Ratting in Null Sec For ISK and Profit

RATTING IN NULL SEC FOR ISK AND PROFIT!

Version 1.0
Author Tiberius StarGazer

Preface
This guide has been writing specifically for use by the Brave Collective and
Hero Coalition which at the time of writing this guide currently live in the Null
Security Area of Catch. While initially intending to be only a basic guide it has
grown to become a mammoth 9,000+ word document which was written over
a period of two weeks. The tactics and advice are a culmination of over 6
months of experience of ratting in Null Sec space and a lot of research has
been put into trying to make this as comprehensive as possible. This
document for the moment is specifically relating to combating Sansha NPC
pirates that spawn in the Catch area using battleships and is not meant to be
a totally definitive guide to ratting everywhere in the Eve Online universe. If
you are reading this then please bear this in mind before using any of the
fitting outlined below they may not be suitable for you if you rat in a different
area of space.
This guide is designed to be an ever evolving document, it is probably fully of
grammatical errors and spelling mistakes that I will correct and update as I
revise the document further. I welcome any suggestions, thoughts and
feedback on any particular element of this guide that will help improve it.
Please feel free to mail Tiberius StarGazer in game, contact me via twitter
@TiberiusStarGaz. As I am keen to hear from all members of the Eve
Community on how to improve this guide, particularly if you have any
suggestions that may actually go entirely against parts of the guide any
additional content supplied by members of the community will be added to the
guide and appropriate recognition will be given.
Fly Dangerously,
Tiberius StarGazer

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Ratting in Null Sec For ISK and Profit

RATTING IN NULL SEC FOR ISK AND PROFIT!

Preface

Part 1 Sovereignty Mechanics and Ratting

1.1 Introduction
1.2 Know your Rats
1.3 Pick your system
1.4 Know your Anomalies!
1.5 Belt Ratting Vs Anomaly Ratting.
1.6 Develop your systems!
1.7 The Encounter Surveillance System (ESS), what is it?

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Part 2 General Survival Tips While Ratting

2.1 Keeping Aware and Staying Safe
2.2 General Survival while ratting
2.3 Dont become creatures of habit
2.4 Dont rat shiny!
2.5 Get a dedicated salvage ship

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Part 3 Ratting Tactics

3.1 Tactics Disclaimer
3.2 Choosing the right ship for the right Job
3.3 Damage Per Second (DPS) and Applied Damage Over Tank
3.4 I think they like you Hobgoblin!
3.5 Amarr Battleships
Overview of Amarr Battleships
3.6 Caldari Battleships
Overview of Caldari Battleships
Caldari Raven
Caldari Raven Navy Issue
3.7 Gallente Battleships
Overview of Gallente Battleships
Dominix
3.8 Minmatar Battleships
Minmatar Battleship Overview
Typhoon
Typhoon Fleet Issue

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Part 4 Profit!
4.1 Loot Reprocessing For Minerals
4.2 Sell modules in doctrines locally
4.3 Salvage is valuable
4.4 Only ship when you absolutely have to

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Part 5 Version History & Contributors

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Ratting in Null Sec For ISK and Profit

Part 1 Sovereignty Mechanics and Ratting

1.1 Introduction
So what do null sec people do to make money? Of course there are many
ways of doing it, but probably the most accessible way for all people to make
money without having to divert skills into niche areas such as mining, industry
and exploration is Ratting. But what is ratting? Basically flying to an asteroid
belt or cosmic anomaly and shooting the Pirate NPCs in those locations for
bounties and loot. But, as with everything in this game it has many levels to it,
and I hope to cover this in this guide to help you to become the most effective
at ratting possible.

1.2 Know your Rats

There are many various types of NPC Pirates or Rats in Eve Online. As this
guide focuses on the Catch region the pirate NPCs are the Sansha. This is
important to know as your going to have to fit your ship / use an appropriate
ship that will be as effective as possible against these particular types of Rats
taking into account tanking and damage dealing. Effective damage dealing
means more ISK per hour.
Damage wise, Sansha use lasers, so their primary damage types are;

Electromagnetic (55%) and

Thermal (45%),

They do not do Kinetic or Explosive, as a result Shield tanked ships are the
weakest against Sansha weapons (this however does not mean you cannot
use shield ships, just maybe some different tactics) so using Gallente, Amarr
or armour tanked Minmatar ships are the best at the job of tanking incoming
damage.
Ironically Sanshas resistances are also weak to EM and Thermal as there
resistances are as follows
48% Electromagnetic
58% Thermal
68% Kinetic Damage
78% Explosive
As a result you want to be doing as much Electromagnetic damage as
possible. This means ideally you want to be using either Lasers, Mjolnir
Missiles or to a lesser extent EMP Projectile ammunition. Make sure you use
the appropriate drones, in this case Amarr is the best as they do the best EM
damage. Blasters and Rails only do Kinetic and Thermal Damage so they are
not the best choice of weapons for Sansha rats but are usable if youre unable
to use anything else.

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Ratting in Null Sec For ISK and Profit

As with all Pirate NPCs the Sansha have a favoured ECM they use against
you, apart from the usual Webbing and Scramming frigates, Sansha Tracking
Disrupt. This means any ships using turrets will have their tracking speed and
optimal ranges reduced dramatically, particularly when there are maybe two
or three rats using tracking disruption. Bear this in mind when picking out your
ship, weapon types and supporting modules. Missiles and Drones are
probably by far the most effective weapon system to use (as neither is
affected by Tracking Disruption).

1.3 Pick your system

This is something that sometimes people neglect to look at, they will pick a
system near to a major hub where it is convenient to move back and forth, but
dont actually analyse the location of where they are ratting, sometimes it
might just be your corps home system, but these systems are not always the
best to rat in. Hostile players are attracted to systems that have a lot of traffic,
particularly if they can go from one system to another quickly to find targets.
Roaming gangs can severely hamper ratting as your best efficiency Player Vs
Environment (PvE) ship is not set up to deal with Player Vs Player (PvP)
situations. Additionally cloaky campers and hot droppers may also set up in a
busy system waiting for the opportunity to gank a nice juicy PvE battleship or
Carrier, so picking a system thats away from the beaten path is always best.
Its very easy to find such a system where through traffic is minimal,
particularly if jump bridge networks are set up as they allow you to jump from
a ratting system to a staging/deployment system quickly and easily should
you be looking to get supplies and ships or drop of loot for transport.
The second consideration is the security status of the system, generally the
lower the better, why is this? Because in lower security the better anomalies
spawn, particularly when they are upgraded as they provide the best
opportunities for ratting and will offer the best ISK to time ratio. But remember,
lower security systems are rare and they can be a prime target for roaming
gangs / hot droppers so always take this into consideration when picking a
system.
The third and final consideration is the upgrade status of the system. But what
is this upgrade you say? Well each system has three indicators under its
sovereignty which indicates how much of a particular activity is done in the
system. In this case we are interested in the military index, and this can be
from 0 to 5. You can find out what the development index of a system is by
opening the info window of a system and clicking the sovereignty button at the
bottom of the window. For every level that a system is upgraded the better
anomalies spawn, which in turn provide more rats to shoot at, better ISK per
hour and better loot drops. But also note, just like you can see there is a
development index, so can our enemies and a high level will attract people
looking for a tasty kill. So maybe sometimes going to a system with a
development level is in place for you to use your current ship with anomalies
you want to run might be better than just going straight to a system with a high
index.

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1.4 Know your Anomalies!

So what are anomalies and how do you find them? Easily enough you can
find Anomalies to run by using your system scanner, they do not need to be
scanned down and you can warp directly to them but there are many levels of
anomalies that you can find in developed systems.
The anomalies you will find in Null Sec for Sansha are as follows in order of
difficulty

Asteroid Belts* (Class 0)

Sansha Hidden Den (Class 4 Level 2)
Sansha Forsaken Den (Class 4 Level 3)
Sansha Forlorn Den (Class 4 Level 4)
Sansha Rally Point (Class 6 Level 1)
Sansha Hidden Rally Point (Class 6 Level 2)
Sansha Forsaken Rally Point (Class 6 Level 3)
Sansha Forlorn Rally Point (Class 6 Level 4)
Sansha Port (Class 7)
Sansha Hub (Class 8 Level 1)
Sansha Hidden Hub (Class 8 Level 2)
Sansha Forsaken Hub (Class 8 Level 3)
Sansha Forlorn Hub (Class 8 Level 4)
Sansha Haven (Class 9)
Sansha Sanctum (Class 10)

* Clearly not an anomaly like the others but it is a starting point for ratting
and it provides its own special bonuses, more on this in section 1.5.
Depending on the development of the system and its security level will
depend which sites spawn and they can range from a million or two to +40m a
site in bounties and loot. Each one is different from the other and variations of
sized rats will spawn in these. Typically the higher end ones will require a
Battleship or T3 to run, but the lower end ones can be run in cruisers or battle
cruisers.
It is worth noting that while ratting in carriers is cool, in many cases it is
overkill and highly dangerous.

1.5 Belt Ratting Vs Anomaly Ratting.

Every system without a developed military index you can Belt Rat in. Belt
Ratting is basically flying from asteroid belt to asteroid belt shooting the rats
that spawn. Admittedly, this is probably the most inefficient way of ratting
because you dont get waves and waves of rats to kill in rapid succession. So
why would you want to do this? Because asteroid belts are the only place that
faction modules, Blueprint Copies (BPCs) and Officer Loot can be found. The
only exception to this is DED sites, but these are not covered in this guide. If
you are lucky enough you may end up with some Sansha ammunition, or
modules which sometimes can be worth 10s of Millions of ISK, if not 100s of
Millions of ISK. Also if you like to do a bit of industry you can obtain BPCs for
the Ancillary Shield Booster and Armour Repairers (small, mediums and
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Ratting in Null Sec For ISK and Profit

larges) and Micro Jump Drives, these when produced can be worth a fair
chunk of ISK. And if youre very lucky you may get an Officer spawn which in
Sansha space are typically named as Chelm, Vizan, Selynne and Brokara,
these are very special as they can drop modules which might be worth billions
of ISK (for example Chelms Modified Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane is
currently selling in Jita for 8bn ISK!) So belt ratting can be a slow and painful
process, but you never know, you might get lucky.
Belt ratting also tends to be a bit safer than anomaly ratting as typically when
an enemy gang comes into system they will first look at the highest level
anomaly in the system to see if someone is ratting in it, asteroid belts quite
often get overlooked.
Finally, belt ratting is the only way for you to begin the development of a
system to level 1 from level 0.

1.6 Develop your systems!

So you have had a look around at some systems, you have found one out of
the way, with low traffic, and maybe even a station (although a corp pos is
also perfectly usable, even preferable) but you look at the index and its at
zero. You talk to your buddies in corp and your CEO and decide that you want
to develop this system. So how is this done?
The first task will be to ensure that there is an active iHub in the system, no
iHub means you cannot install upgrades, this does not mean you cannot start
the process as any ratting you do will count towards your upgrade level, but
once the system hits level 1 you will need an upgrade plugged in to spawn the
level 1 sites and make it easier to get to the higher levels.
Once the iHub is in place and you have your upgrades ready to plug in you
can get to work ratting.
For every NPC you kill it adds to your development tally, but its important to
note that its not the size of the NPC you kill, but the number of NPCs you kill.
A battleship Rat will not contribute any more to your development level than a
frigate will, so if developing a system quickly is your goal, sometimes going for
the anomalies that have the most NPCs in rather than the larger more
valuable ones that take more time to kill.
As you add kills to the development tally the closer you get to the next level,
but time is acting against you as for every 24 hours that pass you lose 25% of
your total development tally, and this happens in real time. If you take a break
from the ratting then you can find very quickly the system level will degrade
and you have to make up for lost time. If there is not enough of you ratting
consistently you will never reach the higher levels.
It is important to note a system will lose development levels irrespective of the
upgrade you have in the iHub. If this happens any anomaly that spawned as a
result of the higher development level will disappear once it has been run and

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Ratting in Null Sec For ISK and Profit

will not spawn again until the development level is raided back was back up to
its original amount and the next down time has passed.
So how can you tell the development level of a system? Well unless you have
access to the iHub information screen, which is usually only by the people in
the corp that deployed the iHub in the first place, you cant. You can view
what level the system is at currently by looking at the system information
window, but other than that there is no way of knowing how close you are to
the next level. And please, do not ask alliance leadership to check it for you!
Im pretty sure they are busy enough running the show and probably dont
have the time to fly out and check the iHub for you. But do find out who you
can talk to about getting upgrades in. From experience upgrades need to be
to be installed quickly as people ratting in a system for extended periods of
time can quickly get burnt out.
But do note, the higher the level of upgrade, the harder it is to install as they
get progressively larger. A level 5 upgrade for example requires a regular
Freighter to move the module which is a massive logistical task in nullsec and
very dangerous.

1.7 The Encounter Surveillance System (ESS), what is it?

The ESS is a mobile deployable that was released with one of the point
updates of Rubicon. It has been a highly controversial deployable and comes
with some good benefits, but it also has a risk attached to it.
Once the ESS is deployed all the NPCs bounties paid directly to you are
reduced by 16% (so a 1,000,000 ISK battleship rat will be worth 840,000 ISK).
This sounds bad right? Wrong an additional 21% will be collected and
stored in the ESS, so that 1,000,000 ISK battleship rat will now pay you
1,052,000 ISK, even better, as the ESS collects bounties then it can pay up to
additional 5% making that rat worth 1,105,263 ISK. So you can see, this will
add up over time to pay out an additional 10% on your bounties.
On top of this for every 1,000 ISK in bounties you will earn 0.15 Loyalty Points
for the navy faction of either the Amarr, Gallente, Minmatar or Caldari
(depending on what faction ESS you have deployed in the system). This
means that our 1m ISK battleship rat will pay out effectively an additional 150
LP (or roughly 150,000 ISK). Again this can also increase to 0.2 LP per 1,000
ISK over time. So your one battleship rat that originally would have given you
1m ISK without an ESS can effectively be worth to you 1,255,000 ISK, a full
25% increase in ratting value.
But this is awesome you may claim! Why is this not used everywhere in
nullsec well it comes with a huge catch. Once the ESS is deployed anyone
can see the module in local, and anyone can fly to the module and access it,
as a result, anyone can steal all the ISK collected for the entire system
which can be significant! So you should only use the deployable in a system
where
i)
you can trust the people around you to share the ISK and not
steal it and
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ii)

In a system where you can pretty much guarantee the

likelihood of a hostile entering local wont just warp to the unit
and steal the ISK. Even though the deployable does generate
its own warp bubble you will only have a couple of minutes to
change ships and go to engage them to protect your ISK
income. Additionally an ESS is a huge advert in a system that
it is a prime ratting hot spot for your alliance.

So before you consider deploying a ESS in your ratting system it is vitally

important that you trust the people who share the system with you, and that
you have plenty of time with which to empty it should any hostiles show up.

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Ratting in Null Sec For ISK and Profit

Part 2 General Survival Tips While Ratting

2.1 Keeping Aware and Staying Safe
When I started writing this guide I tweeted to say what I was doing and I
immediately got the responses of Ishtar, Orbit, AFK, which was quite curious
as I had only that day been listening to a podcast called Crossing Zebras
where the hoast Xander Phoena was talking about trying such a tactic and
loosing three Ishtars in as many days. While ratting it is easy to get tunnel
vision, phase out and just shoot red cross after red cross and before you
know it an interceptor has warped into the site and has tackled you. Its
happened to me once before and losing a ship can set you back many hours
of ratting. Its a pain. So there are a number of things to keep yourself aware
while ratting:
i)
ii)
iii)

iv)

Get onto shared comms with your corp/alliance mates quite often an
early warning can be gotten though this. Having a number of eyes
looking at local at any one time can make help make your ratting safer.
Get in your intel channels very important as this can give you some
systems notice if trouble is on the way.
Get your overview set up properly! This is something thats often
missed, open your options and change the colours for neutrals to show
as a colour. Personally all my alliances negative standing contacts are
set up to flash but a neutral contact showing up in local, particularly
when you have a large number of people in system can be very hard to
spot so make sure that neutrals are also set to flash red.
Get into a standing fleet, if you ever do get tackled help will only be a
warp to button away, assuming of course they ship up quickly and then
dont dock and hide in the station.

By following these simple rules then you can greatly improve your chances of
survival and make sure you are able to get your expensive PvE ship out of
harms way and get into a PvP combat ship.

2.2 General Survival while ratting

But being aware of what happening in comms, local and intel sometimes isnt
enough, there will come a point where a neut slips in and warps to your site
before you have time to react, sometimes you might be pointed by a NPCs
and your unable to get away immediately. So are there other things you can
do to improve your chances further? Well there are.
i)

Never, ever sit in a site at Zero. This may seem to be a bit of a no

brainer, but I have seen often people dropping their heavy tank
battleship or carriers right into the middle of a site, this makes you an
easy target as a hostile warping at 30km will be able to point you
quickly. Indeed sitting as far off site as possible and out of line with any
celestial, gate or station is usually the best tactic. Personally I use a
Raven for ratting and will usually sit aligned to a warp out 150km or
more from the site.
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Ratting in Null Sec For ISK and Profit

ii)

iii)

iv)

Never warp to station, this is a very common thing people do, with the
changes to warp speeds interdictors can warp to a station a lot faster
than your ratting ship can have time to align out and warp then deploy
a bubble on station to catch you. So dont do it. Have a corp pos set up
in system on a moon within 14AU of your home station to warp to. The
likelihood of a hostile entering system having your pos on bookmarks is
virtually nil. On top of that even if they do have the POS bookmarked
and warp to it they will incur the wrath of the POS guns and will give
you a critical helping hand if you are unlucky to get caught. Also with
the station 14AU from your POS you can d-scan the station to see if its
safe to go to or not. It is also a wise idea for the pos to have a hanger
filled with combat ready PvP ships so you can easily switch out and
join the fight if needed.
If there is a lack of a POS then a safe spot bookmark will also do, but
keep in mind that hostile players can (and probably will) scan you down,
so have multiple book marks set up, one that takes you off grid (ie
more than 250km) from the station so you can d-scan the station and
warp to it. Then if its not safe warp off to another safe and keep moving
as soon as you see scanner probes! A good scanner can pin you down
in 30 seconds and you potentially can have a tackle ship on you within
60 seconds.
Do not log off in space until your combat timer has run out, you will
have a 5min non-capsuleer timer to run out when you leave a site. If
you manage to evade a hostile player who has managed to attack you,
you will have a full 15min timer to run out before you can log out.
Logging out any time before this timer runs out means your ship is
floating in space and is still vulnerable to be scanned down and
attacked until that timer runs its course.

2.3 Dont become creatures of habit

It is very easy to find a system, settle in and just undock rat dock. Yes you
might be making many hundreds of millions of ISK, probably even billions of
ISK a month, but with all things in this game, it is in a constant flux, a perfectly
good system one day, may become a hot dropping hotspot the next. Hostile
entities will continuously change their tactics and shuffle round their bridges,
Titans and BLOPs fleets, so no one system will ever be totally safe forever.
You will have to eventually move around. As your space is developed you will
eventually be able to pick and choose where you rat and where you dont. If
you find that someone parks a cloaky camping toon in your favourite ratting
system, find a new one. There is nothing you can do about them, except
change what youre doing. System wide cyno jammers will stop Titan bridges,
but they will not stop covert ops. Grab a buddy with a carrier and ask them to
jump your battleship and salvaging ship to a new system. If its a system that
needs developing, then so be it, but being able to pick and choose your ratting
systems are best. Dont be sedimentary, move around, change locations and
keep your enemies guessing there will only be so many systems people can
cover and monitor. Additionally, having a number of people spread out using
as much of your space as possible means your intel networks are far more
effective at tracking and locating hostile fleets and where they are going and
what they are doing allowing your FCs more time to form up a counter fleet.
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Ratting in Null Sec For ISK and Profit

2.4 Dont rat shiny!

This is something that makes me wince a bit when I see kill mails being
posted that show a 2/3bn ISK ratting ship, or even worse a Carrier or
Dreadnaught worth many more billions getting ganked. If you choose the right
ship for the job there is absolutely no need to have something worth more
than a few hundred million ISK. Think is that shiny module or shiny ship
going to earn me more money than my investment in less time? If the answer
is no dont bother doing it. For example..
I currently use a raven worth 212m ISK, it will bring in around 30m ISK every
20 minute of ratting plus around an additional 20m ISK in loot an hours. So
average income is around 50m ISK an hour the ship is fully paid for in 5
hours of ratting.
A Caldari Navy Raven worth 900m ISK will earn maybe 14m ISK every 20min
and 28m ISK in loot a total of 70m ISK per hour. But the ship wont have
paid for itself for 13 hours.
So optimise your fittings, but really break down how much benefit you are
going to get from that ship / module but never over spend, you will have to
replace it when it dies, and it will at some point!

2.5 Get a dedicated salvage ship

I have seen many occasions where people drop salvage drones in their
battleships and salvage the site once they have no need for their combat
drones, this is fine while you are finishing off your site, but if youre not
shooting at something you really dont want to be in the site.
Deploying a Mobile Tractor Unit (MTU) while ratting is pretty much asking for
a ganking. An MTU is a huge Im here ratting sign, even if you have warped
out to a safe spot, if you was unable to scoop your MTU it will be sat in the
anomaly you was running meaning hostiles can very easily perform the log off
trick within range of the MTU and wait for you to return. It is also a huge
liability because if they get no joy in finding your ratting ship, they will kill your
MTU meaning you loose all your lovely loot which can count for a large part of
your overall profit.
It is worth remembering, that a site that you run, complete but dont leave will
still stay in space, it will not de-spawn meaning people can still warp right too
you upon entering the system. Going back to the previous rules on survival,
you do not want to be in a site any longer than you have to. The best practice
is to save the location of a wreck. Warp out, pick up a Noctis with salvage
drones, tractor beams and warp back to your wreck. So long as its not a
Dead Space site (more on these later) your wrecks will still be there for you to
pick up and loot, but the site will have de-spawned meaning a hostile ship will
have to scan you down before they can get to you. Either way you have a
massive advanced warning unless youre not paying attention to the D-Scan.

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Ratting in Null Sec For ISK and Profit

Part 3 Ratting Tactics

3.1 Tactics Disclaimer
These are tactics that I have personally developed while ratting in the Catch
area against the Sansha NPCs, it is worth noting that these are tactics that
suit my style of play and may not be suited to everyone and may not be for
you and your play style or even your skill sets. If you have any contributions,
particularly when it comes to running smaller sites please do feel free to
contact me to update this section with fittings. Please be sure to provide
1. Why you prefer to use this ship over others
2. Your own tactics while using that ship
3. And a full fitting

3.2 Choosing the right ship for the right Job

As covered in part 1.2 its important to choose a ship appropriate for the types
of rats you will be dealing with in respects of tank and damage types. But
another important point is to pick the correct and most efficient ship for the
correct level of sites. For example you do not want to be using a big slow
battleship to try and take on the smaller belt rats, damage application will not
be as effective as say a smaller ship as a cruiser which will be faster at killing
frigates and cruisers that spawn in the belts / lower end sites as well as being
quicker at warping from point to point.
So the best thing to do, is to start off small, start with a cruiser and then work
up to Battle Cruiser before you finally get into Battleships. Some people use
Carriers while ratting, but in all fairness, this is overkill and asking for a
ganking, and from personal experience, as soon as a very shiny Battleship or
Carrier kill appears in a particular system will attract all sorts of people looking
for a similar kill which can severely disrupt opportunities to rat un-hindered in
a system.
It is also a worthwhile consideration to take that, if your running a low end site
and making maybe only a few million is it worth you losing the ship your in?
If the answer to that question is no then its not worth risking.

3.3 Damage Per Second (DPS) and Applied Damage Over Tank
This may sound like a totally counter intuitive idea, but successful ratting in
null is all about how quickly you can clear your site and how effectively you
can hit the rats. Quite often fitting a ship that can speed / range / burst tank a
site for a short period of time is usually more beneficial than nerfing your down
DPS to be able to sit within 60km of the room and tank all the incoming DPS,
having a totally cap stable ship is not always a benefit, but often can be a
hindrance. A 600 DPS ship should be able to clear a high end Sanctum or
Haven in less than an hour. So where you can avoid damage do. Use speed,
resistances, and range from the NPCs to reduce the damage you received
and refine your fits to do more and more damage until you find the optimal
fitting. The whole goal is to clear sites as quickly as possible to maximise your
income and minimise the time your ship is out and at risk.
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Ratting in Null Sec For ISK and Profit

3.4 I think they like you Hobgoblin!

In a patch called Retribution that came out back in 2012 meant that the NPC
AI was changed so that NPC ships of various size will attempt to engage
targets they will be better at attacking, as a result, frigates will aggressively
attack your drones, a group of four NPC frigates can make short work of a
flight of 5 drones considering they have weapons that can track them as well
as web and warp scramble them turning off their microwarp drives which
means a caught light drone will die very quickly to a small group of frigates.
So you will need to adjust your tactics accordingly. Try to eliminate the smaller
ships via other means before they can get in range. For ships using turrets
and sentry drones, this is a relatively simple process, in that you kill them as
far away as possible. If you have a missile ship, then your only option is to
use your drones as large missiles have a hard time hitting frigates.
NPCs will attack a target based on one simple criteria whats the closest
ship it can kill most efficiently. In the case of cruisers and up, they will 100% of
the time focus on your battleship. Frigates however will prefer to attack your
drones. So if you send your drones out to attack incoming frigates they
typically will switch to them. This is bad news. It is better to wait for the
frigates to get within 10km of your ship before launching your drones and
engaging them, you can then assist your own drones by target painting or
webbing a target frigate, this will allow your own drones to apply your damage
sooner. But you will need to pay attention to your overview, as soon as those
frigates switch to target your drones you need to pull them back in and wait for
the frigates to retarget you. You can see this as the icon in the overview will
go from having a red box around it, to no box around its icon. By managing
your drones in this way you should be able to save them from being wiped out
by NPC frigates.
By curious occurrence, NPC frigates appear to totally ignore Geckos. Not sure
why, but a Gecko is perhaps the best anti frigate drone in the game. Or at
least until they get in close to your battleship, in which case you will need to
deploy light drones to deal with them.

3.5 Amarr Battleships

Overview of Amarr Battleships
Amarr Battleship suffer from a significant number of drawbacks which means
they typically tend to be very unreliable in ratting against Sansha. While they
are tanked very well to combat Sansha and the lasers natural damage output
of Electromagnetic and Thermal damage mean they are very good at applying
damage to Sansha ships. Sadly, as the two main battleships being the
Apocalypse and the Abaddon are both primarily turret based ships they are
very weak against tracking disruption which severely restricts their range and
tracking when attacking meaning they have to be up close and personal. Add
in lasers heavy capacitor usage and Armour tanks high capacitor usage for
repairing you typically have to nerf any Amarr battleship fitting to the point
where its effectiveness is generally far below any of the other alternatives. As
a result, I will generally not recommend Amarr Battleships for Ratting.
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I also attempted to use the Armageddons drones, but as a more PvP centric
bonuses ship it loses half the bonuses that the Dominix enjoys for its drones
making the Dominix the best option for PvE situations.
If however, you use an Amarr battleship for ratting please let me know and I
will be happy to test it out.

3.6 Caldari Battleships

Overview of Caldari Battleships
The Caldari line of battleships is a mixed bag when it comes to effectiveness
in ratting vs Sansha. As far as tanking Caldari ships are a far cry from being
very effective due to the huge Electromagnetic hole in their Shield
Resistances which of course has to be plugged which means you have to
take something away from the fitting, but with one notable exception the
Raven, which I have covered in more detail below.
The Rokh suffers from the expected tank hole that all shield tank ships suffer
from, but in addition it is a turret ship which is venerable to the Sansha
tracking disruption, the heavy drain on capacitor from the hybrid weapons,
and their restrictive long range with low damage rails or short range high
damage blasters which makes it very difficult to keep effective.
The Scorpion, while undoubtedly the best looking Caldari battleship is the
lines PvP oriented battleship with its electronic warfare bonuses. This mean it
is not suited for PvE situations.

Caldari Raven
The raven as far as the suggested battleships in this line up is an odd one, but
it is one of my favourites. It does not have an optimal tank to deal with the
Sansha so you have to give up some elements of the fitting to plug a large EM
hole in the ships damage profile. This detract a bit from the possible DPS
output of the ship. However, the Ravens unique ability to be able to project
damage out to well over 150km when the Sansha usually deal the majority of
their damage at the 3km-60km range means that it can sit far out from a site,
or even orbit it at 140km or more and avoid the majority of the damage. The
Micro Jump Drive will also give it an ability to hop from one point in the site to
the other should the rats start getting a bit to close for comfort. This also
works two fold as any hostile warping in on the site will often find you sitting
many tens or hundreds of kilometres from the site making their task to catch
you that much harder.
By using the Ravens Cruise missiles you can maintain constant (if delayed)
DPS to the rooms battleships. Indeed the Cruise missiles are best used
focusing on the battleships and using your drones to engage the smaller ships
you should be able to find that even with mediocre skills you will be killing
12m ISK worth of ships every 20min. However, drones can be destroyed!
Often the rats will target your drones instead of you in an attempt to get them
off the field. This is particularly true of light drones Vs frigates and the Sansha
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Frigates will make quick work of your light drones if you are not paying
attention. However after some experimentation I have discovered that all
ships seem to ignore Geckos, which are effective against both frigates and
cruisers while en route to your ship. Geckos are not very effective against
small frigates if they are able to get into an orbit around your ship as they can
only track frigates going in a straight line so you have to keep a flight of small
drones for that eventually. Geckos may also struggle against some of the
smaller/faster stronger active tanked cruisers.
When you take your Raven to a site warp in at 100km from your safe POS
and once you land align back to your POS. Then set your speed to or 1/3
so you slow boat away just fast enough to keep a distance from the spawns,
but not to fast that you end up more than 150km from the spawns or
eventually getting so far from the site the rats stop engaging you and burn
back to the site at high speed (this does happen!). The Order of engagement
for each weapon systems is as follows
Cruise Missiles > Battleships > Cruisers < Frigates < Drones
Use your Gecko when the frigates are at range and clear them off the site first
as these usually tend to have warp scramblers and stasis webifiers. If they get
to close deploy your light scout drones to destroy the frigates but do keep
an eye on them as the Sansha frigates will the majority of times immediately
switch to your drones, but hopefully you have killed enough of the frigates that
they do not have enough fire power to kill your drones too quickly.
In the mean time your Cruise missiles should be focusing on the Battleships, if
you absolutely need to then you can use the cruise missiles on the Cruisers,
however be wary that while some can be killed in two or three shots there are
others which can take almost as many as a battleship but only give a fraction
of the reward. As a result engaging these can be wasteful so make sure your
Gecko is put to good use. Under no circumstances should you use cruise
missiles against frigates.
Fitting Highs
Mids

Lows
Rigs

6 x Cruiser Missile Launcher II

+ Mjolnir Cruise Missiles
1 x Drone Link Augmentor II
2 x EM Ward Field II
1 x Thermic Dissipation Field II
1 x X-Large Shield Booster II
1 x Sensor Booster II
+ Targeting Range Script
1 x Target Painter II
1 x Large Micro Jump Drive
4 x Ballistic Control System II
1 x Capacitor Flux Coil II
1 x Large Capacitor Control Circuit
1 x Large Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer
1 x Large Loading Bay Accelerator

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Drones

1 x Gecko
5 x Acolyte II

Pros
Very Long Range Damage
Projection.
Consistent Damage
Application vs Time and
Range.
Range projection adds layer of
safety.
Cruise missiles can focus on
big ISK rats.
Cruise missiles are OK at
hitting Cruisers.
Moderate overall DPS.
Immune to Sansha Tracking
Disruption.
Very Mobile.
Cheap to buy and fit
Easy to train into

Cons
Weak natural tank.
Cruise missiles have trouble
hitting some Cruisers.
Cruise missiles are nearly
ineffective against frigates.
Slow
damage
application
times.

Caldari Raven Navy Issue

Like the standard Raven the Navy Issue variant takes the great long range
damage application and improves on its ability to use missiles against smaller
targets thanks to a bonus to explosion radius, the Raven Navy Issue is much
better at engaging Cruiser sized rats and to some extent frigates. Add this to
the Raven Navys extra drone bandwidth and larger drone bay means it is
more flexible with the drones it is able to field. In this case it can launch a
Gecko and four scout drones giving it a much better damage application when
dealing with small targets. While the Navy Raven lacks the rate of fire bonus
the standard Raven its it instead gets two additional launcher slots to make up
for this. It is a natural upgrade from the Raven even if it is a bit expensive.
Fitting Highs
Mids

Lows
Rigs
Drones

8 x Cruiser Missile Launcher II

+ Mjolnir Cruise Missiles
2 x EM Ward Field II
1 x Thermic Dissipation Field II
1 x X-Large Shield Booster II
1 x Sensor Booster II
+ Targeting Range Script
1 x Target Painter II
1 x Large Micro Jump Drive
3 x Ballistic Control System II
2 x Capacitor Flux Coil II
1 x Large Capacitor Control Circuit
1 x Large Large Warhead Flare Catalyst
1 x Large Loading Bay Accelerator
1 x Gecko
5 x Acolyte II
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Ratting in Null Sec For ISK and Profit

Pros
Better at hitting cruisers than
the standard Raven
Longer Damage Projection
Longer Targeting Range
Better overall DPS
Faster than the standard
Raven
Can field a Gecko and four
light drones at the same time
Larger drone bay for spares
Better tank vs Sansha

Cons
Still relies on drones to do
majority of damage to Frigates
Expensive Hull

3.7 Gallente Battleships

Overview of Gallente Battleships
Gallente battleships sit in a unique niche as there is no one single Battleship
that has bonuses that are purely PvP orientated, the Amarr have a neuting
battleship and the Caldari have an ECM battleship, but all of the Gallente
battleships have bonuses which can be very easily applied to PvE. That in
addition they have armour tanking resistances which mean it is a lot easier to
tank them for Sansha sites. In regards to weapons, the Hyperion has
excellent tanking bonuses which mean it is, unlike many of the other turret
based platforms mean it is very suited to getting up close and personal and
tank the damage of a room very well. The Megathron however has specifically
weapon bonuses. But again both these turret ships will suffer from the Sansha
tracking disruption. However The Dominix is another matter entirely.

Dominix
The Dominix uses drones to great effect to combine the power and damage
application of a turret ship, but with the benefit of reduced ammunition costs
and tanking bonuses that are best suited in dealing with the Sansha. The
Sentry drones the Dominix is able to field can project damage almost as far as
the Caldari Raven but is able to apply the damage much better against all
types of NPC ships without fear of tracking disruptions. The ability for the
Dominix to also fit hybrid guns gives it some additional DPS should any ships
get to close.
The best course of action is to warp to a site at 70km, and immediately align
to the pos/safe spot. Once you are pointing in the right direction, stop the ship
and launch drones. When someone comes poking around simply; scoop
drones, activate the micro jump drive, and then warp out using the residual
velocity from the MJD.
To clear the site, drop your sentries and begin targeting the frigates in the
sites. Thankfully unlike human controlled frigates, NPC frigates do not spiral in
to you and burn more or less right at your ship with their micro warp drives on,
this means as soon as they get within range of your sentry drones they can
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more or less be alpha struck which then means you can then focus on the
cruisers which follow shortly behind, and then concentrate on the battleships.
Combine this with Railguns and the accurate damage projection of the
Dominix is unparalleled. Unfortunately as with all turret based weapons there
are windows of opportunity with smaller ships which mean if you are unable to
remove some of the smaller ships before they get under your guns they can
become very problematic, thankfully, because the Dominix is mostly a drone
boat it can easily deploy new drones to deal with this and has an ample
supply of them. As an additional bonus the Dominix can choose drones which
give the best possible damage type, in this case the Amarr drones which
apply EM damage. The better resistances in tank to EM and Thermic damage
types means the Dominix has by far the best tank of all the ratting ships
available to combat the Sansha.
Unfortunately, because the Dominix relies on its sentry drones so much,
which are stationary, the Dominix also has to be stationary, unless of course
you dont mind having to fly back somewhere to pick them up later, or leaving
them behind if you need to make a quick exit. Keeping that in mind the ship
has been designed to be cap stable which will allow the Dominix to run its
Armour Repairer pretty much permanently enable it to absorb continuous
damage from the site. Fitting
Highs
Mids

Lows

Rigs
Drones

2x Drone Link Augmentor

4x 425mm Rails II
+ Lead L Charges
1 x Omnidirectional Tracking Link II
2 x Cap Recharger II
1x Large Micro Jump Drive
1x 100mn Afterburner / 1x Target Painter
1 x Large Armour Repairer II
1 x Energized EM Membrane II
1 x Energized Thermic Membrane II
1 x Damage Control II
3 x Drone Damage Amplifier II
1 x Large Auxiliary Nano Pump
2 x Large Capacitor Control Circuit
5 x Curator II
5 x Acolyte II

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Pros
Accurate long range damage
application from sentry drones.
The best available resistances.
Able to absorb a large amount
of consistent DPS.
Cap Stable.
Mostly immune to tracking
disruption.
Ability to choose drone types
for particular situations.
Low ammunition costs.

Cons
Lack of mobility
Drones are vulnerable to
attack by NPCs
Majority of DPS applied to
small ships within a narrow
engagement range

3.8 Minmatar Battleships

Minmatar Battleship Overview
Minmatar battleships benefit from the fantastic fitting options their ships have
that enable you to either both armour tank or shield tank your ships. The only
notable exception is the Maelstrom which along with the Hyperion is the only
ship with a repair bonuses, but in this instance for shields. With the Maelstrom
and Tempest being both turret ships their use as ships against Sansha are
somewhat limited, the Typhoon however is a special beast.

Typhoon
The Minmatar Typhoon has the unique ability to combine its bonuses to cruise
missiles with an ability to Armour tank. Exchange a missile velocity bonus to
the with an explosion velocity bonus you will take one of the best features
from the Caldari Raven Navy which allows it to hit smaller targets, but
sacrifice some range. In addition to this the Typhoon has a larger drone bay
and double the bandwidth of the Raven allowing you to carry and additional
Gecko, this is something the Caldari Navy Raven cant boast. Add in the
Armour resistances that are you have a far more capacitor stable ship than
can absorb and repair damage over a longer period of time than raven can
(with my own particular skills I can have a Typhoon rep continuously for 16
minutes before cap becomes and issue).
Similar to the Raven, you warp into the site at 100km and Orbit at about
130km while using your drones to take care of the Frigates and Cruisers and
concentrating your cruise missile fire on the Battleships.
Fitting Highs
Mids

6 x Cruiser Missile Launcher II

+ Mjolnir Cruise Missiles
1 x Drone Link Augmentor II
1 x Large Micro Jump Drive
1 x Sensor Booster II
+ Targeting Range Script
1 x Target Painter II
2 x Cap Recharger II
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Lows

Rigs
Drones

3 x Ballistic Control System II

1 x Large Armour Repairer II
1 x Energized EM Membrane II
1 x Energized Thermic Membrane II
1 x Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
1 x Large Capacitor Control Circuit
1 x Large Warhead Rigor Catalyst
1 x Large Loading Bay Accelerator
2 x Gecko
5 x Acolyte II

Pros
Better at hitting cruisers than
the standard Raven
Can field two Geckos with
space for five light drones.
Better tank vs Sansha
More Cap Stable for consistent
tanking
Cheap Hull
Faster than all other
battleships
More flexible fitting

Cons
Shorter range than the Raven
Smaller burst rep means its
unable
to
stand
higher
amounts of DPS for longer
periods of time

Typhoon Fleet Issue

What do you get if you put the drone bay and bandwidth of a Dominix and the
missile ability of a Raven together? You get a Typhoon Fleet issue! The Fleet
Issue Typhoon has an unparalleled drone bay and bandwidth which allows
you to just like the Dominix deploy a full flight of 5 sentry drones, this then
allows you to combine both the at range damage application of turrets at the
smaller ships, while at the same time having the long range heavy damage
dealing against the larger ships with your cruise missiles. Sound perfect right?
Not quite, the Fleet Typhoon only gives bonuses to Cruise Missile and Large
Projectile Damage, unlike the regular Typhoon which gives two bonuses to
Large Missiles and the Dominix give two bonuses to Drones. So as a result its
actual final overall damage application is not as good as the single weapon
systems on those ships. However, this is a trade off as you get total versatility
in approaching a site, you can use your missiles to concentrate on battleships,
where the damage bonus is very much more potent, and use your sentries for
when things get a bit close. So it is not a huge step up from either of those
ships in terms of overall damage application, but it is far more flexible.
Fitting Highs 6 x Cruiser Missile Launcher II
+ Mjolnir Cruise Missiles
2 x Drone Link Augmentor II
Mids 1 x Large Micro Jump Drive
1 x Sensor Booster II
+ Targeting Range Script
1 x Target Painter II
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Ratting in Null Sec For ISK and Profit

1 x Cap Recharger II
1 x Omnidirectional Tracking Link
Lows 1 x Ballistic Control System II
2 x Drone Damage Amplifier II
1 x Large Armour Repairer II
1 x Energized EM Membrane II
1 x Energized Thermic Membrane II
1 x Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Rigs 1 x Large Capacitor Control Circuit
1 x Large Warhead Rigor Catalyst
1 x Large Loading Bay Accelerator
Drones
5 x Curator II
5 x Acolyte II
Pros
Dual weapon systems give
greater ability to engage and
destroy all size ships in sites
Additional low provides more
ability for tank or damage
enhancers
Better overall tank than the
Typhoon
Large drone bay for spare
drones
Additional high slot allows for
greater drone control range

Cons
More fitting dedicated to
damage modules means less
cap stable
Lack of special bonuses for
drones means more fitting has
to be given over to drone
damage amplifiers.

Part 4 Profit!
4.1 Loot Reprocessing For Minerals
As weird as it may sound, all those lovely modules you get while ratting in a
site are often just not worth moving to sell. Often a module will be worth more
than its ISK value in minerals particularly when you take into consideration the
time, effort, risk and ISK involved in jumping it back to highsec. While I will
often collect a lot of the modules, when the time comes I use a helpful
application called Eve Refinery to assess the value of my modules in my local
trade hub and then make a decision of if I should crunch it up or sell it. The
useful part of the Eve Refinery application is that you can put into it current
ISK values of minerals both in highsec or customise them for minerals that
maybe your local industrialist types are buying from the alliance. If it shows
they are not worth moving, refine them, sell them or even better, use it to
manufacture the BPCs you may have found from ratting in belts, these
typically (although there are some exceptions) are far more valuable to
manufacture, even with mediocre skills, and then ship to highsec. Remember,
modules often take up a lot less space than minerals when shipping, so make
sure you are not wasting ISK on shipping minerals out you can sell locally.

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4.2 Sell modules in doctrines locally

Often overlooked by many people in an alliance, but all those meta 4 modules
you pick up while ratting are worth something to someone. (At least until the
module rebalancing comes along at some point.) Often you will have Corp. /
Alliance mates that cannot use the tech II modules that a doctrine can
demand. This of course is more than likely in rookie orientated organisations
such as HERO, so keep up to date with the current doctrines and rather than
ship those modules out, put them up for sale in your local staging system, you
will be surprised how much you can make on mark up there than compared to
highsec while at the same time not losing any ISK to shipping costs.

4.3 Salvage is valuable

Salvage from sites is hugely valuable to the industrious rig manufacturer in
nullsec as these tend to be the hardest to obtain modules. So again sell your
salvage in a local manufacturing centre. These typically will be Amarr stations,
make sure you ask around and find someone who can take these materials
off your hands quickly.

4.4 Only ship when you absolutely have to

I think this pretty much speaks for itself, make sure you have a decent sized
load to send up to highsec before you do so, your logistics bros will love you
for it and the overall cost to you in the long run will be significantly cheaper.

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Part 5 Version History & Contributors

Version
0.9
1.0

Notes
Initial publication of the guide.
First pass review by Drunklies

Contributors
Thank you to all the people who have helped me complete this guide
Drunklies

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