Combat sites
- This article discusses combat sites found in known space. For combat sites found in wormholes, see Wormhole sites.
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Combat sites are one of two major types of player-versus-environment (PvE) combat activities that can be found in known space, the other being security missions. Combat sites can be found throughout New Eden, and like missions, the type and amount of enemy ships found in a particular combat site is consistent across all instances of the site, with only a small, pre-determined amount of variance. The rewards for completing a given site can also vary due to the nature of rare loot mechanics: most sites have a (largely unknown) percetage-based chance to spawn a uniquely-named enemy ship, which in turn has its own chance to drop deadspace or faction modules, or even unique blueprints.
The enemies present in a given combat site can belong to one of six factions in New Eden: Serpentis, the Angel Cartel, the Blood Raider Covenant, the Guristas Pirates, Sansha's Nation, or the Rogue Drones, and most combat sites are named for the faction found within. Unlike missions, combat sites do not feature enemy ships from any of the four empires, nor are there combat sites guarded by ORE or the Sisters of EVE, while hostile NPCs from the Mordu's Legion pirate faction only appear in the Besieged Covert Research Facility. All enemy ships within a combat site have a bounty that is paid to the player who kills them, and if that player is part of a fleet, the bounty is divided evenly between all fleet members on-grid. As a general rule, bigger ships (such as battlecruisers and battleships) or uniquely-named ships (such as those belonging to pirate leaders or complex overseers) will award higher bounties, and will also be harder to destroy.
Combat sites are usually found via exploration using core scanner probes, and most fall into one of two broad categories: combat anomalies and cosmic signatures. Combat sites found as cosmic signatures can be further divided into DED rated complexes, unrated complexes, and chemical labs. In general, cosmic signature combat sites are considered to be both more dangerous and more rewarding than combat anomalies found in similar areas of space. Expeditions and COSMOS sites are unique combat sites that do not fall into any of the above categories. Expeditions are unique chains of combat sites that have a small chance to be triggered when a player fulfills certain conditions in an Unrated Complex, and each site can only be reached by following its associated journal entry. COSMOS sites are static combat sites that can be found in several constellations across New Eden, and are marked by beacons that are automatically visible on the overview. These sites reward items required for COSMOS missions, materials for storyline modules, faction modules, and other rare items, but can be entered at any time.
The term "ratting" (a verbification of the noun "rat", which is used by most EVE players when talking about enemy NPC ships) is usually used to define the process of finding and completing combat sites. As a profession, ratting can be a very profitable activity, as it provides immediate remuneration in the form of bounties, valuable loot and salvaged goods. Although there are several ship classes designed for this purpose (such as Marauders), almost any combat ship using the proper equipment can be used to complete combat sites. For example, Carriers and Supercarriers are very popular ratting ships, despite not being originally designed for this particular purpose.
Combat anomalies
Combat anomalies are a subset of cosmic anomalies; they do not need any scanning equipment to locate, and instead will automatically appear in the scanning window after a short delay upon entering a system. Because of this, combat anomalies, particularly those found in high-security space, represent an entry-level set of combat sites that many new players will encounter. All anomalies consist of a single grid without acceleration gates, and so can be entered by any type of ship. Combat anomalies will spawn multiple waves of hostile NPCs, and have a low chance to spawn a commander ship that can drop faction items; they also have a small chance of escalating into a DED rated complex.
With the exception of Rogue Drone sites, all combat anomalies follow a naming scheme of (faction) (anomaly). The (anomaly) portion of the name denotes the difficulty of the site, and follows an identical pattern for all factions except Rogue Drones. Generally, the higher the difficulty of the site, the higher the rewards for completing it. Each faction's sites will only appear in regions where their rats are normally found (with the exception of Rogue Drone sites, which can appear anywhere). For example, the Heimatar region has Angel Cartel rats, and therefore only Angel Cartel and Rogue Drone combat sites will be found there. For a list of which pirate factions can be found in which regions, see Dotlan.
The difficulty of possible combat anomalies depends on the security status of the system, with higher security status equating to easier sites. Within high-sec (security status 1.0 to 0.5), sites in the lowest difficulty tier (in terms of difficulty/value) will be found. Low-sec (security status of 0.4 to 0.1) contains the middle tier, and the highest tier will be found within nullsec. Rogue Drone sites differ slightly in which security levels of space they are found in.
Hideaway, Den, Rally Point and Hub sites also have more difficult variants (featuring elite rats) in addition to the basic version, sub-divided into 3 more categories:
- (Faction) Hidden (anomaly) - easiest, but still harder than the basic version
- (Faction) Forsaken (anomaly) - middle
- (Faction) Forlorn (anomaly) - hardest
Besieged Covert Research Facilities
Besieged Guristas Covert Research Facility is an unique cosmic anomaly that is found in all low sec regions. The site has two waves of Mordu's Legion cruiser and battleship rats. They use missiles and will use different damage types to test your resistances to find the weakest one, in addition to tackling you with webs and points. Notable loot, some of it coming from the destructible structures (Guristas Research and Trade Hubs and/or Thukker Labs) which may be found in these sites, includes higher-end implants and ship skin BPCs, as well as some special module BPCs.
Faction warfare
- Main article: Faction warfare complexes
In faction warfare space the faction warfare complexes show up as combat anomalies. Once someone warps to the shite it will also show up as warpable beacon in overview.
Cosmic signatures
Combat sites that appear as cosmic signatures must be scanned down with probes to get a warpin. These combat sites can be further divided to two groups: unrated and DED rated. The differences between the two are minor.
Unrated complexes
Unrated complexes have a good chance to contain an commander spawn that can drop faction items. They can also escalate into an expedition.
The sites contain multiple deadspace rooms separated by acceleration gates. The acceleration gates separating rooms are usually locked and a trigger must be triggered or a key used to proceed. The sites also have triggers for additional defender waves and escalations. The size of ship allowed in Unrated Complexes does not follow a predictable pattern, each site, even of the same size but from a different faction, can have a different ship size limit. For details and ship size limits see the page of individual site.
DED rated complexes
DED complexes are a type of cosmic signature that have been rated on a scale of 1/10 to 10/10 by CONCORD's Directive Enforcement Department. Lower-rated sites contain weaker enemies, but are also limited in the size of ship which may enter them. DED rated complexes are found with probe scanner or escalated from a combat anomaly. There are no 9/10 DED Rated Complexes, however some consider the (faction) Fleet Staging Point to be their equivalent.
The structure of DED rated complexes is very similar to unrated complexes. Gated deadspace pockets enemies and rats to kill.
The difference is that DED rated complexes do not contain additional spawns; more rats do not spawn during site running. Many DED rated complexes also contain locked gates that require a specific trigger to open. This makes blizing possible as not all rats need to die. The sites also always contains one or more structure or overseer that can drop faction items or deadspace modules. Some DED complexes contain additional targets that have low chance to drop a faction module.
Unlike unrated complexes, DED rated complexes do not normally escalate. DED rated complexes that were gained as an escalation from an anomaly are an exception, as they can re-escalate into same site.
DED Rated Complexes each have a difficulty rating associated with them on a ranking scale from 1/10 to 10/10. The rating can help to give a direct indication of the difficulty of the site, as well as the maximum size of ship that can be taken through the complexes acceleration gate. In general the ship hull class that can enter the site goes up by one as the rating goes up by one, until you reach 5/10.
| Rating | Maximum Ship Size Allowed |
|---|---|
| 1/10 | Frigate |
| 2/10 | Destroyer |
| 3/10 | Cruiser (Not including T3) |
| 4/10 | Battlecruiser (Not T3 Cruiser) |
| 5+/10 | Battleship |
Expeditions
Expeditions (also known as escalations) cannot be found by scanning, instead they escalate from unrated complexes. When a trigger of an Unrated Complex is destroyed, there is a relatively small chance that a pop up window will open explaining that details of the location of another enemy site have been found. The site's information is then added to the journal in the expeditions tab.
When the site listed in the journal is finished, there is a chance that it will escalate further, leading to yet another site. Most expeditions have up to 4 parts.
The expedition locations can be in any security space. Usually the first three are in same security space as the site that escalated and fourth is usually in lower security space but this varies.
Chemical Labs
Chemical Labs are found with probe scanning. Even though the probe scanning window categorizes them as gas sites they are actually combat sites. In order to get access to the rewards the site needs to be cleared of hostiles and the containers in site need to be hacked with data analyzer.
The production facilities spawn in null security space only. Rest of the sites spawn in low security space only.
Details of these sites are not well documented. They all most likely contain two waves of enemies and containers that need to be hacked with data analyzer. The sites are restricted to specific regions. The regions in which each site spawns are not known. The regions listed here may not be the only region containing that site.
COSMOS sites
- Main article: COSMOS
Certain constellations contain COSMOS combat sites. These are connected to COSMOS missions but can be run at any time. These sites appear as static complexes with warpable beacons in space, located by using the star map and coloring the map by "DED deadspace reports", or as scannable combat signatures. Not all static DED sites are combat sites, some of them are landmarks or epic mission agent locations.
These complexes are all static and they never move. Even the ones that can be probed are always in same spot.
The static COSMOS sites respawn periodically (some only at downtime). They reward items required in COSMOS missions, materials for storyline modules, faction modules and rare items.[1]
Gated COSMOS sites follow same ship size restrictions as scannable DED rated sites. Ungated COSMOS sites have no restrictions.
COSMOS sites can be found in COSMOS constellations Ani (Minmatar COSMOS), Araz (Amarr COSMOS), Okkelen (Caldari COSMOS), Algintal (Gallente COSMOS), Pegasus (Fountain), Assilot (Cloud Ring), I-3ODK (Feythabolis), 760-9C (Wicked Creek), OK-FEM (Delve), 9HXQ-G (Catch), 09-4XW (Tenal) and E-8CSQ (Vale of the Silent). See COSMOS for full list of known COSMOS sites.
See also
References
- ^ Rakogh Citadel in 3GD6-8 drops Pashan’s Turret Handling Mindlink http://gamingwithdaopa.ellatha.com/eveonline/pashans-turret-mindlink-drops/
