Null sec ratting

Null Sec Ratting (Horde Space specific)

This is your Eve Tip of the day on the basics of ratting in null sec in Drone regions. Thank you to Snoopari for help!

Ratting in eve online is a 'solved problem'. People have already worked out the optimal strategies and now it's just working how you can get into those strategies. Details are here for those in Pandemic Horde: https://www.pandemic-horde.org/forum/index.php?threads/drone-lives-matter-a-drone-regions-ratting-guide-2-0.3340/   https://www.pandemic-horde.org/forum/index.php?threads/intervening-the-divine-ratting-guide-for-angel-space.3767/ if you are running in angel space.

Reminders, to rat safely you need to leave mj-5, you need to have local, bean-intel, and standing fleet open, all at the same time.  An example is available on my Eve UI  page.

When to escape

When you land, orbit at current distance a wreck or a structure, target stuff, get aggression, launch drones, then start shooting. (`f` to have drones attack) :D

You see someone come into local, you warp to your fortizar, which you have hopefully bookmarked.

If you see an infested carrier, pull drones (shift-r), turn off MWD/AB, align to your safe structure. It **will** kill you.

Ratting basics:

IF there are towers on the anomalies, destroy those first

1) Kill frigates (ASAP tacling ones)

2) Kill Battlecruisers (cruisers after that)

3) Kill Battleships

When there is new spawn, repeat from the start of the list.

Orbit the middle object of the site at a range your drones can hit all (example 50-60km drone control range you might want to orbit example 35 - 40km)

When you see neutral in local, turn off your afterburner and align to the station. Warp off immidiately IF you want to be safest possible

When your ratting you want to turn off from route planner "Include Jump Gates" so you can see true distance of the neutral / hostiles reported.

Always Orbit / move, never stay still, have your fit cap stable and have your afterburner always on IF the fit has one or the ship is supposed to use with it.

The system doesn't matter that much.. maybe "close to MJ / staging", not on the pipeline where the neuts come from (that is hard for new ppl to know) site stuff, start from lowest site and work your way up carefully from lowest site from here https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Combat_sites Drone patrol and drone has both tricky version of the site.

Specific drone site ideas.

Each of the sites has their own unique characters.

Drone Herds is where most ratters in vexor start.  You warp in at 20km, orbit a structure, kill small stuff.  When you have more small stuff spawn, you kill it.

Drone Patrol warp at 30km, orbit at current.  Only one Elite Drone AI Battleship is tricky because once you attack the battleship 8 tackling frigates spawn which you have to kill as fast as possible. keep killing small stuff, and then come back to the elite drone battleship after all the other spawns are done.  Rest of the site is fairly easy

Drone Horde "Ring site" which has 8 towers around drone bunker: if you warp at the site at range other than 0km. Warp off and warp back to the site at 0km, immidiately as you land start orbiting the drone bunker at 7 500m with 100mn afterburner online. Those towers cannot track your ship good after you hit your max speed.

Destroy the towers as fast as you can DON'T kill the Battlecruiser on site because that is the trigger for the next wave which have those tackling frigates, which you want to kill as fast as possible, suggest after destroying those towers move to like 30km from the bunker and then kill the BC

Drone squad: Warp at 30km.  the one with the big structure: Kill those towers as fast as you can, after that destroy the building orbiting it. destroy a ship and start orbiting that ship wreck.. rest of the site is just walk in the park after that (should be XD)

with that stuff I do with 100mn speed tanked vexor all the ratting sites without any issues except the Drone horde ring site takes me about 40% of armor for some reason, CCP must have made some small changes. That might be also added so ppl don't freak out as they shall drop to armor IF they have only one T2 shield extender, if your drones have the 57km, you should have that and start burning away from the BS after hitting it wit the drones and kill those closest frigates always as fast as you can.. the DPS and right set of drones is the key tho.. T1 drones will struggle

If all of this is confusing to you, has a video that shows it, just use our fittings we recommend.  Rogue drones don't drop loot other than faction ones.

General ratting concepts

Regular npc piRATes, or 'rats', are based off number off a page. x amount of damage with y tracking and z healing. This includes all the normal rats. There are four 'classes' of rats, the regular ones, elite ones, faction spawns, and then commander spawns. For example, for Blood Raiders, Pope - Elder Corpum Arch Priest - Dark Pope - Estamel? https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/NPC_naming_conventions has a list.

The longer the name, the more likely they are to do their ewar against you, better tank, etc. Most of the elite frigates have either scrams or webs, but they are uneven about applying it often. So that's why you generally kill frigates early on in ratting, the act of killing npc piRATes. The bigger and more elite the ship, the bigger the bounty. The faction spawns have a chance of dropping faction gear. Note, with a newbie, we killed a faction battleship in a pair of NBI algos. So they can die to them. Granted, he did die the first time we faced him. heh Note, these bigger ships have bigger numbers on the page, so the tank can overwhelm you in the high end.

There are also infested carrier and dread spawns that can one shot you.

Each of these rat types have a different type of damage they do, and a different resist profile. Each rat has a different ewar it does as well. These are easily encapsulated by the chart below.

Incursion rats are entirely different. They were built as a fleet comp. They had x types of battleships in a spawn, with a couple cruisers, and some tacklers. They have repairers, they have ewar, they have neuters, they have bombers, etc. And all the ships are built on real ships in game with real fits, though some of their gear is super charged, and don't drop. 😄 You get all your money from the LP pay out and the bounty for finishing the site, rather than killing individual ships.

Pay outs happen every 20 minutes, these are called 'tics'.  Kill a 1 mil battleship?  600k goes towards your next tick, and 400k goes into the ESS.

https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Encounter_Surveillance_System explains the Encounter Surveillance System aka ESS, these pay out every 3 hours and can be stolen.  Reporting it's getting stolen to bean-intel helps a lot.  Think of it as holding 2 extra ticks per hour.  So if you're making 5 mil ticks, you could make 15 mil if it doesn't pay out, and 25 if it does pay out.

So if you have 3 mil tics, you might only get (3x3) 9 mil an hour, which is terrible, or (3x5) 15 mil an hour.  I can do 12 mil a tic in a vexor, so (3*12) 36 mil an hour without ess, or (3*12) 60 mil an hour.  Note, Exploration pays around 60 mil an hour for new players right away, versus the vet skills to get there to make real money doing vexors.

Ratting 'tiers' inside pandemic horde.

There is basically a tier system inside pandemic horde that has a progression to it.  Note, never rat in MJ-5.

• Vexor ratting - the place everyone starts. 3 mil ticks for low skill players, 8 mil for high sp, 12 mil ticks for max effort.  You do squads/patrols, not hordes.

• Ishtar ratting - The 'goal', it's somewhat afk.  18 mil low end ticks, 24 mil high end ticks, maybe higher with high effort.  https://github.com/Slazanger/SMT does alarms based on your intel channels when someone is close to you.

• Praxis/Oracle/Marauder ratting - Mix of high effort, spend some isk, can vary a LOT based on skills.  Marauder ratting with pankrab is great money.  Note, these are very specific fits/things you have to do to succeed.  To join Pankrab, you need a cyno 5 alt and join an esi-gated corporation.

  • Note, the praxis is a double edged sword.  You can make more money, but you have to have your head on a swivel because it's very easy to catch and easy to kill and VERY expensive and often won't out earn it's cost.  It also uses a SHITLOAD more skill points, like another 4 mil SP, just do match what a vexor can do out of the box with just 1.5 mil in drones.

  • The oracle, you die if any frigate gets close.

  • Marauder, need that cyno to protect it.  Because there are blue eyes sometimes, you cannot safely protect it yourself.

• Escalations - This is the real way to make money with a marauder and is pretty safe if you use the bypass room.  Buy escalations for 130 mil, make 300 mil or more sometimes.  Gives SRP if you die if you follow rules in pankrab.  Can also be done with t3cs.  CAN be done with a praxis/Ishtar, but takes entirely too long, much easier to just sell and get paid.

• Beacon - https://support.eveonline.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408566646162-CONCORD-Rogue-Analysis-Beacon-CRAB  Make 150-300 mil an hour doing beacons under the watchful eye of pankrab using dreadnaughts or supers.  If you die and did things right, you get SRP'd your ship.  Usually done with a partner if you can.  Details on running these are not found on my site for reasons.

There are a ton of other variations on this.  But there are a bunch of ships NOT worth doing it in because the cost per ticks just doesn't make sense.  I've done graphs on these on the third page of this post: https://www.pandemic-horde.org/forum/index.php?threads/drone-lives-matter-a-drone-regions-ratting-guide-2-0.3340/  If you are trying to do a gila or a myrmidon, they are a mistake.

• Gila - always a mistake for ratting because it's too expensive, you won't recoup your income and won't get that much better ticks, and can't save itself versus a frigate at all.  Check out Abyssals and make sure to have a deep safe!

• Myrmidon - cannot face tank everything, is slower to warp, cannot defend itself, and is VERY easy to lose.

Once you join an esi-gated corporation, you get access to way more space, and it's very easy to do if you have over 10 mil sp.  You can also get access to -1.0 systems so you can officer hunt, which is VERY random.

Curious on what to upgrade?  Get your drone skills up under your Mastery Tab and get your main ship skill up.   Drone Interfacing, Drone Navigation, Drone Sharpshooting are the big ones.   Get navy drones if you are flush, they track better and have better tank, see Meta Modules.

tldr: get into a vexor.  Do NOT do a gila!  The praxis is often a mistake.  Move to an ishtar, it's so afkish.  Work towards getting a marauder etc.

Combat signatures

Unrated complexes, aka combat sigs.  There are some combat signatures you can probe down as well.  Some of these are pretty good money, others are okay, and others are flat terrible.

Ask your alliance which sites are worth doing in your space in your newbro chat.  In horde, the sites are not worth doing because they are less money per hour.  There are some guaranteed things at the end, but it's often not worth your time compared to other ratting opportunities.  The Hierarchy and Independence sites are just not as good as running another set of Drone Hordes.

Realize that some of these can lead to escalations though.

https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Combat_sites#Unrated_complexes has the list of the different sites.

Escalations

DED Rated complexes, aka escalations.  Often termed as '5/10' or '10/10', based on their difficulty out of 10.  These are escalations from either combat signatures or normal combat anomalies.  These use specialized ships with specialized fits often, on a per site basis.  A ship capable of running one type of 10/10 might not be able to run a 5/10 even though it's similar rats, for instance.

These require very good skills and great ships.  There are cheese ways to do it, but it's site specific.

The most common ships to do these are the T3Cs and Marauders.  Doing this in normal anomaly ratters like the ishtar is almost guaranteed to die or make less money than just doing hordes.

You can sell these escalations to people who specialize in running them as well.  These escalations can go from anywhere from 50 mil to 200 mil a site.  To do this, you warp to the site, make a bookmark, and then sell that bookmark to the person using a ACL gated bookmark list.  Ask for help from your alliance to do this.  However, they have only 24 hours to run these sites from when you are first given it, so some don't sell, so don't rely on this method.

Want to run these sites?  First, have great skills for one of the ships that are used to run them.  Then watch a bunch of youtube. This content has not changed much over the years, though the ships have.  A marauder, setup for the right type of damage, can do a lot of these sites for instance, but needs a unique fit per type of 10/10.

Note, the 4/10 escalations are a lot easier to run, only require a battlecruiser.   These can pay well as well, as they're not super common to run.  But only in high sec.

https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Combat_sites#DED_rated_complexes has a list of the different sites.

Note, there are some sites like the Outgrowth Rogue Drone Hive that sometimes gets confused about what it is.  It will say in game 'Difficulty 5', but it's not a 5/10 but actually a 10/10.   You have to warp to the site to see which DED level it is.  Herds can give you 5/10s, but patrols and hordes will always give you a 10/10.  Warp to it, bookmark it, and sell it in the in game channel <url=joinChannel:player_-80954942>Zulu's Escalation Bazaar</url> to sell it.

To give proof, warp into the system too bookmark it, say something in local, screenshot the escalation and the local screen, to prove you are doing it live. :D

tldr: youtube the name of the escalation.

See below how to use the Opportunity window to find the location, the time left, and level (5/10 or 10/10) of the escalation!

Newbie Vexor fit

This is a newbie vexor fit for killing Rogue Drones.  To do other types of content, you might have to change things around.  And you can refit to do other types as well.  This is a very beginner version, with room for extra drones or meta items.

[Vexor, NBI Vexor RATTING]

Capacitor Flux Coil I

Drone Damage Amplifier I

Drone Damage Amplifier I

Drone Damage Amplifier I

Damage Control I

Large Clarity Ward Enduring Shield Booster

Large Compact Pb-Acid Cap Battery

Compact Multispectrum Shield Hardener

10MN Monopropellant Enduring Afterburner

Drone Link Augmentor I

Auto Targeting System I

Civilian Gatling Railgun

Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I

Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I

Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I

Praetor I x2

Acolyte I x1

Infiltrator I x2