Mobile Depots act as an in-space fitting service and storage facility. Once you deploy a depot, you can use it refit your ship's modules and subsystems, move items between it and your cargohold, and move drones between your cargohold and drone bays. A Mobile Depot takes up only 50 m3 of space and will easily fit in most frigates. It can hold 3,000 - 4,000 m3 once deployed.
Deploying a Mobile Depot takes 60 seconds. Once in space it will last for 30 days, at which point it will vanish with its contents. However interacting with it will reset this 30 day timer–so remember to bookmark it. It can be scooped back to your ship's cargohold at any time. Any contents will appear in space in a cargo container at that time. A Mobile Depot can only be accessed or scooped up by its owner; you cannot launch it for use by other players at this time.
Other players can scan down your Mobile Depot with combat probes and attack it (receiving a suspect flag, not a criminal flag; CONCORD will not intervene!). At 17,500 HP, the Depot is not particularly tough, but if it's damaged to 25% of its shield hitpoints it will go into a “reinforced mode” for two days. During this period it cannot be damaged further, giving you enough time to either defend it or scoop and escape.
After the two day reinforcement timer is up, if it has not been repaired, it can be destroyed and its contents looted.Although scooping the mobile depot and immediately deploying it does take it out of reinforcement it does not repair the shields. If the shields are still below 25% when redeployed and has not had enough time to repair shields to 26% or above on its own, when attacked it will not go into reinforcement but will be destroyed. You will receive no notification that your depot has been attacked, but will receive a killmail should it be destroyed. If you don't want to repair the mobile depot, you can scoop it into your ship's cargo bay, dock at a station, repackage it, and it will be fully repaired. During the anchoring period the mobile depot can be targeted and destroyed. If it's damaged to 25% of its shield or less it will not go into reinforcement and will continue to take damage until its destroyed even after the anchor timer is finished. If for some reason the enemy loses lock on it the mobile depot can be relocked and take damage until destroyed.
Mobile Depots are often deployed at safe spots, allowing you to swap fittings and store any excess items. This can be useful while ratting, as you can store excess loot in the depot and swap fittings depending on which NPCs you are fighting. A Mobile Depot is also useful when when travelling through dangerous areas of New Eden, since you can travel fit on the way there and then refit for whatever purpose at your destination.
Another useful trick when flying in dangerous areas of space is to keep a Mobile Depot and some warp core stabilizers in your cargohold. If you're attacked and don't think you can win the fight, deploy the mobile depot, wait out the 60 second activation, then refit your ship with warp core stabilizers and make your escape.
There are three variants of the Mobile Depot: the standard Mobile Depot (built by players using NPC-sold BPOs), and two “improved” variants (the BPCs for which are found in Ghost Sites), the 'Yurt' Mobile Depot and the 'Wetu' Mobile depot. The 'Wetu' Mobile Depot takes up a bit more space in your ship's cargohold (100 m3 vs 50 m3), but has more cargo capacity (4000 m3 vs 3000 m3), and has a higher sensor strength, making it more difficult for other players to scan down the location of your Depot. The 'Yurt' takes this last attribute to its extreme, with a very high sensor strength making is very difficult for all but the most skilled players to scan down.
The basic Mobile Depot is reasonably cheap (around 1 million ISK), but the more advanced versions are one or two orders of magnitude more expensive.
Name | Volume (m3) | Capacity (m3) | Sensor Strength |
---|---|---|---|
Mobile Depot | 50 | 3000 | 50 |
'Wetu' Mobile Depot | 100 | 4000 | 250 |
'Yurt' Mobile Depot | 50 | 4000 | 400 |