My EVE

While I'm sure that while flying a Jump Freighter, ganking is a matter of when and not if, I'd still like to minimize the possibility of that happening due to my error. Therefore I was looking for a guide which lists - with pictures preferably - those spots near all the different NPC station types where a Cyno could be safely lit while still being able to instadock with an incoming JF. Despite all of my efforts however, I couldn't find such a guide. The closest thing I found was this guide on station docking ranges:

http://go-dl.eve-files.com/media/1105/Stations_undock_range.pdf

Now, this is an excellent starting point, but I wanted a guide specifically for cyno placement. Using the above guide as a baseline, I started first by identifying - with the help of the EVE data dump - all the different NPC station types where a JF might ever need to dock. Once I had this list, I identified specific stations that have the station geometry corresponding to each type within a reasonable traveling distance and then set up a route to visit each of these stations and practice jump a JF to each of them on the Singularity test server, so that I'd feel more comfortable of doing this live on Tranquility without the fear of losing my JF on the very first jump (which might still happen despite all of my efforts :-)

Anyway the result of this is the guide below, which includes pictures of where I placed my Cynos for each station. I hope this might be of use to other people as well.

http://dl.eve-files.com/media/1312/Station_Cyno_Placement_Guide.pdf

The first page of the guide is a summary table showing each of the station types I identified (there are 30 types listed but 2 of them are actually identical physical models, namely the Caldari Military Station and the Caldari Mining Station, so there are only 29 unique types. Station types are color coded according to their general "evilness", red are the worst, very small docking range, very small margin of error, orange are passable and green are our friends, with generous docking ranges.
Included are page references for the station docking ranges guide I linked above where available (not all station types were represented in that guide). Stations are listed in the suggested order they should be visited for an optimal practice run.

After this comes the actual picture reference, ordered by the main NPC factions. For each of the stations a screenshot is provided of the actual spot where I placed my Cyno during my practice. For each of the "red" stations (except the most evil, the Amarr Industrial Station) I also included another picture showing my JF after jumping more or less at the farthest possible point of the 5 km Cyno bubble from the station model. Each of these spots were still insta dockable 0 m spots, thus these should be "proof" enough that the Cyno spot should be right.

Now, I'm far from an experienced JF pilot (indeed I'm just starting out), so I'd very much appreciate if the more experienced pilots lurking here would share their insights if they see that some of my Cyno spots are very wrong and might suggest better spots. That way this guide might be improved significantly and maybe even help a few pilots so that they would not lose a ship valued at 6 billion on their first eager Cyno jump.

Any questions, comments, ISK donations, whatever, you can alsonsend to Larenon en Marland in EVE.

Looks like a cool guide :-)
The effort you put into it is appreciated.

assumption is the mother of all fukkups!

Good work

Cap pilots should know this yes, but often you ask someone else to light the cyno for you, and exspect they know to light a cyno, and sometime you bump of station because of a serious bad cyno (If small fleet)

Thumps up

I still know nothing about it and I'm not even a cap pilot yet.
And this is even though I could buy a capital ship or train capital ship.

I was given some references as to how it worked but I still haven't been able to verify anything.

And that doesn't include any Armada wardec against me and the other covert Personal Attacks supported and paid for in game.

Very helpful guide!

Good work!

A brilliant guide. I myself know how angry carrier pilots can get (with themselves or the poor cyno pilot) when a cyno is placed incorrectly and the carrier bounces off the station. Much appreciated.

I hope to test cynos soon.