Charon

Caldari State	Caldari State
	Freighters
	Charon Class

Has Huge Cargohold

HIGHLIGHTS

RELATED UNI-WIKI REFERENCES

EVE Online Ships Overview

EXTERNAL LINKS

Charon on zKillboard
Charon on EVE Workbench
Charon on Janice
Charon on EVE Ref

Deliver on your duty; without limit, without fail.

– CEO Haatakan Oiritsuu

As the makers of the Charon, the Caldari State are generally credited with pioneering the freighter class. Recognizing the need for a massive transport vehicle as deep space installations constantly increase in number, they set about making the ultimate in efficient mass transport - and were soon followed by the other empires.

Regardless, the Charon still stands out as the benchmark by which the other freighters were measured. Its massive size and titanic cargo hold are rivalled by none.

SHIP BONUSES

Caldari Freighter bonuses (per skill level):
5% bonus to ship cargo capacity
5% bonus to ship max velocity
Role Bonus:
100% reduction in Reinforced Bulkhead CPU requirements
90% reduction to effective distance traveled for jump fatigue

Required Skills

Caldari Freighter I1h 23m
- Advanced Spaceship Command V29d 15h 6m
  - Spaceship Command V5d 22h 13m
- Caldari Hauler III17h 46m
  - Spaceship Command III4h 26m
Advanced Spaceship Command I41m
- Spaceship Command V5d 22h 13m

Training Time what's this?

36d 8h 30m 0s

Estimated training time only for the listed skills based on zero implants and without neural remaps.

Grouping

▪ Variations

Ship Attributes

Fittings	Powergrid 3 MW CPU 1 tf Capacitor 3,500 GJ High 0 Launchers 0 Turrets 0 Medium 0 Low 3 Rig 0 Calibration 0

Navigation	Max Velocity 60 m/sec Inertia Modifier 0.063 Warp Speed 1.5 AU/s Base Time to Warp 83.84 s what's this? Base Time to Warp is essentially the time needed for this ship to align and accelerate until it reaches 75% of its top speed and goes to warp. The time displayed here is the base calculated time with no account for any warp related skills, modules or any other effects. Ansiblex Activation Cost: missing

Drones	No drone bay.

Targeting	Max Tgt. Range 0 km Max Locked Targets 0 Gravimetric Sensor 96 points Sig. Radius 10,600 m Scan Res. 0 mm

Structure	Structure Hitpoints 93,000 HP Mass 960,000,000 kg Volume 16,250,000 m³ Cargo Capacity 465,000 m³

Armor	Armor Hitpoints 18,000 HP Armor Resistances EM 50 THR 45 KIN 25 EXP 10

Shields	Shield Capacity 60,000 HP Shield Resistances EM 0 THR 20 KIN 40 EXP 50

Summary

The Charon is the Caldari freighter, a huge cargo ship for moving large volumes through highsec. It has the largest cargo hold of the four freighters (465,000 m³ base, against 435,000 to 440,000 m³ for the Providence, Obelisk and Fenrir). It is so far ahead that a Charon at Caldari Freighter IV holds more than any other freighter at level V. The Caldari Freighter skill (+5% cargo per level) and Expanded Cargoholds in its three low slots bring it well over 1,000,000 m³. Caldari Freighter is also the skill you need for the Rhea jump freighter.

In exchange it is the slowest of the four, both to align and at sub-warp speed (60 m/s base). Like all freighters it has no high or mid slots, only three low slots for passive modules such as Expanded Cargoholds, Inertial Stabilizers and Hyperspatial Accelerators.

Skills

The skills needed to fly the Charon are listed in the infobox. Advanced Spaceship Command V is already one of them, and it also improves the agility of capital ships, freighters included. Beyond that, these support skills are worth training, roughly in this order:

Caldari Freighter (10x) to III early, and on to V later. Each level adds 5% cargo capacity and 5% sub-warp speed.
Evasive Maneuvering (2x) to III early and V eventually. It shortens your align time, and on a freighter your align time is your time on grid at every gate and undock.
Navigation (1x) and Warp Drive Operation (1x) to III.
Mechanics (1x), Hull Upgrades (2x) and Shield Management (3x) to V. These add hull, armor and shield hit points. Unlike tank modules, they cost you nothing in cargo or speed, so they are worth having, but they will not stop an organised gank fleet either (see Tactics).
Cybernetics (3x) to V, so you can plug in warp speed and agility implants. You don't need implants to fly a freighter correctly, but a set of High-Grade Ascendancy warp speed implants makes your warps more than 50% faster, which cuts a large share off your total trip time. If you haul for profit, for yourself or for others, that time saving adds up to a lot more trips and income.

Tactics

See also: Hauling

A freighter cannot fit a cloak or a nullifier, aligns slowly, and cannot be made safe by tank. It survives on intel, technique and support:

Stay in highsec. Freighters belong in highsec; low and null security space is jump freighter territory.
Scout where it matters. Use a scout through Jita, known gank systems and their neighbours, and check gates before you jump into them. You don't need to scout every jump.
Know the gank methods. Organised gank fleets usually hold a freighter with suicide tackle on the gate, or bump it off the gate with a fast, heavy ship until the damage fleet arrives. If the next gate is camped and there is no station in the system, don't go in: wait docked a system earlier.
Use a webber, but only where it counts. A webbing alt gets the freighter into warp almost at once, which beats bumpers and cuts your time on grid. Use it in gank pipes and on Jita entry, webbing from the gate to a station you can insta-dock at. Don't web every jump: it raises your gank profile. A web against suicide tackle on the same server tick is a 50/50 roll, so a webber does not beat tackle.
Insta-dock bookmarks, but no insta-undock bookmarks. A freighter aligning to an undock bookmark can be combat-probed and caught. Undock with Align rather than Warp, so you can redock without cancelling first.
Never autopilot. Autopilot lands you 15 km from the gate and crawls in.
Keep the cargo value inside what you are willing to lose, and remember that empty freighters get ganked too. Don't carry assembled freight containers or double-wrapped courier packages (a container or a package inside a courier package). Gankers can't see into a double wrap, so it makes you look valuable.
If you are bumped and have no timers on you, use Log Off (not Safe Log Off): your ship leaves space after about a minute.

Fitting principles

Tank is a trap. Reinforced Bulkheads and other tank modules do not keep a freighter safe: organised gank groups bring enough damage to kill any fit, and the extra hit points only cost you speed or cargo.
For travel, fit one Inertial Stabilizer and two Prototype Hyperspatial Accelerators. Swap in Expanded Cargoholds as the load needs, dropping the Inertial Stabilizer first. Three Inertial Stabilizers only win on very short trips.
Avoid expensive faction or ORE modules, which raise your gank profile.

See Freighters for more on the class.

Patch History

A long, long time ago...

12 March 2025 Version 22.02 Patch notes

Warp speed change for all Caps (+10% Freighters)

April 2022 Version 20.04 Patch notes

Renaming of the <Racial> Industrial skills to <Racial> Hauler

18.04 Release - Build: 1706308 - 2020-04-15 - "Surgical Strike" Update (Patch Notes)

Suicide Ganking and the Void buff

This topic is more complicated to untangle but it is certainly not our intention to make suicide ganking easier or cheaper. While divorcing damage increases from suicide ganking is not simple, we are planning to increase freighter hp while we do some investigation on the current state of high sec ganks. Depending on results from those investigations we will look at further changes if necessary. -CCP Rise, Surgical Strike Update Follow-up

Structure HP increased from 77,500 to 93,000 (+15,500 HP, +20%)
Armor HP increased from 15,000 to 18,000 (+3,000 HP, +20%)
Shield HP increased from 50,000 to 60,000 (+10,000 HP, +20%)

Notes

All freighters warp at 1.5 AU/s since 12 March 2025. Older guides that give 1.37 AU/s are out of date.
In ancient Greek mythology, Charon was the ferryman who carried those who died across the River Styx separating the world of the living from the world of the dead.