Travel fits
There are three fundamentally different ways of fitting your ship for travel; Speed, tank or safety. Each has pros and cons associated with them, it may be beneficial to carry fittings for all three and swap depending on what you expect to find along your route of travel if your ship has enough cargo space.
Fitting for increased travel speed
If your only concern is to get to your destination as fast as possible, not having any war targets or pirates to worry about nor carrying too many expensive modules, you can focus exclusively on cutting down the align time and increasing warp speed.
Usually increasing warp speed tends to cut down on travel time the most, since you spend more time in warp than you do aligning. So if you're forced to choose between the two, it tends to be more beneficial to focus slightly more on increasing warp speed than reducing align time. Within reason of course, most of the time you can accomplish both. Depending on the ship you're moving, re-rigging your ship might not be a practical option and then the modules suggested will be your focus, as you can easily refit your lows, mids and highs before and after moving.
One of the major drawbacks of this style of fitting is it will reduce low slots that may be used for armor or structure tanking. Of particular interest are the astronautic rigs and nanofiber internal structures which will reduce the total armor and structure hit points respectively on a ship.
Reducing align time
While there are several modules that reduce inertia, some are stronger than others, leaving you with these modules and rig.
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Inertia Stabilizers II (-20% inertia modifier, +11% signature) |
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Nanofiber Internal Structure II (-15.75% inertia modifier, -20% structure HP) |
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Low Friction Nozzle Joints II (-14% inertia modifier, -10% armour hp [1]) |
- ^ The armour hit point penalty of Astronautic Rigs can be reduced by training the Astronautics Rigging skill.
Increasing warp speed
There are three low slot modules and one rig that increases warp speed. The modules increase warp speed by raising the base AU/s warp speed by a fixed number, while the rig has a normal percentage bonus.
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Limited Hyperspatial Accelerator [1] (+0,2 AU/s, cheap) |
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Experimental Hyperspatial Accelerator [1] (+0,25 AU/s, affordable) |
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Prototype Hyperspatial Accelerator [1] (+0,3 AU/s, costly) |
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Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II (+25% warp speed, +10% signature) |
Fitting enough tank not to be worth ganking
If you're in high security space and not at war, the only real threat to your ship is suicide gankers. To remedy this, you can up your tank to the point where it's not worth ganking you for profit. This will drastically reduce the chance of someone bothering to destroy your ship.
Below are some examples of suitable modules to further your fitting goals.
Improving your hull tank
Perhaps one of the easiest and least skill intensive ways to buff your tank is to simply add a Damage Control II and try to increase your structure points as much as you can. The skill requirements for that is fairly easy, requiring only Mechanics III (1x) and Hull Upgrades IV (2x) for the damage control. Further increasing mechanics will increase the overall efficiency of the buff, since it increases your structure points by 5% per level.
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Damage Control II (60% overall structure resists) |
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Reinforced Bulkhead II (+25% structure hp, -11% cargo capacity, +5% agility) |
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Transverse Bulkhead II (+25% structure hp, -10% cargo capacity) |
Improving your armor tank
Fitting an armor tank can be a little bit more skill intensive, especially a passive resist setup since the efficiency of passive resist modules rely heavily on the armor compensation skills such as EM Armor Compensation (2x), Thermal Armor Compensation (2x), Kinetic Armor Compensation (2x) and Explosive Armor Compensation (2x). A setup with active hardeners would potentially give you higher resists, but would take up too many modules leaving scarcely few slots for actual armor plates.
As such it might not be something you'll be doing as a young capsuleer, but for people with high armor support skills flying certain ships (with more armor than structure hp) it might be slightly stronger than the structure approach mentioned above.
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Damage Control II (15% overall armor resists) |
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Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II (+25% overall armor resists) |
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1600mm Steel Plates II (+4,800 base armour hp) |
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Trimark Armor Pump II (+20% armour hp, -10% speed) |
Improving your shield tank
The skills to use a proper tech two shield tank isn't quite as skill intensive as armour, requiring just Shield Upgrades IV (2x) and Tactical Shield Manipulation IV (4x). Since there aren't any passive omni tanked shield modules, you need to use an active invulnerability field. You can fit for anti-gank by using an invulnerability field as well as thermic and kinetic hardener, since the strongest gankers are gallente. Use the rest of the midslots for as many shield extenders as possible and an afterburner/microwarpdrive to cut then align time down (see below).
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Adaptive Invulnerability Field II (30% overall shield resists) |
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Thermic Dissipation Field II (+55% thermic shield resists) |
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Kinetic Deflection Field II (+55% kinetic shield resists) |
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Large Shield Extender II (+2,600 base shield hp) |
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Core Defense Field Extender II (+20% shield hp, +10% signature) |
One of the great pros of shield tanking is that low slots remain free, this allows you to fit for speed or another layer of tank (armor or structure) depending on your preference.
Reducing inflated align times
Most of the armor and structure tanking modules increase your align time, making you turn and handle like a brick with align times pushing 15+ seconds. One way to mitigate this is to fit either a microwarpdrive (cycles in 10 seconds) or an afterburner (cycles as fast as 7,5 seconds). By pulsing the module once (activating it and then immediately deactivating it), you can align in 7,5 - 10 seconds flat as long as you start your align from a standstill (like after you've jumped through a gate).
Using an afterburner in this fashion requires you to use a size-appropriate afterburner, 1MN for frigates, 10MN for cruisers, 100MN for battleships. Capital ships can't align faster enough with undersized 100MN afterburners, but can still abuse 500MN microwarpdrives for a 10 second align.
Fitting for safe travel in hostile space
This method relies on fitting an Improved Cloaking Device II and a microwarpdrive to allow you to be cloaked while aligning, minimizing the time you're actually visible on grid. This is commonly referred to as the MWD + cloak trick, see cloak trick or Seamus Donohue's video for more information.
In order to use the microwarpdrive and cloak you'll need to train High Speed Maneuvering III (5x) and Cloaking III (6x) and use the appropriately sized microwarpdrive for your ship class. Frigates use the 5MN-variant, cruisers the 50MN-variant and battleships the 500MN-variant. While there are 50,000MN-variants for capital ships, certain ships like Orcas and Bowheads can only fit "undersized" 500MN Microwarpdrives due to powergrid restrictions. As such they are limited to using them only as a means to align in 10 seconds flat (see above). They cannot combine their microwarpdrive with a cloak to do this trick, as they will simply not be able to accelerate fast enough.
The main risk of this method is messing up the cloak and getting locked before you manage to get your cloak up, which would make it impossible for you to cloak up. It's also possible for people to burn towards your location and decloak you before you've managed to align. Having a Warp Core Stabilizer I or two might save you from a lone enemy with just a long point, but for that to be useful you'll need to be able to warp away before anyone else shows up with a second or third point, or a scram.
Using dedicated ships for moving around
If you're not bound to a specific ship but can setup dedicated ships for flying back and forth in the universe, you got plenty of options that can be either faster, safer, more convenient or just cheaper. This is very convenient if you have ships staged in two or more different regions or areas in space, as hopping into a shuttle or an interceptor will quickly and effortlessly allow you to move between them.
Below are a few examples of ships that can be used.
Shuttles
Shuttles are dirt cheap and are often ignored by most in high security space. This can be a cheap option for new players to move around even if they are at war. Even if they are caught, as long as they don't have too many expensive implants, they potentially risk but a shuttle and a pod. This option is slightly less useful in low and null security space, due to its paper tank and the ease of simply smartbombing you as you approach the gate ... picking off both you and your pod in one fell swoop. Shuttles aren't always available at decent prices as well, but can easily be stockpiled or even built if you regularly need to use them.
Getting the shuttle to less than two second align time only requires Navigation II (1x) and Evasive Maneuvering III (2x).
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 5 AU/s warp speed. < 2 sec align time Up to 786 effective hit points. Up to 625 m/s speed 10 m3 cargo capacity.
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For the rich, using the Leopard you'll improve warp speed to20 AU/s warp speed, significantly improving your mileage.
Frigates
While the travelceptor-variant below is vastly superior to moving about safely and quickly, there are low skilled options such as a travel-fit Atron. It doesn't have the bubble immunity of an interceptor, but it's a nice option for low skilled pilots in high security space to move around in something with a bit more effective hit points, speed and cargo space (compared to a simple shuttle).
This fit only requires you to train a Evasive Maneuvering III and if you don't already have it, Gallente Frigate I which in total is less than 9 hours worth of training. This makes it a very accessible method of moving around, until you can fly the more effective interceptors.
Medium Shield Extender I
Small Shield Extender I
Upgraded EM Ward Amplifier I
Type-D Restrained Inertial Stabilizers
Type-D Restrained Inertial Stabilizers
Type-D Restrained Inertial Stabilizers
Small Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer I
Small Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer I
Small Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer I
- Relevant information:
7,85 AU/s warp speed. < 2 sec align time 3,670 effective hit points. 145 m3 cargo capacity
1 - 2 million ISK cost
Interceptors
A very common method of travelling is to use an interceptor fit to align in less than two seconds, with hyperspatial rigs to improve its already impressive warp speed. With a proper fit you can even tank it enough to survive a few smartbombs, making it a favourite for capsuleers moving vast distances, especially in low- and null security space. Below is an example of a Raptor fitted for fast travel.
Improved Cloaking Device II
Medium Shield Extender II
Medium F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
EM Ward Amplifier II
Inertial Stabilizers II
Inertial Stabilizers II
Inertial Stabilizers II
Small Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II
Small Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II
- Relevant information:
- The Adaptive Invulnerability Field II module is there to add to your buffer landing on a gate with smartbombers on it, for travel through low and null security space.
- The Improved Cloaking Device II is just a utility module for giving you the option to cloak up and reassess your situation if need be.
12,17 AU/s warp speed. < 2 sec align time 11,014 effective hit points. 92 m3 cargo capacity
Covert Ops
Ships capable of fitting the Covert Ops Cloaking Device II module [1] [2] can be very effective in moving about in hostile space, such as low-, null- and wormhole space. Their ability to remain cloaked at all times, assuming you don't let anything get too close, will allow them to safely scout out gates for gate camp as well as letting them use covert cynosural fields.
Regular covert ops ships are often favoured for travel via wormholes, given the fickle nature of wormholes, the value of remaining unseen and the ability to scan down a new "door" should the old one close on you.
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3 - 12 AU/s warp speed.
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- ^ Astero, Blockade Runner, Covert Ops, Etana, Prospect, Force Recon, Stealth Bomber, Strategic Cruiser, Stratios, Victorieux Luxury Yacht.
- ^ The Covert Ops Cloaking Device II (aka. Covops Cloak) requires Cloaking IV (6x) to use.
