Market Discussions

http://i.imgur.com/9UC3Sgw.png

It was instant. 1 shot and I was dead. I didn't think people suicide ganked for so little and a mixture of just a whole bunch of modules that they would probably have trouble selling if they didn't know the market I was heading to. Well luckily they only got about 200mil worth of my cargo, but being new to the game, this put me back at square one.

Any tips on how to prevent this? I don't think any defense modules would of helped me since he did all my health in one shot.

First of all, never haul that much ISK value in a t1 hauler.
Second, fit some sort of buffer tank. A Damage Control, a shield extender or two and some shield resist mods could save your ship if you're being attacked.

Thanks for the tips guys. Definitely a hard lesson learned for me.

If you yourself don't have a freighter (which you can load appropriately, same principle applies here, never afk autopilot and never assume you are 100% safe), I would suggest using RFF: http://red-frog.org/jumps.php
You can of course use public courier contracts as well, but RFF are extremely reliable and pretty cheap.

If you do haul in a freighter, I would suggest a) keep an eye on killboards for the high risk systems (0.5 and 0.6 mainly, such as Niarja or Uedama). b) Move your stuff at an appropriate time of day, say... noon on a thursday over prime time sunday :)
c) Use a webbing alt if possible (for near-instant warps)

I'd also like to add some advice for you.

If you fit any active modules that you need to press to activate - e.g adaptive field doo-hickys - run them ALL the time when you are hauling. Going through a system gate turns them off so you will need to re-activate them after each jump - which means being at keyboard. When you activate these modules they produce a graphical effect on your ship which a potential pirate/ganker can see. It instantly makes you a less attractive target. The opposite is also true - if the pirate can see you have no graphical effects active then they are attracted to that and will investigate you more as a possible target.
Imagine two freighters flying through space, both passing a pirate looking for a kill, the pirate instantly sees one freighter is running active tanky modules from the graphical effects, the other is not. Which freighter do you think is going to get further attention from the pirate? Which one would you rather be?
Also in the event you are attacked the attacker will have the element of surprise on you and as a newer player you will probably panic. All this means it will longer for your brain to turn your active modules on. If they are permanently running you can panic in safety with your active modules protecting you from before the attack even happened. I wouldn't be surprised if some people die in a gank without even switching their modules on in the panic of the moment. Running your modules permanently as a matter of practice will probably save your life.

Don't haul on autopilot Away From Keyboard. In fact don't do anything in Eve AFK. If you are obviously AFK some people will blow you up just for being AFK. If you haul AFK you can't activate your modules as above. Autopilot also has one massive drawback over manual piloting - each time you autopilot warp to the next stargate you drop out of warp 15Km from the stargate and slowboat to the gate - if you do it manually you warp onto the stargate. This 15Km slowboat to the gate is prime ganktime - it gives the pirate plenty of time to scan you and decide if you are worth the gank. Lets put it this way. The 15km slowboat to the stargates in Eve compared to the manual warp to 0 on a stargate is specifically in the game for the benefit of pirates. That's the ONLY reason it exists. I personally wouldn't even move an EMPTY hauler through highsec on autopilot, as it's such a lulz kill target. Imagine the autopilot button as being connected to a massive neon "kill me now" sign on the outside of your ship that flashes continually as your ship plods through space. Even using autopilot in a shuttle is risking all your implants for a lulz kill. Never use autopilot.

Avoid - or at the very least be aware of the where the favoured gank systems are. On the Jita to Amarr run for instance there is one system on the route that is 0.5 security, and has no stations to dock up at in the event of trouble. The system is Niarja. Every trader hauling between Jita and Amarr ends up going through there. If your hauler is going to get ganked on that trade run, that's where its going to happen. Knowing that system is where it's going to happen is half the battle. You could for instance scout it out first, or look up the kill density, see if miniluv is active there right now, etc... my point being when you know where the problem is you can take action and prepare.

Understand pirate ganker maths. They use a very simple equation to decide who to hit. They compare the value of what you are hauling to the cost of the ships needed to break your tank. The higher your tank the more it costs them to break it. They will also look for holes in the different resistances - assume they will always know the right ammo to use to kill you the quickest.
If your cargo is worth more than the cost to them of suicide ganking you then you are dead before you even undock, it's that simple. Do the maths yourself, make sure you aren't worth killing before undocking.

It's impossible to be in total safety in Eve, if someone really wants to get you they will, but your job as a hauler is to make yourself a less attractive target than the moron next to you. The low hanging fruit gets picked first, don't be the lowest hanging.
Each step you take to protect yourself and reduce your attractiveness as a target means some other hauler who can't be bothered looks like a much more juicy target than you.

As long as you stay in connected highsec, use courier contracts with collateral. No effort or risk is required on your part, and if the hauler gets blown up, you get money. If you collateralize properly, you make more money than you would selling the items.

Freighter guys often haul more than 1 bill. my 2 contracts today were to move 1.8 bill and 1.3 bill. both were moved within an hour.
OP suicide ganking is not one of my hobbies but if i heard that someone had 700 mill in a t1 indie i would rush to my tornado and head after it asap. people are passive scanning ships around trade hubs all the time. The only challenge you presented with that loot pinata was the scooping of your loot after up popped.......way way way too much for a ship with that EHP.

As someone who is new and this week (on my alt) made approx 1.2bn ISK my advice is simple

Learn the Cloak Trick technique and learn it to the point it becomes second nature (even in High Sec - get used to the habit)

At first try to haul low volume m3 until your skill books can get you closer to larger *tank* ships. Invest early in EVEMON skill plans and optimise your characters attributes to suite your plan (saves you days in learning etc). Now its all well and good for people to poke fun at you or mock your ship selection(s) when you start out, as its not as if you can rush the skill books. So you play with what hand your dealt and what skills you have.

My advice is to keep the volume m3 low and avoid the 5000m3+ cargo(s) until you have more skills / experience as enticing as the profit margins are.

Should you manage to snipe a good deal that requires a large amount of cargo space, as others have said outsource it and factor the outsourcing into your profit margins. I made around 50m ISK and paid out about 20% of that and sitll walked away with a hefty profit margin (approx 43% from what EVE Mentat transactions tell me).

Low Sec = death. I've even had folks take pot shots at me in level 0.5 but 4 to 1 ... its just begging for the kill especially if people look at your character bio and see the time stamps as being "~1yr old" as that screams "I am taking a high risk, come see". I Lost 15m isk for trying to run the gauntlet ...i knew the risk but i did it anyway and I have had some wins on the board for playing with LowSec fire... just be prepared for your heartbeat to race and a lot "**** **** **** jump **** **** ****" moments..

Again don't attempt this until you have the Cloak trick working and definitely don't auto pilot..

Do not jump on a forum like this and let everyone know your character is hauling cargo. I specifically choose my fighter character to type this response on and not my hauler/courier... as you also may as well advertise to everyone in EVE your intent right now .. "Look i'm having issues, so if you see me in game, help me develop further issues'.

The thing I have learnt so far about my EVE experience is that this is what the human population would be like 10yrs after the earths self destruction and how people have become detached from all forms of morality. This entire behavior has been specifically engineered by the games ability to basically abandon people once they level High Sec (but even then inside High sec players are still prone to scams etc).

Basically - Survival is for the fittest and right now, you don't look healthy (I myself don't either). So we need to build some muscle before we really see the ISK profits :)

The only T2 module I use on a T1 industrial are cargo expanders. It doesn't make sense fitting millions of ISK of modules on a cheap and fragile Industrial hull.

What are you talking about? Industrials use medium rigs and it was clear he was talking about the low slot Expanded Carghold II modules which cost ~450k.