Hauling

(First draft by Callin Vandylx, using information gleaned from Steave435, Cassius Longinus and Scrapyard Bob, amongst myriad others. Please enhance this!)

TODO: Link to Uni Obelisk program.

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 cargo from the high/low sec border to wherever it is needed in null sec and back again. Caldari freighters are the largest, closely followed by Gallente, then Amarr and lastly Minmatar. The difference is not large.

Orca

For pure anti-gank hi-sec hauling, the Orca probably excels at this. It can't hold anywhere near as much as the Freighters, but the Corp Hangar makes a wonderful place to hide 40k m^3 of cargo that you don't want to show up on a cargo scanner.

However, the Orca requires a completely different skill set, whereas all the other haulers have pretty much the same skills: a Racial Industrial V with a few small (but expensive) skills on top of that.

In addition, stuff in the Corp Hangar/SMA (Ship Maintenence Array) always gets destroyed when the ship is blown up and does not appear on killmails. This means that even if the gankers somehow get intel about the expensive cargo that you have in there, suicide ganking you is still pointless since they can't get to it anyway.

Fast Transports

There are situations where a small fast craft is better then a big lumbering beast. These include moving blueprints or other small volume, high value cargo.

TODO: Discuss a few good fast transport setups for these purposes.

Racial Comparison

Gallente have the best T1 Industrial, and are pretty much tied for first place in every other class of hauler. By comparsion, Minmatar only shine in the Blockade Runner part if you need a second high slot for some reason (not strictly hauling only). Amarr perform very well in the T2 Industrials, but are weak in the T1s and have a smaller freighter. 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.

Callin Vandylx's and Steave435's opinion: 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.

Hauler Type Comparison

The best hauler is situational; it depends on where you are (high, low, null security space) combined with how large and valuable the cargo is. For example, using an Occator to move a cargo small enough to fit in a Viator is sub-optimal, and using a Viator to move large amounts of Tritanium around in high sec is as well.

Below are the optimal ships for each task, assuming that the area that you're going to/through is not a place where it's a clearly bad idea to bring such a ship type. As soon as moving through either null or low sec is required, you are strongly encouraged to switch to a Viator (Blockade Runner) or Jump Freighter.

• Small cargo of any value: Blockade Runner
• Large cargo of low value: T1 Industrial or Deep Space Transport
• Large cargo of medium value: Deep Space Transport
• Large cargo of high value: Blockade Runner. (Even if you may get the job done faster with a DST, getting it there at all is better then not getting it there due to being ganked.)
• Huge cargo below ~350k m^3: Jump Freighter (it aligns faster then a Freighter)
• Huge cargo above ~350k m^3: Jump Freighter or Freighter depending on the enviroment

Hauling Skills

Ship Flying Skills

• Warp Drive Operation: Helps with long warps. Each skill level reduces the capacitor need of initiating warp by 10%.
• Spaceship Command: Reduces align time. 2% improved ship agility for all ships per skill level.
• Advanced Spaceship Command: May reduce align time. Grants a 5% Bonus per skill level to the agility of ships requiring Advanced Spaceship Command (such as the Orca).
• Evasive Maneuvering: Increases ship agility and acceleration. 5% improved ship agility for all ships per skill level.

Tanking Skills

Generally useful skills:

• Shield Management: 5% extra shields per level
• Shield Operation: 5% reduction in shield recharge time per level; level IV allows use of T2 shield boosters
• Shield Upgrades: 5% reduction in shield upgrade powergrid needs per level; level IV allows use of T2 shield extenders and rechargers
• <type-specific> Shield Compensation: 3% bonus per level in <type-specific> resistance for active hardeners, 5% bonus per level for passive hardeners
• Shield Compensation: 2% reduction in shield booster capacitor utilization per level (useful for active tanks)

Recommendation:

• Get Shield Management and Shield Operation at least to IV.

Particularly useful modules:

• Engineering II & Tactical Shield Manipulation IV: Allows use of Invulnerability Field II.
• Hull Upgrades IV: Allows use of T2 Damage Control. There is a trade-off with the cargo expanders typically used by haulers, however.
• Energy Grid Upgrades IV, Engineering II, and Science I: Allows use of T2 Power Diagnostic Systems. Some shield tankers prefer these over Damage Controls for the boost in shield recharge rate.

Hauler Tanking

There are several types of tanking: buffer tanking, passive tanking and active tanking. Additionally, some buffer tanks are entirely passive (no active modules) and others include active resistances and damage control modules. The active modules must be turned on after every jump; remapping them to the F1-F8 keys makes this less inconvenient.

For high sec operation, the buffer tank is most common, as the goal is to survive the alpha strike (initial volley) of the attacking gankers and remain alive long enough for CONCORD to come and destroy the attacker(s).

T1 Industrials are typically passive buffer tanked.

An example buffer tank fit would include 1x EMP Shield Amp, 1x Thermal Shield Amp and 2-3x Medium Shield Extenders. One or two Invulnerabilty Field IIs can also be used, but remember that requires capacitor to run and has to be restarted after every jump. The Damage Control II is far better because it uses hardly any cap, but you still have to remember to turn it on, but it requires removing an Extended Cargohold II.

For hauling, passive shield tank skills are key, followed by the ability to use a Damage Control II and Invulnerability Field II. After that, armor tanking can be considered, but that takes away cargo space quickly as you burn up low slots with armor plates/hardeners instead of Expanded Cargohold modules.

Visibly active tanking might discourage ganking by the discriminating ganker, so remember to keep your active modules (if any) running at all times.

For hauling in null sec, a Microwarp Drive is key for getting out of bubbles. These are best used on a Blockade Runner that can cloak.

Avoiding Ganking

In a T1 Industrial, the best way to avoid suicide ganks in a hauler is to fly a cloakable ship, and not be AFK. You should be safe moving anything through high security space that way.

The second best is to just not be AFK. (Embarassing that that really needs to be said.) In that case, perhaps mobility (instabs/stabilizers) work as well as buffer to discourage ganking.

If you must travel AFK, then buffer is all you have. Favor explosive/kinetic/thermal hardening as suicide ganking in Harbingers is too expensive (because of faction crystals and the cost of the hull). Most people will be ganking in Hurricanes and Drakes.

If you're really trying to go anti-gank in high sec, then a Transport (65k EHP, 8k cargo on an Occator) or Orca (250k EHP, 90-95k cargo) or Freighter (200k EHP 900-950k cargo) becomes mandatory.

Builds

Iteron V, Tank

[Iteron Mark V, Tank] (Cassius Longinus)

3x Reactor Control Unit I
2x Expanded Cargohold II

Large Shield Extender II
Magnetic Scattering Amplifier II
Explosion Dampening Amplifier II
2x Heat Dissipation Amplifier II

2x [empty high slot]

3x Medium Core Defence Field Extender I

That has 15+K EHP, which should tank most solo-Battlecruiser gankers.

Iteron V, General Hauling

(Scrapyard Bob) [Iteron Mark V, 38.4k m3, 14.8k EHP]

5x Expanded Cargohold II

2x Invulnerability Field II
3x Medium Shield Extender II

1x Salvager I
1x Small Tractor Beam I

3x Medium Cargohold Optimization I

Adding a Damage Control II will boost it to 18k EHP but you'll only have 30.1k m3 of cargo space.

Iteron V, Mining Support

(Scrapyard Bob) This is a real pain to fit, so you're going to have to play around with shield extenders that aren't Tech II. With level V skills, you can fit T2 shield extenders. Afterburner version is recommended for mining ops support.

[Iteron Mark V, Afterburner, 38.4k m^3, 10k EHP]

5x Expanded Cargohold II

1x Y-S8 Hydrocarbon I Afterburners
2x Invulnerability Field II
1x Medium Azeotropic Ward Salubrity I
1x Medium Shield Extender II

1x Salvager I
1x Small Tractor Beam I

3x Medium Cargohold Optimization I

Hauler Roles

TODO

Jump Freighters and Blockade Runners should be the only things hauling stuff in or out of null sec.

Mining Assistance

If you're using your hauler in a mining operation (without an Orca), consider fitting a tractor beam to bring cans to you faster, as well as a salvager to make something of the inevitable rat wrecks. You could also fit a mining laser, but even a good one with pilot skills won't be getting much more than 100 m^3 per minute.

Other

TODO What other roles can haulers fulfill?

References

Forum thread on hauling skills and haulers Iterons and Suicide Ganking discussion