Industrial Ships

From BA Wiki

Introduction

Industrial ships are the primary cargo carriers of EVE. Originally industrials were intended to have additional functions, such as refining capabilities, but those features were never implemented. The legacy of this can be seen in the near unlimited CPU afforded to industrial ships. In contemporary EVE, industrials are used solely for moving material.

Every player will want to put at least some points into industrial, simply so that you can move your own equipment and ammunition around. The choice of which race's industrial you would prefer to pilot should not be dictated by your favourite race, but rather how many days you are willing to devote to skill training industrials. The prerequisites are minimal (Racial Frigate 3). One should also have Hull Upgrades in order to use Cargo Expander modules, as well as Nanofibers when greater speed is called for.

Approximate skill train times are:

Indy 1: 45 minutes (Amarr best)
Indy 2: 3 hours 3 minutes (Amarr best)
Indy 3: 1 day (Amarr best)
Indy 4: 4.5 days (Minmatar best)
Indy 5: 27 days (Gallente best)

One should be aware that if you train all the way to Industrial 5 you will get access to the tech 2 variants, Transport ships, very easily, and the best choice for transport ships is not Gallente due to cost issues.

The Industrial Ships

Amarr

'Gold and Shiny' describes all Amarr ships, and the Bestower and Sigil look rather insect-like. The Amarr are unique in that both of their industrials are available at level 1. This makes them a good choice if you want to create an alt character purely for hauling without spending a lot of skill points. The Bestower is the heavy hauler of the pair, and it can carry over 9,600 m3 with 4 Expanded Cargohold I's. With a single Beta Hull Mod Expanded Cargo and three EC1s it can carry a packaged cruiser.

The Sigil, on the other hand, is unique in that it is a very fast ship with minimal cargo capacity for an industrial. It has five low slots, which typically contain a pair of Warp Core Stabilizers, two Nanofiber Internal Structures, and an Inertial Stabilizer. In other words, the Sigil is used as a blockade runner rather than a heavy transport.

Caldari

The Caldari get the rather mediocre Badger at level 1, followed by the Badger Mk. II at level 3. The Mk. II has marginally more cargo capacity than a Bestower (9792 m3) with two Expanded Cargohold I's but still not enough to haul a cruiser without a named cargo expander. The main advantage of the Badger Mk. II over the Bestower is that it can fit a fairly heavy shield tank, with six mid slots for hardeners/extenders. This is valuable when picking up ore in belts where it may come under attack by NPC pirates.

Gallente

The Gallente are the only race to have a new industrial at each skill level, the Iteron Mk. I through V. The Iterons have all the grace of a giant tube flying through space. However, this is tempered by the fact that other races' ships are superior at every level save five. The Iteron V is the king of the tech 1 industrials and it is very good at hauling in empire. It can carry 16,794 cubic meters with five Expanded Cargohold I's and 21,298 cubic meters with Giant Secure Containers. Alternatively, fitted with Micro Auxiliary Power Cores an Iteron V can fit a cruiser-size Microwarp Drive (although all tech 2 variant industrial also have sufficient powergrid.)

Minmatar

The Minmatar get the Hoarder at level 2, which is equivalent to the Amarr Bestower. However, the real Minmatar ship is the Mammoth, which hauls 12,863 m3 with Expanded Cargohold I's. This ship isn't available until level 4 but it is nearly as good as an Iteron V and takes nearly a month less time to train.

Fitting

Industrials are always limited in what they can fit by power grid and not CPU. That said, there are only a limited number of modules that are useful for an industrial.

In your high slots, you can fit tractor beams and/or cloaks. A tractor beam is extremely handy for picking up cans (something an industrial does a lot of), since it can tractor a can at 500 m/s. Science 4 is required to use a tractor. A prototype cloaking device, on the other hand, is an invaluable defensive system for low security space. It allows you to AFK at safe spots without any chance of being probed out. It can also save you from gate camps, if you cloak immediately after warp and then slow boat away.

For your mid slots, you typically want to fit a shield tank and probably an afterburner. Fit your afterburner first, then as many medium shield extenders you can, and finally shield hardeners. I recommend fitting a fully passive tank as one often forgets to turn on hardeners when you are in a ship full of expensive loot.

For lows, you will fit various types of hull upgrades. The first and foremost is the cargo expander. The cargo expander I increases cargo capacity by 17.5 %, at the expense of speed and structure. Named versions are better and the cargo expander II increases cargo capacity by 27.5 %. Due to stacking, the ships with the most low slots (Amarr, Gallente) tend to benefit the most from full cargo expander setups. The other option is to go for speed and maneuverability. Inertial stabilizers increase your maneuverability greatly, whereas nanofiber structure increases both your maneuverability and your velocity. The last option is warp core stabilizers. These will prevent warp disruptors from jamming you. I recommend fitting at least two for low security operations.

I would generally recommend against fitting rigs on a tech 1 industrial. They are too fragile to justify the expense.

Lastly, there is another item that is commonly 'fitted' to an industrial: the secure cargo container. The Giant Secure Container sells for 275,000 isk, occupies 3,000 m3 in your cargo bay, but can hold 3,900 m3. As such cargo cans can increase your hauling capacity by up to 30%, at least for small items that can fit inside the container. With the skill Anchoring I, you can also secure cargo containers at safe spots for storing ammunition, loot, etc.

Hold Size Table

Lows fitted with Expanded Cargohold I.
Hold filled with Giant Cargo Containers.

Transport Ships (Tech II)

All industrials, including properly shield tanked Caldari and Minmatar ships, are soft skinned and will not stand up in combat against players or NPC enemies. Needless to say, running around in 0.0 security space in a 2M isk Iteron V with 60M isk in cargo expanders is likely to lead to disaster. In order to remedy this, CCP introduced Tech 2 versions of the industrials, called transport ships. There are two basic types of transport ships, the Deep Space Transport and the Blockade Runner.

Blockade runners are very fast courier ships. They have built-in warp core stabilizers (2 points) and they have a maximum warp speed of 9.0 au/s (as compared to 6.0 au/s for most ships). They also turn and accelerate as well as a heavy frigate. Blockade runners have a low mass, which means they can exceed 2,500 m/s with a micro-warp drive. All this, plus a decent tank, allows blockade runners to carry valuable cargo through 0.0 security space with a relatively comfortable margin of safety. The Minmatar Prowler or Amarr Imparor are considered the best ships, due to their high speed and good all-around resists. The Prowler also can fit a Rocket Launcher for Defender Missiles.

Deep space transports (DST), on the other hand, are massive and often not as fast as tech 1 industrials. They make up for this with an immense cargo capacity and very high resists, comparable to those on a Command Battlecruiser. DSTs are often used for fueling player owned stations or hauling large volumes of unrefined ore. They are slow, and as such should not move through hostile space without an escort and/or scout. The Amarr Impel can haul the most (27,380 m3) when fitted with Cargo Expander IIs followed by the Gallente Occator (26,900 m3). The addition of cargo rigs allow these ships to haul even more material.

With regards to 'best' transport ships, there really isn't too much to choose from. From a pure cargo perspective, the Amarr are the best. From a cost perspective, avoid Gallente: due to the historical oddity of the Iteron V being the best tech 1 hauler, there is a very large pool of Gallente transport pilots. Due to supply and demand on the market, the Occator can sell for 110M isk compared to 37M isk for the Impel.

Freighter (Capital Ship)

Freighters are the absolute kings of hauling. Once a player trains up to Racial Industrial V, you are quite close to being able to being able to pilot a freighter. Typically a freighter can carry just under 1,000,000 m3 of material, or roughly the equivalent to forty deep space transports at once! However, this comes at a price, namely the one billion isk price tag. Also, freighters are not capable of all hauling operations. They have no slots, so they cannot fit tractor beams or afterburners. Furthermore, they cannot pickup from cans in space; they may only jettison. They are also, of course, extremely slow. As a result, freighters are rarely seen in 0.0 security space due to their sluggish maneuverability and total lack of ability to deal with attackers.