How many rats does it take to get to the center of a corpse-pop?

I'm starting a ghost/non-lethal run of Dishonored and I know I need to avoid rats eating my victims. I've noticed that single rats do not appear to go after corpses, but big swarms definitely do. So how many rats is enough to start eating corpses? I've noticed they only seem to eat corpses in "swarms" that will also attack the player.

But leaving a single or just a couple rats alive around bodies is okay...right? from further experience it appears that, rarely, randomly spawned rats may be enough to kill unconscious people! I found four rats in the general area of a dead guy, however I'm not 100% sure the rats killed him, as his corpse wasn't eaten to the bone, and I didn't see the rats attack him. It'd be extra useful to know whether or not randomly spawned rats will spawn in great enough numbers to kill an unconscious person.

Solution 1:

The number of rats is irrelevant. All you need to make sure is that the body cannot be eaten. In that regard, Steve V. is right, the best practice is to elevate the body or put it in a garbage, ... You get the idea.

Be careful though, as you can easily kill someone without paying attention. I already kill a man just by trying to drop the body on the ground. His head knock the wall and he was dead. Or the best: I failed a blink and fallen on a guy I just dropped on the ground a little earlier. Apparently it was from too high because he died... So frustrating.

Anyway, just remember, don't care about the number of rats, just pay attention to where you drop the body: if they cannot touch the body, they'll never eat it.

Good luck for your achievements, I know how good it felt when I got mine ;)