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Ratting Questions
Lummox
Member Posts: 32
in EVE Online
Ratting Problems
I read the guide and it does well, however, I have trouble finding NPC targets. I general travel from asteroid belt to asteroid belt until I find some.
I did play with the scanner (just below the cargo button on the user interface) which brings up the solar system with some red dots.
Do these red dots indicate Rats? The scanner only seems to indicate the Rats are at <planet> X, so I assume you have to search the stations, moons, and roid belts.
Is this correct?
Is there a better scanner or other means to locate the Rats quicker?
Comments
The best bet is to find a quiet system (I refuse to rat anywhere where theres any other players) and just work through the belts systematically i.e. top down or bottom up.
I usually avoid the top and bottom belt in a system as if you're in combat it can take a while to warp to a safespot if someone else enters the system and those are likely to be the first belts a pirate looks for you at.
It depends where you look, if you look in lower sec, say 0.5-0.4 you should be able to find some more rats. The dots on the scanner arn't rats by the way. If your weary about pirates stay in higher sec space until your ready, when i started i usually stayed in 0.5.
What solar system you in at the mo?
Dont bother looking for rats anywhere else but the belts, you wont find them
Each system's "rats" are dictated by the location, i.e. region, and most importantly the System's Security Rating.
To clear something up for others who might not understand the language: Rats is short for Pirates. The term is soley reserved for NPC pirates. Never should you refer to player pirates as "rats". Player pirates are called just that, PIRATES!!! Or, you could also call them DEAD!
When starting off you will be in a .9 system. This is as safe as safe will ever be in EVE Online. As you progress down through the various security ratings, .9, .8, .7, .6, .5, .4, etc, .0 you will notice increasingly difficult spawns of "rats". Keep in mind that 0.0 could mean certain death!
What I like to do when hunting rats, better yet, what I _did_ when first playing the game and hunting rats:
Got into my ship and warped to an asteroid belt. If the rats were too easy I jumped to the next system expecting to find a system one level lower, or one security point lower, and repeat. I would jump from asteroid belt to asteroid belt killing as I went along. When the rats were to easy I would locate a nearby system that was .1 point lower and repeat the entire process.
I play as the Ni-Kurni which are an offshoot of the Amarr. All I fly are Amarr ships which have a reputation for armor tankers; shields, bah, who needs 'm!!
I moved into a Destroyer about 10 days or less after starting the game, not all are good and they are difficult to use, Coercer to be exact. I still use a Coercer and I have almost 8mil skill points all geared towards utilizing the Coercer destroyer.
After about 2-3 weeks I was ratting in .5 and .6 systems solo. After 5-6 weeks I was soloing rats in .4 systems. After 2-3 months I was soloing in .1 systems. All this in my little Amarr Coercer class Destroyer!! I've been called a liar and other nasty things saying that this ship is garbage and soloing what I'm stating is untrue. I was earning something of 2m isk worth of bounties and looted componets per hour in a .4 system; Modulated Pulse/Beam Lasers!!
If you want to be serious about maximizing your "ratting" experiance this is what I suggest:
Identify a system that's appears to be outside the main pipe of traffic to/from one of the major hubs. Prefereably something that's a back door system that no one would enter unless they specifically need to be there.
Verify the system has 20+ asteroid belts!! This is essential to effective NPC ratting. You'll warp into the roid belt then immediately warp to the next one if there's no spawns. you can get through all the belts VERY fast and the high number of possible rat locations should provide a constant stream of encounters, and isk! Als make sure you have a Station within 2 jumps of where you intend to rat.
Establish 2-3 safe points in the system you'll be ratting in. Create "insta's" from your primary safepoint to the jumpgate that returns you to your nearest station; create insta's to/from the station back to your ratting location.
ALWAYS keep a local channel viewable and examine EVERYONE who enters your system. Be vocal and chat with the locals. I believe a wise man once said "Keep your friends close and your enimies closer."
And don't forget to get Platinum Insurance on ALL your ships! And have the mindset that if you're flying it you've already lost it. It will maximize your investment and maintain a high level of enjoyment in game play.
Yarr!!
Nice advice. Thanks all.
Then what the hell are those red dots in the system scanner?
If you are going to wait around for the rats to show, you might as well hook up with a friend who mines.
Miners are going to want to stock up slots for mining turrets, so they can get the ore more easily. A lot rely on drones to provide the security, but then again, if they don't have to worry about security, because you are there, they can deploy mining drones.
Two miners are going to want to have one mine, and have the other haul, or maybe switch in and out from hauler to miner when the jetcan gets full. That is, of course, if one of them isn't needed to guard against belt rats.
Heck, you don't even have to necessarily be in the belt where the miners are working. As long as you are in the system, and leave gangchat open, you can scope out other belts for rats, and they'll call you when something shows up. Most belt rats warp in far away from the belt, and take a bit of time before they start shooting.
Ratting and mining are like peanut butter and jelly. They go so well together, and allow the operations to work at peak efficiency. The miners can mine more ore, and the ratter might even get a bonus for his guard duty.
__________________________
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--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Go someplace safe within your max scanning distance (the number you set in the top of the scanner - the max is just about 12 or 13 AU if i recall corectly) of a few belts, moons, gates or whatever you want to scan.
Click on your own ship til a white box is in the center, it can be a bit tricky on some ships. Alternatively you can hold down the alt key and the same box will appear while holding it in. Now swing your camera around and place the white box over the object you want to scan. Pop open the scanner, drop the scan arc to 5 degrees and hit scan. TADA! you just scanned whatever the box was over and as long as you have use overview settings checked on the top of the scanner, it will find whatever you have enabled in your overview.
The scanner is extremely important in PvP but can help a lot while NPCing if you just warp to a planet surrounded by belts and scan them quickly til you find a particular npc or group you want to kill. In PvP you can find people mining, hiding at planets, docking at stations, fleeing for the gates or a bubble camp all without moving your position, which is extremely useful from a safespot while hiding.
Oh and a way to say thanks to the guy for this. If you find a BS spawn in 0.0 (well any kind of spawn, including those wounderful officers) DO NOT kill the escort, just the main guy/guys worth the most, hell I think you can go down to killing all but say 1 of the ships, and guess what. 10 minutes later the entire force appears again. so yeah, who said you have to rat an entire system then move on. Just set it up so every single belt has a dual BS or officer or those other guys worth 2+ mil each, make sure you can get through it in abbout 20 minutes and boo yah you have yourself say 100 mil in an hour. maybe more if you get stuff like Arb launchers, officer stuff, or GISTII!!!!! (if I get another gistii ab drop I'll die) So yeah, this is my thanks tpo you for the information on the scanners.
"Just because there are other colours to use in chat does not mean you have to use them..." - Please follow
Damn good information. What kind of equipment do I need to get this? or does it come already and upgrade just extend range?
Oh and a way to say thanks to the guy for this. If you find a BS spawn in 0.0 (well any kind of spawn, including those wounderful officers) DO NOT kill the escort, just the main guy/guys worth the most, hell I think you can go down to killing all but say 1 of the ships, and guess what. 10 minutes later the entire force appears again. so yeah, who said you have to rat an entire system then move on. Just set it up so every single belt has a dual BS or officer or those other guys worth 2+ mil each, make sure you can get through it in abbout 20 minutes and boo yah you have yourself say 100 mil in an hour. maybe more if you get stuff like Arb launchers, officer stuff, or GISTII!!!!! (if I get another gistii ab drop I'll die) So yeah, this is my thanks tpo you for the information on the scanners.
yep that's called chaining but it doesn't work on officers and faction spawns like shadow serpentis etc. but in a BS spawn, kill the bs's and all but 1 of the support if you want and it'll respawn. If you pop the named NPC and wait for it to respawn, it'll 99% of the time respawn a normal version of the officer/faction, unless you're incredibly lucky... same with freighter spawns that have minerals, only works once. and chaining is the most efficient way to gain sec status as well.
Damn good information. What kind of equipment do I need to get this? or does it come already and upgrade just extend range?
nope it's standard, no way to upgrade or change - that's how it works from the get go.