Foshkey's Tips with Incursion Travelling
From years of experience and not losing a single ship to gankers
Tip #1: Don't AFK. Don't Autopilot. Don't do anything that will leave your ship in space.
Whenever I hear about somebody losing their ship to ganks, 9/10 times it's due to AFK or not paying attention. If a ganker sees your shiny vindicator sitting in space on a gate, or warping in at 15km and slowboating towards the gate, you will become a target. Gankers are capable of planning in advance and are extremely experienced in judging general routes, even from incursion to incursion. It doesn't take a genius ganker to figure out where that vindi is going by looking at their journal.
Tip #2: Avoid known ganking systems (Niarja, Uedama, etc.), especially at prime time.
Every time we have a new move up, I check my possibilities of routes. This is only really concerning going from amarr to minmatar space, but there is generally a route that goes through Devoid that is probably the most quiet route known in eve, and it only adds 3-8 jumps most of the time. Anyway, point being, check your routes, check your time. If you have to go through Niarja at 19:00, three options: wait until a more quiet time, reroute, or bite the bullet.
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If you follow those 2 tips, you will not lose your ship to a ganker 99% of the time. So, most people don't even change their fits. If, however, you want to cover as much of that 1% as possible, I'll keep on going with these tips.
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Tip #3: If you're going to refit for tank, refit for hull tank.
Easily the most cost effective way to brick tank your ship is to fill your lows with DCU II and Reinforced Bulkheads. That alone will probably demotivate a ganker if they see that on your ship.
Tip #4: Inertia Stabilizers / Nanofibers / Warp core stabilizers are worthless
I've heard all the brags from the pilots claiming their battleships can go into warp in 4 seconds. Cool. How about that 2 second lock time of the disrupter pilot? Furthermore, it takes all of a single day to get a trial account to get a 2 second lock timer and fit a warp disrupter. If your vindi is a target, and they discover that you have warp core stabilizers, they're just going to log in more alts if they really want you. And nothing motivates a ganker more than a potential kill.
Inertia Stabilizers and Nanofibers should only be used for cutting down on travel time, not avoiding ganks.
Tip #5: The absolute safest way to travel between incursions is with a bowhead.
This is my bowhead fit. There are many others like it, but this one is mine. If you're going to ask for a bowhead fit, you'll see some sort of variant of this. Now, putting your vindi in a bowhead with that fit is much, much safer than just flying the vindi. Why? Check out that EHP. 530k. Do you know how many catalysts are needed to take that down? 40-50. The Talos number is something like 25, maybe 20 if they have really good skills and T2 fitted.
Another thing that may be confusing is that MWD. Believe it or not, that helps your warp faster than loading the bottom row up with inertia stabilizers. There's a slight trick with huge, industrial ships, that if you initiate warp, cycle your MWD once, you'll actually warp at the end of the cycle. Neat. So, standard pattern I go here is: Initiate warp, F1, F2, F3, F1 (MWD, Invul, Invul, MWD). This will turn on your tank and get yourself warping as soon as possible.
Tip #6: Scout ahead
I wouldn't recommend this if you don't have an alt. I have a convenient setup where I move my bowhead, orca, and vindi with my 3 characters. The orca and vindi always go on ahead, and since they're the cheaper stuff, they're convenient scouts to check out local before my bowhead gets there.
Tip #7: If you're really concerned about losing your stuff, get a webber alt.
I personally have never done this for moving between incursions (only really done it with my jump freighters), but I know people who do. Something to get your bowhead warping even faster than the MWD method is to web the shit out of it from a corp member.
And there you have it. Follow these tips and you too will never have to worry about those dreaded gankers