Not quite sure where to post potential fits, so I’ll try here - Mods please move if necessary.
Putting together my first ‘proper’ fit, a Nereus for mainly Hi-sec light haulage, with the occasional trip into or through Low-sec. This is the story so far, please comment and criticise as you see fit :-
[Nereus, GP]
Damage Control II
Power Diagnostic System I
Energized Explosive Membrane II
Warp Core Stabilizer II
Warp Core Stabilizer II
50MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive
Large F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender
Thermal Dissipation Amplifier II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
EM Ward Amplifier II
Improved Cloaking Device II
Salvager I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender II
Medium Core Defense Field Extender II
Medium Core Defense Field Extender II
[Nereus, *Nereus PVP Ganker Pranker]
Damage Control II
Power Diagnostic System II
Power Diagnostic System II
Power Diagnostic System II
Power Diagnostic System II
50MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive
Large Shield Extender II
EM Ward Field II
Thermal Dissipation Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Light Neutron Blaster I
Improved Cloaking Device II
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Iridium Charge S x80
Gives you unoverheated 37k EHP (43k overheated), 5k more than your fitting for a third of the price. You can mix and match the 4 PDS in the lows with cargo expanders for more cargo or more tank. This is an alpha ready fitting. Add drones as you like. Warp Core Stabs are not useful in my opinion.
They need several tornados to gank you in high sec, which means they have more points available than you have stabs fitted. And if you wanted to go to low sec and got decloaked or quick-locked after the cloak MWD trick, the people usually have more points than you have stabs, too.
This all applies to hi-sec hauling. A T1 hauler anywhere else might as well have “kill me” painted on it - you are too slow, fragile and tempting.
In general haulers align slowly. If you are attacked, then the attacker can apply a lot of damage before you escape (ha!) or before CONCORD arrive to punish the attack.
Warp Stabilisers won’t (normally) help you escape more quickly or reduce the amount of damage. You are better off being faster, or tougher. In a dedicated ganking attack the attackers often won’t even waste time scrambling you. They are going to loose their ships so won’t always waste the money on a scrambler - he’s going to hit you with as much DPS as possible. If you are worth scrambling, then you’ll be hit by multiple scramblers and a few warp stabs ain’t going to stop 'em.
And it will be they - plural: one ganker is rare, they need to kill you in under ten seconds. It’s rather brutal.
The more EHP you can carry the better. It’s about weathering the attack, or if you’ve been scanned making you appear too expensive to kill. Ganking is for profit. If killing you costs more than the cargo and fittings they’ll loot, then they’ll look for some other piñata to whack.
So, be tough, don’t carry expensive cargos.
You will be passively scanned, valued and judged as you undock at any of the major hubs.
As you’ve noticed, there are two types of T1 hauler - slow, large, modest defence and things like the Nerus, fast, small, flimsy. Both have their places, but it depends on the business you are in.
Middle finger. The original fitting is actually with no propulsion module and another large shield extender to tank Tornados firing at you on the Jita 4-4 when you undock with billions in your cargo and they think you are an easy target.
Correct. And you get a killright that you can make available for a couple million ISK, which the gankers themselves or someone else on the undock activate.
Just as a disclaimer: This is plan and idea is not originally from me, it was done by this guy. Sadly, gankers have learned and it does not work very well any more.
You get the same benefits if the drones manage to apply at least 1 damage or miss a shot. Since they have to travel to the target first, you run the “risk” of missing the whoring because concord destroys the gankers first. This depends on the system’s security status.
@Dravick_Afterthought Not sure if some of the other guys have suggested it (didnt read all the replies) but you can find a few good suggested Nereus Fits in the Community Fittings section of the forums here you can find further subsections on each of the Tech 1 Frigate and Industrial Ships (Haulers), for the Nereus specific section look here
Since I was trying to remember what the figures were then have a look at https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Hauling#Expensive_Cargo
The whole thing is worth reading (not a bad bunch of heretics over at the University) - the guide figure is 3,000 ISK/EHP including modules. More than that you become a profitable target.
A standard gank fit Tornado doesn’t have point and they don’t engage inside point range with nados:
A standard gank fit for a tornado relies purely on alpha to kill the ship in just a couple of seconds. Look here and you’ll struggle to find a point fit on many at all:
Anyone that has instaundock bookmarks can avoid Nados while aligning to warp on undock, and anyone with an instadock can reasonably expect to avoid being ganked on arriving at a station (but any lag and you can still be killed).
Travelling from gate to gate, MWD-cloak trick is the best approach and in that case, a stab or two can be useful, especially if the timing of the cloak-MWD is not spot on and you decloak below 75% max speed.
with MWD cloak and a decent buffer tank hauling is pretty safe. I typically assume a tornado does 10-15k volley damage and fit to tank 2-3 of them. Most tornado pilots I see are sitting there with one or two, and they are looking for an easy gank. On the pipelines there are a few people that gank with vexors and those rely a bit more on sustained DPS, you will mainly see those in the 0.5-0.6 systems. 3 of those can put out a good bit of DPS, but with MWD + cloak you should be able to fly right by without getting scanned.
My view on stabs is that if you get caught they will probably have enough points to hold you, or a hic with a focused point and then stabs do nothing. And also possible they have enough ships to gank you before you can even warp.
the main dangers are
Station undocking, you can mitigate this with an insta undock, although if there is heavy load you may be black screened, or bump on undock, so it’s not 100% safe.
gate trash preventing cloak. In lowsec it’s usually ship wrecks or abandoned drones. In highsec it’s usually NPCs, or other players. Nothing like gate jumping and landing in line of the other gate and having a few autopiloting freighters preventing your cloak.
Station Docking, this is very mitigatable just create a station dock bookmark inside the station’s dock radius, and then activate autopilot when in warp as that will make your ship dock up when it lands.
And if you like hauling train up for the blockade runner, which is pretty much just a better, faster, warps cloaked, and can’t be scanned version. Or the Deep Space Transport which can also MWD+Cloak and hold 60k+ m3 of stuff.
