Copying and pasting from another thread here 5 minutes ago on this very topic, my suggestion:

* Default freighters hold 1/2 as much as they do now AND
* Default freighters are 1/2 as nimble as they are now AND
* Default freighters have 2/3 the armor they have now AND
* Default freighters are a little slower (75%?) than they are now, BUT
* Freighters get 3 low slots

(This is just enough nerf to not allow capital ships to be transported into high sec, and a suitably severe penalty for adding more armor to a freighter than they currently have for anti-gank, which would require all three slots)

Copying and pasting from another thread here 5 minutes ago on this very topic, my suggestion:

* Default freighters hold 1/2 as much as they do now AND
* Default freighters are 1/2 as nimble as they are now AND
* Default freighters have 2/3 the armor they have now AND
* Default freighters are a little slower (75%?) than they are now, BUT
* Freighters get 3 low slots

(This is just enough nerf to not allow capital ships to be transported into high sec, and a suitably severe penalty for adding more armor to a freighter than they currently have for anti-gank, which would require all three slots)

The problem is that two bulkheads and a DCU II multiply the hull value by 3.9. Even if you reduce the armor, the EHP would still shoot up about 250% (3.5x). Considering current break-even points for ganks, you'd be looking at a minimum haul value of about 11 billion just to not lose money on the gank, on average.

Freighter-ganking does NOT need a nerf; player stupidity does.

On Charon though you would get, with 5 in Caldari Freighter Skill, 490'625 m3 start and 1'016'904 m3 with 3x 27.5% expanders. So would need even more than a 50% nerf to set 3 lows up.

This discussion is rahter sad... as if it would be impossible to redesign freighters in a way that they could operate with slots.

All this "oh we cannot do this because if you do x then players do y!!! is crap. You can fit carriers, dreads, rorquals all as you like and no one bothers if fit A has 3.9x the EHP of fit B. If the player wants to make the desicion to fit more tank and give up 50% of their cargo, so let them. If he makes the decision to give up 50% tank to get 990k cargospace, so let them.

What exactly is so bad, if a freighter with bulkheads and damage control has 4 times the ehp it has now? That you can't gank it with 8 Tier3 BCs any more? Cry me a river. The pilot gave up half a million m-¦ cargo capacity for that advantage.

Amarr 6L-2M-4H-3R (0 Turrets, 0 Launchers)
Caldari 4L-4M-4H-3R (0 Turrets, 0 Launchers)
Gallente 5L-3M-4H-3R (0 Turrets, 0 Launchers)
Minmatar 5L-3M-4H-3R (0 Turrets, 0 Launchers)

and then recalculate the base hull-armor-shield and cargo stats that they would be as tanky as today in max-cargo fit while still not breaking the 1m-¦ line. Leave the rest up to the players, if they want to "tank" their freighter and give up half their cargo for it - fine thing, that freedom every other pilot has as well, be it a hauler or a combat ship sacrificing dps for buffer.

The only thing that would change is that you would actually need to check the fit and recalculate your chances before ganking a freighter that is not max-cargo fitted.

[and before someone cries "booh hoo you are afraid of goons!!!" - I am a -10 and have killed quite a few freighters myself. I am surely not afraid of being ganked in a freighter. I just see that there is no valid reason to give all other pilots the choice beween tank, agility and offense/cargo whatever - just not freighters/jumpfreighters]

So when they devote their lows and rig to cargo expanders and a single t1 boost in the mids and die even easier than they do now, do you come back and cry for CCP to make the ships stronger because abloo bloo gankers?

I think ideally a properly tanked freighter should be able to survive a suicide gank that costs as much as the hull (minimum), and a poorly tanked freighter (like one with cargo expanders) should have less EHP than they have now.

yes you can survive in a current freighter if you have alts and such... but you should not have to use an alt for a ship to survive...

give the ships a fighting chance...

Yes.

I want this to happen. Please make fitting freighters possible!!

I think ideally a properly tanked freighter should be able to survive a suicide gank that costs as much as the hull (minimum), and a poorly tanked freighter (like one with cargo expanders) should have less EHP than they have now.

Power to the players.

u cannot link the cost to gank to the hull price, it just doesn't work.

there is room for improvement, but the hull is fine itself. There are mechanics to improve around you that need to be utilized, but aren't because everyone wants a solo play solution to every problem that comes from groups

I actually have never seen anyone complain that there freighter was ganked with a full slave set, noble mechanic implant, a noble hull upgrade, and fleet boosts down the line. My cheap little fitting app on my phone using implants and a single legion booster boosts a provi's EHP from 193.7k to 289.9k!. Thats almost an extra 100k ehp

My only quarrel is I don't think a charon could be assisted to match that amount of EHP or resistance

You also might be interested to know that also according to my fitting tool. Freighters get a 25% resist across the board against projectile ammo already built in o.O Hmm apparently CCP did adjust for the tier 3's alpha being exploited

You can with tech 1 ships, because it's based on mineral values. Even capital ships are made out of standard minerals. You also have to add in the blueprint prices, but those are somewhat anchored based on the original blueprint price as set by the NPC corp that sells it. So capital prices will potentially change less (or more in rare cases) than sub-cap prices, but changing the mineral values changes them both. Freighter and gank ship prices will never change dramatically in proportion to one another.

Improving defenses is one thing, making them viable is another. There's no good reason to prevent a pilot from having a wide array of options, just because "there are a few options", especially when those few options available frequently are useless. So when you know people are out there ready to gank your freighter and you have some moderately expensive and very large cargo to move a long ways, you have a handful of options currently:

1.) don't fly
2.) make 2-3 trips
3.) bring several friends in expensive logistics ships

If this is what you're limited to, what's the point of the freighter at all? You might as well just fly it all in orcas and/or industrials.

You can with tech 1 ships, because it's based on mineral values. Even capital ships are made out of standard minerals. You also have to add in the blueprint prices, but those are somewhat anchored based on the original blueprint price as set by the NPC corp that sells it. So capital prices will potentially change less (or more in rare cases) than sub-cap prices, but changing the mineral values changes them both. Freighter and gank ship prices will never change dramatically in proportion to one another.

I dont have an issue with current mechanics, but after reading this thread, it seems some overthinking is happening.

So when they devote their lows and rig to cargo expanders and a single t1 boost in the mids and die even easier than they do now, do you come back and cry for CCP to make the ships stronger because abloo bloo gankers?

how would someone flying a billion ISK ship be that stupid?
also CCP would prevent cargo expanders because no ship is allowed to have a 1 Million M3 continuous cargo hold. It prevents capitals from being moved by repackaging.

These are the people who undock with 80 PLEX in a frigate, or who try and fly ships full of BPOs through Rancer.

Not if you use the grey matter. Fighters cannot be allowed to carry a million meters squared so because those rig and low slots can be used for cargo expanders thd freighters cargo will have to be nerfed. That means in order to get the cargo size we currently have we will have to make our freighters easyer to gank. This means that no matter how you fit them you would not be able to carru as much as we currently can. Thats a nerf.

the EHP of the suggested freighter fit for tank rather than capacity would be something over 500k. frankly ridiculous considering its a transport. then lets consider that adding a DCU would mean the end of afk hauling cause u have to activate it after every gate.

current freighters are already optimised. giving them fitting options would mean nerfing the hell out of them.