User:Ramong Pares/Sandbox

This page is about ratting at the NSC and not about ratting in general. Plenty of what is written here differs in other parts of New Eden.

Killing pirate NPCs, or ratting as it is also called, is a way to earn ISK in New Eden. At the NSC it is mainly done in asteroid belts or in combat sites. While you face off against NPCs in the same manner as in missions, it is not considered the same. See this page for for more information about running missions at the NSC. Since combat sites can be found by probing, ratting have an overlap with exploration, and players can benefit greatly by having a ship capable of scanning down signatures.

The NSC is located in Serpentis space, and the rats you will face while ratting are Serpentis NPCs. This makes it easy to prepare both the tank of your ship, as well as the type of damage you should do.

Why rat at the NSC?

Main article: Ratting 101

Hunting and killing pirate NPCs (a.k.a. "rats") at asteroid belts or in combat sites is just one of many ways to earn ISK in EVE. Since the majority of ISK is gotten through loot drop, and since loot is dropped at random, the reward for ratting is rather irregular. Some days you can be lucky and get hundreds of millions and even billions worth of drops, and other times you only get the standard bounty from the rats and the from salvage. Still, this is a easy way to earn ISK, and the requirements for doing this can be very low, depending on what kind of ratting you do.

Types of ratting at the NSC

At the NSC there there mainly two types of ratting to be done:
Clearing asteroid belts in a system, and hunting down and completing combat sites. Combat sites can furthermore be divided up in combat anomalies and combat signatures. More on these below.

While abyssal combat sites are also technically combat sites, they have very different rules and are outside the scope of this article.

Combat Sites

Main article: Guide to combat sites

How to be safe from other players

The NSC is located in null security space and players can therefor kill other players without repercussions. Ships used for PvE are often expensive, and hunting these ships can be a fun and sometimes even lucrative endeavour for players. It is therefore vital for anyone ratting at the NSC to stay safe. There are a number of precausions a member of the NSC can take to greatly increase his or hers chance of survival:

• Be in fleet.
• Be in the intel channel.
• Be on coms.
• Keep an eye on local to see if neutral or hostile player enters your system.
• Use D-Scan to check for ships and probes.
• Create and use safespot bookmarks.
  • And stay aligned to these safe spots, if there are unknown players in system.

The idea is to be in fleet, in the intel channel and on coms, so that the player doing PvE activities can be warned in advance if there are hostile players in the neighbouring systems. This way, you can go to a safe spot or dock up in stations or structures before the hunter enters system. Since Cruisers and specially battleships are slow to align and enter warp, it can sometimes be to late to escape when the hunter enters your system, so a warning in advance can sometimes save your ship.

Also, by being in fleet, etc., you can also warn other members of the NSC and thereby helping them survive.

If you get caught anyways

So you followed the above advice, but got caught anyways? This happens. The most important part is to stay calm. Being in fleet and on coms also allows you to call for help if you should be caught.

• Calmly call out for help on mumble and in fleet chat.
• Describe where you are and what ship caught you.
• Stay aligned, so that you can warp off if the hunter loses point or scram.
• Direct your attacks on the hunter.
• If there are help coming, wait for it and tell them if the situation should change.
• Thank your rescuer!

Hopefully you didn't lose your ship. Stay docked and wait for the intel on when hunter leave the pocket.

Unfortunately even with these precautions, you still sometimes will lose ships. In these situations, it is important to go through the process and see what you have learned, so that you don't make the same mistakes again.