This article is intended as a resource for pilots seeking to break into the business of hauling freight in nullsec. Jump freighters are the most expensive non-supercapital hulls in the game, and as such, learning proper risk mitigation techniques is highly recommended before embarking on your first journey.

Jump freighters come in 4 flavors, and all have varying characteristics. Luckily, proper use of this guide will boil all those choices down to the following spectrum: cargo size and fuel burn. Luckily this is an inverse relationship. A listing is given below.

Rhea (Caldari): largest cargo/highest fuel burn Anshar (Gallente) Ark (Amarr) Nomad (Minmatar): smallest cargo/lowest fuel burn

At the writing of this article, Caldari fuel is also the most expensive per unit, however fuel cost calculations are left as an exercise for the reader since they change with market conditions (sometimes rapidly). The same can be said for the cost hulls themselves.

No, not really. The assumption is made that if you're shot at, you're already dead. Agility is effectively negated with the use of webbing alts in highsec (which is the only time your JF should ever be taking a gate).

Jump freighters die in three places.

• On gates in high security space
• Anywhere but a station docking ring in low- and null-security space.
• Within station docking rings while the pilot is being bad.

As such, you'll want to absolutely minimize your time in these places.

It is assumed the reader is familiar with what a cynosural field is and does, as well as how jump mechanics work. We will cover here where to locate your cyno ship for jumping into a station system.

This is arguably the most important part of your jump freighting career. Where are you actually going to jump into. Certain stations can mean almost certain death, while others take a truly epic failure on multiple fronts to cause death. Stations should be selected for, in rough order of priority:

• Excellent station models
• Relative quiet in terms of pirate/neutral activity
• Fuel efficiency along your route

Station selection is based upon the avoidance of “bouncing”. Upon jumping to your cynosural field (Yes, yours. Never trust anyone else to light a cyno.), you will land somewhere 5,000m from the field. You will not be able to dock until the session change timer expires (that's the little circular timer thingy in the very top left of your screen, it appears when you join or leave fleets, change your ship, die, jump gates, or activate your jump drive). Since you can't dock until it expires, you're at risk of landing within the station model and bouncing off it. This can cause your JF to attain extreme velocities which may place you more than 250m from the station's docking ring (i.e. the distance from your selected station as per your overview). If you are bounced from the station in such a manner, you will have to bring your JF to a complete stop and get back to the station, either by warping to somewhere and then back, or by slowburning back to the station. Both of these will result in dead jump freighters if there are any neutrals around who are even remotely paying attention (see #2 of “where jump freighters die”).

In order to determine if your station is a good one, fit a module with ~5-8km range onto a rookie ship, undock, and turn on the tactical viewer. Explore around and place book marks scattered around the area that is the rough border of 0-50m from the station, per your overview. This is the docking ring's boundary. Ships within this can dock. Ships outside cannot. If you hover your mouse over the module, a range bubble will appear around your ship (when in tactical view). If you can fit that bubble so it's comfortably within the docking ring and not intersecting the station model, you've found a good cyno spot.

Note that weird things can still happen, and you can still bounce if you hit a 'solid' part of the station with your ship model. However, if you're not too far in, the speed of your bounce won't be as bad, and you can still dock once the session timer expires.

Also be aware of “kickout” stations. You may find it occasionally necessary to re-dock very quickly if there are hostiles on grid. If the docking ring is very shallow right around the undocking zone, you might find yourself outside it, even after pressing stop ship, by the time the session timer expires. If there are hostiles on grid at this point, the common parlance for this situation is “being fucked”.

This one isn't too hard - just string together a bunch of stations that get you to where you're going. Using DOTLAN, you can play with the route and even examine station models until you've gotten a satisfactory one.

When travelling back from nullsec to empire, you should select a system to re-enter high security space that borders lowsec. The few direct high-to-null-sec gates are remarkably inappropriate for this purpose due to warp bubbles.

As always, the goal here is to minimize your time in the 3 places jump freighters die. Things that let you do this include:

• Paying the fuck attention
• Not having a jump timer
• Being within the docking ring of a station
• Having a webbing alt
• Having enough capacitor to jump again

The basic process for re-entering highsec is to jump to a station in lowsec and get to your highsec destination system intact. In detail, this means:

• Cyno onto your not-shitty lowsec/highsec border system station.
• DOCK. See #5 and #2 above. If you try to gate immediately, you might find yourself unable to jump.
• Wait for #2. Undock. Align to gate to highsec. Don't just hit 'jump through stargate' and go AFK to pour yourself another appletini. Stay at the computer until you are in warp. If anything bad happens, stop ship to exit warp alignment and redock immediately. People that hunt jump freighters get most of their kills by DD'ing jump freighters in this state.
• Warp to gate at zero. In-flight, mash “D” to jump on landing. If you hit “jump through”, sometimes you'll short-land the gate. See #2 about 'where jump freighters die'.
• Jump through. See #1 of minimizing time in dangerous places. Are there 14 nado's on the other side of the gate? If so, pull up your “jump to” menu, select the cyno you just landed on moments ago, and jump THE LITERAL FUCKING SECOND GATE CLOAK DROPS. Then change your underwear, and go watch Netflix until those guys fuck off.

Once you are in high security space, your job is to get to your destination without dying. To accomplish this, it's best to have a webbing alt available. For best practices, have your freighter pilot duel your webber - never ever accept duels on your freighter pilot, ever.

• When warping to a gate or station for jumping or docking, especially in low- or nullsec, warp to zero on the gate, or a cyno bookmark, first, then mid-warp, press “D” or whatever you have keybound to jump/dock. Doing so will better ensure you exit warp within the jumping or docking radius of the structure. Doing otherwise can cause you to “land short”, which can result in death.
• When warping to a station in nullsec (say for example, if you've used your jump freighter to ferry cargo to a POS), have a scout on station to ensure the station is not bubbled. Landing in a bubble will likely result in death.
• When undocking from stations with hostiles on grid, do nothing other than press the “Stop Ship” command. Doing anything else breaks your undock invulnerability. Redock only when the session timer is expired. Be aware that a recent patch gives Heavy Interdictors the ability to prevent docking or jumping with infinite points.
• Always carry extra fuel.
• Always carry a few cyno mods and liquid ozone. Make sure your cyno alts are well-supplied. If you have fewer than 5 cynos and less than 20 trips worth of LO, it's time to stock up again.
• Always have an out cyno. Ideally, you should have a cyno ready that's jumpable from every one of your return route to HS systems.
• There is a school of thought that minimizes JF risk by not taking the JF past the first HS system, and using a T1 freighter to bring goods to it for jumping. This is perfectly valid, although it does put null-bound packages at risk in a way that jumping straight off the undock does not.
• As previously also mentioned, USE your invulnerability timer. Upon undocking, landing from a jump drive jump, or exiting warp, you are not targetable for some time until you take any other action than hitting 'stop ship'. Don't touch anything until the session timer expires, as this breaks invuln. Take a breath, make a smart move (albeit, quickly if necessary).

This is a start-to-finish narrative illustrating proper risk mitigation and procedures for taking freight from Jita to a nullsec station and back.

1. Pick up your cargo (jumping without any packages is not only frustrating, it's a waste of money!).
2. Check that your jump freighter pilot is not at war.
3. Set up your first cyno on an appropriate bookmark. Check cyno for the module (it's fitted and online) and sufficient liquid ozone.
4. Undock from Jita, while waiting for the session timer, alt-tab to your cyno…
5. Do a quick dscan & light your cyno. Always default to re-docking and waiting if things look fishy.
6. Alt-tab back to your JF, and jump to your cyno. Stay on the screen. Land, stop-ship if you've bounced, and wait for the session timer. Dock immediately once that expires.
7. Your first waypoint is complete!
8. While docked, wait for your jump timer (and fatigue, if you prefer to travel free of spaceAIDS) to wind down. Note that jumping with under 10minutes of fatigue is the same as jumping with zero.
9. Log in your next cyno character. Uh-oh, local is hot and the undock is full of starter corp alts. A quick inspection reveals them as PL cyno alts, and they're crowding the undock jump-in zones.
10. Watch Netflix or porn for 15-45 minutes. Remain logged in.
11. Return to Eve - local is now largely empty and the undock is clear. Check your LO, undock, and approach your cyno bookmark.
12. Undock from your first midpoint station, and jump to your cyno.
13. Repeat until you arrive at your nullsec destination. Deliver your packages, and pick up any bound for Jita.
14. Essentially, reverse the process.
15. You've now landed at your lowsec/highsec border system. Say for example you're really tired and forget to dock back up first. You decide to dangerzone it (slightly) and just hit warp-to-zero on your gate, and then you hit “D” to jump on contact.
16. At this point a PL cyno goes up and a titan jumps through.
17. *Immediately* stop your ship, and hit dock. You don't have much time before you are locked and DD'd.
18. Wait until the titan pilot gets bored.
19. Resume proper procedures home.
20. At your second highsec gate, your webber alt jumps into 20 Goon Taloses. RIP webber alt (Goons are known to shoot web alts). If you can, stop ship on your JF on the other side, and ready your out cyno. If you're in a station system, attempt to dock. If the gankers make any move towards the gate, just jump to your out cyno and try again later.
21. At some point, your route will be clear, and you'll make it back to Jita to try again.

If you follow all of this guide, every time, you'll have minimal risk of death. The major risk at this point is an inopportune disconnect. As such, if you have an unstable connection, take extra precautions. CCP may replace your ship in the event of lost connectivity, but they never replace cargo that's dropped, which might leave you out the collateral on your cargo.