Thats exactly the intention. You would choose a T1 Destroyer to add to your fleet comp specifically when you need affordable and mobile ships able to deal with frig-size threats roaming your neighborhood and and cannot afford or do not want to field more expensive or less mobile counters.
Gankers would switch to T1 Cruisers, what is totally fine since fielding 5 Omens instead of Coercers is more initial cost, higher SP needed for the pilots (alts usually -_-) and more hassle traveling within Highsec. They are also take longer to build, are harder to ship to the resupply stations and so on. Everything for itself not that big deal for an organized group, everything still managable but all in all a bit harder than now.
That leads to the point where of course Freighters can still be ganked by using 20 or 30 Omens for example, but the one or the other T2 fit casualgamer might just be left alone because the gankers think twice if they really want to throw away 6 cruisers to punish him for autopiloting his half-heartedly fitted empty Bestower. Or rather look for a target that guarantees a drop worth 6 cruisers. And on the other hand, ganking is that lucrative these days and the hull prices for most target ships have gone up drastically in the last months / years, I see no bad thing in basically forcing gankers to bring at least cruisers to the table if they want to bring down big ships, so their costs also scale up a bit. So, they can gank, no hassle with that, but it should not be as cheap as it is today.
I am playing that game since 2009 and played it in nearly every field of PvE and PvP imaginable, from perma -10 lowsec piracy to wormhole resident, HighSec Missionrunner, Abyssals, Industry and whatnot. I know so much that all this “it’s entirely your own fault if you have been ganked” is nonsense. There are of course good hints and you can do some moves but if the gankers really know what they are doing and make no major mistakes in executing the gank, you have basically zero chances to survive. They can scan your fit, track your location via Agents if they want, watch you with neutral alts and all of a sudden you take a gate and 20 catalysts wait behind. Do you really expect everyone to dualbox all the time and only take gates with a neutral scout checking before, using non-efficient full-tank-fits because “Uhh EVE is a harsh and dark place!!!” - come on. Thats unrealistic and even from a neutral perspective not desirable. And worse, no amount of tutorials and edicational campaigns would better the situation a bit, because the amount of effort to prevent ganks is WAY higher than the amount of effort it takes to gank someone.
@Aiko Danuja: I totally agree, just not in the way you might think: After the resistance nerf and the short-range buffs I (personally) think raw eHP should be boosted in general for all ship classes. Fights are often over way too quickly, especially one-sided ones are more like a 10-second-firework these days. I am all with you, giving a combat-cruiser more raw HP than a barge (just leave the barge as it is).
Freighters are capital size ships, so they should be compared to combat-capitals and in that comparison they don’t look particulary strong.
I absolutely agree with you that combat ships should be weaker than non-combat ships and by quite a margin. All within their size-class of course. However: Then they also need to be a LOT cheaper then their combat-counterparts. Freighters and Orcas however do cost a lot MORE than battleships for example, people would surely complain a lot less if a freighter would cost 500M, an Orca 300M and an Exhumer 100M. Would that be OK for you?
Also you’re just parroting what she said LOL.