Solo hauling in low sec. Can it work? Any advice?

Communications Center General Discussion
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Transports really have no offensive capabilities. Sure you have a +2 Warp added on, and an armor buff, but when it comes to stasis bubbles, energy neutralizing and bumping, it doesn’t mean much as any protection is slowly chipped away while you are stuck in molasses.

Granted, it has saved my rear a few times but the real issue is 3, 4 or 5 against 1 transport after jumping a gate. Actually, every time you jump a gate in low-sec, it’s a toss of the dice, not a matter of skill. So I see an imbalance there.

I’ve learned the micro-warp trick to lower my align time, learned to hang at the exit of a station when undocking looking to see if it’s safe to proceed or maybe just dock right back up again. Granted you can scout out a gate with an alt as Ive been told, etc…but is that how this game is played? Using alts to get by?

I’ve tried various setups, from over-tanking, turning me into a slug, to adding numerous warp core stabilizers giving me zero targeting range for ECM purposes. (BTW, burst ECM and smartbombs are useless in lowsec because they follow the same rules as in highsec, namely shutting down when in vicinity to large objects such as gates or stations–where most of the action takes place) Ive tried zeroing down my sig radius but inst-lock seems to be a part of the game (I still dont know how that works). I’ve tried making my transport as nimble as possible (7-8) sec align time but of course that means taking off some serious armor and costly implants.

So in the end I haven’t found any configuration to protect me from gang raping. I think there is none.

So Transports are at a disadvantage there solely because they are just that…haulers, basically a space piñata full of goodies just waiting to be popped.

pin

Well, let me propose something: gate probes for Transports.

Do I jump or do I not jump? Should I find another route or maybe wait it out? I really have no way of knowing what is waiting for a Transport at the other side unless I can scan/prob it and get an idea of the number of ships waiting on the other side within 20km. Can this not be a feature of Transport ships? Would it break things?

For now, my loses are getting greater than my gains no matter what I do. Maybe I should try something else since the “fun factor” is starting to wane? Or is this a normal part of Eve psychology?

(And no you cant have my stuff…it’s all junk anyway.)

On the bright side, I found the Rebel Bass.

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Fly Safe o7

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You answered your own question, solo versus 3,4,5?

You lose, as it should be.

It used to be you could try to outrun the tackle but they took out the speed debuff for unknown reasons.

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Really? Interesting they did that.

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Hi, it is called the art of doing it when they are not doing it…, sounds simple, but for people like me who can play during the day as a Europe based player including the AU TZ I can do that, sure sucks for other people in the main TZ’s…

I am a little bemused, the Cloak MWD trick is actually so that you get in warp as you de-cloak and warp before they get that lock. To be blunt it takes practice to do it under stress, like doing it with throwaway alts until I was like so mechanical I had to be slapped to get it wrong.

Basically you have to use a BR for low sec, but at least you don’t have bubbles, the issue is just like anywhere else in the game you have to take your time and don’t take risks. One time I did 30 runs in Aridia lowsec after plonking a load of PI there through a WH. Oh dear did they try smart bombing a couple of times, but I had set up multiple warp spots around the gate no matter where they sat.

My most recent and satisfying one was moving 3.5bn of P1’s out of Faspara and I did that with a cheetah as a scout and a Epithal and it was 34 trips which took me about 4 12 hour stints over about a three week period. I did this while people were getting blown up for not making a single effort to do instra warps on this kick out station or zero location dock bm’ss when coming in to dock. But then again I had my scout watching the method of operation of the people killing stuff there for about a week and worked out that so many people were so stupid that they were too lazy to up their game when someone was not.

I calculated that I would have a 50% attrition rate, and I did not lose a single ship. Sometimes going cheap is a very effective way to win…

I hope you think about it.

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Interesting tactics. Thanks for the advice.

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Blockade runners and wormholes, that’s how I do it. Scan down a chain from wherever you want to ship things in/out to highsec with my travel ceptor, then take the hauler to do the job. Was never cought, except once due to a black screen after jumping. The biggest thing was a supercapital assembly array I exfiltrated with an all cargo expander Fenrir out of Ihakana through a VL wormhole connection to highsec.

BTW, solo, no alts.

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Other.players.

If you insist on doing it solo and without alts, there are certainly techniques that will greatly assist you.
No bubbles in lowsec is a big advantage for you in a hauler. Agility is better than armour. Signature radius is pretty important in eve generally. Use the f10 system-map to approach gates from unexpected angles. Use the map filters to see if you can spot at least the bigger danger points on your route. etc etc

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I’m a solo player , and I fly Badgers into lowsec all the time. I occasionally lose one, but it’s not an expensive rate of loss.

My rules for lowsec hauling:

  • Use the cheapest ship possible. My Badger fit costs less than 10 million ISK.
  • Only haul stuff OUT of lowsec. That way if you do run into a gate camp, you only lose a cheap empty ship.
  • Check the route. I don’t use an alt to scout. Instead, I use the map, Dotlan and EveCamp to see if bad guys are active in a system. If they are, I don’t go in. I wait until it is quieter.
  • Fit for tank and agility. I use a shield tank and inertial stabilizers to get a good balance between tank and agility. With a cheap agility implant, I have a 5.99 second align time, 8000 m3 capacity and about 7000 ehp.
  • Don’t be greedy. Get in, get out.
  • if you go to certain places regularly, plan ahead. I’ve prepositioned cargo-fit frigates/destroyers in various areas on the edge of lowsec. I fly the Badger in, switch to the frigate, go get the high-value stuff deeper in lowsec, and bring it back to the Badger. Minimum risk and effort for any given jump.
  • When I do run into a gate camp, I just turn and burn back to the gate. I have enough tank to take a bunch off hits, and an Afterburner to goose my speed. It usually doesn’t work, but sometimes it does. One of my favorite memories was a gate camp I ALMOST escaped. The pirates saw I was getting away, and one burned in and bumped me off my route. Didn’t like losing the ship, but had to admire the skill of the bumping pilot to hit me in that situation.

The main thing is to be smart and manage risk.

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I once moved half a billion ISK worth of my stuff through the gank pipeline in a wreathe using the MWD-Cloak method.

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Reliable intel, that’s the name of the game here. There are no ways to prevent a carefully prepared gate camp to pop you. For real time intel you have friends or alts, for delayed intel you have the map stats,
http://eve-gatecheck.space/eve/ and http://evemaps.dotlan.net/.
Just keep in mind that some cheap products are placed in lowsec on purpose by pirates.

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Few advices.

First, of there is no 100% way to evade a truly dedicated gatecamp. Neither should there be. There is a common misunderstanding of people that gatecamping is super easy. This comes from people who make it easy. One should also not forget, WHY people camp in Lowsec. At the cost of sitting quite vulnerable (for a drop/bait) on a gate and dealing with gateguns, it is one of the few options to force people into PVP. People who don’t want to play Lowsec as a PVP area, have plenty of options to avoid fights/sit it out/wait it out/hide pretty much anywhere else in Lowsec. In Nullsec it may be a different story, but in Lowsec with the lack of bubbles, you really only have a tiny amount of time to catch somebody. In turn, people who have made the experience that everybody runs away from fights, will start camping and will put some dedictation into it. Expect that.

Now a few typical tips:

  1. Use a scout to avoid regular camps.

  2. Use Zkillboard or other sources to check on regular and recent happenings.

  3. Use temporary gates aka Wormhole connections. These are rarely camped, unless it becomes apparent that someone is using a specific hole for multiple runs of transport. You’ll also only have to deal with highly dedicated opponents the most lazy campers won’t even bother.

  4. Use a Jump Freighter. It’s expensive, but if you are careful it is easily the safest way to transport stuff into Lowsec.

  5. If you are using a DST (Deep Space Transport), you’re likely going for the Cloak+MWD approach, because no amount of Warp Core Stabs will help you against a proper fast locking camp. The Cloak+MWD approach is countered by decloaking you (3 different ways to do that - 1 passive, 2 active).

  6. So if you don’t use a scout, jump into a Lowsec Gatecamp with your DST and see a number of ships camping the gate. Keep calm. You have 60 seconds to make a decision. Is there anything that can decloak you? Is there any fastlocker present? How about something with long or strong webs? Learn to read a gatecamp. My advice: check Zkillboard for typical gatecamp Systems and study the kills. Try to understand what the campers used and (assuming an educated “victim”) how they secured their kill.

  7. With that understanding, look at your opponents. Is there any realistic chance that you can get away with Cloak+MWD? Can they hold tackle long enough to keep you in place (i.e. do they have logi for the fast lock frigates)? If you think you are doomed, stay calm and click info on your ship (maybe actually do that before undocking): DSTs get a 50% bonus to overheating any Propulsion mods.

  8. So if nothing else helps, align back to gate and quickly activate your MWD (overheated if possible) and use your Cloak. The cloak will make you slower, but still faster than without any prop mod. Dual propping (MWD + AB maybe an alternative here - activate AB once MWD gets shut down by a Scram, but it depends if they have long or strong webs). This should give you at least a few seconds in which you might have made it back to gate. Once they decloak you, either quickly jump back and warp off (cloak + mwd again) or let them shoot at you and use the aggression timer to split their forces, like you’d do in PVP.

  9. BEST, be a camper for a while. As with anything, the practical experience of the other side, will help you understand their advantages, limitations and so on.

And remember, what I said in the beginning. If you undock and someone else puts in enough effort to catch you, they will catch you. If you make it hard enough, the vast majority won’t bother to try and stalk you. The exceptions, the people who hunt you with passion and dedication, can and will still fail often, but if they are successful, you should be happy. They’ll catch 99% of your competition which can only be a good thing in the hauler profession.

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This reminds me of a trick I used a couple times. In busy pipes take your 60s to wait for another player jumping in, and decloak right after him.

Also I fully agree, being on the other side for a while with a good camping group helps a lot with understanding the mechanics and assessing the dangers of a camp.

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Use an Improved cloaking device
Keep your agility reasonably high
Don’t go through gates that are regularly known to be camped without a scout
If an enormous camp catches you you are dead but roaming camp might be countered by having an AB to get back to gate and some tank if you fumble your cloak warp and get pointed.

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Why not an MWD ? (Genuine question, not argument :-))

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The Scramble device shuts down the mircowarp drive. A Disrupture does not. A good camp with have ships with both devices, the MWD will never make it back to the gate. An AB might make it back.

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Wouldn’t a Webifier have the same affect on an AB ?

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Also, bear in mind that a MWD blooms the signature 500%

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Don’t jump straight from gate to gate. Hop to a moon, then you can come in from the direction they aren’t expecting… use d-scan. If you don’t know how, go YouTube it. You can use it to determine exactly where the camp is before you hit it.

Combine with cloaking, mwd (to speed align time and provide max speed drop at end of cycle… my orca has a 42 second align time, but jumps in 10 if I do a single mwd cycle), and an AB for if someone scrambles you to maintain movement.

Tank tank tank… and afterburner. If you can tank, you can wait to jump until they shoot. If their tackles shoot before you jump they’ll be stuck on the other side of the gate waiting 60 seconds…

If they shoot with stuff besides tackles before you jump, you’re going to the other side with tackles… and gate guns that are helping you. Their tackles won’t be able to take gate gun fire for long.

Remember, the gate mechanic that prevents jumping for 60 seconds from aggression also allows you to split their fleet. There is never a reason not to split their gate fleet(wait for inbound dps before jumping) and roll the dice that you can win once you disrupt them.

If they catch you on other side, burn back to gate and try the other side of their fleet.

Email me for tips.

1 Like
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The other way, remember you have to burn ~12km. No way you will survive that time with an AB. Trying to burn back with AB means certain death.

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Not necessarily, there are several factors that affect.

If you pulse mwd, turn on cloak, and start trying you’ll get a head start.

You’ll want that AB if you get knocked out of cloak.

Remember, AB isn’t just about speed. It is a major factor in reducing inbound damage. You will last longer because it’ll decrease inbound damage… important for making the most out of the little bit of time you have.