Welcome Commander

It appears you are looking to join The Fuel Rats.  (Yay!)

We are glad that you are interested in joining our ranks. A Rat’s life full of excitement, narrow rescues, happy clients, zooming fuel limpets, other rats cursing on instancing, a lot of general squeaking and adrenaline awaits you!

Well we have a six-step process for you to join us. Follow all the steps below and you soon™ will be at maximum awesome and able to go and rescue commanders from the vastness of space with all the class and style of a glorious Fuel Rat.

Welcome to the Mischief!

"Questions are like fuel limpets. They're useless if you keep them for yourself" - CMDR Lain Steiner (Feb 3304)

Rattatoon for The FuelRats

Step 1 - Register

It takes a special kind of CMDR to want to be a Fuel Rat. Fuel Rats fight against the galaxy’s greatest foes: Time, instancing, distance, and the countdown as a clients life-support depletes.

We need CMDRs who are enthusiastic, disciplined, and willing to go way above and beyond the normal call of duty.

If we can in any way possible save a client, we will.

Because of both U.S. and EU law requirements we do not allow members under the age of 13 years - If you do not meet the age requirement we must ask you to wait with signup until you do.

Terms of Service (ToS): http://t.fuelr.at/tos

Privacy Policy: http://t.fuelr.at/privacy


If you change your CMDR name or gamertag, or setup another account to play on, do NOT register again. You can change it on your Fuel Rats profile.  If you need to change or correct your email, this can also be done from your profile on the website.



If you’re our kind of CMDR, we’ll welcome your assistance.

Before you sign up, think about whether you’re willing to:

  • Cooperate as part of a team, to do great things
  • Lead when leadership is needed
  • Follow when following is the right thing to do
  • Do whatever it takes to rescue clients
  • Generally be a cheerful, funny, helpful Fuelrat.
  • Fuelrats are strictly non-PVP while on rescues.


If you haven't already made an account, click here:  Sign up and get your name on our roster


Step 2 - Setup IRC

All our rescues are carried out on our IRC channels.

Join our IRC channels via our website or via an IRC client.  CLICK HERE for the Frequently Asked Questions about IRC. (Yes, this link is important)

  • Our primary IRC channels are #ratchat (casual, back-room like chat) and #fuelrats (rescue channel).  You can access them by typing /join #ratchat and /join #fuelrats.

  • Be sure to regularly check the channel topic in #ratchat for important information.  This can be accessed by typing /topic.

Setting up an account and joining our IRC channels also requires you to comply with our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

You will also need to identify in order to participate in rescues, training, and drill activities.  Check out our guide on identifying in IRC.


Step 3 - Outfit Your Ship


Your ship is your key to a successful rescue. Get it wrong and you could be left staring at the client and watching them blow up in your face. No one wants this so when you outfit your ship make it the best you can.
We have a few ship loadouts we’ve already tested and prepared here, or you can go and create one of your own!

At the very least you should include:
  • Fuel Transfer Limpet Controller (FTLC)
  • Cargo Rack with room for at least 8 tons of limpets
  • A jump range of at least 20ly
  • Fuel Scoop so you don't need to be rescued


Step 4 - Learn the SOP (Standard Operating Procedures)

We have gathered a lot of knowledge over time and have a bank of knowledge we would like to impart to you. Read the pages carefully.  


We have developed the SOP based on tried and true practices, and you are expected to understand and be prepared to implement it prior to rescuing clients.





Here are some links that give you all the information you will need about The Fuel Rats:

Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)

A Not-So-Brief Guide to Being a Fuel Rat

The Fuel Rats Lexicon

Issues and How To Solve Them

Wing Mechanics Tutorial

Xbox Troubleshooting

PS4 Troubleshooting

Step 5 - Get Trained

Trainings are not mandatory but they can be helpful for learning basic and advanced skills.  

Training can be especially useful for Ratlings before their drill, but in no way should make them feel pressured to complete their drill before they're ready.  

As always, this training is 100% optional and voluntary.

Training is not required in order to rat or dispatch, and will not take the place of or mimic a drill.

If you are interested in scheduling a training please read this page: Training Opportunities and DM a trainer that works for your active times.


Step 6 - Get drilled / Demonstrate Your Knowledge

Drills are not mandatory but they are highly advised.

We recommend that each new rat to go through a drill (regardless of experience with the game) so that we can ensure that you can go out there and save our clients with minimal effort, risk to life and while being the badass we all know you can be!

Each dispatcher chooses whether or not to send an un-drilled Rat on a rescue and can decline to dispatch you to the client.  However, using live cases to practice for your drill is not how we do things. If you do not feel confident that you have the routines down to take on the drill, you should probably not be going on live cases. Observe some of them instead, and learn from those how our workflow runs, and then do the drill before taking on live cases.  If anyone in the Fuel Rats suggests to you to undertake live cases to practice before taking the drill, point them to this page.

Once you feel ready for it (read the website information and at least watch a couple of live rescues go on, so you have a good idea of the procedure and reporting) - then file a drill request using the link below and contact an overseer to set up a drill. 



How to Get Drilled

  1. Sign in to our ticket system HERE (Click "allow" when prompted to give "FuelRats Jira" access to your account. If you are not signed into fuelrats.com already, you will see a login prompt first. Use your regular fuelrats.com login for this.)
  2. File a drill request HERE
  3. Contact an overseer
    1.  Use this page to find an overseer and direct message them in IRC
      1. All overseers in #ratchat will have %(half-op) next to their name, but be careful because not all half-ops are overseers! (squares and rectangles situation, if we’re honest)
    2. You may choose to add [ND] to the end of your IRC nick, but the expectation is still that you will contact an overseer and not the other way around

Notes:

  • You won't receive an acknowledgement that your drill is scheduled. It's still up to you to find an Overseer in IRC to organize your drill.
  • Overseers, like all of our staff, are volunteers.  Many have busy lives, and schedule drills a few days out for preparation related reasons and personal scheduling needs.  While getting a drill quickly is possible, it should not be expected.
  • If a link to request a drill doesn't appear via the link above, just type "drill" in the search box, and select the appropriate type of drill that you're looking for. 
  • This is our general Service Desk which can also be used for issues with the API, BOTs, and pretty much anything. You can also find a link to it under the "Rat Links" section of the main website sidebar.

Worried about your drill?  Here is what you can expect!

Step 7 (optional) - Connect With Us On Social Media and Be Alerted


We maintain numerous social media and discussion based accounts that you should feel free to join and use to share your experiences or just to say hello to other rats.

We use the Fuel Rats Knowledge Base for relevant and updated information about rescues, updates to SOP, game patch notes, in game events and IRC maintenance to name but a few topics.  http://t.fuelr.at/frkb

The Fuel Rats use Mastodon and Blue Sky for communication with the public and when in need of rats.  Follow https://mastodon.localecho.net/@fuelrats if you want to stay up to date.  Follow https://mastodon.localecho.net/@fuelratsalerts or https://alerts.fuelrats.com/ (BlueSky) for case updates.  You may want to enable notifications on your device if you want to be notified when rats are needed for a rescue or LRR.  This is the account that is used by dispatch to tweet for additional rats.

The Fuel Rats maintain an ongoing thread of the Official Forums, that follows our history and events from the very beginning: Forums

We also have subreddit r/fuelrats is open to the public and gives the public a venue to communicate with us on Reddit.