EVE New Citizens Q&A

Don't mind the tinfoil hattery OP, I fully believe your story. I've seen people from 2005 do the most disingenious things and it all comes down to knowledge: of the mechanics and the meta. The mechanics dictate you are slow and fat in an environment that promotes speed and hit & run attacks. The meta dictates that a Dominix is expensive enough for people to want to have on their killboards. You put two and two together yourself...

As others have said, fast and quick-aligning ships, or covops-capable ships, have a far higher rate of survival when transporting goods. Your main vulnerability would be smartbombs, which are extremely situational weapons and thus quite rare in the actual field. While I have accounts of people experiencing a so called 'pipe-bomb' (getting smartbombed while in, or coming out of, warp) I have yet to be bombed like this myself.

So spread your risk, and train for appropriate ships. Covops (small volume, high value) and Blockade Runners (large volume, low value) are your safest bet. Use travel-fitted frigates if you have no access to covops, and warp-stab the hell out of any T1 industrials you might use. Do not use cargo expanders in lowsec... look into their actual penalties as to why, you'll see why those are a bad idea.

Hahaha :D

Assume everyone in local who you don't know is looking to gank you.

Learn how to use dscan and use it routinely.

Never assume anyone is afk or still docked. They could be cloaked, just 5km away.

Never talk in local, so you avoid giving away intel on whether or not you are active, avoid getting distracted, avoid being suckered in like you just were.

Also, as has been pointed out before, flying a battleship around solo without having a clue about pvp is a terrible idea.

You want to move BPOs in and out of losec?

Use a Leopard.