Trade hauling with small fast ships

A major problem for traders is picking up regional buys that have been filled in low or null sec systems. Many such systems are behind a major gate camp like EC-P8R, Aunenen, Rancer, Amamake, etc. These camps are pretty much permanently manned and difficult to run at any time with anything short of Covert Ops ships. The largest camps usually have smartbombing battleships on the gate making them difficult to run even with Cov Ops. Trying to run small gate camps (far less major camps) or undock from camped stations in a slow Industrial ship is basically just suicide.

If you trade in bulky items like ore, minerals, PI mats, or large quantities of fitting modules you don't have much choice. You need plenty of cargo space which means flying slow haulers, Industrials, Transports, etc.. Flying Jump Freighters and/or Blockade Runners takes a long time, a significant skill point investment and though they are better suited for operating in low/null they're still slow and susceptible to ganks.

However, if you deal in small, individually more valuable items like skillbooks, blueprints, faction/deadspace mods or implants you can transport in smaller, faster ships that have far better chances of successfully running gate camps.

Covert Ops frigates are ideal for light transport in dangerous areas. Small, fast, cheap enough to be expendable and the ability to warp while cloaked is huge for running gate camps. About all you have to worry about are large smartbombing camps and undocking. Even then they have to be alert, quick, ready for and expecting cloaked ships to nail you before you're gone. Almost any fit works for this purpose, you can even use a Stealth Bomber fit for standard bombing ops as I often do.

You don't need tank. You can't fit enough tank to survive smartbombs or alpha strikes from larger ships anyhow. Your best chance of running a smartbomb camp is speed, particularly alignment time. Even station campers waiting for you to undock are best avoided with insta-warp bookmarks or failing that, fast alignment times. If anything else nails you, chances are either you got lazy or they got lucky. Standard Cov Ops fits work fine but if you want to fit specifically for transport then fitting for speed, agility and warp speed while ensuring you don't fit anything that reduces cargo capacity makes sense. A MWD in the mids, Nanos in the lows and for rigs I'd go with polycarbons or low friction nozzle jets, though hyperspatial velocity optimizers (warp speed) might be a good choice too.

Recon cruisers would be the natural evolution to Cov Ops frigates, with greater cargo capacity, capable of fitting 60k or so tank (EHP that is, more like 30k raw) and able to survive smartbombs and more. But Recons are much more expensive and require a lot more skills training to fly. Not exactly expendable and probably too time consuming to train most alts for too.

For new players or alts that need to fly low/null now and can't afford to wait to train into Cov Ops small, fast frigates fitted for speed and alignment time work quite well. They're very cheap, typically under 2 million even fitted with moderately expensive T2 mods. The good part is when you do get nailed in these ships it's almost always on the way into low/null while you're empty so all you lose is a cheap ship and maybe some implants. Conversely, if you get into low/null without trouble you can usually get back out a few minutes later with no trouble too and with your valuable cargo intact.

You will lose some of these ships, count on it, but they're cheap enough you can consider it a cost of doing business. I lost 1 or 2 a month across 9 trader alts on 4 accounts all flying T1 frigates when I was working regional buys and travelling in low/null on a daily basis. Just don't use expensive implants you can't afford to replace occasionally.

My personal favorite T1 ship for trade hauling was the Minmitar Vigil. With it's 5% per level speed bonus and decent skills it's the fastest standard T1 frigate (not counting expensive pirate faction ships) in the game. However that velocity bonus will soon be gone in the next round of ship balancing. Now you might as well just go with the fastest frigate available to your race.

For T1 frigates and assuming a low skills alt will be flying it I like nanos in the lows, cap rechargers in the mids and cap rigs. Cap rigs and rechargers are important for low skills alts to make long warps all in one go. As you get better nav and cap skills this issue goes away. The important skills are Warp Drive Operation, Energy Management, Energy Systems Operation and all the non-jump navigation skills. With all those skills at 3 or better you can use astronautics rigs (or no rigs at all) and start dropping rechargers too.

This is my standard Condor fit

[Condor, Light Transport]

Local Hull Conversion Nanofiber Structure I
Local Hull Conversion Nanofiber Structure I

Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I
Eutectic Capacitor Charge Array
Eutectic Capacitor Charge Array
Eutectic Capacitor Charge Array

[Empty High slot]
[Empty High slot]
[Empty High slot]
[Empty High slot]

Small Capacitor Control Circuit I
Small Semiconductor Memory Cell I
Small Semiconductor Memory Cell I

And this is my standard Vigil fit

[Vigil, Ninja Salvager]

Local Hull Conversion Nanofiber Structure I
Local Hull Conversion Nanofiber Structure I
Local Hull Conversion Nanofiber Structure I

Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I
Eutectic Capacitor Charge Array
Eutectic Capacitor Charge Array

Salvager I
Salvager I
Salvager I

Small Semiconductor Memory Cell I
Small Semiconductor Memory Cell I
Small Capacitor Control Circuit I

I find 2 semiconductor memory cells and one capacitor control circuit gives the best cap performance with low cap skills. As your cap skills get better and depending on exactly what ship you're flying your mileage may differ. What's in the highs isn't important, the ship isn't intended to fight, it's just supposed to be cheap, fly fast and align quickly.

As the alt gets better skills I start dropping rigs and cap rechargers, lowering cost and making the ships even more expendable. Drop rigs first because they're by far the most expensive fittings on the ships. Using T1 best named modules takes less resources and lower skills to fit, making them easier for low skills alts to fit than the T2 versions. They're also quite a bit cheaper and nearly as good as the T2 versions. You could go with lower meta modules to cut costs even more too.