How to make ratting space less safe?

Go to Null Space if you want less secure ratting space. You High Sec Gankbears really need to get a clue.

This time can be severely minimized. If you sell stuff from 300 hours of farming, an hour to sell the stuff and make it back once a pipe opens isn’t much in terms of ISK/H.

Yeah, ofc you could argue that you have to do it every so often and you can not stockpile 300hours worth of blueloot, but then again: you very much can. It’s a matter of optimizing. Even if you put 10 hours of “selling stuff” (1h per 30 hours of farm) in there, it only reduces Isk/H by 10mil in the example below.

C5 farming with 2 dreads was quoted with 2.5b in 4 1/2 hours (with rolling, scanning etc), which makes it like 270mil / hr. Which is about the same as realistic super numbers in nullsec.

I would argue that the risk is about the same when you consider Cyno / Escalation threat vs NoLocal / restricted offense.

With that in mind: Removing local in null would demand another buff for Nullsec in terms of ISK per hour, especially when you consider that all Null-PvE happens in static locations warpable to by everyone without scanning.

Do you really want goons to adjust to noLocal with more ISK faster/better than anyone else, making them even stronger in the process?

Nope, it’s about intel bots.

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Still much less than the 1+ bil per hour quoted, and more in line with what I’m used to.

Actually it wouldn’t, since we’re talking about reducing safety, thus we want people to make less. And as I said, if wh ratting is being abused to the same extent that anoms are, then all you have to do is lower the drop’s. Right now, since bots aren’t really abusing it (since you have to loot, haul, and then sell it to make anything), you might not have to adjust anything. You also should realize that SOV null doesn’t have to be the ‘best’ at everything. If EvE was balanced and a real sandbox, all areas of space would have some value, in fact they should be dependent on each other.

I really don’t care who ‘wins’ EvE. I remember when ‘BoB’ was unbeatable, nothing lasts forever. Take a look at npc kills in Delve, those numbers are higher than the motsu area back in it’s heyday. If you ask me, they’ve aleady ‘won’.

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Intel bots work well for gates, not so much for wormholes (at least until they’re found). Besides we’re looking to raise the risk, not make it impossible to rat there.

Remove carriers and other caps from low sec, this way subcaps are the biggest things in space, which should mean more fights as predators feel more embolden to look for a BS to fight without the fear of caps dropping in.

Yeah, but still on the same level as secured Nullsec. And that’s C5. Maybe C6 is better which would then make it the best isk/hr space for ratting? Legitimate question, I really don’t know.

So, bash players because you can’t get botting under control?

If C6 farming yields more ISK/Hr than 270mil, Nullsec isn’t the best at ratting anyway. Nullsec is the best for mining, hands down, but removing local would harm miners too, so what do you want to do to them? Collateral damage?

I really do not care which space is the best space, but be realistic: Removing local would be a severe advantage to a specific group: Gankers (or to put it differently: Players who don’t want fights and just easy kills). They already have the advantages stacked in their favor. Do they really need more advantages for their playstyle?

Did you even read the title of this post - “How to make ratting space less safe”. It’s not about comparing it to other sections of space, not comparing it to other ratting and/or income venues. It’s about how to make it “less safe”. I know you’d like to make your consistent 60+ mil per tic - but sorry that level of income is ruining EvE. Stop wasting time comparing it to wh’s, I doubt all the C6’s combined pull in as much as Delve. We’re not overpopulating WH space with supercaps. Obviously you believe it to be unsafe enough (or want it even safer, I can’t tell), but from my point of view all of SOV null needs to be less safe, that’s currently the best way to slow the flow of isk into this game.

So far, I haven’t read much in this thread that has anything to do with the subject. Everyone is bitching about isk/hour when the issue at hand is how to encourage PvP/smart play.

Let’s look at why ratting space is safe right now. I’m going to ignore WH’s because let’s be frank, WH’s present their own slew of problems that don’t have anything to do with null-bloc supercapital-umbrella-fortress carrier ratting.

  1. Intel
  2. Supercapital Umbrellas
  3. Population Density
  4. Ease of PvE Content

Intel:
Let’s be honest - CCP is never going to touch Local. Should Local be balanced with some sort of delay? Potentially. That said, ratting is primarily safe because in any null-bloc, you can see threats coming from miles away with plenty of time to warp your perma-aligned carrier to station. You also can’t break Intel networks either, since that is entirely player driven and will be taken out of game if necessary.

I think the best solution here, as far-fetched as it is, is to iterate on local with a small tweak: some sort of delay on appearing in local, be it a flat timer delay, or a delay until you decloak from jumping in.

Supercapital Umbrellas:
What is actually wrong here? Everybody needs a way to police their own space, and everyone SHOULD have a Rapid Response Force. The real question here is “How rapid?”. Being able to almost instantly batphone trillions of isk in defense to any ship anywhere within staging is the problem here, as it means even if you ARE caught out, it barely matters. As such, our culprit here is the Cyno.

Some sort of limitation on fitting/using a Cyno will open up more risk in giving attackers a window on people who are caught out or failed to make use of Intel. I’d start with either a Cyno spool up time, so you have to fit enough tank to survive the 30 seconds - 1 minute of DPS that the fleet can bring before anyone can jump in to save you, or, more severely, straight up limit cyno fitting to subcap only. Of course, everyone just needs a free cyno alt to sit near them while they rat, but then you’re forcing them to use an account as a cyno friend instead of making ISK.

Population Density:
IMO, this one is a harder sell, but I think it’s a relevant cause of ratting safety. FozzieSov highly incentivizes densely populated space, and the more densely populated your space is, the easier/faster/safer it is to rat there (given infinitely instantly respawning anoms). Introducing mechanics that force players to spread out means you have less friends on call within range whenever you get tackled, which means you have to pay more attention while you’re playing and opens up more time for attackers to get damage on you.

Ideally, this means introducing some sort of resource scarcity in anoms that causes them to produce less ISK as a system ratting index goes up, incentivizing people to head next door and to other constellations. That said, this is an incredibly complicated issue that will have plenty of collateral damage, and is largely a different conversation.

Ease of PvE Content:
This most directly affects the safety of ratting space, in ratting PvE is so easy that most people can do it semi-AFK or entirely AFK (carrier vs. VNI). If you make the PvE content difficult, not only does it directly make ratting less safe in that you might just die to the rats themselves, but it opens up more room for potential error that an attacking fleet can capitalize on. Rats that point mean your carrier can’t insta-warp away from any threat, and rats that can actually keep up with your carrier and apply DPS to keep you on your toes means you’re more fragile when a roaming gang makes it through your intel channel.


This is by no means comprehensive, but I think my ideas hit some of the biggest levers that need pulling to affect the safety of ratting. The easiest changes would be changes to Cyno, but anybody here can immediately point out the potential flaws in my suggestions. I think what is important is that we all agree on what the actual problems are first, and how we can affect them, before we throw out suggestions.

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A good post, and the topic is more relevant than ever, as CCP is currently going the opposite direction under the “Goon CSM umbrella”.

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One thing I’ll add is that my writeup is based on the assumption that ratting NEEDS to be less safe. Smart players should be able to outmaneuver an attack or a gank. Dumb players should be able to lose a VNI or a carrier, and they often do. Delve is not an impenetrable fortress for ganks: https://zkillboard.com/region/10000060/

I think a lot of this controversy comes from skewed perceptions. People in Goons recognize the risk that undocking in anything expensive and slow presents, despite all of the tools available to avoid dying. People outside of Goons see the fortress they’ve created and think it’s invincible with no cracks of weaknesses. The fact of the matter is that the people who have learned how to hunt in Delve aren’t spending time complaining about ratters and Rorqs on the forums, they’re out killing them.

Not really.

May you share your inside how CCP plans to make ratting and ratting space less safe for ratters?

… and I’m not talking about placebo changes which can be rendered ineffective by just doing a +1.

I can’t tell you their plans, but I can tell you what I’ve advocated for, including delayed local, making Rorqs easier to kill (not ratting, but still bearing), fixing the lurch HIC issue (makes bubble camps in nullsec less effective), among other things.

Ratting is too safe as it is, and nobody is actively going around thinking “what can we do to make this activity safer.”

Wait moving a bubble at 8km/s away from a gate makes that camp easier than a large anchored one?

You guys must be exceptionally bad at gate camping then. Having your bubble move away from the guys you want to prevent warping of from seems counter productive.
What I usually do when I’m in a covert ops in a bubble is, I accelerate, cloak, make 90° turn away from the bubble and always am politely saying “bye” when I leave the system.

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This doesn’t sound ambitious, delayed local may help though. Making Rorquals easier to kill will not do much, if you can just jump in a couple faxes in case of trouble. The lurch HIC nerf is a placebo in the light of removing nullification on combat ceptors.

i still think sov null local chat should be like wh unless you have the adm/strategic level up and a specific anchorable in place, this makes outlying non used systems more dangerous and adds a new dynamic to sov war. Maybe something like the new planned cyno jammers where you can have 3 only in system; 1 online at a time.
Could even have it so that if the adm stuff drops a little low the chat works but not 100%; much like how it works when its not working properly now.

As for ratting and mining the numbers [isk] are fine, the way it works is… stupid. You dont need to change system to rat nor does it pay you to do so or work as a team to get something done.
I think perhaps if there was some sort of crossover fob/incursion style rat events and less anoms (as they are atm) that might prove interesting and could create more movement within constellations and people would be less likely to bubble gates.

the vni scourge is real :stuck_out_tongue:

PS; i still believe removing nullification from combat ceptors was NOT needed or justified over balancing align times and ability to use istabs.

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That’s also why we’re trying to make it easier to kill FAXes and make FAXes less powerful.

It all adds up.

it doesnt quite though, i dont think rebalancing fax’s will have any real effect on large groups, only smaller ones?

It’s going to have an impact in the situation that Tipa mentioned.