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Nullsec Ratting Guide For Newbros


Doing combat anomalies or ratting as it's called can be done in nullsec with cheap and expendable ships. In this guide I will show you two T1 cruisers that can be used for ratting and you can make 15-20 million ISK per hour with these ships. Depending on where you live, you may need to use different ship fittings, these fits are optimized for Sansha space.

In Sansha space the NPCs or rats as they are called (hence the term ratting) deal EM and thermal damage, and they also have a weakness against EM and thermal damage. So ideally you want a ship that deals either of those damage types to take advantage of their weaknesses, and you'll want to tank against those damage types. But for example in Angel space the NPCs deal explosive and kinetic damage, so those NPCs require different weapons and fits.

Ship fittings

For semi-AFK ratting I would recommend the Vexor which is a Gallente cruiser, or the Arbitrator which is an Amarrian cruiser. Choose whichever you have better skillpoints toward, although if you are in Voyager Syndicate we tend to prefer the Vexor for some fleet ops.

Here are two cheap low SP fittings for both ships:

Alternatively there are 10MN afterburner variants:

You can copy the fittings and import them into EVE Online through your fitting browser. Both of these can be used as a template for ships in other nullsec regions. Although in Angel space you'll want to go for shield tanked ships rather than armor, as they tend to have higher explosive resistances by default.


NOTE: Before heading out to do some ratting make sure that your fit is cap stable with all modules running. If you run out of cap, you're going to die pretty quickly. In Blood Raiders space you may need more capacitor, as they tend to use energy neutralizers there. Check the last sections below for ways to increase your capacitor via skill training and implants.

Recommended combat anomalies

The combat sites I personally recommend doing in Sansha space are the Sansha Hubs, Sansha Ports and Sansha Forsaken Rally Points. These sites have less frigate spawns, which tend to sometimes aggro the drones, so I recommend killing the frigates first if they spawn. This means you can't go entirely AFK, but the sites are still semi-AFKable. You can of course try other sites as well but these are my recommendations.


You can find these combat anomalies in your probe scanner or through the Agency window on your Neocom menu, it can also be accessed by pressing ALT-M on your keyboard. You simply go to the Exploration section and select Combat Anomalies.

Setting up your ratting operation

Do not rat in your alliance or coalition staging system, that can get pretty busy with hostile pilots. Instead try to find a somewhat quiet system with a good amount of the above mentioned anomalies or similar ones in your area of nullsec. Transport your ratting ship and a hauler to the system, any T1 hauler will do but I recommend the Nereus. 

Then make sure you have joined your alliance or coalition main intel channel, and make a mental note of what systems are close to your ratting system. You can for example check them on Dotlan EVE Maps. This way you can know if there are any incoming threats and get safe if they are about to enter your ratting system.


I also recommend separating your local chat window from your other chat windows (see example overview above), so that it is open at all times. This way you can see everyone who is in your system in the chat list. If neutrals, reds or other hostiles appear in local chat, you can react quicker and get safe as fast as possible. Warp to any station in the system where you are allowed to dock.

Do not rat with neutrals, reds or other hostiles or potentially hostiles in system, unless you are baiting them or something.

Ratting tactics

1. First activate your armor hardeners and armor repairer(s). 

2. Then warp to the site, deploy your drones first and then launch your Mobile Tractor Unit. Make sure your drones are set to "Auto Attack" and "Focus Fire". You can do that once the drones are launched, where it says "Drones in Space" there will be a cogwheel settings icon to the left, click on that and make sure those settings are ticked.

3. Next you can orbit the MTU or some other object in the site at 20-30km with your afterburner on. Just make sure you don't bump into anything, that can be the end of your ship! If there is no object and you are out of MTUs, then unstack one Antimatter Charge S from your cargohold, and jettison that one unit of Antimatter. Proceed to orbit the cargo container at 20-30km. If the site is taking longer to finish, you can find a wreck to orbit. The cargo containers and wrecks disappear after about 30 minutes.

4. Bookmark the MTU into your personal bookmarks so you can pick it up later with your hauler.

5. If there are any frigates, kill them first, but otherwise just let the drones do their thing, you can now rat semi-AFK.

6. Once you are out of MTUs, pick them up with your hauler from the bookmarks.

7. Rinse and repeat until you have enough ISK or get bored.

Skills to train that will improve your ship stats

First you're going to need to train up some ship and drone skills to get your DPS up. Train some of the following skills up as much as you can:
- Gallente or Amarr Cruiser depending on your ship
- Drones
- Medium Drone Operation
- Drone Interfacing
- Drone Navigation
- Drone Avionics
- Drone Sharpshooting
- Drone Durability

Then you also need to get your capacitor stable with all mods running, training the following skills will help with that:
- Capacitor Management
- Capacitor Systems Operation
- Afterburner

The recommended fits in this post are easy on CPU, but require some power grid. Make sure to train up this skill:
- Power Grid Management

Finally you'll want to train up your armor repairing skills and increase your armor resistances (this increases the effective hitpoints you can repair). Here are a few skills in particular for Sansha ratting:
- Repair Systems
- EM Armor Compensation
- Thermal Armor Compensation

Implants that can help

In nullsec there's always a chance you can lose your pod and thus your implants due to warp disruption bubbles and interdictors that can deploy them. I'd advise against using clones with expensive implants in nullsec. So train up Infomorph Psychology to use a jump clone. When you are in nullsec simply jump to an empty clone, or a clone with cheap implants, like the ones below.

You must train the Cybernetics skill to use implants. These implants only require it at level 1.

Here are a few implants that are very cheap and can be helpful:
- Inherent Implants 'Squire' Capacitor Management EM-801
- Inherent Implants 'Squire' Capacitor Systems Operation EO-601
- Inherent Implants 'Squire' Power Grid Management EG-601

This should get you started with ratting in nullsec. Happy ratting!
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