Greedy Goblin

Monday, November 30, 2015

Guide: Providence and Ark

A freighers is bumpable. Which means that if anyone wants to kill it, it dies. The gankers can keep it on grid indefinitely and can attempt to kill it as many times as they please. There is nothing you can do about it. However you can do something about not being picked.

The most overlooked way to haul freighter-sized cargo is don't! Use a collateraled contract and let someone else take the risk!

However someone must do the hauling, and this someone can be you, for whatever reason. The advice is simple: you fly Providence/Ark in highsec or maybe an Obelisk. All the other freighters are bad. Why? Because freighers only have low slots, so can only be armor or hull tanked. They don't have fitting space for Damage Control module, so if you hull tank, you must use 3x reinforced bulkheads which decrease cargo size. Recently every ship got 33% hull resist, so it became competitive with Obelisk. Below you can see the EHP and cargo size of the freighters with MC and HG/SM implants:
Name EHP (k) Cargo (k m3)
3x Bulk Charon 419 410
3x Bulk Fenrir 376 383
3x Bulk Obelisk 523 388
3x Bulk Providence 489 384
Armor Providence + Slaves 496 544

While the Obelisk has 5% more EHP, the Providence has 40% more cargo space and you get the opportunity to protect it if gankers start to bump it, with a link ship with armor modules and with an armor logi ship. Seeing these on grid will make even the most dedicated gankers leave, unless your cargo is over 2B. The fit is:

[Providence, Armor]
Corpii A-Type Adaptive Nano Plating
Corpii B-Type Adaptive Nano Plating
Coreli A-Type Kinetic Plating

While these are top deadspace modules, they are cheap since no one uses platings. High-grade Slave implants are a must. You can greatly decrease travel time by having the escort alt webbing you into warp (web decreases max speed, so when you activate it, the formerly 30% speed will be enough to warp).

If you bring your JF to highsec, use a similarly fit Ark and with links, you get something that can troll the Burn events of Goons and even a hundred-strong gank fleet fails miserably on it. Also, always have fuel, no jump timer and an exit cyno ready:


The reason why freighter ganking is so widespread is that people do extreme amount of stupid with them. I analyzed 120 kills in the last Burn Amarr event and found most of them to deserve their fate. Don't be them!

This post is part of the guide "why was I ganked?"

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

also nice advice to have a webbing twink with you.

Gevlon said...

Good point.

Unknown said...

Bulkheads ruin align times even further. Webbing support becomes a must with bulkhead fit.
Plating fit is also handy because potential RR from logi ship will be significant, thanks resistances.

Unknown said...

Good guide.... I always use a webbing alt for long hauls and when I decide that I cannot afford losing the cargo.

I still consider the "freighter balance" to be a CCP troll agaisnt their customers.
Although those who used bulkheads from day one were better off than the gamblers who used cargo extpansions and lost theri ships....

I have never tried to duel between my freighter and webber as they were both in the same corp, but I think it is still a nuiosance that the webber gets an 1 minute timer....

Gevlon said...

Webber gets you faster travel time. It does NOT increase travel safety a bit.

Anonymous said...

recon ship with instalock and 3 (expensive) webs makes you warp fast enough

Gevlon said...

NOTHING makes you warp fast enough if there is a suicide T1 frig on the gate with a point. By the time the gateguns finish it, the bumper machariel arrived.

Anonymous said...

a good webbing ship will get your agility fitted freighter into warp before they can even scan your hold. If you do get bumped then a fast frigate can burn in the direction you are getting bumped and you can simply warp to the frigate.

Unknown said...

Awesome post! More people need to see this. I will do my best to publish this link in Anti-Ganking and the hauler channels often.

Anonymous said...

Best way is to use a JF and make sure your exit cyno is ready then at the first sight of trouble you just jump away

Anonymous said...

Remember EHP in the fitting window is not representative. Therm is your weakest resist providing 711k EHP.