Moving into Wormhole Space

Picking the right System

Before you can even start thinking about moving into a W-space system you need to pick the right one for your needs and plans.

There are about 2500 Systems in W-space, each different and unique. Choosing the one you will like will take time and lots of effort. You will probably spend days or even weeks scouting before you find a system that suits your needs. You will have to decide if you are going to live there by yourself or with a couple of friends. You will have to know what activities are you going to perform there (manufacturing, harvesting Gas and Ore, Killing Sleepers) and if you are going to be able to do those things alone or will it require a fleet. You'll have to know if the activity you picked will require frequent Logistic runs out to K-space.

Planning

The following factors affect your choice of your home system.

• Plan ahead on what kind of static you wish the system could have, look for that.
  • Since with continued site-clearing, the sites in your home system will spawn less and less often, the class of static wormhole is what determines your profit potential in the long run. See 'Warning,' below.
• Keep in mind that the wormholes have mass restrictions. You won't be able to jump Capital Ships through most of them, and there are wormholes that won't even allow battleship sized ships.
• Look for a system with a variety of Planets that will later be used for your Planetary Interaction colonies.

• Decide what Class of the system you're looking for, take into consideration the kinds of exploration sites the system is likely to spawn.
  
• Ask yourself if you want the system to have any Effects that would help you with your activities. (i.e. a Pulsar effect will help shield tanking ships and cripple armor tanking ones.)

Example

Let's say you would like to harvest gas and ore, you won't do any Manufacturing, and you want to kill sleepers, but you don't have any corporation members to help you with that.

• If Ore and Gas are your main priorities, you might want to consider a higher Class System, because they are more likely to spawn better Grav sites. You can now go look for a Class 4 wormhole with a static Class 2 connection. The reason for this is that the home system (Class 4) will provide you with the Ore you want, and the Class 2 connection will most likely have a High Security K-space exit as well as anomalies with sleepers that you can manage to kill by Yourself.

• If, on the other hand, sleepers are your main goal, and mining ore is what you want to do in your spare time, then the System you would be looking for would be a lower class. A Class 2 System with a static high sec exit would spawn anomalies with sleepers you can kill solo, and an occasional Grav and Ladar sites you can mine by yourself.
  

It's up to you what kind of system would be the best for your needs and activities you want to perform. All you need to do is find that system.

Moving into a Wormhole System

So think you've found a system You like, and You would like to move in now, that's great! Let's see now..

Checklist

• Does it meet your requirements?

• Have you checked if there is someone already occupying it?

• Have you checked Dotlan for activity in that system?

• Does the system seem to have a high/low/no number of incoming wormholes?

• Were there any player kills in that system in the last week/month/year? (you can check that on dotlan and killboards)

• Does it have a static exit to another w-space system?
• Are logistic runs to K-space going to be easy/hard?
• Have you placed a scan-alt in the system? (very important, in case you get podded)

If you are satisfied with the system, it's not occupied, have the exits you want and it's fairly safe it's time to move in and get things started. Let's go shopping then. The single most important thing you need is a place to call home. A place where you can keep all your ships, loot, ore, modules and your exotic dancers safe at. You need a POS.

(WARNING: It's been reported occupying a W-Space System for an extended periods of time decrease the number and frequency of signatures spawns.)

POS Defence

This is the part many wormhole residents fail at. Every single day I come across POS's with poor or no defences, with billions of ISK floating around the POS shields, just asking to be blown up, ripped apart, leaving the owners broke and depressed.

First thing you need to take care of when planning a POS are the defences. Nothing attracts people like Torpedo or Cruise missile launchers, no Warp Disruptors and lack of any kind of E-War or hardeners online at the POS.

Please check out this Eve-O Forum Topic before you even consider setting up your POS in the system.

Large POS's are strongly recommended in W-space. Small ones or even Medium ones are very easy to attack and take down. Most of people don't bother with Large ones. It takes too much effort to bring a large POS down, it's a logistical nightmare, but that doesn't mean people don't do it. It is quite common for corporations to attack other people in W-Space for isk and loot. Even the best defence won't keep people from destroying your POS, if they are ready to do what it takes. Having a good setup however will decrease the chance of getting invaded and will probably save your assets. This is EvE and you always need to be prepared for the worst. Keep that in mind.

That's no moon!

If you are planning to leave your system for an extended period of time, consider using additional POS defence modules, put your laboratories and corp hangars offline to free up some powergrid and anchor more guns, ECM, and anything that you have handy. This setup is called a 'Death Star Mode', and will keep your assets safe when you are away. No one will even think of attacking a POS like that.

Another possible method of setting up a wormhole POS for daily use involves the copious use of ECM, Warp Disruptors, and Sensor Dampeners, along with the requisite guns. This setup is in a play of words called a 'Dick Star', since the purpose is not necessarily to destroy invaders, but to sufficiently annoy and irritate them such that they decide blowing up your POS is not worth the effort. 

Other then POS defences, you will need:

• Ship Maintenance Array to hold all your ships, as well as providing a fitting service for them.

• Corporation Hangar Array to hold all your modules, loot, spare POS fuel, bookmarks, etc.
• Ship Building Array, in case you will want to build ships yourself
• Ore Reprocessing Modules
• Laboratories
• Mobile Warp Disruption Field Generators
  • One possible tactic is to anchor a large Mobile Warp Disruptor, or "bubble", on the warp-in point to the moon that your POS is anchored at. This way, anyone warping to that moon will be caught in the bubble, leaving them unable to warp away and thus easy prey for your POS guns if decloaked.
    

Setting up the POS

Once you've got all of this, scan your way out to K-space, get your hauler ready, scan your system multiple times to make sure there are no new incoming wormholes, and make sure that you are actually alone in the system. Move your hauler to the K-Space - W-Space connecting system, and double check if you have everything you need. Fuel, Modules, POS equipment, ammo, probes, etc.

Once you are ready, jump in the hauler, anchor the POS, online it as soon as possible, make sure you have enough fuel to run it for at least a day and a significant amount of Strontium. Once the shields are up and running, you're fairly safe. Next thing you need to do is set up the guns, ECM, warp disruptors and everything else you've planned. Start moving in the rest of POS modules you wish to have there, and start moving in ships. Always have a spare scanning ship in the hangars — you never know when you'll need it. Take the time it takes to online the POS modules to set up off and on grid Safe spots.

Don't, and I really cannot stress this enough, leave any ships floating out in space. It will only cause you trouble, provide intel to hostiles, and provide opportunities for a corp thief. There is no reason to leave ships floating in space. If you run out of space in your ship array, anchor a new one, or reconsider the usefulness of the ships you own, and take some of them out.

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Ships You will need

There are numbers of various activities you can do inside a Wormhole system. Most of them require specialized ships. There is no Jack of all Trades here, you will need at least a couple of hulls so you can be effective at what you do. You will lose ships in W-space, you will need to be able to replace them. Keep them cheap, affordable. Don't fly faction ships in W-space, they are simply not worth the risk. Here's a small list of recommended ship types

Must-Have's

• Scanning ships, T1 frigates, CovOps Frigates, Recons. You can't do anything without them in W-space. Keep spare ones. You will lose them.
  

Anomalies (Sleeper Sites)

• Battlecruisers, especially Drakes, are the most common ships people use to run anomalies in w-space. Drake can easily run any and every anomaly in a Class 1, Class 2 and Class 3 systems in a gang.

• Strategic Cruisers, especially the Tengu and Legion. They significantly speed up running anomalies, but are very expensive, so use them only if you really can afford to lose them.

• Battleships, with Remote Repair modules fitted are required for higher class wormholes anomalies, such as Class 4.

• Capital Ships, such as Dreadnought and Carriers are used in Class 5 and 6 Systems mostly to spawn additional sleepers in anomalies.

Gravimetric Sites (Ore Mining)

• Mining Cruisers, such as the Osprey

• Mining Barges, such as Retriever, Covetor - they are cheap and effective at what they do. 

• Exhumers - If you can risk and afford losing one, they are the best, but you already know that.

see: Halada's Mining Guide

Ladar Sites (Gas mining)

• Battlecruisers, especially the Ferox. They can field a decent tank and fit number of cargo expanders. For more info see Gas in W-space
  

Salvaging, Hacking and Analyzing

• Destroyers. You wont need anything bigger than Dessies in W-space. Sleeper loot is small in size. It will fit in the small cargo hold of a destroyer.
  • You did fit that destroyer with a probe launcher, right?
  • If you can fit a cloaking device, fit a proto cloak on the salvager. Cloak up whenever you're not actively salvaging.

• The Noctis has replaced salvage-fit destroyers and battlecruisers for the majority of K-space salvaging duties. It does very well in wormhole space as well. However, with only 2 mid slots, it cannot fit a full complement of MWD, analyzer, and codebreaker. (This is not a problem if you run mostly anomalies, and you can refit your Noctis to deal with radar and mag sites as required.) The other concern is cost - a Noctis costs far more than an equivalently fit salvager or destroyer (approx. 90 million ISK at time of writing).

• You'll want to rig your salvager with at least 2 salvage rigs if you're in a Class 3 or higher WH -- many of the sleeper wrecks require either rigs or L4/L5 salvaging skill to salvage at all.

Logistics

• Haulers, T1 or T2, Badgers, Bestowers, anything that you would use in K-space is used in W-space, and often. You will need them to run to K-space for supplies, to pick up PI products, can't live without them.

• Capital Industrial Ships, the Orca and the Rorqual. First one is very useful for moving large amounts of cargo in and out of a W-space system, as well as providing mining bonuses for mining Fleets (even from inside of the POS Force Field). The Rorqual, if you can afford it, will compress Ore, making it smaller and easier to transport to K-space. This sounds stupid until the first time you have six or seven million m^3 of ore in the hangars.

PVP Ships

• T2 Cruisers, Heavy Interdictors, Heavy Assault Cruisers, Recon Ships, Logistics, any kind is very useful, as they are small in size, and huge in potential. Sooner or later You will have to face other players in W-space, and these are the bread and butter of W-space PVP.

• Stealth Bombers, W-space mechanics are the same as nullsec space. You can use Bombs, and they are very effective. A small gang of Bombers can really ruin a day for your enemies. See: Stealth Bomber Guide.

• Battleships, they are rarely used in PVP in W-space, but they are very useful in taking down POS's where you cannot use capital ships, and for defence fleets. They are also useful for crashing wormholes due to their mass.

• Interceptors, useful for catching CovOps frigates jumping through wormholes. 

• Battlecruisers, any kind, they are very popular in PVP in W-space, because of their mass/dps ratio. They are easy on the wormholes, and can deal a significant amount of DPS.