PVE School

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Welcome

Shooting red triangles and diamonds for fun and profit, this is what the player vs. environment experience in EVE Online is all about. Until recently, it was fairly boring, predictable and lacked nuance. But now, with the abyss, Pochven, diamond rats, drifters, sleepers, and ded sites, combat exploration sites, the agency, & more - New Eden keeps coming up with new and better ways to kill you. This guide will go over some favorites with a predictably goon flavor of focussing on min/max. There will be links to other references when applicable and as always if something is wrong or out of date feel free to contact the wiki janitor staff to clean it up.

Best Practices for PVE Sites

Player versus Environment gameplay is an important part of EVE Online's economy. Salvage, minerals, ammo, meta modules, tags, DED Space modules, officer modules, and more all come from ratting. A player can start down this path on their very first day ingame and while some aspects have changed from time to time the overall experience remains the same. Shoot red triangles to collect bounties and loot.

Best Practices

Know your damage profile according to the Ratting Reference Page and make sure you are fit accordingly.
Fly the right ship/fit for the site. If you aren't sure, check the Ratting Reference Page.
Bring a mobile tractor unit to help speed up the looting salvaging process.
Salvage! Whether you do it on an alt or bring a mobile depot to refit a Salvager I, you'll be leaving a decent amount of money on the field if you don't. For those who could care less and are lazy members of the Imperium, there are generally plenty of people who will buy salvage on contract via buyback programs.
Refit accordingly. It's generally a good idea to bring a mobile depot to refit. Moving around multiple system in unknown space it's generally a good idea to either (1) not do that or (2) bring a cloak & warp core stabilizer to refit into.
Bring Nanite Paste. Have Thermodynamics 1 trained and bring nanite paste so you can overheat your guns and or shields if you find yourself in a bind. The nanite paste will help you repair it so you can burn it out all over again!
Watch intel. Know the risks. Read The Intel Guide to learn more about watching intel.

Ratting Etiquette 101

Encounter Surveillance System

Do not mess with the ESS. You will be removed from the alliance. End of story.

A little note on ESS drama: we are uninterested in the excuses of anyone who spends 3.5 minutes to 'take all' on an ESS and claim it's a misclick. It takes enough time and effort to steal that it's obvious and notorious goonfucking. To cut down on bullshit we will simply :commissar: you from the alliance.

First Come, First Serve

The first person to arrive at an anomaly has the right to any rats he finds there. This includes mining ops; if you stumble into a mining operation already in progress, don't fuck up their shit. You killing their rats means they have to deal with warping out and possibly losing ships to rats when they respawn instead of just tanking them with a designated ship.

Note that you can use a narrow-angle Direction Scan to check if there's anyone else in an anomaly you're interested in. Direction Scans work up to 14AU, and if you first lock your tracking camera on it (default shortcut is "C") and manipulate the angle of the scan right down to 5º you can often avoid catching anything in-between and see if any player ships are in that anomaly before you warp in on them. This is generally a good scouting skill to learn. If you need to first get closer look out for celestial bodies like planets (avoid using moons) which may be within 14AU. Dragging the left mouse button around in space will reset the camera focus back to your ship.

Claiming Rats

While ratting please keep in mind that calling or claiming rats is not allowed. If someone gives a shout out in local that there are rats in a belt, those rats are up for grabs. You cannot "call" them or "claim" them. While it is acceptable to let someone know that you're on your way, if you get there and someone is already taking care of them, move on. It is always a good idea to let someone in trouble with rats know that someone is coming whether you get there first or not.

Named Wrecks or Cans

You may salvage or loot any unattended wrecks or cans you find, unless they are named. If they are unnamed and the owner is nowhere to be found, you are welcome to them.

Don't be a dick

This rule is pretty self evident but often needs to get repeated from time to time. Repeated offenders will be booted, possibly doomsday'd depending on how IA is feeling.

Skill Plans and Ship types

Below is a general skill plan for killing NPCs with ease. It is by no means an end point but rather a starting point. Every ship from a mining barge to a Battleship needs drone skills and defensive abilities. This will give you a fairly decent start on killing things with drones but it lacks in other turrets so that part can be up to the user.

Drones II (39 minutes, 29 seconds)
Drones III (3 hours, 43 minutes, 13 seconds)
Drones IV (21 hours, 2 minutes, 52 seconds)
Drones V (4 days, 23 hours, 3 minutes, 53 seconds)
Drone Avionics II (39 minutes, 29 seconds)
Drone Avionics III (3 hours, 43 minutes, 13 seconds)
Drone Interfacing I (42 minutes, 22 seconds)
Drone Interfacing II (3 hours, 17 minutes, 21 seconds)
Drone Interfacing III (18 hours, 36 minutes, 12 seconds)
Heavy Drone Operation I (42 minutes, 22 seconds)
Heavy Drone Operation II (3 hours, 17 minutes, 21 seconds)
Heavy Drone Operation III (18 hours, 36 minutes, 12 seconds)
Medium Drone Operation I (16 minutes, 56 seconds)
Medium Drone Operation II (1 hour, 18 minutes, 56 seconds)
Medium Drone Operation III (7 hours, 26 minutes, 28 seconds)
Capacitor Systems Operation IV (16 hours, 33 minutes, 27 seconds)
Capacitor Management IV (2 days, 1 hour, 40 minutes, 23 seconds)
Energy Grid Upgrades II (1 hour, 2 minutes, 6 seconds)
Energy Grid Upgrades III (5 hours, 51 minutes, 13 seconds)
Energy Grid Upgrades IV (1 day, 9 hours, 6 minutes, 55 seconds)
Weapon Upgrades III (7 hours, 58 minutes, 56 seconds)
Weapon Upgrades IV (1 day, 21 hours, 9 minutes, 27 seconds)
Gallente Destroyer I (19 minutes, 36 seconds)
Gallente Destroyer II (1 hour, 31 minutes, 20 seconds)
Gallente Destroyer III (8 hours, 36 minutes, 30 seconds)
Gallente Cruiser I (49 minutes, 1 second)
Gallente Cruiser II (3 hours, 48 minutes, 18 seconds)
Gallente Cruiser III (21 hours, 31 minutes, 17 seconds)
Gallente Battlecruiser I (58 minutes, 49 seconds)
Gallente Battlecruiser II (4 hours, 33 minutes, 57 seconds)
Gallente Battlecruiser III (1 day, 1 hour, 49 minutes, 34 seconds)
Capacitor Systems Operation V (3 days, 21 hours, 39 minutes, 51 seconds)
Medium Drone Operation IV (1 day, 18 hours, 5 minutes, 45 seconds)
Medium Drone Operation V (9 days, 22 hours, 7 minutes, 47 seconds)
Hull Upgrades IV (1 day, 9 hours, 6 minutes, 55 seconds)
Resistance Phasing I (20 minutes)
Resistance Phasing II (1 hour, 33 minutes, 8 seconds)
Resistance Phasing III (8 hours, 46 minutes, 51 seconds)
Resistance Phasing IV (2 days, 1 hour, 40 minutes, 23 seconds)
Repair Systems IV (16 hours, 33 minutes, 27 seconds)
Afterburner I (7 minutes, 2 seconds)
Afterburner II (32 minutes, 49 seconds)
Afterburner III (3 hours, 5 minutes, 29 seconds)
Fuel Conservation I (14 minutes, 5 seconds)
Fuel Conservation II (1 hour, 5 minutes, 36 seconds)
Fuel Conservation III (6 hours, 11 minutes)
Navigation IV (17 hours, 29 minutes, 26 seconds)
Warp Drive Operation I (7 minutes, 2 seconds)
Warp Drive Operation II (32 minutes, 49 seconds)
Micro Jump Drive Operation I (35 minutes, 12 seconds)
Afterburner IV (17 hours, 29 minutes, 26 seconds)
Fuel Conservation IV (1 day, 10 hours, 58 minutes, 52 seconds)

Ship Types

Ratting ships fall into 2 main categories based on tank types - active tanks and passive tanks.

Active Tanked Ships

These ships require a shield or armor booster running, replenishing hit points, in order to deal with incoming damage. These ships are generally more labor intensive than passive tanked ships.

Example.jpg

Passive Tanked ships

These ships have incredibly high shield recharge rate and typically go fast while depending on drones as their main source of damage.

Example.jpg

Total time: 41 days, 12 hours, 50 minutes, 30 seconds

Ratting Guides

Abyssal Deadspace

The Abyss is a timed (20 minute) PVE experience like no other in EVE Online. It has three rooms and if you fail you lose your ship and your pod with all its fancy implants. It has tiers of difficulty, and an AI that you'll be thankful is not operating in regular parts of space. Enter at your own risk but if you succeed, you'll probably want to do it again... and again.

Combat Anomalies

see exploration, shout out to Imperium Expeditions

Cosmic Anomalies

EVE University has a pretty good starting place for general ratting in their Ratting 101 guide. For specific information about killing Blood Raiders in Imperium space look no further: Delve Ratting 101.

DED Escalation Sites

Mission Running

Officer Hunting

Incursions

Wormhole Combat Sites

See The School of Exploration.

Mining

The fine art of extracting isk from the very space around you by shooting rocks.

Advantages

Low entry cost: Gooniveristy provides a free venture for ore mining
Low level of involvement needed: In most scenarios, miners only need to be active 5 seconds for every 3 minutes (to target new asteroids) and an extra 1 minute for every 30 minutes (to unload the full cargo of mined ore in station).
Guaranteed income: Mining products are always in high demand because ships and structures are constantly being destroyed and replaced, and replacing ships and structures requires materials.
Fun factor: Mining in fleets is often a very social activity.

Disadvantages

Skill intensive: Despite the low entry cost, it takes a lot of training time to become an efficient miner.
Non-transferable skills: Mining skills are useful only for mining.
Fun factor: Solo mining, in particular, can be less than exciting. Mining fleets can provide conversation with other players in comms, but there usually isn't much going on otherwise.

Imperium and Goonswarm Rules

Mechanics

The basic mechanics of mining are very simple: Fit your ship with a mining module, approach and target an asteroid, and activate your mining module. At the end of each cycle (usually between 1 and 3 minutes, depending on the module used), the ore mined is automatically deposited in your ship's cargo or mining hold. The mining module will then automatically continue mining until either your cargo/mining hold is full, or the asteroid has been "mined out" (all the available ore in that asteroid has been mined and it disappears). Make sure that you keep the asteroid within range of your mining module (usually by stopping your ship, or orbiting the asteroid) - if you are too far away, the mining module will finish its current cycle regardless, but you will receive no ore.

If you're using mining drones, launch your drones once you are near the asteroid, and give them the command to "mine repeatedly". They will then fly to the asteroid you have targeted, mine for one cycle (60 seconds), fly back to your ship, deposit the ore they have mined in your cargo or mining hold, then automatically fly back to the asteroid and continue mining it (until, as above, either your cargo/mining hold is full, or the asteroid has depleted because it no longer contains any ore). Since the drones have to fly back and forth repeatedly between your ship and the asteroid, it's worth flying as close as possible to the asteroid to keep their travel time down to a minimum.

Once your cargo or mining hold is full, bring the ore you have mined to a station (either fly there yourself or transfer the ore to another player's ship to fly back (see solo mining and cooperative mining for more details)), then return to the asteroids and continue mining!

What can be Mined?

Asteroids and Ore

As their name suggests, asteroids are primarily found in asteroid belts, and most systems in New Eden have at least one. Asteroid belts can be viewed in the overview when enabled, and can also be viewed via the contextual menu by right-clicking in space. Each asteroid belt is composed of a variety of asteroids, each containing a particular type of ore noted in asteroid's name.

Rats will spawn randomly while you are mining in asteroid belts or Cosmic Anomalies. There is no mechanic at this time that will cause the spawns to stop after a certain number have spawned.
Cosmic Anomalies Are scanned using Core Scanning Probes and are ore sites that contain asteroids to be mined for minerals or ice products; the ore often includes types not normally found in systems of that security rating, i.e. anomalies in high sec may contain low sec ore, etc.
Mercoxit Mining Can only be mined with Deep Core mining modules (any module with "deep core" in its name). In order to use these modules you need to train Deep Core Mining, and whilst they can be used to mine other types of ore, they are less efficient at it than "normal" mining modules. Mercoxit mining has one other notable feature: when you mine a Mercoxit asteroid, it will randomly release a cloud of toxic gas which will damage your ship if you're caught in it. Fortunately, the cloud only forms within 5 km of the asteroid, so keep your ship further away to escape any damage (note that this precludes you from using the basic Deep Core Mining Laser I module, as it has a maximum range of only 5 km). Alternatively, you can train Deep Core Mining, which reduces the chance of a cloud forming by 20% per skill level - in other words, at Deep Core Mining V, no clouds will form when you mine Mercoxit.

Rats will spawn randomly while you are mining ice. There is no mechanic at this time that will cause the spawns to stop after a certain number have spawned.

Moon Ore Mining (Moon Goo)

Rats will spawn randomly while you are mining moon ore. There is no mechanic at this time that will cause the spawns to stop after a certain number have spawned.

Pochven

Specific Mining Ships

Venture, the Tech I mining frigate
Expedition Frigates, Tech II mining frigates
- Prospect, an expedition frigate specialized in gas cloud harvesting
- Endurance, an expedition frigate specialized in ice harvesting
Mining Barges, Tech I cruiser-size ships specialized in resource gathering
- Procurer, a mining barge with strong defensive capabilities
- Covetor, a mining barge with high mining yield
- Retriever, a mining barge with a large mining hold
Exhumers, Tech II mining barges
- Skiff, an exhumer with above-average defensive capabilities
- Hulk, an exhumer with very high mining yield
- Mackinaw, an exhumer with a very large mining hold
Porpoise, an industrial command ship that is small and maneuverable
Orca, DO NOT USE IN NULSEC It does not tank well enough and moves too slow to compensate, an industrial command ship with several large transport bays
Rorqual, the capital industrial ship

Useful Links

Eve Workbench Refinery - get an estimate on what you mined is worth
Cerlestes - help to figure out what to mine
Living in Delve : A Guide