Wormhole tactical considerations
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Revision as of 23:23, 4 July 2009 by Ged Hawkins (Talk | contribs) (This document summarizes tactical considerations of wormholes and wormhole space (W-space))
Work in progress -- VERY early draft
This document summarizes tactical considerations of wormholes and wormhole space (W-space). It does not cover PvE content.
Contents
TL;DR Summary
- wormholes have a 5 km jump range
- after jumping, you have a standard 30 second session change timer and a 1 minute jump cloak
- there is a separate 5 minute jump timer for EACH direction of traversing a wormhole
- there are NO aggression timers for wormholes
- you ALMOST always (~98% of the time) emerge from wormholes within jump range
- you MAY (~30% of the time) emerge from a wormhole too close to allow activation of a cloaking module
- there is DELAYED LOCAL in W-space; character names do not show up unless they talk in Local
Glossary and definitions
- K-space: "known" space, includes highsec, lowsec, and standard 0.0 space
- W-space: "wormhole" space, reachable by wormholes; systems named J######
* all W-space is effectively nullsec, with no CONCORD intervention or security status hits for aggression
- wormhole: analogous to stargates in K-space, wormholes connect systems which may be in either K-space or W-space or both
Delayed local
- unlike in K-space, players in-system do NOT appear in the Local player list, unless they say something in local channel
- obviously, this is helpful to surprise targets, especially when used in conjunction with cloaking ships
Wormholes
- do not appear on the overview unless you are on-grid with them
- are found by using scanner probes
- wormholes are found under scan probe group "Cosmic Signatures" of type "Unknown"
- in K-space, "Unknowns" can be either combat exploration sites or wormholes
- in W-space, ALL "Unknowns" are wormholes
Wormhole jump characteristics
- must be within 5000 meters to traverse a wormhole
- traversing a wormhole initiates a standard 30 second session change timer
- on arrival, you have a standard "jump cloak" that lasts 60 seconds, significantly longer than the session change timer
- on arrival, you will almost always appear within jump-back range of the wormhole
* ~30% of the time, you appear <2,000 meters, so too close to activate a cloaking module * in only ONE time out of 50 jumps I've logged (~2%), did the ship appear at >5,000 meters, outside of jump-back range
- there are NO aggression timers for wormholes; you do NOT need to "de-aggress" before being able to traverse a wormhole
Wormhole jump timer
- wormholes have a 5 minute jump timer
- there is a SEPARATE jump timer for EACH one-way trip across a given wormhole
- if you try to traverse a wormhole before the 5 minute timer elapses, you'll get the message ""A recent transit through this wormhole has polarized your secondary coils, making it unsafe to re-enter right now. The polarity charge should dissipate within # seconds."
- Example 1:
* you jump across a wormhole from system A to B at time T1, then after the 30 second session timer, you can immediately jump back from B to A * however, you will NOT be able to jump from A to B again until time T1 + 5 minutes
- Example 2:
* you jump across a wormhole from system A to B, hang out in B for half an hour (thereby clearing the A to B jump timer), then jump back from B to A at time T2 * you can immediately jump from A to B again (after the 30 second session change timer) * but, you will NOT be able to jump form B to A again until time T2 + 5 minutes
Cloaking
- you can not traverse a wormhole cloaked, either from a "jump cloak" or from a module
- wormholes will decloak you, or prevent you from cloaking, within 2000 m
Locator agents and Intel
- level 3 and 4 locator agents are able to report back the J###### system that players are located in
- DOTLAN can report jumps / NPC kills / player + podkills of W-space systems, e.g. http://evemaps.dotlan.net/system/J170717
Wormhole Designations / Mass Limits / Time Limits
- W-space systems ALWAYS have at least one wormhole exit
- K-space systems may or may not have any wormholes
- when on-grid with a wormhole, you can see the wormhole "name" on Overview, which is a letter and 3 numbers: X###
- when a wormhole is FIRST probed out and warped to, you will see a X### name, from which you can determine some information, including:
* what type of system the destination will be: i.e., Class 1 (Unknown) to Class 6 (Deadly Unknown) W-space; or highsec, lowsec, or nullsec K-space * maximum amount of mass that can traverse the wormhole * cumulative mass limit before the wormhole will collapse * total lifetime before the wormhole will collapse
- from the OTHER side of the wormhole, the name will ALWAYS be "K162", which does not specify any further information
* however, you can "Get info" on a "K162" wormhole to get some vague information about type of destination, mass status, timer status * so, if you probe down a wormhole and see that it's called "K162", you KNOW that it's already been probed out by somebody from the OTHER side
- on my testing, the mass limits are NOT simply "mass of ship + mass of online modules" -- a fresh wormhole collapsed before the predicted # of jumps
- RUMOR has it that traversing a wormhole with an activated MWD increases the amount of "mass" used up by the traversal; I have not confirmed this
W-space system effects
- some W-space systems have effects on all ships within the system
- in systems with these effects, be careful engaging people who reside there -- in a heavily shield-favored system, your armor-tanked remote rep fleet might not do so well