Difference between revisions of "Wormhole tactical considerations"

Revision as of 23:52, 4 July 2009

Work in progress -- VERY early draft

This document summarizes tactical considerations of wormholes and wormhole space (W-space). It does not cover PvE content.

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