Hey!I’m a newbie(alpha clone) and I would like to get a good ships for ratting as a good source of ISK in the early game.Could you guys recommend some ships?(I would appreciate fits as well). Thanks!
Bit difficult recommending ships not knowing your skill level or your wallet.
Any T1 cruiser or battlecruiser can rat with modest profits in lowsec. Depends on what faction you can fly and what weapons you’re trained into. Remember to keep your virtual head on a swivel while ratting and watch D-scan like a hawk, stay aligned out if you can and warp off the moment a neutral pops up on local or D-scan.
I haven’t trained many skills and I hv about 2mil+ ISK
Would destroyers work if I don’t hv a cruiser yet?I would like to fly Minmatar or Gallente.I haven’t trained into any specific weapons tho
BTW what’s D-scan and neutrals?
Thanks a lot!!
Destroyers for lowsec ratting would be…challenging. And even more so for a new player who can’t fit damn near essential Tech II modules or ammunition. I think for 0.4 or 0.3 systems if you’re lucky it might work, but if a hostile cruiser, battlecruiser or battleship spawns on grid you’re f***ed. (Also there’s the whole “anyone can engage you freely” thing)
Honestly I’d recommend you to stick to highsec for now, and join a corporation. They will provide you with MUCH more than forum advice from some stranger, free ships, fitting advice, and all the advice you could ever need and then some.
If you want to stay in lowsec, then I’d HIGHLY encourage you join a corporation, for all the benefits mentioned above as well as some protection and compensation for ship loss. You can quit the corporation once you feel that you’re sufficiently skilled or if the corporation isn’t for you at any time.
D-scan is the directional scanner, it’s a radar like thing found on all ships that scans 14.3 AU from your current location and reveals everything except for cloaked ships. This is the D-scan button:
Neutrals are people who you’ve not set a standing to (so they appear in local list without a marker). They may be friendly or hostile, but in lowsec (and nullsec), all neutrals are assumed to be hostile as they can engage you without CONCORD intervention.
(I think there’s someone on the forums who runs a ratting corp but I can’t remember who that is for the life of me. Hope he/she sees this and offers more (and better) advice than I can.)
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OK got it! Thanks for everything!!
I still relatively new too. I dont PVP and do a lot of ratting. From your question I’m assuming you’re doing it solo. If hats the case then I dont think it matters too much if you’re in low or hi sec. I say this because you can find Dens in high sec and at least for me these are are tough as i can do by myself anyway, why look for harder in low sec?
BTW I’m using a Thrasher so maybe a bigger ship will allow you to do harder sites in low sec. The thrasher lets me do Refuges easily and Dens with a lot of warping away to repair and eventually winning.
If you stick to low sec and you’re solo, you’re going to want/need an empty system since PVP is going to show up if there’s anyone else in system. Starting out empty really gives you an idea if hostels are coming for you since you can see them enter the system and you can especially see if they are alone or in a group. You see two people pop in, you run.
There are several forms of ratting you can in low sec:
- Anomalies, this will require a cruiser or battlecruiser
- Belt ratting, this is doable in a destroyer
- Cosmic signatures (combat sites), some of these are doable in a destroyer, but you also need to be able to scan.
In contrast to high sec, belt ratting in low sec can be quite profitable for a new player. The idea is you warp from asterroid belt to asterroid belt and kill the rats there. The battleship rats may take a bit of grinding, but if you orbit close (500m) they cannot hit you, and they’ll give decent bounties (500k-1m), you’ll also occasionally run into clone soldiers, these are a bit tougher but are still killable in a well fit destroyer, again orbit close and grind them down. The tags they drop are quite valuable.
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What are tags and clone soldiers?
Clone soldiers are a kind of special rat that may show up in low sec belts. They drop an item (the tag) that players can use to raise their security status with CONCORD, suicide gankers who wish to remain at high security status (so they don’t get ganked themselves, or get chased around by faction police) tend to go through a lot of these tags, so they can be quite valuable to sell on the market.
OK got it!Thanks!
recently I also started to do low sec ratting, used the executioner frigate and beat up some Sansha battleships. mostly thanks to this vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSPeTkAyDMw very helpful. and the fit I used is only 700K ISK at amarr Oris
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OP should realise, that low sec means constant interruption. You make ISK in null or in high sec and spend it in low, not otherwise. Because low is where people hunt, fight, etc… Get Gnosis and run some high sec L2 missions till you get skills to run L3 in Praxis. You can do it without interruption and there for get better ISK, IMHO.
I’m pretty impressed that he is that successful in Low with that cheap ISK input. Including the thrill of being in danger to be caught, it sounds way more fun than Highsec ratting, imho.
Well Done!
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The thing about lowsec ratting is that you can start with any T1 frigate, but you won’t be able to do every anom or kill every belt rat with low skills.
That being said, a frigate is fast enough to GTFO when a belt spawn is overwhelming. Many people will say you need a cruiser: that is not 100% accurare, you’ll probably want a cruiser eventually, so you can kill the better spawns. Or bring a friend in a frigate and share the profits.
You’ll just need to learn what you can engage and how to not get caught by players, and gauging this is better done in cheap trash then in your first cruiser. For example: the big belt battleships in Minmatar space should not even hit you when you orbit closely. You can destroy them in a frigate for 800k bounty, but you’ll have an easier time breaking it’s tank with a friend.
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