Dylatar
Gallente
Ocean Eleven
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Posted - 2007.07.29 12:18:00 -
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The problem isn't that ganking freighters is possible. Me thinks it should be possible. But the limit (worth og cargo) which makes it profitable is too low.
Freighters are meant to carry big amounts of cargo, and I don't talk about the super expensive items or a full load of T2 ships.
Me for example is a producer. I produce with 2 chars and haul with 2 chars for the regular open market mostly. That makes it necessary to keep the mineral supply running. So there is no other way than buying and hauling sometimes loads of minerals to the station where I produce. This are usual common minerals, not the uber-worth stuff. Sure, it's still more effective to fly a freighter just loaded to the half than flying x times with normal industrial ships. But that causes the existence of freighters to get absurd. Freighters should be vulnerable, like other ships too - but the worth of the cargo before its profitable for gankers must be higher.
The options available for escort or defense of a freighter aren't pleasing yet.
Let me explain my thoughts:
1. Wingman/wingmen repping: can easy be countered just by more ganking ships. Additional you need more people. More people = more peoples time = costs ISK. If you hire escort it costs pure ISK, if you let corpmates join it costs their time (in this time they also could be productive otherwise for the corp), so in the last it also "costs" ISK. In the case of plain minerals for a simple T1 production chain these costs are too high to be covered by selling the finnished product.
2. Alt scouting: may work to check for dangers, but if you find a possible gank setup you just have to dock and wait and in the first point don't reach your destination.
3. Preloading gates: May be an option in combination with 2), but if you really use an alt just for this actions he will loose sec-status more and more. And disposing an alt cause of this is not allowed, so you need to regain sec status with it.
4. Wingman to loot your wreck: not an option, really.
5. Wingman fighting drones/gankers: will be destroyed before he can finish his job or take enough influence on the gank.
6. Wardec gankers: like mentioned don't work for NPC-corps. And who knows 24h before it happens who will setup a gankfleet on his freighter?
So most freigher flights haul the "daily crap" around the empire. The problem is that this junk at the amount a freighter can carry already is worth enough to make a gank profitable. T1 production doesn't gain enough ISK to cover the cost of any escort. That a escort can be done by corpmembers itself, that doesn't mean the escort has no costs. Escort costs time, and time = ISK.
Another thing that leads to this problem are trade hubs. If you want to buy minerals in big amounts you have to go to a hub. Only there you get all you need. That leads you on a few routes through the empire if you need to travel far distances. If you try to vary these routes, especially between the factions, you still can't avoid some bottleneck systems you must pass and can't avoid. And these systems often are the 0.5 systems. The gankers know exactly where freighter must pass through without having a chance to avoid.
Not to travel afk also is not THE solution for this. Ok, you're safe at the arrival gate, but at the start gate you have to allign and accelerate. That takes some time with a freighter.
Using normal industrials or transport ships also isn't a solution. Yes, they allign faster and get into warp faster. But the're also much cheaper to gank than a freigher. Use 20 dominix at a freighter to gank, use 2-3 on a transport.
There must be consequences to make it more expensive for the gankers, so it needs more valuable goods loaded to be profitable. Remove insurance payout for concord kills. Not a single insurance in the world insures criminal acts in any way.
Freighters still can be killed for revenge or interrupting enemy support lines. That has a value not be counted in ISK anyway.
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