Haulers

Cargo ships are designed for hauling. They have much larger cargo holds, either general or specialized, than other ships of similar hull size.

Haulers

Haulers, previously known as Tech 1 industrials, can be divided into three classes:

• Fast transports, which are used to move low-volume, high-value goods quickly and safely.
• Bulk transports, which have a much higher capacity than the fast transports, but are slower and have less tank.
• Specialized transports, which are similar to bulk transports in terms of tank and agility but have an extra, specialized, very large, hold that can carry only one type of item (such as ammunition or minerals)

For example, the Wreathe (Minmatar fast transport) can be fit to align in as little as 4 seconds while having 22k EHP, but would only have a cargo capacity of up to 4,622  m³. On the opposite end of the spectrum, a Bestower (Amarr bulk transport) can be fit to carry up to 39k  m³ but will take at least 13 seconds to align and have less than 8k EHP. To that end, fast transports can be fit to transport material through lowsec relatively safely, whereas bulk transports should be restricted to systems known to be safe unless accompanied by an escort, e.g. an OOC alt.

For fitting, haulers tend to have base powergrid around the level of destroyers and quite high amounts of CPU, which is mostly used by a shield tank. The low slots are often filled with expanded cargoholds, though these can be swapped out with inertial stabilizers or nanofiber internal structures for smaller hauls to increase agility, thereby decreasing align time and cutting down a little on travel time. Agility mods are especially important on fast transports operating in low security space. If you are looking to do a lot of distribution missions or otherwise do a lot of traveling, warp speed rigs (Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizers) can cut travel time by more than half.

Each race has its own haulers, which require their racial hauler skill - for example,  Amarr Hauler. Alpha clones are limited to level I of their racial hauler skill. The haulers get 5% bonuses to cargo capacity and either agility (fast transports) or velocity (bulk transports) per level of skill. You receive a free fast transport when you complete the Industrialist (Producer) career agent mission Making Mountains of Molehills (10 of 10).

The four races do not all have the same number of haulers, and which race's haulers will offer the highest cargo capacity depends on the amount of training time you are prepared to invest.

Amarr

The Bestower offers you the best potential cargo capacity for general cargo but has less than 8k EHP when fit this way. Meanwhile the Sigil is an overall poor industrial ship.

• Sigil (fast transport)
• Bestower (bulk transport)

Caldari

The Badger has the highest base cargo capacity of the fast transports. The Tayra has the least potential capacity of the bulk transports but the highest base capacity and highest tank, however it is outperformed in fast, secure hauling by the Badger and in bulk hauling by the other races' bulk transports.

• Badger (fast transport)
• Tayra (bulk transport)

Gallente

The Gallente have several specialized ships (which have vast specialized bays but can only transport specific kinds of items in them), while the non-specialized fast/bulk transports give good all-round performance.

• Nereus (fast transport)
• Iteron Mark V (bulk transport)
• Kryos (specialized ship with a minerals and a ice hold)
• Epithal (specialized ship with a planetary commodities and a command center hold)
• Miasmos (specialized ship with a mining hold)

Minmatar

The Minmatar haulers are significantly faster than other haulers in the same ship class. They manage this speed without sacrificing tank or cargo capacity, making them ideal for doing distribution missions or even for lowsec hauling.

• Wreathe (fast transport)
• Mammoth (bulk transport)
• Hoarder (specialized ship with an ammunition and a gas hold)

Transport ships

Transport ships, previously known as tech 2 industrials, can be divided in two types with different foci. Both of these ship types require the Transport Ships skill.

Blockade Runners

Main article: Blockade Runners

Primary use: Relatively small and/or very expensive cargo through lowsec/nullsec/w-space.

Blockade runners are the fastest and most agile haulers by quite a margin. They can align as quickly as a frigate, are some of the fastest ships in EVE at warp speeds, and even at sub-light speeds they can fly as quickly as a fast cruiser. Additionally, they can fit covert ops cloaking devices (and hence can warp while cloaked). This means that the only real danger to a properly fitted and flown blockade runner are the warp disruption bubbles in nullsec and w-space.

They can carry a little less cargo than the fast transport haulers, but can be fitted to carry up to about 10,000m³ of cargo (enough to carry a packaged cruiser) at the cost of reduced agility and/or speed.

•  Prorator
•  Crane
•  Viator
•  Prowler

Deep Space Transports

Primary use: Very bulky, expensive cargo through highsec or scouted lowsec.

Unlike blockade runners, deep space transports (DST) have a larger capacity than their hauler equivalents. They also have a fleet hangar that holds (base) 50,000m³. They have bonuses to active tanking, either shield resistances or armor resistances, helping them to fit substantial buffer tanks. Finally, they get a unique role bonus of 100% to overheating benefits of Afterburners, Microwarpdrives, Local Repair Modules, and Resistance Modules.

They also have a role bonus of +2 warp strength: this means they can't be tackled by just one warp disruptor or non-faction warp scrambler, though they can still be caught by bubbles, gangs of tacklers or HICs.

Where blockade runners are meant to rely on speed and stealth to slip by the enemy, deep space transports are designed to bust their way through the enemy, relying on their warp strength and tanking abilities to escape. This probably won't work against a determined and well-prepared gatecamp, and using a deep space transport indicates to all and sundry that you have cargo you want to protect, so you should think carefully before deploying one.

•  Impel
•  Bustard
•  Occator
•  Mastodon

All DSTs have a base 50k m³ (60k m³ with the Transport Ships skill trained to IV) fleet hangar which can hold any type of cargo, assembled ships, or even packaged battleships. As such, fitting these ships for cargo is redundant since cargo rigs and modules only affect the much smaller general cargo bay. DSTs should be fit and skilled into to play to their active tanking and overheating bonuses in order to maximize survivability, as these ships will primarily be used to transport large quantities of high-value goods.

Freighters

Primary use: Moving massive freight through highsec, often between trade hubs.

Freighters are the ultimate cargo carrying ships, with vast cargo holds. Freighters can often be spotted on New Eden's major highsec trade routes, while the jump freighters are used to transport cargo out to nullsec. All freighters have no high, mid, or rig slots but with the Kronos expansion received 3 low slots, with restrictive CPU and Powergrid to limit the available modules with a role bonus to Reinforced Bulkheads. A freighter pilot's only other way of enhancing their ship's performance is via hardwiring implants.

Freighters are subject to certain restrictions: Assembled (secure) containers cannot be put in a freighter's cargo hold, so that pilots can't use containers to increase freighters' cargo capacity in the same way that they're used to increase the capacity of haulers.

Use Freighters for huge cargo through highsec and very short distances into lowsec. These require proper support (someone to web for faster aligns, scouts, preferably some EW).

The four general freighters are good for carrying very large amounts of cargo in high security space. They align and warp too slowly to be safely used in lowsec or nullsec. Freighters are very tough, but they are definitely not immune to suicide ganking -- organized and prepared groups of gankers can and do kill freighters.

The ORE freighter is specialized in carrying assembled ships, and is used widely for transporting incursion ships through high security space.

All freighters get 5% bonuses to cargo capacity (or ship maintenance bay in the case of the Bowhead) and velocity per level of their pilot's racial freighter skill ( Amarr Freighter,  Gallente Freighter, etc.). Since you must train the freighter skill to at least level I, the base capacity of the ship is only used to calculate the actual capacity. It is worth noting that the Caldari freighters with Caldari Freighter IV can hold more than any other freighter, even with their respective freighter skills trained to V.

With the Kronos update, freighters and jump freighters all gained 3 low slots and reductions in cargo capacity. They can be fit to surpass their pre-Kronos cargo capacities with expanded cargoholds at the expense of tank. The tendency for freighter pilots to fit for maximum ISK rather than maximum tank and then proceed to autopilot their freighters between trade hubs led to widespread ganking. As such, it is strongly recommended that pilots who unwisely opt to autopilot their ships fit reinforced bulkheads instead in order to protect their investments.

The  Providence has

• A cargo hold starting at a base of 435,000 m3 and a max of 1,127,015 m3
• A velocity starting at a base of 70 m/s
• Second most agile and second highest EHP.

The  Charon has

• The largest cargo hold of the group, starting at a base of 465,000 m3 and a max of 1,204,741 m3
• The slowest velocity of the group, started at a base 60 m/s
• Least agile of the group.

The  Obelisk has

• A cargo hold starting at a base of 440,000 m3 and a max of 1,139,969 m3
• A velocity starting at a base of 65 m/s
• Highest EHP of the group.

The  Fenrir has

• The same size cargo hold as the Providence, starting at a base of 435,000 m3 and a max of 1,127,015 m3
• The fastest velocity of the group, started at a base 80 m/s)
• Most agile of the group.

The  Bowhead has

• A negligible general cargo hold of 4,000 m3
• An enormous Ship Maintenance Bay of 1,600,000 m3
• A velocity starting at a base of 65 m/s

Freighter capacity

Freighter	Base (m3)	Skill I	Skill II	Skill III	Skill IV	Skill V
Providence	435,000	456,750	478,500	500,250	522,000	543,750
Charon	465,000	488,250	511,500	534,750	558,000	581,250
Obelisk	440,000	462,000	484,000	506,000	528,000	550,000
Fenrir	435,000	456,750	478,500	500,250	522,000	543,750

Jump freighter

Main article: Jump Freighters

Jump freighters, have a reduced cargo capacity but are capable of using cynosural fields to jump long distances. They are also able to use stargates like normal ships. (Since cynosural fields cannot be lit in highsec, jump freighters traveling in highsec have to use stargates.) This makes them ideal supply ships for people who live in nullsec.

Jump freighters get 5% bonuses to cargo capacity and agility per level of the pilot's racial freighter skill, and 10% bonuses to shield, armor and hull hitpoints for each level the pilot has in Jump Freighters. The Jump Freighters skill also gives them a 10% per level reduction in jump fuel needs.

Jump freighter capacity

Freighter	Base (m3)	Skill IV	Skill V
Ark	135,000	162,000	168,750
Rhea	144,000	172,800	180,000
Anshar	137,500	165,000	171,875
Nomad	132,000	158,400	165,000

Use jump freighters to carry cargo from the high-/lowsec border to wherever it is needed in nullsec and back again. Caldari freighters are the largest, closely followed by Gallente, then Amarr and lastly Minmatar, which is partially compensated for by lower fuel use. The difference is not large though.

Jump freighters have much larger potential tanks than freighters when properly fit, but at the cost of a much reduced cargo bay. All jump freighters can exceed 500,000 EHP in tank, which makes ganking them in highsec extraordinarily difficult and expensive.

Comparison table for cargo ships

Name	Level	Faction	Cargo m³	Velocity m/sec	Inertia	Warp AUs	Shield HP	Armor HP	Hull HP	Extra
Sigil	T1	Amarr	2100	125	0.86	4.5	780	1900	2400
Bestower	T1	Amarr	4800	110	0.95	3	450	850	940
Badger	T1	Caldari	3900	127	0.84	4.5	1440	750	2060
Tayra	T1	Caldari	7300	115	0.97	3	1100	550	810
Wreathe	T1	Minmatar	2900	140	0.81	4.5	1140	1000	2900
Hoarder	T1	Minmatar	500	130	0.85	3	840	800	1200	41000 ammo
Mammoth	T1	Minmatar	5500	120	0.91	3	640	600	935
Nereus	T1	Gallente	2700	130	0.78	4.5	960	1050	2600
Kryos	T1	Gallente	550	120	0.92	3	600	700	970	43000 minerals
Epithal	T1	Gallente	550	120	0.9	3	580	740	1000	45000 comodities
Miasmos	T1	Gallente	550	120	0.94	3	590	710	950	42000 ore
Iteron Mark V	T1	Gallente	5800	105	0.87	3	540	650	970
Prorator	T2	Amarr	2900	170	0.52	6	800	2000	2100	cloaked
Crane	T2	Caldari	4300	160	0.51	6	2100	1000	1900	cloaked
Viator	T2	Gallente	3600	165	0.54	6	1000	1700	2700	cloaked
Prowler	T2	Minmatar	3500	220	0.485	6	1500	1500	1700	cloaked
Impel	T2	Amarr	3100	90	1.0	3.3	2000	4300	4500	50000 hangar
Bustard	T2	Caldari	5000	80	1.0	3.3	4300	2300	4000	50000 hangar
Occator	T2	Gallente	3900	110	1.0	3.3	2400	4000	5000	50000 hangar
Mastodon	T2	Minmatar	4500	120	1.0	3.3	4000	2800	3100	50000 hangar
Providence	T1	Amarr	435000	70	0.063	1.37	10000	46000	100000	freighter
Charon	T1	Caldari	465000	60	0.063	1.37	50000	15000	77500	freighter
Obelisk	T1	Gallente	440000	65	0.063	1.37	14000	40000	110000	freighter
Fenrir	T1	Minmatar	435000	80	0.063	1.37	48000	22000	65000	freighter
Ark	T2	Amarr	135000	84	0.055	1.5	12000	55200	120000	jump
Rhea	T2	Caldari	144000	72	0.055	1.5	60000	18000	93000	jump
Anshar	T2	Gallente	137500	78	0.055	1.5	16800	48000	132000	jump
Nomad	T2	Minmatar	132000	96	0.055	1.5	57600	26400	78000	jump