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Dude! Where's My Wormhole?

On Getting Lost Without Losing Your Way

Recently I managed to end up on the wrong side of a wormhole. Many of you read about Penny’s side of the story and search to find a safe passage for me back into the wormhole system we call home. In a multi-part series she recounts how over several days it was necessary to scan, scan and scan again. For those of you who might have missed it:

Trapped message from wormholeWell, the reality is that I often end up on the wrong side and often without it being the end of the world. It is a regular occurrence to see “20:33:35 Notify As you pass through the wormhole you realize that it collapses behind you.Have you become trapped?” in my logs. I was going to get a picture to illustrate, but sadly my fingers have not been cooperating quickly enough to generate the screen shot as I jump through the last time. New image of what you see when you close the hole now included.

As residents of a class 4 system with a static class 3 wormhole, it takes 2,000,000,000 Kilogrammes to close the hole and force a new static wormhole to spawn. For the sake of protecting my zero key and facilitate a slightly faster representation, I will be abbreviating that number as 2,000M(illion). It is also relevant in that ship masses are all larger than 1,000,000 Kilogrammes [shuttles and pods excluded]. Thus as we scan, haul, hunt and pew in and around our various wormhole connections, it is often essential to maintain fairly accurate accounting with regard to both the type and number of ships we have pushed through the holes.

Frigates tend to hover around 1M Kilogrammes, destroyers are about 1.5M, cruisers are about 11-13M, battlecruisers are 13-15M, battleships are around 100M and an Orca is 250M. To these values are then added afterburner [AB] or micro warp drive [MWD] effects if they are active on the ship when jumping. 1MN AB/MWD adds 0.5M Kilogrammes, 10MN AB/MWD adds 5M and the 100MN AB/MWD adds 50M Kilogrammes. There are a few anomalous ships in this schema like the Caldari black-ops battleship Widow which tips the scales at a massive [for a battleship] 150M Kilogrammes. Together these ships can form quite a variety of mass combinations to push though and close a wormhole with ships arriving on the same side at the same time as planned.

Thus for our situation, a typical closure [which we refer to in-house as "rolling the hole"] will look something like:

Beginning WH Mass Ship Transit Direction Mass Used Remaining WH Mass
2,000M Orca with AB/MWD Outbound 300M 1,700M
1,700M Orca with AB/MWD Inbound 300M 1,400M
1,400M Orca with AB/MWD Outbound 300M 1,100M
1,100M Orca with AB/MWD Inbound 300M 800M [WH should indicate change]
800M Orca with AB/MWD Outbound 300M 500M
500M BS with AB/MWD Outbound 150M 350M
350M BS with AB/MWD Inbound 150M 200M [WH should indicate critical]
200M Orca with AB/MWD Inbound 300M -100M [WH should collapse]

There is one final issue to consider – the fundamentally unstable nature of wormholes. They can vary by as much as ±200M Kilogrammes which is slightly less than an Orca, 2 battleships, 10 AB/MWD cruisers… et cetra. This also means that if the hole is on the light side [closer to 1,800M Kilogrammes] then you will likely find yourself  sitting in a fairly expensive ship in a system that is not  quite friendly. Thanks to a good deal we brokered with Mr. Murphy, this most often happens under perfect conditions when the system I end up is:

  • Full of Hostiles
  • Null-Security Static Exit
  • Approximately 5 minutes before they all come online
  • Smaller than 14 AU across in diameter

These perfect storm conditions are surprisingly easy to come across and account for a surprising number of incidents for getting trapped outside of the system I call Home.

 

Imaginary Wormhole PictureOddly enough, the most recent exclusion event happened as a result of properties unknown and unknowable with regard to wormholes. I took a picture of the situation as it manages to baffle me to this day. I returned to this bookmarked [former] wormhole and it remained just like this for several hours. As Penny mentioned, one of the highlights is the fact that I trapped some tourists from high-security inside the wormhole and got a cool picture of an apparent illusion or apparition. It is logically impossible to prove an absolute negative. But one thing I can state absolutely, there was no way back the way I came. Oddly enough there never was a message about the wormhole closing behind me.

In retrospect, the whole situation reminded me of a quote that will probably live in infamy for those poor pilots living in the USA during the reign of Bush the Younger. His senior hounds-of-war-master issued the following statement about not really knowing if things were true or not:

“Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” –D. Rumsfeld

So in the end, I guess we will never know if we know or not.

March 27th, 2011 | Tags: , , , , , , | Category: exploration, wormhole | 7 comments

Hardware Hardwirings for Hard Rocks

On Making More Mining

There is a certain need felt by many profession miners to be able to get more ore from their rock collections than the next guy. The thought of not having the very best possible set-up for ore extraction is nearly unbearable and they will risk gang and gank for a maximum yield mining boat. I have known more than a few pilots who have fit their ships to mine more ore in a cycle than they can hold at one time in their cargohold. And yet, there is still more ore to be had, more cubic meters of matter to collect. To scramble some popular culture, let’s see how deep the rabbit can mine.

The hardwirings for a miner are much more limited and are likely to see the pilot either leaving slots empty or putting semi-unrelated things in her head. The main hardwiring is the slot 10 ‘Highwall’ HX-series of mining yield improvements. Given that mining is done over time [for some pilots, any time mining is mind-numbing, stupor inducing, interminable hours/days/weeks/month/years], even the 1% boost can be significant. If you are an ice miner, then you will fill slot 10 with a ‘Yeti’ BX-series hardwire which reduces ice miner cycle time. There is an additional implant for slot 10, the ‘Highwall’ HY-series which reduce the CPU need for mining upgrades, but this is more easily accomplished with the CPU implant ‘Gypsy’ KMB-series which keeps slot 10 open for either mining or ice implant upgrades. Using the KMB-series of implants will also be beneficial while flying other ships.

As mentioned in other posts, the capacitor implants, namely the ‘Squire’ CC2/4/8 and the ‘Squire’ CR2/4/8, for increased capacitor and faster capacitor recharge will benefit the miner just as much as the PVP and PVE pilots as well as being just as useful for jumping in other ships and maintaining capacitor while flying.

The last hardwiring implant for a miner to consider is the slot 10, Mining Foreman Mindlink. This is an advanced hardwiring [requiring Cybernetics V] that improves the effect of the pilot as a mining booster on his or her fleet. This is almost essential for a corporate mining leader and the cost quickly recovered by an Orca pilot who is boosting a fleet of Hulks. For a Rorqual pilot, it should be a minimum requirement as it creates a set of insane yield boosts for the rest of the miners.

March 19th, 2011 | Tags: , , , , | Category: industry, mining | One comment

Wormhole Whisperer

On what wormholes can tell you without your asking

There is more to navigating w-space than simply scanning for wormholes. Knowing the designations of the wormholes and what they mean can help with expectations and reduce confusion or misunderstandings. First, it must be understood that there are two ‘ends’ to a wormhole, the ‘entrance’ and the ‘exit’. There are no specific restrictions on movements through a wormhole dependent on it being the entrance or exit, but knowing what side you have found gives information in itself.

If you are looking at the exit of a wormhole you will always see the designation ‘K162′, with no exceptions. That is the only designation ever given to an exit. The entrance of a wormhole has a designation made up in the similar way of having a letter and three numbers, but unlike the exit each specific designation essentially determines where the wormhole leads. For example, seeing an X877 signature in a class 4 w-space system will tell you that the wormhole leads to another class 4 w-space system. On the other side, of course, will be a K162.

The second snippet of information needed to be understood is that an entrance wormhole can either be ‘static’ or random. The meaning of ‘static’ in the sense of a wormhole simply means that a particular type of wormhole will always be present within the system. It won’t remain in the same position, just that once the previous wormhole collapses the new one will be have the same designation. A random wormhole is an anomalous signature that has a chance of spawning anywhere but, once collapsed, will not automatically return. Understanding the static types and, by inference, the random types of wormhole designations will therefore let you imply more information about connections within any specific system.

Whilst it is possible to determine the class of w-space system from the colours seeping through the wormhole this is not the information I wish to impart today. I am more interested in the implications of finding certain designations of wormholes, and the importance in recognising the designations.

Let’s look at what we can tell about a system by the wormholes you visit.

  • If you find an entrance wormhole that leads to further w-space you can be sure of finding at least one more wormhole in the system beyond.
    • You are jumping through an outbound wormhole that leads to a system that must contain at least its own static wormhole, so you there is definitely another wormhole to find.
  • If you find an entrance wormhole that is not a static designation you can be sure of finding at least one more wormhole in the current system.
    • Each w-space system has one static wormhole, and class 2 w-space has two, so finding a wormhole that isn’t the static wormhole always leaves the static wormhole to be found.
  • If you find an exit wormhole in w-space you can be sure of finding at least one more wormhole in the current system.
    • The exit wormhole cannot be the static wormhole of the current system, which must be an entrance, so the static wormhole is still to be found.
  • If you find an exit wormhole that leads to w-space there is no guarantee that further wormholes will be found in the system beyond.
    • The entrance to the wormhole has been opened in another system, but you need to jump through the wormhole and see the designation of the entrance before you can determine further exploration possibilities.
  • If you jump through a K162 to see a static designation on the other side you are not guaranteed to find any further wormholes.
    • The system’s static connection is the only guaranteed wormhole in the system, and you’ve found it indirectly by jumping through the K162.
    • Check the system for occupation. If there is none, there could be another K162 to find, as a capsuleer must have entered the system to activate the static wormhole you jumped through. Even this is not a guarantee, though, as the wormhole may already be collapsed.
  • If you jump through a K162 in to w-space to see a random designation on the other side you can be sure of finding at least one more wormhole.
    • The w-space system you have entered has a random wormhole, which still leaves the static wormhole to be found.

All of the above information can be discerned without having to launch scanning probes, which can save time and help maintain covert operations. And it should be seen that being able to determine static and random wormhole designations is useful when exploring w-space. There are plenty to memorise, but in practice only a few are necessary. Certain connections between w-space systems will be seen time and again, particularly if you settle in w-space, and will become obvious given a little time. Others can be determined by scrutinising the information panel, most notably those heading out to k-space. And wormholes to and from deadly class 6 w-space are unmistakable.

March 15th, 2011 | Tags: , , , , , | Category: exploration, wormhole | 3 comments