Difference between revisions of "Wormhole tactical considerations"

Revision as of 06:26, 3 August 2009

Original text by Ged Hawkins.

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 ALWAYS emerge from wormholes within jump range, between 1km and 5km
• 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 always(1) 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
  • (1) in only ONE time out of 100 jumps, the ship appeared at >5,000 meters, outside of jump-back range; not sure if that was a bug
• 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
  • because of delayed Local and the inability to see who else is in-system with you, this can be a useful tool if you were able to catch the enemy's name
  • for the same reason, it is a VERY good idea to make sure that your name is NOT part of your ship name
• 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; there also appears to be a "random factor" applied to the cumulative mass limits (possibly up to ~10%), as testing with two "fresh" wormholes of the same type, reported required different numbers of jumps of identical ships to collapse
• 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 against the resident shield-tankers

Tactic: "Wormhole Pinning"

• two of the major differences between wormholes and K-space stargates are:
  • traversal of wormholes within jump-back range
  • the 5 minute wormhole jump timer
• the first allows people to run away, if they don't like what they see on the other side, regardless of bubbles, webs, etc.
• the second offers a way to prevent people from running away
• one tactic: Target is in system A, apparently probing for wormholes. System A is connected to System B via a wormhole. Put a cloaked HIC on the A-side of the wormhole. Have the fleet, including a fast tackler, on the B-side of the wormhole; a bubble on the B-side helps too. As soon as the target probes down the wormhole and jumps across, the HIC on the A-side decloaks and puts the bubble up; a fast tackler should jump from B to A. On jumping over into System B, the target will generally try to just jump back into System A rather than try to run the camp, because they are already within jump range of the wormhole. Of course, they will jump right into the middle of a HIC bubble, with the fast tackler putting a more mobile point on him. And, since they've just jumped from A to B, they will be unable to use the wormhole for nearly 5 minutes, effectively pinning them to the wormhole. This tactic even has the potential to catch covops, because ~30% of the time, the covops will emerge <2,000 meters from the WH and be unable to cloak, making it much easier for the fast tackler to land a point (although a good covops will realize they're less then 2km from the wormhole, and make sure their initial move is directly away so that they can engage cloak and navigate out of the bubble).

TO DO

• smart bombs can NOT be activated within ___ km of a wormhole
• estimate the approximate physical size of the wormhole model: 3 km radius?