Hauling

(Work in progress by Callin Vandylx, using information gleaned from SteveA435 and Scrapyard Bob, among others. Please let me finish a first draft.)

Hauling Craft

This gives a rundown of the strengths and weaknesses of each type of hauling craft.

T1 Industrials

Primary use: Cargo with large volume, but low value.

The Iteron V provides, by far, the best cargo space, and it can fit a pretty decent tank in its 5 mid slots. The Badger II can fit an even better tank in its 6 mid slots, but its cargo space gets cut in half compared to the Iteron. The Bestower offers only slightly better cargo then the Badger II, but fits only a lousy tank in its 4 mid slots. Finally, the Mammoth has a decent tank as well with 5 mid slots, but loses 7k m^3 compared to the Iteron V.

Blockade Runners (T2 Industrial)

Primary use: Relatively small and/or very expensive cargo.

The Gallente Viator and Amarr Prorator are the best in this category. The reason for this is that Blockade Runners can warp cloaked, and as such should never be target locked, so tank doesn't matter (as much), but cargo space does. These two can reach above 10k m^3 space with a full rack of T2 cargo expanders and T1 cargo rigs. With 10k space, you can safely carry a cruiser, so you can move expensive recons, Heavy Assault Cruisers, Logistics ships, HICs (???) and T3 ships around safely. The Caldari Crane can do the same, but it requires T2 rigs to pull it off at about 90m ISK each, and the Minmatar Prowler can't do it at all. The Prowler, on the other hand, does have two high slots which allows a combo of a cloak and a probe launcher or something else you may want, but for hauling, it's not particularly recommended.

Deep Space Transport (T2 Industrial)

Primary use: Large, moderately valued cargo.

There is a split here between the races: The Gallente Occator and the Amarr Impel can pretty much match the Iteron V for cargo space, but with double the effective HP (EHP). The Caldari Bustard and Minmatar Mastodon get about 23k m^3 cargo (with shield extender rigs), but with 60-65k EHP, both with the option to swap 5k cargo for 11k EHP by fitting a damage control in a low slot. Trying to match that cargo with an Occator/Impel only gets you 40k or so EHP, so it's a "cargo vs. tank" thing here.

Steave435's opinion: These are not really that important. If the cargo is valuable enough to need the extra protection of a Deep Space Transport (DST), then it should be in a Blockade Runner.

Freighters and Jump Freighters

Use Freighters for huge cargo through high sec and very short distances into low sec. These require proper support (someone to web, scouts, preferably some EW).

(TODO: Describe the proper support fully)

Use Jump Freighters to carry it out from there to wherever it is needed and back again. Caldari freighters are the largest, closely followed by gallente, then amarr and lastly minmatar. The difference is not large.

Summary: Gallente have the best T1 industrial, and are pretty much tied for first place in every other thing. By comparsion, minmatar only win in the blockade runner part if you need a second high for some reason, aka not strictly hauling only, amarr perform very well in the T2 industrials, but suck for the T1s and have a smaller freighter, and caldari have the largest freighter, but need to T2 rig their blockade runner to reach above the magical 10k m3 limit, and the iteron far outperforms the badger. All in all, I again have to say that I think gallente is the best choice due to giving top class performance in everything, even if various other races may give a very very small advantage in some areas.