User:Dama arishe/Wormholes & W-Space 101

Wormholes 101 is an in-depth look at wormholes and w-space life. This is intended as a followup class to Wormholes & W-Space 100, which does not have a practical portion (whereas this class should).

Introduction

Wormholes are a "learn by doinog" topic. Exploring/exploiting wormhole space requires a certain level of coordination and knowledge and is a topic that can be learned as soon as you are able to fly a well-fit DD cruiser or above, a level 4 salvager or a scout ship. This class syllabus is meant to be used in concert with an actual Wormhole operation.

Class Information

General information

Duration: As needed

Location: Aldrat, Stacmon, wherever the people are.

Class contents:

• Gathering Wormhole Information
• Building a Wormhole fleet
• Basic Wormhole Op Rules and Best Practices
• Wormhole combat mechanics
• How to handle loot
• What to expect / how to plan for unfortunate events

Student requirements:

• Mumble
• Ability to fly/use Cruisers, Battlecruisers OR Salvager with Level 4 Salvaging OR dedicated scout ship
• Basic understanding of fleet mechanics
• Wormholes 100 course, either live or from recording

Additional information: Students are encouraged to be at the location, as this class is highly practical in nature.

Notes for the teacher

Required materials:

• Teaching channel (not fleet chat)
• A class 1 or 2 wormhole near Aldrat

Class contents

Introduction

• Wormholes are anomalies in normal space that link normal space with either another Known-Space (K-Space) system or a Wormhole-Space (W-Space) system. They are found through probing and appear randomly throughout the known galaxy.
• W-Space is 0.0 space, there are no rules and no repercussions for PvP actions while inside (there is no CONCORD presence).
• There are no NPC stations inside W-Space, there are sometimes POSes
• W-Space exploration generally should be done in a fleet, although there are ones that can be solo'd. Soloing W-Space isn't meant to be covered here
• Previous experience in lowsec is important, many of the tools you need there are applicable in wormhole space as well

Any player intending to explore w-space should review Wormholes 100.

Gathering Wormhole Information

Finding a Wormhole

Wormholes are found by using core or combat scanner probes to get a detailed picture of the contents of your current system. Scanning has been covered in depth in Scanning & Probing. Once found, the wormhole will have a signature which is a string composed of a letter followed by three numbers.

Wormhole signatures

These signatures can be used to determine several important characteristics of the newly found wormhole. Namely, which class of space the wormhole links with, and both the total mass which can be moved through the wormhole, and how much of that mass can go through in a single jump. These signature strings also give an approximate idea of the amount of time that a wormhole will exist, with a range between 48 and 16 hours. WARNING: these values are all approximate and you should not enter a wormhole if you are not certain there is enough mass or time left to return (unless you enjoy long journeys frequently interrupted by bouts of scanning). You can use the show info feature to get information on the current state of the wormhole as the signature only applies to the wormhole when it is first found.

These signatures are listed in detail here in the wiki on the Wormholes page.

An important note about the K162 designation. K162 identifies the wormhole as an exit. This means it has been found from the other side. That is all the information that it imparts. It does not mean that the wormhole is 'used up' or occupied, although it is always a good practice to assume any newly found wormhole is occupied until the notion is disproven.

W-Space Locus and Effects

Once you have scanned down a WH and entered it you can see its identification number in the upper left corner (JXXXXXX). On http://evemaps.dotlan.net/ you can enter this number in the search field. If you click on one of the links below, you can see that there is quite some information about a WH you can retrieve by just jumping in an copying the number to dotlan. The number of jumps is no longer available as CCP disabled Jumps API for Wormhole Systems. If you want to go hunting sleepers you normally prefer a "quiet" place to avoid surprises by hostile pilots. You certainly do not want to go into a WH where you see that ships were killed. Although a priori you do not know whether those kills were caused by other players or by a loss to sleepers. But normally you have also some NPC kills if the loss is caused by sleepers. But this is a rule of thumb - not exact science.

WHs also have effects on your ship. Enter the number you get; http://evemaps.dotlan.net/system/J123230 for instance. There you can see what effect the WH has on your ship. While J123230 "only" has boosting effects on your EWAR, it reduces the abilities of your weapons to hit the target. http://evemaps.dotlan.net/system/J123246 for instance shows negative effects on your onboard armor repairer and the shield transfer, while logistics (or any other RR) ships will have an easy task to keep the fleet healthy. And it is a very bad idea to go into http://evemaps.dotlan.net/system/J130026 armor tanked.

All this information should ideally be taken into account if you want to survive WH space. Make sure you support the fleet according to your abilities and taking into account the WH effects. For instance: If you can fly a well armor tanked BC or BS and on the other hand have the ability to scout or salvage you should not use your BC or BS in J130026 but take another role. Otherwise you 1. will probably lose your ship and 2. your support will be lost. You are worth more as a living salvager or scout than a dead DD.

In general: Always be careful if you want to go to WH-space. Remember: it is 0.0 and all the fancy 0.0 gadgets can be used - for example bubbles and bombs launched by stealth bombers.

Finding sites in a W-Space system

A site I can really recommend is Eve-Survival there you will find all the information about the sites in W-Space. But since this is a class I will quickly go over all sorts of sites that can be found in W-Space. Finding sites in W-space works exactly as it does for finding a WH in K-space. There are four Cosmic Signatures and two Cosmic Anomalies that can exist in a Wormhole:

Gas

These sites provide Gas_in_W-space that can be harvested for T3 production. These sites are guarded by Sleepers. Though they don't appear in waves. Once you kill em all, no reinforcements will appear. The Sleepers must be spawned by initiating warp to the site. If the gas site signature has not been emptied by Downtime and the Sleepers have been cleared then they will respawn again in the same manner mentioned before. NOTE: It does take ~20 minutes after initiating warp to these for the Sleepers to spawn so don't start harvesting unless you are SURE that the Sleepers have spawned and been cleared.

However, if you are brave, you can "ninja huff" gas before the Sleepers arrive, provided you are in a fast aligning ship such as the Venture which will allow you to usually warp away safely before being targeted and destroyed by the Sleepers. Using this method in Vital Core and Instrumental Core Gas sites (where the most expensive C320 and C540 gas is found) can give you a nice profit of up to about 25mil ISK (depending on your skills) before you have to warp off - not bad for about 20 minutes of your time!

Note: The Ordinary Perimeter Reservoir Gas sites contains 5 Sentries on initial warp-in so "ninja huffing" is not really possible in this particular site.

Relic

These are combat sites which have several waves of sleepers that will attack you. Each succeeding wave spawns once you have killed a certain trigger ship. The extra is that there are cans that you can try to open using a Relic Analyzer module at the site. So it's sleeper archaeology that you are doing.

Data

It is very similar to Relic sites except that you need a Data Analyzer module to crack the cans.

Unknown

These are Wormholes that could lead to Null-sec, Low Sec, High sec, or other areas of W-space. If there are enough signatures in the system these signature IDs will usually be different from most of the others.

Ore

These are Cosmic Anomalies and do not need to be scanned down. These sites spawn Sleepers in the same manner as Gas sites and in higher class wormholes can contain large amounts of higher end ore.

Combat

These are Cosmic Anomalies and do not need to be scanned down. Sleepers are present on warp-in and follow trigger spawns.

Basic Wormhole Op Rules and Best Practices

Fleet formation

Make sure your fleet is big enough for the class of wormholes where you intend to fight Sleepers. Keep in mind that all classes of Wormhole systems are also Null Security, and thus you must keep in mind your ability to fight players who warp in and ambush you.

• Class 1: A solo battlecruiser can probably handle the Sleepers.
• Class 2: A small battlecruiser gang is appropriate.
• Class 3: A medium-sized battlecruiser gang or a small remote-repair battleship gang should be used.
• Class 4: You need a medium-sized remote-repair battleship gang, at least.
• Class 5: Bring a large remote-repair battleship gang.

Bookmark entrances, exits, and safe spots

Upon arriving within range of a wormhole entrance or exit, everyone in the fleet should bookmark the location. Another important location to bookmark will be the safe spot(s), as described below.

Setting up safe spots

It is important that everyone in the fleet has the same safe spot bookmarked. Safe spots are not located at any particular feature in a system, and are thus more difficult (but not impossible) for other players to find. For this reason, they are considered relatively "safe". Safe spots serve a couple uses in wormhole operations - think of them as your base of operations. This is where your salvager will wait for combat sites to be cleared. This is where any off-site logistics should take place because this is where pilots should "bounce" or warp to/from when retreating due to a failing tank. Should non-Uni pilots enter the wormhole, it is likely that the person leading the operation will call a retreat to the safe spot. For these and other reasons, it is important that the fleet proceeds to and bookmarks the location of the safe spot immediately upon entering the wormhole.

There are two types of safe spots: inline and non-inline. An inline safe spot is created by warping from one feature in a system to another (for example, from the wormhole exit to a planet) and bookmarking some random location in mid-warp. This bookmarks a location between the two features - a location that is much more secure than a system feature like a planet that can be warped to easily by anyone. Note that anyone who "warps past" your inline safe spot by warping between the same two features will briefly see you pop up on their overview, making it easier for a clever pilot to find your inline safe spot. While inline safe spots are great, what's even better are non-inline safe spots, which are not directly in between any two features in a system. To create a non-inline safe spot, you first create an inline one, as described above. From your inline safe spot, you then warp to a system feature (like a planet) and bookmark a random location in mid-warp. That location you have bookmarked is not in line between any two system features, and is the type of safe spot that should be used in a wormhole operation. Ideally, your scout will have set this up in advance.

Fleet Roles

• Combat
• Salvager
• Scout
• Logistics

What to expect / how to plan for unfortunate events

Directional Scanner usage

see Directional Scanner.

ADDITIONAL CONTENT FOR POSSIBLE EDITING INTO THIS SYLLABUS

Practical Introduction to wormholes Needed Before class: Everyone:

• scanning frigate for the scanning for wormholes practical part.
• frigate or cruiser, preferably not drone boats, ready for the wormhole. Anything bigger than a cruiser may be allowed at the sole discretion of the teacher. This is to keep mass limits to a minimum.
• updated and clean clones that they can lose.
• insured ships.
• Have a working Mumble that is set to push-to-talk, and not to talk on mumble unless allowed by the teacher.
• Hold questions until asked for by the teacher.

Teacher:

• Preferably have one or two possible wormholes ready before the class.
• Set up a class command chat channel and invited the appropriate people, like the scouts.

THEORY

• Intro to wormholes

-What are wormholes: Wormholes are essentially Stargates, however can spawn anywhere and they can also lead anywhere (Highsec, Lowsec, Nulsec and W-Space). Most of them do not

stay at the same place for more than a day, and they have weight limits. This means that a wormhole will spawn and then stay at the same place until either it collapses because too many ships jumped through it, or because it reached the end of it's lifetime.

W-Space

W-Space or Wormhole Space is just a name for a solar system that can only be reached through use of wormholes. What makes w-space different is that someone only shows in local chat if they talk in local, and anything that can be used in 0.0 space can also be used in W-Space (warp disruption bubbles, capital

ships, bombs etc.) these are the main reasons why W-Space is so dangerous. Inside a wormhole lies all the dangers of Eve, and there is a pressing threat

that you won't even be able to exit the way you came in. If you get stuck inside a wormhole, there are two ways out, either find another wormhole out or take a one way to goo's ville.

-What isn't in w-space There are not any stargates, stations or CONCORD protection, it's the wild west, and there are no sheriffs. A person will not lose or gain Sec-Status for anything that happens in w-space.

-What is inside wormholes

Like all other systems, there is a sun, planets that support PI and moons that POS's can be anchored at. There are 6 different types of sites that need to be scanned down:

• Anomalies - Only site that can be found with the ship's built in scanner. Similar to a normal mission site, can be guarded heavily or lightly guarded by sleepers.

• Ladar - These Sites will contain gas clouds, which can be harvested through a Gas Harvester. The gas is needed in Tech 3 production and is lightly guarded.

• Radar - Radar Sites will contain locked containers, containing items like datacores, which can be unlocked through Hacking. Sometimes there will be a

Talocan ship wreck, which can be salvaged and will drop ancient hull sections for Tech 3 Ships. These sites are heavily guarded.

• Magnetometric - Those sites will contain ancient relics in containers, which have to be opened through an Analyzer. Mag Sites are heavily guarded. Ancient relics are needed to generate T3 blueprints through reverse engineering.

• Gravimetric - A grav site contains asteroids which can be mined. In higher class Wormholes the sites can contain enough ore to keep a dozen Hulks busy for days. A grav site can contain every known ore (even Mercoxit) and is lightly guarded.

• Unknown - A unknown site is always another Wormhole and is not guarded by Sleepers (though maybe by players).

-Wormhole Phenomena

• Some w-space systems have effects that change statistics of your ships, these can differ greatly to be good or bad for your gang depending on the types

of ships your are flying and how they are fitted. Ex.Pulsar Phenomena add shield value but remove armor resist values.

• Finding Wormholes

-Use map statistics to find less used systems -Scan for wormholes -if found, bookmark and warp to -check wormhole's name, time and mass limits -jump into wormhole and hold cloak -BOOKMARK WORMHOLE -check d-scan -get locus sig, check on dotlan -use d-scan to check for active pos's and players -launch probe to check for anoms and sigs

• Scout Preparing Wormholes

-make safespot -find pos's -scan down sigs, and make picket spots of all wormholes -set combat probes up on wormholes or any active pos's -Scout is always the first into, and last out of a wormhole

• Forming Gangs

-Where to find gangs to do wormholes -Classes of wormholes -Fittings (why use these fittings for this class, and what usually used)

• Drones
• E-war
• Cloaks
• Omni Resists
• Probe Launcher
• RR
• Off-lining plates and modules before jumping

• General Safety for everyone

-Don't talk in local -D-scan -why not launch probes immediately -ambushes

• Setting up base in wormhole

-everyone warp in and get same safespot -scout gives leader bookmarks -drop a can if needed

• Rolling a WH

-Mass of different classes of WHs -Effective methods of closing the WH without becoming trapped -Ship fitting

• Mass limitations on WH

-Max of BC for C1 -Max of Orca for C2, C3, C4 -Capital ships other than Orca limited to C5, C6

• Running Sites

-Using evesurvival to check the difficulty and triggers at a site. -Tags -triggers

• Salvaging

-dangers of salvaging -Fittings:

• Salvaging Rigs
• Salvagers
• Tractor Beams

• Splitting Loot

-There are a few ways that the loot can be split, and it can vary between gangs and corps. Most of the time the salvager will take all the loot and sell it , then split the loot between the members of the gang.

Practical

Scanning

The teacher should have the students get into ships that can launch core probes, preferably scanning frigates, and then start scanning for wormholes.

During this time the students should use the correct procedures as described above, and ask if they do not understand.

Running the Wormhole

For the final practical part, everyone should re-ship to their respective ships and then move to the wormhole together. Once inside set up safespots and, start running a few sites. Remind the students about all the dangers inside the wormhole and ways to protect against it (D-Scan, always stay aligned).

Everyone should fight aligned, if they are taking too much damage, they should warp out and warp back in. The fleet can run as many sites as they are willing/time is permitted, preferably running as many different types of sites as possible for a varied experience. The loot made from the practical can either be distributed between the students, or donated to the uni.

See also

• Wormholes
• Wormholes 100

External links

• Wormhole-Viewer a list of all Wormholes and Wormhole systems with useful information