I don't understand ratting (fighting npc pirates)

[Lucius Confucius]

I've gone to several asteroid belts and not found a single pirate. What am I doing wrong?

I want to fight low level easy pirates, since I am new to the game and don't have a good ship yet.

[ZumZoom]

It will be much more profitable to do the mission agents (lvl 1-2 at first), if you're want to do PvE.

[Lucius Confucius]

Thank you. I asked in chat as well and they said the same thing. And also that I can find them via another way that I forgot now.

But I am also wondering about asteroid belt spawns. Do they even work? Or are they completely depleted in the newbie areas?

[ZumZoom]

It's likely that you're in highest security system (0.9-1.0), where there may be very little or no rats in the belts (or maybe newbie systems have their own rules, not sure). If you go to lower security system, while staying in high-sec (0.5 and higher), you will find more and more challenging rats. I never tried doing these, since they are only truly profitable in low and null-sec, and even then it takes a lot of knowledge, effort and luck.

[Lucius Confucius]

That explains a lot, thank you!

[Saul Panzer]

When you're in a somewhat decent ship (destroyer/cruiser) with some skills trained you can get lucky doing combat anomalies (right click in space, go down to anomalies if they're on the list) and try those.
Some of the sites can hit hard if you're not ready for them but a faction spawn can drop valuable modules and implants.
Searching for the name of it on the eve-uni wiki will give you an idea of what you're flying into ahead of time to save you losing too many ships.

[Lucius Confucius]

Cool thanks!

[Zen]

Originally posted by Lucius Confucius:

I've gone to several asteroid belts and not found a single pirate. What am I doing wrong?

I want to fight low level easy pirates, since I am new to the game and don't have a good ship yet.

Might be a bit late, but first, finish all 5 career agents, which will give you multiple free ships and some money. Then you can either do missions, or you can do Abyssals, or you can simply visit anomalies to shoot random enemies, by the time you finish all 5 career agents you will know how to find anomalies.
Belt rats appear in 0.7 and lower systems.

[Lucius Confucius]

That was my problem then, I did not know they spawned in 0,7 and lower, thanks!