As a new player, I love the idea of being a delivery guy hauling stuff to the market and other places. Makes me feel like a part of a big ecosystem in the game and always loved the aspect of giant industrial ships from sci-fi series like alien franchise. I started training the required skills and getting the isk for eventual purchase of my first freighter (majority comes from plex sales). But the more I’m reading and learning about the profession, the more it seems like a waste of time and money.
If you tell me that every single attempt of warping I make with a freighter is a question of life and death and loss of multiple figures, why would anyone be doing it? What, cuz it’s so risky it pays off well? Give me a break. My idea was to get a big enough ship so I can deliver those large m3 contracts in high sec because I find it engaging. All those security procedures with markers, multiboxing, allied escorts etc. seem so degrading. I’m very well aware of PvP nature of EVE. I got blown up many times while hauling with conventional haulers and other casual activities, but this is a whole another level. Those ships ain’t cheap, and you get 3 low slots for what, some boosts to try not to get you killed? You are literally just a glorified pinata for ganking corps to pick on you. I can’t even blame them for doing so. It is very profitable.
I’m not asking for changes or accommodation for my case, but I can argue this greatly contributes to a big turn off to many new players that want to take a part of this very interesting game. I guess I will have to switch professions?
edit: Damn, this thread has spiraled out of control. At least there’s a discussion on this, which I’m glad I started.
Think of it from this perspective: why would you want to pay $20 a month to be able to role-play an Amazon delivery driver, when Amazon would pay you $20 an hour to be one for real?
Are you playing a video game to work, or to have fun?
You don’t necessarily have to haul the large m3 stuff. In fact, many freighters that are carrying large m3 stuff are also carrying lots of low m3 stuff that can actually be expensive. And that is what I tended to focus on. For example…you can buy clone soldier tags ( they are tiny m3 ) at Jita for 40m ISK and sell them at Jan system Concord station ( just a few jumps away ) for 49m ISK. Jan is in lowsec, so you need a scout to watch out for gate campers, but I’ve never seen any there.
The best thing about this method is you don’t have to use a freighter. For some highsec stuff I use an Eagle, which ( with assault damage control giving 350K EHP ) is virtually ungankable in highsec. Or I use my fast align Gnosis. The thing is to find low m3 expensive stuff that is 10% or more higher in price in one system than in another. And obviously, stuff that is common demand.
Oh, and don’t forget that the Accounting skill, Broker Relations skill, etc, reduce taxes and broker fees and so on.
That’s where one has to incorporate the fact that a sustainable level of risk is fun. My trade antics make a few ISK, but mainly I just enjoy outsmarting the gankers. I’m sure they’ll get me one day…but not today. I’m pretty sure, as per the OP, that I would not enjoy flying 30,000 m3 of stuff in a 25 second align time ship through Uedama…but expensive low m3 stuff in faster ships is way more fun.
I dual boxed at the time to make it “safer”. 2nd client scouted and webbed the charon. I am not saying you have to do this. But…I never lost my charon even in the old niarja regions.
I did lose one to a massive network screw up spike in jita. CS replaced it so that was cool of them.
It’s not. Majority of the playerbase thinks that the only acceptable way of playing this sandbox game is PVP. Sure, pvp is acceptable and makes things a bit more fun, but only when it’s a “what if”, not “when”.
most of the time it’s not.
When you need to haul 3 000 000 m³ of tritanium it becomes mandatory.
Also when you want to move some modules that are so big you can’t place them in a DST.
Otherwise DST is more important IMO. faster slipper.
If that still happens you should not use a freighter.
There’s plenty of people to whom they are not mutually exclusive. Besides maybe someone earns much more than that performing whatever job and finds this relaxing in comparison.
If you only care to be a “space trucker” nothing else you can also do courier missions / do lower volume / shorter distance deliveries only for players.
Either case there are ways to reduce risks and yes as with any other profession / playstyle these take effort and time so only you can know if it’s worth to you or if you’d rather do something else and if there’s anything else you can do that provides fun gameplay or being the space delivery person is the only thing that interests you in EVE.
To answer the question in the title (with a usual EVE answer at that): It depends.
If you do your best and like the playstyle probably will worth it even financially but probably won’t make you rich. If you’d do it primarily for the ISK and less so for the experience (but still prefer this activity) then probably you won’t be satisfied too much.
Sounds like a case of the good ol’ choice-supportive bias to me. Like when someone hires a dominatrix, and then starts regretting it twenty lashes into the session, but still tries to convince themselves that it’s an enjoyable experience because they already cut the $500 check.
I do own a freighter, but don’t use it much nowadays. Most of my industry is in T2 and T3 which don’t require more than a DST. But for Upwell structure production I had to use it a lot. To answer the original question. Yes, if you often need to haul big, but relatively cheap loads.
The alternative to mineral transport is using DSTs and compressed ore, you can refine efficiently at your building location.
Generally, whether a freighter is worth the effort depends on what it is you are shifting. Freighters work for low value/density stuff. The bulky but not too expensive stuff. Smaller, more expensive things go in either a DST (such as an Impel) or a Blockade Runner (such as a Prorator). Generally, either of those gets a lot more use than my Freighter (shall we play “which freighter do I fly?”).
Freighters are the big logistics ships of hi-sec space. Concord is their defence, the three slots get filled with Bulkheads, give yourself as much buffer as possible so a ganker gang has to spend much more in ship losses than they’ll recover in dropped cargo - basically, keep the cargo below a billion ISK (or half that, I’m paranoid) and you aren’t a good target: they have to be bored to bother with you.
A Loki with armor/shield command links helps with this also, cheapest raw buff to EHP outside of implants and the only way to get resistance buff as a freighter has no grid or cpu.
