A Day in the Life of a JF Pilot

The success and failure of null sec campaigns depends on the logistical backbone of alliances. The only reliable way to carry out logistical transportation is by using jump freighters. If you start your own JF service you help your alliance to be combat-ready while making a little ISK!

Basic requirements

You need at least two accounts to be independent from other pilots. Obviously your cyno chars must be on the other account. When you move a large amount of ISK around you want to light your own cynos. A basic cyno character with an alpha clone is enough, but don’t use an Amarr char since the noobship can’t hold the 300 units of liquid ozone that is needed with cyno 4. Your JF char must not have any killrights, so a pure non-PvP alt is needed to avoid any mistakes. It can be any race and you should train it to mastery level 4. Keep in mind that there are small differences between the four jump freighters. As far as cargohold is concerned the ranking is: Rhea > Anshar > Ark > Nomad. Although the new ISIS helps to skill correctly for a ship, you really need jump range calibration 5 before you start your business.

Preparation

Most of the JF runs will be to or from a tradehub, most often Jita. There are common low sec systems nearby that are used by many JF pilots but be aware that certain groups gank careless JFs every day in those systems. Take your time and scout a few alternatives before you decide which system you use. The same applies to other trade hubs as well. Dotlan’s jump planner offers a great service to find a working cyno route. It also includes the station types so you can already sort out kickout stations before you even move your cyno chars. The shortest route may not be the safest, this is true for both gate jumps as well as cyno jumps.

The move

High value items should always be jumped directly out of tradehub. Feel free to use gates when your cargoload has a value less than 1 bil ISK or when you do an empty run, but have a cyno prepared and ready to go. Find good spots on stations that make it safe for your JF to jump it, make bookmarks of good spots with your cyno alts. Often cyno alts will get killed very fast, so loitering around is not a good idea. On your first move to a cyno system you can take more cyno mods and liquid ozone, so you have enough spare. Avoid cyno beacons, even if you have eyes on them!

Securing your service

After your initial investment of ~10bil ISK you can start to harden your JF service. Put all your cyno chars in a small corp that is blue to your alliance and rent offices around your usual routes. Often you can find cheap offices without cloning next to a cloning station which has very expensive office prices. As you only need a cloning service to deathclone to another system with your alpha clone alts you can minimize your expenses. Corp hangars also allow access to shared hangars as you should rotate cyno chars on a regular basis so that you don’t become too predictable. The longer your JF routes become, the more cyno alts you will need, even if you can still use the corp offices for deathcloning.

At some point you will have to face a wardec, so you should prepare another JF alt that is either in a blue alt-corp or a NPC corp. Now that you have two JF capable chars you should start to use only one of them to go into and from your tradehub. It might be worth buying implants that make it move faster and increase the EHP. The other JF char may only use station cynos so there is no need for expensive implants.

Recommended implants:

Slot 1 – Slot 6: Low grade nomads

Slot 7: EM-705

Slot 8: MC-805

Slot 9: SP-905

Slot 10: HG-1005 or Skirmish Mindlink

The business plan

In every alliance logistics work differently. Make sure that you understand how it works in your alliance before you start your JF service. Some work with couriers with collateral, some without, some only use alliance wide contracts or just want a seeded market. Keep a look out for changes in doctrines and talk with FCs if they want the new ship seeded or if they only need a conversation kit.

Make sure your staging system is stocked with ammo, suitcase mods and drones. Don’t buy too many items and risk not being able to move when your station access gets revoked, especially in one that does not belong to your alliance. Price seeded items, alliance contracts and courier services reasonably; Jita +10% covers your fuel, PLEX for cyno accounts and your risk.

Good luck and don’t get your JF killed!