Ships & Modules

So something I like about this game is that it's very modular- pretty much anything someone posts is guaranteed to be suboptimal for pretty much every function other than that for which its designed, and whether it can do that function optimally is debatable at best. It's the start of a very dysfunctional community, which serves my purposes well, which is sharpening the edge of my idea on the grindstone that is this "community".

So, I think a lot more people autopilot than would ready admit that (dangerous) habit to the community at large. After all, autopiloting in high sec isn't dangerous- other players are. Why encourage a suicide gank when one would not otherwise be coming for you? To that effect, many people talk about the "best" autopilot ship, and their definition of "best" is "fastest". For me, since the entire idea of autopilot is to walk away from the keyboard for an indeterminate period of time, and not be able to see what danger your character is in, the "best" autopilot becomes the "most likely to get you there alive".

To that effect, I pose a challenge- what *is* the best autopilot ship, with that goal in mind? The way I figure it, since the only thing that poses a significant risk of preventing you from achieving your goal (getting there alive) is suicide gankers, the best ship is the one least likely to get suicide ganked, and / or the one best built to prevent success at that task.

There are two flavors of suicide gankers we are opposing in this theoretical workspace- one, is the solo suicide ganker. He is out there, feeling bored, looking to kill someone for fun. He is mostly looking to inflict more emotional damage on his target than he himself suffers, and is thus attracted to rookie ships, T1 industrials, mining barges, shuttles, etc. The more paper thin the target running on autopilot, the more likely he is to pop them for sport, take a loss on the ship involved, and send them a mail saying "welcome to eve, b****es".

The other is a sucide ganking gang. They are multiple coordinated people, working together to achieve their craft of ganking in high sec. They are most likely working for profit, as with most ventures in Eve. They are attracted to Blockade Runners and other "high value" targets trying to escape their grasp, but their main targets are anyone transporting a cargo more valuable than the losses incurred in obtaining it. As they have coordination, they may also take part in any venture which causes more losses than they themselves incur for the sake of spreading their reputation.

With those two "enemies" in mind, the goal for a autopilot ship is one which will prevent success from a solo suicide ganker, while being cheap enough to make being targeted unprofitable for the suicide ganker gang. Secondary goals like speed and cargo space are still present, but are more like the cherry on top than the main focus. I've played around with it, and in my very limited experience, the best I came up with is a Stabber-

Regolith Shield Induction
Regolith Shield Induction
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II

Damage Control II
Overdrive Injector System II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Hyperspace Velocity Optimizer I
Hyperspace Velocity Optimizer I
Hyperspace Velocity Optimizer I

With that, you achieve 28k EHP (More than enough to deal with the solo ganker, normally expected to put out 12-16k EHP damage before being popped by concord), a 36m Rens-> Jita Highsec run (see http://eve-utils.net/maps/shortest_path/) which is a nice big lengthy run, and it has 400m3 of cargo space. Furthermore, it requires around 30mil to pop (running on the normal expectation of 10mil per 10000 EHP damage from gankers), and costs 16 mil, leaving me 14 mil of cargo I can carry before I'm a "cost effective" target.

What I'm really wondering, is how much better I can do? Who can design a super fast, reasonable storage capacity autopilot ship, which can shrug off solo gankers and make ganking gangs pay twice as much or more than the amount of monetary damage they inflict? I'll be comparing speeds by looking at the highsec rens -> jita time, and of course with cargo capacity the more the merrier, but the lowest amount I would still consider viable for personal autopilot transport is 100m3, for what it's worth. Anyone out there more skilled at designing ships than I am, being a 1 month old noob?

Yes, you are 100% correct, the DC2 is worthless. I had though it remains on through jumps, but I just tested and you are quite correct. Feel free to replace it with something more worthwhile, even without it you're over 20k ehp (23.4, giving you nearly 10m of cargo before being "cost effective"). Dunno if I'd want another Overdrive or a cargo hold optimizer, but regardless, a DCII is no good at all. Thank you for pointing this out to me.

Also, being "safe" (always in quotes, since you're not docked) is the main goal, but that doesn't mean you disregard any and all other considerations. Warp speed doesn't help that much for travel time (only saves 2 minutes), but what would you put in its place? A velocity optimizer that does practically nothing thanks to stacking penalites and nerfed initial effect? A cargohold optimizer making it far easier to carry enough cargo to be a tempting target? I'm open to suggestions, that's the point of this thread, so that's not a knock on other choices- it's an actual question. They don't help that much, I know. Going 200 AUs per second wouldn't help that much, since most time is spent accelerating, decelerating, aligning, and approaching. But if not them, what?

The only thing about the Moa is that you're looking at a 44 minute rens-jita run. That's 20% worse speed, even before adjusting to a similar fit on the stabber. Do you really think someone will go after a 25k ehp target who wouldn't go after a 40k ehp target, enough to make the loss of speed worthwhile?

Correct. Accounting for replacing them with Large Shield Extender IIs (which actually cost less and are just as easily fitted than the Regoliths, another initial mistake) the EHP is still only 24.1k. Still, 24k vs 25k, I think the question is nonetheless valid- even doubling the EHP vs reducing time spent by 20%, is only a desirable trade if the reduction in deaths from doubling the EHP provides as much or more value than the 20% reduction in time spent. If no one does not target you from the increase in EHP who would otherwise have targeted you, there is no real value in the increase.

So, who *can* do 24k EHP damage, but *can't* (or won't) do 40k ehp damage? Who is the increase in EHP saving you from?

Or you could just not use autopilot? I'm sorry, not trying to be a jerk, but going afk in space - even in hi sec - is like leaving your keys in your car in a bad neighborhood. These fits are very creative, but it seems like an awful lot of work is going into making something that is inherantly unsafe safe. Manually warping directly to the gate is much faster and safer, and IMO if the goods you are transporting are valuable enough to merit this level of effort to protect... you may want to remain at the helm to ensure they arrive safely.
However, sometimes you gotta step away, I know this... for transporting small bundles of semi-valuable goods I'll sometimes use a cheap fast frigate and put overdrive injectors and a couple speed rigs on it. The idea being to reduce your exposure time as much as possible. A condor or heron or the equivalent from the other empires works fine for this. If I'm transporting anything valuable (at least to me) I use a Bustard and tank the snot out if and remain at the controls til my cargo arrives safely.

U'd be amazed how many people autopilot t1 haulers,orcas and freighters while carring valuable cargo. And just by stating this , everyone who carries expensive stuff and is autopiloting can say buh-bye because it doesnt mattet how much tank u got if ur valuable u will die,ofc exceptions can be made depending on luck if and when u travel by what route and if gankers are present or not.

Fastest? Probably Malediction.
Best tank? Damnation.
A lot of trit? Charon easily. Almost impossible to get ganked. When you get ganked remember to post link to KM on forums so everyone can laugh at them.

Ultimately though I still have to stand by "don't use autopilot". I like a lot of the ideas here, but in the end if you are not at a safe spot cloaked you are not safe ANYWHERE in space. Charons get ganked regularly and even intys aren't invulnerable. If it's valuable to you, it merits your full attention. If you get ganked afk, you personally are responsible as much as the ganker for failing to take reasonable measures to ensure your own safety.

Are you seriously not trolling? You come in here chastising the "community" at large asking for help on a terrible idea. Seems like its baitier than fit you are asking for. I'll answer anyway...

The answer is don't autopilot with cargo. If you go through a .5 system you can be ganked by a single tornado with ease. They WILL get off multiple volleys.Trust me.

Some gankers use alpha and some use DPS, depending on concord response time and number of gankers. Assuming a solo gank in a work of multiboxers is ludicrous.

So in the end the answer is as follows; Go back the the drawing board and change one of 2 things. Make a route that avoids .5 and .6 systems, or come up with a fit that can withstand 2 volleys from a tornado.

That being the answer to the original scenario presented, the fact that the original question evades logic remains. A small gang of destroyers will take you out if you are AFK regardless, and cost much less than a single tornado, negating any cost effectiveness you had hoped for. They will have scrams and webs so any amount of agility you equip the ship with will be negated. And finally, even if you could be "cost effective", the fact remains that often times we do it for ***** and giggles.

I use a passive brick tanked prophecy. I figure anyone with enough firepower to drop it has a grudge and I'd die anyway even paying attention. Don't haul anything worth a damn afk though.