also dem-
ner, a drop at the high wake destina- tonnes of cargo. With these kinds of they will find another victim before onstrates these techniques. While
tion, a bit of boost in normal space stats, low waking and continuing be- they find your low wake. Remain in there have been a couple of changes
and another random high wake will comes perfectly practical. normal space for thirty seconds to a since Rinzler made his tutorial (such
make you nigh untraceable. minute, to give time for the ganker to as the Type-7 now having a more ca-
If you choose to low wake, there are fly somewhere else (and to recover pable power plant), everything dem-
High waking does have a downside, some additional techniques which some shield strength). At this point, onstrated in the video is still perti-
though: you must now run the gaunt- can prevent the annoyance of re- turn back to the station and resume nent.
let all over again since you lost all peated interdictions. Firstly, boost your journey.
your progress towards the station by
jumping to another system. You at
least have both your ship and cargo
intact, and you have the time to wait
until your shields fully recharge be-
fore trying again.

There is also the question of what
to do while you are waiting for the attacker, a better strategy might What about low waking back into su-
FSD cooldown, and then the spool- be to boost away from them with percruise? Low waking (so long as
up. The accepted wisdom is to put flight assist off and employ random you’re not mass locked) does have Surviving A Trade
full power to shields (have four pips vertical, lateral and roll inputs (not a significantly faster FSD charge Community Goal
in shields and two in engines, and just mere aileron rolls while flying a time, you don’t have to line up with
zero in weapons) and keep boosting straight line) while the FSD charges, a particular destination to do it, and Text: Mack Winston
towards your attacker until the FSD and when it’s charged, align to it, flip you don’t lose your progress towards
is fully spooled up for the jump. Four flight assist back on and hit boost to your destination. There are some cir- Images: OrangePheonix, Ziggy_GG,
pips to shields will offer a significant jump out. This a favourite tactic with cumstances where low waking is in- Donald Duck
boost to your shields. It effectively an engineered Imperial Courier, and deed acceptable, but consider very
adds more than 50% more strength, some pilots of these love to broad- carefully before doing so. If you are Design: Donald Duck
which is huge, especially if you have cast the phrase “meep, meep” in in a strong ship such as a Cutter with
them engineered. The remaining mockery of the slower ship. The ori- engineered prismatic shields and a Acknowledgements: Rinzler o7o7o7
two pips in engines should allow gins of this phrase are lost to history. reinforced hull, you might nearly al-
you to use boost reasonably often, ways consider low waking instead: Thanks to: BL1P, Bishnar

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