EVE's Weekend Warrior, EVE Blog Banter #9.Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah, Kill the Rats.The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, "Beacons, beacons, beacons, beacons, beacons, mushroom, MUSHROOM!!!".
The Eden Explorer, Blog Banter: The Map! The Map!.Miner With Fangs, Blog Banter - It's the Scotch.Diary of a Space Jockey, Blog Banter: BE GONE!.This would make ratting more engaging and varied. I want the known space rats to act in a similar fashion so that they more properly emulate players. I think Sleepers were done right: they guard installations and mostly ignore belts, and they send in bigger waves as their numbers are diminished by the players.
The end result of this mechanic overhaul would be a more realistic form of interaction with rats. I want a Blood Raider carrier to show up on my overview and me have to call in my corp mates to take it down before it or its escorts kill me. With all this in place, introduce rats with drones, rats using cloaking devices to set traps, and rats using more exotic ship types (like Heavy Interdictors!) and, one more thing. The idea is not to nerf the typicall ratter's overall income but to make it less of a mind numbing and immersion breaking exercise.ħ. More complexes found using the on board scanner should be added to make up for the removal of current belt rats. Rats should practice target switching like Sleepers do.Ħ. Rats should run away if its going badly or if more players warp in.ĥ. a fleet of three ships sitting in the belt should be attacked by more rats than if it were one ship.Ĥ. These spawns should scale their size to the number of player ships that are in belt, i.e. It means mining operations will be consistently attacked but belt ratters will be frustrated and this is a more realistic scenario. That means if you stay in a belt for a while eventually the rats will scan you down and attack you, but you can't farm rats in belt after belt after belt. Add rat spawns that will come into a belt after you are there after a random number of minutes, range from 1 to 100 minutes. The size of the mining operation would depend on the security rating of the system, and the number and size of the guarding rats should be at least double what you run into in a belt today, if not more.ģ. Also, the mining ships and haulers should begin to warp soon after your ship(s) arrive in the belt. When a mining operation is wiped out, it respawns somewhere else in the constellation. These spawns should be limited in number per constellation such that you find one in every ten to fifteen asteroids belts you check out. Randomly spawn pirate fleets that include mining ships, haulers, and sentries. Remove the current implementation of belt rats entirely.Ģ. Here is my seven step plan to improving the system.ġ. The current implementation is obviously a mechanic for making money and nothing else. What are they doing there? What do they do to keep occupied the other 12 hours no one is in system? Why do they bring the least amount of firepower when obviously out-gunned and why do they not run away? Yep, I think that NPC pirates sitting around in belts with nothing to do except shoot some pod pilot that happens to warp in is insanity. This month Keith "WebMandrill" Nielson proposes to reverse the question and ask what may be a controversial question: "Which game mechanic would you most like to see removed completely from EVE and why? I can see this getting quite heated so lets keep it civil eh?" Last month Ga'len asked us which game mechanic we would most like to see added to EVE. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post! The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. Welcome to the ninth instalment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux.