Ships & Modules

This toon is a hauler and I have wondered if I should train to be a JF pilot. What exactly can a Jumpfreighter do? I saw someone jump from a Jita station once and wondered if that was what it was.

Do you have a need for a Jump Freighter? Do you need to move large amounts of M3 from Lowsec and/or 0.0 to market?

Keep in mind that the ship itself will probably cost you 4 billion or so and fuel is not cheap. Plus you will need to establish Cyno chains to get you to and from your destinations. The skill books alone will run you about 150 million.

So really the questions are:

1) Do you actually need one?
2) Can you afford one?
3) Can you afford to lose one? They do get popped.

If yes to all three, go for it. You probably run several towers and/or handle logistics for your corp or alliance.

If your plan would be to stick it in a hangar in case someone ever says "Do we have a JF?" forget it.

For one-off uses, better to contract a service like Black Frog or something.

Yes.

Just not the other way around.

How close to a gate can you be and light a cyno field so that the JF can immediately jump into HS from the cyno?

You dont do it like that.

You light cynos for JF / carriers near some station, then align and jump to 0 of some hisec gate, preferable in lowsec - so that you dont accidently get caught in a bubble.

If you get shot at before being able to warp to the gate -> you just dock up and let things cool down a little. JF has more then 300k EHP - you dont get ganked by 2-3 frigates in it, dont worry ;)

Ive never seen a cyno on the actual gate...

I.


P.S.

Ofc - common sense dictates you dont jump a JF / any cap if station is camped by SCs / titans / fleets of 20+ ships, but tbh cant remember when I last time saw that kind of situation

Yes. But if you're worried about a cyno alt getting podded, you're doing it wrong.

One point of warp scramble will prevent the JF from using the jump drive. The only times you move a jump freighter directly through a gate, is when you are entering high sec from an adjacent low sec or null sec system (to which you traveled using the jump drive, of course); or when traveling through high sec to a high sec station. If you ever find yourself using a gate in any other circumstance, you have completely screwed the pooch.

The JF is a highly specialized (and very expensive!) ship. Unless you're planning on pushing large quantities of merchandise through questionable territory, you probably don't need it.

With that said, JF's are pure uncut awesomeness .

Its not that simple. Anything jumping to you will come out somewhere within 5km. If that 5km is actually on the station structure then the freighter will "bounce" off the station as it jumps in. This can take anywhere from 1-5 minutes to correct, assuming you don't get killed in the meantime.

The absolute best way of making cyno tacs on station is by flying around the station with a Salvager fitted to a high slot. Use a cheapo frigate if the area is hostile but you should be in dock range all the time anyway.

The salvager has a range of 5km and that's also the furthest point from the cyno the ship jumping in can emerge from. If you hover the mouse over the salvager then that will give you a sphere showing the max distance anything jumping to you will be.

So what you do is manually fly towards the station until the edge of that sphere just touches the station structure.

Then you turn 180 degrees and fly away from station until there is a minimum gap of about 1000-2000m between the edge of the salvager sphere and any point on the station structure. Edit - some stations have huge docking ranges but others don't, you'll get to know them.

Make your bookmark there and continue flying away from station for another 5km to ensure that is still within docking range. If it is then you have a cyno bookmark which will leave you in docking range without bouncing off the station. Try to do this well away from the station undock (other side of station) as it will force people to bounce to warp to the cyno - by the time they do your session timer should be over and you can dock.

Edit2 - when you jump the freighter in then immediately manually align for station, its some (little) defence against bump-offs.

You can if you want but the salvager method works more reliably, especially for minnie stations and one particular Amarr one.

Those are the ones which convinced me to use a salvager and also taught me how long it takes to get a bouncing JF back in docking range

Edit - everyone has overlay on anyway when cynoing, doesn't help with anything off the ecliptic for accurate range.