Ships & Modules

I'd feel much more secure hauling a bil worth of freight in a DST over a Freighter.
DST's align much faster than a Freighter which helps, and with the MWD+Cloak trick its much safer.
Still not 100% safe, but definitely more so than a Freighter in my opinion.

I'm going to ask questions and assume a few answers in the meanwhile. My post isn't to outright give you answers, but aimed more to help you in your line of thinking so you make good choices. It sounds like you're making great choices right now, but maybe we can still improve upon that a little bit because a DST should always get more than 1/4 the EHP of a freighter, and up to double the EHP of a freighter if you have a chance to overheat.

Are you transporting in high-sec? If yes...

Are you actively at the keyboard? If yes...

Do you have all appropriate skills trained? If yes...

Do you have several...not *one* but *many* insta-undock bookmarks where you normally undock from? If yes...

Do you self-scout your undock or parts of your route with a shuttle before taking your cargo through? If yes...

I have a character trained in DST's. I frequently fly several billion isk worth of material between areas in highsec. If you're serious about your moving needs, you really need to think about vulnerable points in your path, game mechanics, and toy around a LOT with EFT. I have two DST's trained up, with the relevant skills to V. One is a buffer tank, the other is active repair tanked (and enough buffer to catch my reps).

The one I choose to fly is based upon what I see along the route, what the undock looks like, etc. If we are speaking strictly about gankers using hybrid weapons, my buffer tanked DST gets over 900,000 EHP against that. My active rep DST has 300,000 EHP against that, but reps 10,000 EHP/second against that. Speaking strictly on hybrid weapons, those are the sorts of numbers you ought to be looking for from your DST fit.

But, gankers have many tools at their disposal. Recently swarms of Purifiers (EM-damage stealth bombers) have been seeing increased popularity (also, Hounds). The famous Tornado alpha gank also can hit with several different damage profiles. The difference, though, is that these other methods are either tremendously more expensive, take more manpower because raw DPS of other ships can't compete with Blaster-weapons, etc. So you're less likely to see them happen to you, unless you leave a glaring hole in your resists. Even if you specialize kin/therm, don't do that.

When fitting my ships, I omni-tank them to start with. Scouting is important. Situations differ. I can get enormous EHP against hybrids because hybrid attacks take longer, you have time to overheat (remember, DST's get bonused towards overheat). But Tornado/alpha ganks happen too quickly. Even if you have modules activated, you probably don't have time to overheat them in case there's a problem. So when doing your EFT-warrioring, remember that you can overheat for damage profiles vs. hybrid weapons, but probably not against the assorted projectile damage profiles.

Pay attention to mechanics.
-Bookmarks are important.
-Mobile depots are awesome.
-Gate cloak timer gives you time to assess the gate before revealing yourself.
-Practice of the cloak+MWD trick, even when not perfectly executed, dramatically reduces the chances of you being targeted.

Any routes you move through regularly, you ought to have a proper safe space bookmarked somewhere. I omni-tank when undocking and moving through higest sec systems. When I start to approach infamous mid-sec systems (0.6,0.5), I stop for a moment and refit for extra kin/therm (but not exclusively), because that's the bigger likelihood of attack. I also fly with a shuttle. I can land at a station, assemble the shuttle, and scout the next few jumps to see what's waiting on gates (something I've asked freighter pilots to do). If tornadoes are on gates, well, I'll keep the omni.

Also consider cheap bling modules. If you blow up, any given thing has what, a 50% chance of dropping? Add that to your cargo value and consider. If equipping two bling kin/therm modules ups your EHP to such levels that it takes another two Talos to kill your ship, that might be more cost on the gankers side than the cost of the modules, so you come out ahead. You have to make such decisions on a case-by-case basis (bling adaptive invuls are never, ever worth it).

Maybe you believe gankers will overkill you just to be sure, and such bling won't make a difference. Depends on your total cargo + mods value. They probably won't throw an extra five talos (~130 mil isk each) at you just for the chance at half of two billion worth of loot fairy RNG. If you analyze resist returns verses isk cost, you can find some surprisingly efficient modules that make gankers way overspend to overcome the sort of extra EHP you can provide yourself.

I usually only bling out for expensive cargo runs. When running empty or low-value goods, I run everyday tech II.

No system is ever perfect, but you can get great numbers out of the smart use of DSTs. They are quick enough, tanky enough, that you shouldn't use a freighter if you can get away with using a DST.

Cargo Scan immunity for Blockade Runners is, arguably, the single most redundant bonus on any hull in New Eden.

If another player has enough time to lock and cargo scan you BEFORE making the decision to shoot you, you've either been caught by a well set-up decloak-can-sphere gatecamp, or you've majorly screwed up somewhere along the line.

Blockade runners should(tm) ONLY get caught if they're unable to cloak for whatever reason. Any half competent gank squad is just going to play Blockade Runner Roulette if they get a target lock. A single arty 'nado oughta do it.

The answer is yes to all of them except the self-scouting. The only time I need to use a DST is when I have a larger load that won't fit in a BR. A second trip is usually faster than an orca or freighter. Sometimes, though, I need to make three trips. At that point, a DST would save time over the orca or freighter. But if I use a scout it won't. However, the value of my loads is well below $1 billion. So, with all the tips you and the others provided, I should be alright.

Thanks!

Or the perfect ship for the job.

There is nothing wrong with mwd + cloaking on all gates as habit, and it builds up proficiency for those who are new to it.

Just like cloaking all the time in a Cov Ops. Some do, some don't.

I regularly do 500m-1.5b+, have done as much as 3b in a 95k ehp structure/shield passive DST. Never get bothered. Mwd and a cloak give you improved safety (not the warp trick, but the ability to mwd away and cloak, if timed could thwart a gank, giving you time to escape), as well the regular mwd warp trick saves time and gets you off grid faster ofc.

Its almost too easy. I don't even think about values anymore.


A short browse on zkill for an occator, the ones that died in HS, were completely anti-tank. Nanos, warp cores, shield boosters (with 3 mids) and plenty of fits with cargo expanders and even t2 expander rigs. Seriously who expands the tiny main holds on DST?!?! Common sense will get you far

Going back to the original post, while EHP is important you cant really compare the "safely" transportable amounts from ship type to ship type.

Freighters are very slow and have horrible align times so forming up a large gank fleet is pretty easy. They are also very easy to pump.

Orcas and DSTs can all warp in 10 seconds (MWD pulse) so while they (for the most part) have less tank there is less of a chance to form a gank fleet. The Isk per EHP increases.

Once you start talking about Covert ops ships the value increases exponentially. As long as you are in HS, have insta docks and undocks and cloak all the time you are 99.99% safe with trillions in your cargo.

I would only haul valuables in a DST, and avoid common camped systems entirely even if it means another 8 jumps or more on the route, given a DST fit even half decently will still make the trip before an orca or a freighter are even off the undock

One downside of the blockade runner is if you get stuck on gate (afk, forgot cloak, whatever) or land outside dock range you can get blapped by curious tornadoes wanting to find out what goodies you are hauling in that unscannable ship.

giggity

I really like what you had to say here. Could I contact you in game*?