Given the prevalence of suicide ganking in high-sec space these days, would you prefer to have an Orca or a freighter to regularly transport goods from point A to point B (both points being major high-sec trading hubs)?
Matt
[ Editor ]
I own both an Orca, a Charon and a Rhea. They are all useful!
The Orca, believe it or not gets used the least, and realistically gets used as a mining platform. It has been known to be used as a means of transporting around Precious BPO's and Modules, Battleship AB's are an option, but MWD's are not due to Grid restrictions.
A Freighter is my general Mainstay for Hi-Sec, in the manufacturing process I often haul 100,000's of M3 of minerals about, I do not know where I would be without my Charon. I have flown a freighter with everything from being full of 942,000 m3 of ice through to a fleet of 50 faction fit Tengu's and priority items for alliance totalling to nearly 2 Trillion ISK. (Believe me that haul was the most scared I have been in my time in eve), and even in hi-sec it moved with an armed guard fleet of 50+ pilots, most of whom had 1.5 Billion ISK tengu's in it's hold, there is an insentive to defend a freighter if ever I saw one.
However it's Simple for all types of haul the rules are the same, if it is full or has a hold with a value of 700M ISK or more (ie more than the Freighters cost) I always Fly it manually from gate to gate with a scout +1 to look for suspicious formations, if you find something dock up and wait, take no risks.
The Jump Freighter is the single most useful ship I have ever purchased, whether it is moving stuff out of manufacturing POS or from my hi-sec Research to the Low Sec manufacturing POS. Moving ICE in for refinement, removing Moon Goo, this ship has both kept me sane and trivialised large scale movement in lowsec.
Cloaky Haulers fill the void and are generally the ship of choice for my indy characters.
Basically they all have their places each one is useful, the freighter and Orca can interchange a bit, ultimatley the double wrapped can trick makes using a Freighter sensible but if you use it people think you have something to hide, however if people see an orca they know this too.
Bottom line as Tanto suggests you can kill a freighter in hi-sec with no less than 11 Alpha Maelstroms. Ganks don't really happen by chance, by running with a plus 1 alt you effectively should be able to avoid a confrontation is all bar systems 200au warps, where your enemy see you enter system has a chance to go make a cuppa tea, phone all 10 of his his friends individually and have a chat before all of them moving from the next region and still arive before you arive at the other gate to jump you.
Bit of a discussion thread, but a good topic nonetheless. +1