Highsec hauling guideHighsec hauling: how gankers pick targets and how to avoid them

How a gank works

A suicide gank is an attack in highsec with no legal reason behind it. The ganker knows CONCORD will destroy their ship, so they bring enough damage to kill yours first. It pays when what drops from your wreck is worth more than the ships they lose. Alpha clones can't gank: they can't set their safety to red in highsec.

When a ship explodes, each item has a 50% chance to drop; the rest is destroyed. Of the hauling ships gankers killed on the routes into Jita in the past seven days, 47% of the value that could drop did.

Gankers look before they shoot. A cargo scanner lists everything in your cargo hold and special holds; that is a cargo scan. A passive targeter lets them lock you without you seeing it. Blockade Runners can't be cargo scanned.

Most ganks use cheap ships that hit hard: Catalysts in numbers, a Tornado for one big volley, or a cruiser like a Vexor or Caracal that can tank the gate guns while it shoots. A freighter takes a whole fleet, so gankers often hold it first by bumping: ramming it again and again so it can't align and warp off. Bumping isn't an attack, so CONCORD ignores it.

None of this happens in Exordium. Your safety is locked to green there, nobody can shoot you, and a character with a criminal timer can't even jump in. It all starts once you leave through Yulai or a shipcaster.

CONCORD's clock

CONCORD's response time is how long it takes to arrive after a criminal attack. It always comes, but the lower the security level, the later. EVE University's observed times are 19 seconds in a 0.5 system, 14 in 0.6, 10 in 0.7, 7 in 0.8 and 6 in 0.9.

If CONCORD is already elsewhere in the system, it despawns and respawns next to the ganker, which adds about 6 seconds. Gankers often set that up before a gank. In 0.5 it gives them 24 seconds.

What one Catalyst can do to you is its damage per second times that window.

Damage is EVE University's DPS for a Catalyst with maximum skills, 683 with Tech II blasters and 385 with Tech I, times CONCORD's response after it spawns. CCP has never published the times. Players measured them, and they vary by 1–2 seconds. They predate 19 May 2026, when the old 1.0 systems became 0.9, but EVE University gives 0.9 and 1.0 the same 6 seconds.

A ganker in Uedama (0.5) has three times as long as one in Jita (0.9). That is why gank spots are busy 0.5 systems.

The gank math

A Catalyst costs 0.99M ISK in Jita, where 384 sell a day. What gankers fit on it shows on their killmails. In the past seven days zKillboard lists 196 Catalysts destroyed by CONCORD or the Caldari police in Uedama and Sivala. 142 of them carried eight Light Neutron Blaster IIs and two or three Magnetic Field Stabilizer IIs. A fit like that costs about 11.9M at Jita prices. Most of the rest had Tech I blasters, for about 2.4M.

The ganker weighs how many of those Catalysts your ship takes against half your cargo.

Tech II Catalysts at 11.9M each, doing the damage in the chart above. EHP counts a Catalyst's kinetic and thermal damage. The Epithal and Occator are bare hulls with no skills, from ESI; EVE University puts a well-fit T1 hauler at 10,000–20,000 EHP. With Tech I blasters a ganker needs one and a half to two times the ships for about a third of the ISK.

Since about half your cargo drops, a ganker profits once your cargo is worth more than twice what their Catalysts cost. A 20,000 EHP hauler in Uedama takes two Catalysts, so it is worth ganking from about 47M of cargo. EVE University's rule of thumb is close to that: keep your cargo plus fitted modules under 3,000 ISK per EHP, which is 60M for 20,000 EHP. If you fly actively and know the route, it says 4,000–6,000 ISK per EHP often works. Several hauling corporations cap a T1 hauler at 50M of collateral, the deposit a courier contract asks of the hauler.

Killmails on zKillboard from 27 September to 4 October in the 65 systems on the secure routes from Amarr, Dodixie, Rens and Hek to Jita. Only kills where most attackers had a negative security status count, which leaves out most war kills; 6 Orcas and 6 jump freighters died too. zKillboard has only the killmails someone shared, so these are a floor. Cargo is the killmail's value minus the ship and its modules, at zKillboard's prices.

Gankers go for big hauls. Four in five of those T1 haulers carried over 50M. Two in three died to a single ship, most often a Tornado or a Vexor. The Blockade Runners lost were worth 112M–234M with their fits alone, so even an empty one is a target when it sits uncloaked.

Choosing a hauler

Besides the hold, compare EHP and align time. Align time is how long a ship takes to point at its destination and reach 75% of its top speed, when it enters warp. Until then, anyone nearby can lock you.

Tech I haulers come in three kinds. Fast transports (Badger, Nereus, Sigil, Wreathe) align and warp quicker and have the most hit points. Bulk transports (Tayra, Iteron Mark V, Bestower, Mammoth) carry more and tank less. Specialized ones add one big hold for one kind of cargo: the Epithal for planetary commodities, the Miasmos for ore, the Kryos for minerals and ice, the Hoarder for ammo and gas. All of them fly on Alpha.

Holds, EHP and align times are bare hulls from ESI, with no skills or modules; EHP is against a Catalyst, as above. On the fast and bulk transports each level of the racial Hauler skill adds 5% cargo, and on the Epithal 10% to the PI hold. Each level of Transport Ships adds 5% to a DST's fleet hangar, 62,500 m³ at V. DSTs also have a 3,100–5,000 m³ cargo hold, the Epithal 550 and the Squall 3,000. Fast transports and the Squall warp at 4.55 AU/s, Blockade Runners at 6.1, the rest at 3.5. Prices and daily volumes are 30-day averages in Jita to 3 October.

For PI, take the Epithal. Its 45,000 m³ PI hold doesn't shrink when you fit Reinforced Bulkheads or Transverse Bulkhead rigs, so you can tank the hull and keep all your space. EVE University gets one past 14,000 EHP that way, with room left for a microwarpdrive and a cloak. It is also the most traded hauler in Jita, 117 a day. The Squall carries planetary commodities too, in a 45,000 m³ infrastructure hold. It has more shield and three missile launchers, for six times the price.

For bulk worth more than a T1 hauler should carry, take a Deep Space Transport (DST), the Tech II bulk hauler. It puts 50,000 m³ in its fleet hangar and starts at 17,800–32,600 EHP before you fit anything. The Occator and the Bustard resist a Catalyst's damage best. A DST also has +2 warp core strength, so one warp disruptor can't hold it. The price is the align, 26–28 seconds with no skills. And a DST tells everyone you carry something worth protecting.

For small, valuable cargo, take a Blockade Runner, the small Tech II transport. It aligns in under 8 seconds with no skills and warps at 6.1 AU/s. It can't be cargo scanned, and it fits a Covert Ops cloak, the kind you can warp under. It carries only 2,900–4,300 m³. For high-value cargo over 10,000 m³, EVE University's advice is several Blockade Runner trips rather than one DST trip.

Fitting for the trip

This guide shows no hauler fit. No single fit suits every route, and we only print fits from a source we can check. These are EVE University's guidelines:

• Tech I haulers: shield tank them, so the low slots stay free for Expanded Cargoholds. Put Medium or Large Shield Extenders in the mid slots. Add a Multispectrum Shield Hardener, or a Kinetic Shield Amplifier against blaster Catalysts. If you need more, trade cargo for a Damage Control II or Reinforced Bulkheads. A poorly fit T1 hauler has 4,000–6,000 EHP, a well-fit one 10,000–20,000.
• Active hardeners need capacitor, so you can't run them all the time. Turn them on as you align away from a gate and off in warp. Have them on when you land at a trade hub.
• Specialized haulers and DSTs: modules don't change their big holds, so fill the low slots with tank, agility or warp speed. A DST takes a Damage Control, extenders or plates, and hardeners. One warp core stabilizer adds to its +2.
• Blockade Runners: a Covert Ops Cloaking Device II, a microwarpdrive and shield resistance modules. No shield extenders: they grow your signature radius and make you easier to lock.
• The cloak trick: with an Improved Cloaking Device II and a 50MN microwarpdrive, a T1 hauler can leave a gate almost unseen. Align, cloak and start the microwarpdrive. Drop the cloak near the end of the microwarpdrive's cycle, and you enter warp as the cycle ends. The cloak needs Cloaking III, which is Omega only.

The road to Jita

Every secure route from the other trade hubs to Jita runs through Sivala (0.6) and then Uedama (0.5). ESI's routes today are 15 jumps from Dodixie, 19 from Hek, 25 from Rens and 45 from Amarr. The 15-jump route from Yulai, where Exordium's gate leads, goes the same way. Of the Exordium exits, only the Caldari shipcaster's secure route misses Uedama. It lands you in Onnamon, 7 jumps from Jita.

Older guides also warn about Niarja. It is now in Pochven at -1.0 security and no secure route uses it, so Amarr's goes the long way round. The shortest route from Amarr is 11 jumps, but it passes Ahbazon, a 0.4 lowsec system.

ESI's count for the hour before 16:55 UTC on 4 October. It counts every ship destroyed, the gankers' own too: at 16:44 an Impel was ganked at Uedama's gate to Juunigaishi by 22 Catalysts, which CONCORD then destroyed. One hour is a snapshot. The seven-day figures in the tooltips come from zKillboard, counted as in the table above.

Over the week the same systems stand out. Uedama lost 70 hauling ships to gankers, 50 of them freighters, and 60 of the 70 died on its gates to Sivala and Juunigaishi. Jita lost 64: 42 of them at the Jita 4-4 station, and 36 to Tornados alone. Sivala lost 20. Off this route, Bei (0.6), on the routes from Hek and Amarr, lost 13 T1 haulers, each to a single Vexor at the gate to Uttindar.

Habits that keep you alive

• Don't autopilot with cargo you can't lose. The autopilot stops you 15 km from each gate and flies the rest slowly. That is about a minute per gate in which anyone can scan you and get ahead of you. EVE University calls it the number one way haulers lose ships.
• Make bookmarks for Jita 4-4. An insta-undock bookmark lies in line with the undock, so you can warp the moment you undock (an instawarp), before anyone can lock and scan you. Docking straight from the Perimeter gate leaves you slow-boating in from the back of the station, which is where gankers pick off Blockade Runners. Use an insta-dock bookmark instead, which lands you inside docking range.
• Split valuable cargo. Two trips under the limit beat one trip over it.
• Look before Uedama. Check the system on zKillboard: a fresh freighter killmail with 40 Catalysts on it means the gank fleet is up. Haulers share news in the in-game Gank-Intel channel. Don't just wait in Sivala either: gankers hunt the jump before Uedama too.
• In a freighter, bring a webbing alt. A second character of yours webs the freighter as it aligns. That cuts its top speed, and so the speed it needs for warp, and it warps off far sooner.
• Don't be predictable. Vary the time of day, the route and your ship's name.
• Don't haul while your corporation is at war. Fly the hauler from a character outside it.

Skill plan

Three blocks, in order. They use Gallente Hauler for the Epithal, Occator and Viator. For a Caldari ship, change it to Caldari Hauler, and the same for Amarr or Minmatar. Copy one, then in game use "import from clipboard" in the Skill Queue window. Each line is one level, and prerequisites always come first.

Spaceship Command 1
Spaceship Command 2
Spaceship Command 3
Gallente Hauler 1
Spaceship Command 4
Power Grid Management 1
Power Grid Management 2
Power Grid Management 3
Shield Management 1
Shield Management 2
Shield Management 3
Shield Management 4
Shield Operation 1
Shield Operation 2
Shield Operation 3
Shield Operation 4
Science 1
Shield Upgrades 1
Shield Upgrades 2
Shield Upgrades 3
Shield Upgrades 4
Tactical Shield Manipulation 1
Tactical Shield Manipulation 2
Tactical Shield Manipulation 3
Tactical Shield Manipulation 4
Mechanics 1
Hull Upgrades 1
Hull Upgrades 2
Hull Upgrades 3
Hull Upgrades 4
Navigation 1
Navigation 2
Evasive Maneuvering 1
Evasive Maneuvering 2
Evasive Maneuvering 3

Gallente Hauler 2
Gallente Hauler 3
Gallente Hauler 4
Gallente Hauler 5
Industry 1
Industry 2
Industry 3
Industry 4
Industry 5
Transport Ships 1

Navigation 3
Afterburner 1
Afterburner 2
Afterburner 3
High Speed Maneuvering 1
CPU Management 1
CPU Management 2
CPU Management 3
CPU Management 4
Cloaking 1
Cloaking 2
Cloaking 3
Cloaking 4

Times assume a fresh character with no implants and 20/20 attributes: 1,800 SP an hour on Omega, half that on Alpha. Plan 1 is 615,000 SP and trains fully on Alpha: a T1 hauler with Tech II shield modules and a Damage Control II. Plan 2 is 1.28M SP, almost all of it Gallente Hauler V and Industry V, and gets you into both a DST and a Blockade Runner. Plan 3 adds the Covert Ops cloak and a microwarpdrive. Transport Ships and Cloaking need Omega.

Can I be ganked in Exordium?

No. Safety is locked to green in all 53 systems, so nobody can shoot you, and a character with a criminal timer can't even jump in. Once you leave through Yulai or a shipcaster, everything in this guide applies.

Is autopilot safe in highsec?

Only with cargo you can afford to lose. Autopilot stops you 15 km from every gate and flies the rest slowly. That gives anyone about a minute to scan you. EVE University calls it the number one way haulers lose their ships.

How much can I carry in a Tech I hauler?

EVE University's rule of thumb is cargo plus fitted modules under 3,000 ISK per EHP. In a hauler fit for 10,000–20,000 EHP, that is 30M–60M. Several hauling corporations stop at 50M of collateral.

Can an Alpha haul?

Yes, in any Tech I hauler, with the racial Hauler skill at I. Deep Space Transports and Blockade Runners need Transport Ships, which is Omega only. So does Planetary Industry.

Is a Blockade Runner safe in Jita?

Only if you fly it right. It can't be cargo scanned and it warps cloaked. Still, gankers killed 21 in Jita in the past seven days, all of them at the Jita 4-4 station. Use insta-undock and insta-dock bookmarks.