Wormhole Community Static Rolling Guide

This is a guide to rolling the Wormhole Campus home system's static connections. Rolling a static connection is another way of saying "collapsing it" in order to spawn a new connection which will lead to a different system in the same type of space. Contrast this to rolling a non-static, which causes it to disappear and not return.

WHC Static Connection Information

The current WHC home system has two static connections. One leads to hisec k-space, the other leads to C3 w-space. They are, rather delightfully, named after breakfast foods.

Bacon

• Wormhole type: O477 leading to C3 w-space
• Total mass allowed before collapse: 2,000,000,000kg*
• Max individual jump mass: 300,000,000kg (Mass of 'Rolling 300' Battleship with 100MN prop mod on)
• Max time before collapse: 16hrs
• *This can vary a bit (+/-10%)

Eggs

• Wormhole type: B274 leading to hisec k-space
• Total mass allowed before collapse: 2,000,000,000kg*
• Max individual jump mass: 300,000,000kg (Mass of 'Rolling 300' Battleship with 100MN prop mod on)
• Max time before collapse: 24hrs
• *This can vary a bit (+/-10%)

As you can see, both our static connections have the same characteristics except for their max lifetime and of course where they lead.

When To Roll

There are many reasons to roll a static connection. Here are few of the most common.

Bacon

• Lack of PvP. Either there are no good connections or there's nothing happening in the current chain.
• Lack of PvE. Combat sites have been run, gas sites have been cleared, data & relic sites have been hacked, AND there is no PvP to be had.
• The wormhole is end of life (EOL).

Eggs

• Lack of trade hub access. Eggs exits too far away from a trade hub or exits into a hisec island
• The wormhole is EOL.
• Someone has requested a connection close to a certain place.

Other Important Information

Here is some other important to know information about wormholes in general, when it comes to rolling:

• A wormhole is First Shrink whenever it has anywhere between 10% and 50% of its total mass left. This is evidenced by the following text in the show info window:
  This wormhole has had its stability reduced by ships passing through it, but not to a critical degree yet
• A wormhole is Crit whenever is has less than 10% of its total mass left. This is evidenced by the following text in the show info window:
  This wormhole has had its stability critically disrupted by the mass of numerous ships passing through and is on the verge of collapse
• If the wormhole has not yet gone through a mass shrink, it has between 50% and 100% of its total mass left. This is evidenced by the following text in the show info window:
  This wormhole has not yet had its stability significantly disrupted by ships passing through it

The Rolling Process

Ships Used

A variety of ships can be used in the rolling process.

• "Rolling 300 Battleship" - These are battleships that have 200,000,000kg mass and are equipped with 100MN prop mods. When the prop mod is activated the ship gains another 100,000,000kg mass, for a total of 300,000,000kg. These battleships are normally stored in communal hangar in ALI. They are equipped with a range of defensive/survivability modules including cloaking device, heavy energy neutralizers, micro jump drive, shield boosters, ECM drones and probe launchers. You should make yourself familiar with the operation of these modules and check they are all online before undocking a rolling battleship. Communal WHC battleships require 'Armor Layering' skill trained to at least III to be flown without modifications. If your skills are not high enough some of the additional plates might have to be put into offline mode to bring the mass of a battleship below 300,000,000kg and allow it to jump with a prop mod on.
• "Regular rolling Battleship" - Pretty much any battleship with or without a prop mod but definitely without the Higgs anchor. Regular rolling battleships are used when the hole we want to roll has already shrunk before we started rolling. This means we cannot accurately predict the remaining wormhole mass to ensure safety of everyone involved. Since WHC static wormholes could have just above 180,000,000kg mass remaining and still not be critical, it is possible to jump a Rolling 300 battleship with prop mod off through a non critical wormhole and collapse it - leaving the ship stranded on the other side. In this scenario we jump out a battleship without a Higgs anchor and with prop mod off (mass should be around 100,000,000kg and well under the 180,000,000kg limit) and come back with prop mod on until the hole becomes critical and then move on to rolling HIC.
• Heavy Interdiction Cruiser (HIC) - Sometimes a hole can end up crit, which means that it isn't safe to put large rolling ships through. A useful property of Warp Disruption Field Generators (bubbles) is that they reduce ship mass by 80% and these reductions stack. A rolling HIC with 4 bubbles and prop mod off has less mass than a frigate. This should allow it to jump through a Crit hole with little chance of it collapsing. It can then jump back in to Innuendo with 100MN prop mod turned on, giving it a mass of 65,000,000kg. This (usually) kills the hole.
• Rolling cruiser - Using these is exceedingly rare. If there are no HIC pilots and you don't want to wait, a rolling cruiser can be used to try collapsing the hole. The rolling cruisers are fit with an oversized AB (100MN) and cloaks/probe launchers as there is a higher chance of getting stranded while jumping out, due to the fact that they can't reduce their mass like HICs can. The idea is to jump a rolling cruiser out with the prop mod off (around 15,000,000kg) and then come back with prop mod on (around 65,000,000kg) and hopefully collapse the hole

Basic

The basic idea of rolling a hole successfully (no matter how you end up doing it) is essentially reducing its mass by jumping ships back and forth until it collapses. The successful part is accomplished when the hole collapses without leaving anyone stranded on the wrong side.

There are usually knowledgeable people around whenever a hole needs to be rolled but if that's not the case, you can use the following guidelines to roll the connection:

• Ask on comms if anyone is down the chain and if not, announce in fleet and WHC.E-Uni that you are starting to roll. You can use something like =====ROLLING BACON=====
• If the hole is not Shrink, get in a 'Rolling 300' battleship (you can find one in the Alpha hangar with "Rolling 300" in its name) and warp to the hole. Ask a couple others to join you in rolling battleships as well to speed things up
• Since you instigated this process, you may as well take charge and this is important because someone needs to give orders regarding who will jump next. It's better not to have more than one person jumping at the same time to avoid people getting stranded and to make it easier to notice exactly when the hole shrinks
• Keep jumping 300 Battleships through the hole one at a time with their 100MN prop mods on until the hole becomes First Shrink. Always wait until the previous battleship is back in Innuendo and their grid has loaded before sending the next one through
• Make use of the following flowchart during the rolling process, it's also useful to post the amount of mass you send through the static, the direction you are going in, and should the hole status change, in fleet chat for example : "300 out","300 back", "200 out", "200 back", "first shrink" "crit" as a way to keep track that is available to all members, and they can easily pick up the rolling should the person in charge get disconnected or PVP interrupt the rolling process. (REMEMBER: 'Show info' on the wormhole every time a battleship goes through
• Here is the wiki-fied version should the above link die, for posterity.

1. Is the hole shrink?

  Yes----> Use Regular Rolling battleships (Non Higgs rigged battleships)
  No ----> Jump 300m kg battleship through, prop mod on until First Shrink 

2. Is the hole First shrink? Yes. Which way did it shrink?

  Way back--->Jump 300m kg battleship through prop mod OFF
          --->Jump back with prop mod OFF
          --->Jump 300m kg battleship through prop mod OFF
          --->Jump back with Prop Mod ON
          --->Hole is almost dead. Crit? Use a Rolling HIC until hole dies.(May require up to 3 passes depending on remaining mass left on the hole)
                                   Shrink? Use Regular Rolling Battleships prop mod on

OR

  Way out--->Jump back with prop mod ON
         --->Jump 300m kg battleship through with prop mod ON
         --->Jump back with prop mod ON
         --->Hole is almost dead. Hole status? Crit? Use a Rolling HIC until hole dies.
                                               Shrink? Use Regular Rolling Battleships prop mod on

Rolling chart

This chart shows basic methods of rolling used by WHC.

Advanced

There are other ways of rolling our connections. The following method has been very successful but keep in mind that because of mass variations and other things that we can attribute to Bob's whim or even human error, this and any other methods should never be considered fool proof.

Here is one way of rolling Bacon or Eggs with 300,000,000kg battleships if you start with a fresh hole:

• Make 2 trips through the hole with prop mod off
• Make 2 trips through the hole with prop mod on
• If the hole is now First Shrink:
  • Make 2 trips through the hole with prop mod off
  • Make 2 trips through the hole with prop mod on
• If the hole was not First Shrink:
  • Make 4 trips through the hole with prop mod on