Filaments are items which can instantly transport a ship or a small fleet. There are four types of filament, with quite different effects and uses:
- Abyssal filaments transport pilots to a randomly-chosen pocket of Abyssal Deadspace, where they will face difficult time-limited PvE combat challenges with potentially lucrative rewards.
- Needlejack filaments transport pilots to randomly-chosen parts of nullsec space (“Noise” filaments) or randomly-chosen parts of nullsec space with high capsuleer activity (“Signal” filaments).
- Pochven filaments transport pilots either to a randomly-chosen part of Pochven, or from Pochven into a randomly-chosen part of lowsec or highsec space.
- Proving grounds filaments transport players to the Abyssal Proving Grounds for PvP challenges against randomly-chosen opponents, with ship and equipment restrictions.
Although they differ considerably in their destinations, all types of filament are alike in including an element of randomness.
Spool-Up Timers
In the 2025-03-12.1 Patch a spool up mechanic was introduced with the following mechanics:
- A spool-up timer has been added to all travel filaments (Triglavian Space, Needlejack, and Ice Storm).
- A Filament Trace will appear next to the travel filament’s owner on activation:
- Nearby fleet members without capsuleer log-off timers will become linked to the trace as it appears.
- Characters will unlink from a trace if they cloak, change ship, or go beyond 30km of the trace.
- A link cannot be reestablished once broken.
- If the filament’s owner unlinks from the trace, it immediately closes.
- Traces can be scanned with combat probes or d-scan.
- After the spool-up completes, the filament’s owner can jump all characters which remain linked to it:
- Warp disrupted players will not be jumped.
- Filament owners will be given a confirmation prompt if characters will be left behind.
- Traces will close after 15 minutes have passed since it first appeared.
- Warp disrupted players will not be jumped.
- Travel filaments can no longer be used on a deadspace grid.
| Filament | Spool-up Timer |
|---|---|
| Standard 1-character filaments | 15 seconds |
| Standard 5-character filaments | 30 seconds |
| Standard 15-character filaments | 60 seconds |
| Standard 25-character filaments | 90 seconds |
| Pochven ‘Extraction’ 5-character filaments | 120 seconds |
| Pochven ‘Extraction’ 15-character filaments | 180 seconds |
| Pochven ‘Devana' 1-character filaments | 60 seconds |
| Pochven ‘Devana' 5-character filaments | 90 seconds |
| Pochven ‘Devana' 15-character filaments | 150 seconds |