I made this post a long time ago, but now that its more relevant I'de like to revive the conversation. The only people who will ever waste their time "escorting" your ships, are org mates. The truth is, the best way to avoid pirates is by SCOUTING. People need to stop telling people to hire an escort, the only thing you need to hire is a scout. Any cargo hauler caught in pvp is already dead, it doesn't matter how many "escorts" you have. Ships don't have the survivability or the defenses to stay functional during an engagement. Once you are in an engagement you have already lost. Eve Online players have known this for decades, and any veterans of that game certainly won't waste our times escorting high value cargo across space. We use scouts, hell most of the time the scouts we are using are just alternate accounts that we use to check the route before every single leg of the journey. The escort narrative is stupid, stop using it, it wont happen.