| Author |
Topic |
Anopheli
Pillowsoft
Total Comfort |
Posted - 2009.03.30 21:15:00 - [ 1]
Since the announcement of wormholes, there’s been significant interest in the idea of long term colonization of W-space. The essentially random nature of access, combined with the suspension of sovereignty mechanics, mean that this system allows for smaller groups of players to lay claim to a tract of space. This very exciting opportunity is essentially impossible in the known space of the EVE cluster. While most of these efforts have focused primarily on the novelty of colonising a wormhole system, our group concentrated on the idea of long term residence as a means of deriving a large profit, rather than simply as a home. Our group consisted of members of Pillowsoft, notably myself and Nyphur (Of Eve-tanking.com and Massively), 4th Circle, and other members of the newly re-formed Total Comfort alliance. The practicality of long term residence in W-space is open to debate. While the limited access means that it can be quite difficult to dislodge residents, this same disconnection from the greater EVE economy presents great logistical problems. Moreover, making it economically viable is even more problematic. There’s an excellent discussion here: http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1037111The journey begins:After investigating the mechanics of the wormholes to the best of our ability through Sisi and reading all the available info from the Apocrypha db dump and other sources, we set out with the goal of finding a high grade wormhole, to set up operations in. We decided on looking for a class 5 "dangerous" wormhole. Searching for this wormhole took a half dozen scanning pilots of 4C and Pillo through most of the null-sec areas of EVE that were readily accessible over the course of a week before a wormhole was finally selected. Unfortunately our initial choice was less than ideal and was picked based on incomplete knowledge. We only chose it out of frustration with not finding anything better. Complete surveys of the NPC-sov nullsec areas of EVE revealed a surprising lack of wormholes and those that existed were of poor quality. Additionally, since our deployment fleet included two carriers, the widescale adoption of cyno-jamming in player sovreign space also made large chunks of player-soverign space unsuitable. A Class 3 wormhole was found one jump into Querious and it was decided that we would make our move. An Orca carrying our POS (med True Sansha) and approximately 10-15 players bringing primarily HACs and Command Ships entered this wormhole. The thought was that once we were inside, finding a wormhole to a tougher system would be much easier. We found out the hard way that this POS did not accept carriers, which was followed by hours of sitting cloaked at safespots hoping that the carriers would not be discovered before an exit cyno could be lit. The carriers were jumped back out of querious safely and the rest of the fleet remained in the class 3 system. Hostiles eventually found the wormhole and entered, but after it went critical they were scared into leaving. Upon their leaving, the wormhole in from querious collapsed and a cheer went up on ventrillo. Step 1 was complete, we were in W-space and in the clear. Settling down:We debated setting up the POS in the class 3 system but our target was a class 5 dangerous one. The next day, a wormhole leading deeper into W-space was found, which led to a "dangerous" system. All ships entered this new system, which we later learned was a Class 4 system and not the class 5 we had hoped for. Since the locus signature is a horrible thing to remember, from then on that system was somewhat humorously referred to as "New Thelan". The POS was anchored, and it was at this point that we began to observe the rather unique nature of this system. |
Anopheli
Pillowsoft
Total Comfort |
Posted - 2009.03.30 21:16:00 - [ 2]
The goldmine:Wormholes are spawned as objects in space and there are a specific number of different types that can be generated. Each wormhole is of a specific ‘class’ that defines what sort of system it leads to, and within each class there are several types. The type is designated by a letter and a 3 digit code, such as U210 . This designation determines the properties of the wormhole – how long it lasts, the maximum mass of ship that can be passed through it, and the mass quota. The unique aspect of New Thelan was that it would only spawn C247 wormholes within the system, observed over the two weeks we were in it. A C247 wormhole leads to a Class 3 W-space system, has a maximum lifespan of 16 hours (which was observed with a variance of about 20 minutes), a maximum ship size of 300 million kg, and a quota of 2 billion kg before collapsing. These values were derived from an early dump of the Sisi db, and were remarkably consistent. We were able to reliably collapse C247 Wormholes by running ships through them in the event they opened to undesirable locations. The short lifespan of the C247 meant that this system continually opened to class 3 systems, but with a high enough quota for several trips back and forth to strip the systems. This put us in a unique position. Our system always spawned outgoing type C247 wormholes to class 3 wormhole systems. Not only did that limit the potential for enemies invading but it also meant we had an endless supply of farmable sleeper content. The anomalies in a class 3 system could be solo'd in a command ship. A group of 4 pilots could complete them in 15 minutes each, and each site netted over 35mil in sleeper tags and salvage. For two weeks, we travelled the universe in our little solar-system sized bubble, stripping class 3 systems as we went. The class 3 systems themselves also tended to link to lowsec, giving us a way to bring anything we wanted in, from POS fuel to battleships. Complex types:The class 3 systems we came across had a wide variety of sites available.
Anomalies. From 5 to 20 per system. They respawned very slowly so being able to connect to a new system was very useful. Loot and salvage in the class 3 ones was about 35m+ per site. They took 15 mins each with 4 pilots.
Radar. Contained cans for hacking that dropped hybrid datacores, hybrid decryptors and hybrid RAM. Some contained talocan ship wrecks which contained 2 sleeper BS salvage pieces. I wouldn't like to state the current market value of what the average site obtained because the prices are erratic right now. My guess would be at least 100m per site, though.
Magnetometric. The easy versions gave about 4-6 wrecked relics for reverse engineering subsystems. The harder ones gave us 12-20 components each (about 2/3 wrecked, 1/3 malfunctioning) and one even gave a wrecked hull piece worth over 200m. From three of the good sites, we pulled about 1.8b of parts at the market value at the time.
Ladar. Gas for creating polymers. Despite our initial thoughts, the gas here was just as good as that in our class 4. The only difference was volume, with sites in the class 4 having substantially more gas. Of course since we could spawn a new class 3 on demand, this wasn't a problem. We found every type of gas except C320 and C540 and were able to react it without problem. Profit-taking from this was estimated at over 28mil/hour with 3 harvesters but those numbers may have changed. Reacting significantly increased the market value of materials and the polymer market is definitely starting to shift greater volume as more bpcs appear.
Gravimetric. There are a lot of these in W-Space and they're pretty worthless. All that's here is ore. In the class 4 system, we got the occasional site with 0.0-only ores but the majority was dark ochre and below. This was plenty to build ammo and modules but mining should not be relied on to build ships.
|
Anopheli
Pillowsoft
Total Comfort |
Posted - 2009.03.30 21:17:00 - [ 3]
Industrial trials:
Our POS was set up with a medium intensive refinery and some manufacturing capabilities. The ore present in the system extended up to some quantities of Arkonor and Bistot. Unfortunately, the limitations of the POS refineries meant that large scale industrial production in W-space was essentially impossible as the minerals required to make even a battlecruiser would require several days of continous refining. However, it was more than suitable for the production of ammo, drones, and other smaller needs. We eventually unanchored our ship construction arrays and shipped them back to empire.
When we found the database info on system classes, we were able to confirm that New Thelan was a class 4 by comparing the bonuses we got from the red giant present in the system to a table of its effects in each system class. Our experience with the odd nature of the system's wormholes also indicated that we would never get a wormhole big enough to get carriers into. Since the carriers were unable to come in, Nyphur and myself had to come in at a later date in command ships. Up until that point, corp members went into the daily Class 3 system and demolished cosmic anomalies, retrieving Sleeper ‘tags’ and salvage. LADAR sites were scanned down in New Thelan and neighboring class 3 systems and emptied. All gas types except C540 and C320 were found in this and neighboring systems. This allowed the production of all but two T3 polymers, which we easily performed on our POS.
System Difficulty:
Anomalies in the class 3 system were readily completed in 15 minutes with approximately four pilots in HACs and command ships. Bringing more, along with bringing pilots in battleships, made it significantly easier. Soloing some spawns was difficult but possible in a command ship. Elijah Ghost managed them quite well in an Absolution. Despite initial hesitation to complete any anomalies in our tougher class 4 system, when we did attempt them we had a lot of success. They were completed with surprising ease, bringing approximately 8-12 pilots in mixed BS, CS, and HAC ships. I think no warp scrambling was observed, and ships were readily able to warp out. Damage dealt was quite substantial, enough for sustained attacks to break a passive shield tanked Rokh in the space of several minutes, and heavily tanked Command Ships much quicker. Warping out when low on HP became the staple tactic and it worked very well.
During the two weeks, only four ships were lost. All but one were due to either server issues (primarily desynching), or RL issues (inconvenient doorbells). One ship was lost to unexpected warp scrambling in a freakishly hard Magnetometric site where a previous pilot had inadvertantly triggered multiple waves of NPCs at the same time. Some of those ships lost due to server issues were reimbursed and losses were on the whole a lot fewer than we expected.
Logistical Hurdles:
The Class 3 neighboring systems provided much of the content we dealt with. W-space anomalies and sites respawn rather slowly, so having a new system to play with every 16 hours was an enormous boon. Moreover, without exception, each Class 3 W-space system New Thelan linked to had an additional existing wormhole leading back to K-space. This meant that New Thelan –always- had a path back to K-space. These routes frequently terminated in low sec empire, though two entries into 0.0 were observed. This made bringing in new ships and pilots and exporting our materials for sale was laughably easy.
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Anopheli
Pillowsoft
Total Comfort |
Posted - 2009.03.30 21:18:00 - [ 4]
Edited by: Anopheli on 30/03/2009 21:18:53This ready K-space access incidentally provided some PvP entertainment, and in the name of keeping our haven secure, other pilots exploring the wormhole were killed or chased off. The occasional incursion by pirates looking for some W-space pew pew was easily repulsed by our established superior numbers. We also learned how to safely collapse a wormhole and routinely scared pilots out of the class 3 and 4 systems by threatening to trap them inside once the wormhole had gone critical. Conclusion:In conclusion, this expedition was a remarkable success. The net value of the tags, salvage and resources retrieved was over 6 billion at current market prices, even given the unstable nature of the present market. In the end, we decided to pack up operations and search for a class 6 wormhole system ( the highest end of W-space difficulty). Our goal with these expeditions is to explore wormhole space in short semi-permanent stretches. Now that we've catalogued everything in the class 3 and 4 wormholes and know what to expect, we want to aim at the most difficult systems and launch a fleet assisted by multiple carriers to figure that out. This content was made very easy, almost trivialized, by bringing in a well rounded fleet with enough pilots to handle the spawns. Almost all of the success can be attributed to the odd nature of New Thelan’s constant spawning of outgoing C247 wormholes. Our observations of this system were reliable enough that we can make some very important conclusions:
[*]Long term stays in W-space are messy, and become progressively messier the larger and longer they get. Good planning, a realistic assessment of what you can and cannot get while inside, what to bring with you and what to leave behind. Don’t expect to be building carriers and battleships in these systems. Likewise, if you want T2, you haul it with you. Do it wrong, and you end up with both empty wallets, and bored pilots hanging around in empty systems.
[*]The respawn rate of an individual W-space system is quite low. Low enough that long term stays are clearly not intended (confirmed by CCP Greyscale: http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1037111&page=2#47). This system is somewhat of an exception because of the way it generates exits.
[*]There is an organization to W-space of some means, including at least two ‘tiers’. This 2nd tier of system appears to include systems that are only accessible from other W-space systems. While Devs have mentioned this in passing, it’s never been explicitely stated. Well, we’ve seen it. We're calling this a "hub" system as it seems to deliberately only connect with C247's, making it a kind of wormhole hub for that system type.
[*]Wormhole spawning is not a pure, random roll of the dice. There are clearly factors that restrict what wormholes may spawn where. In K-space, the random nature may predominate, as we’ve seen Class 6 wormholes spawn in 0.9 sec, and Class 1 in truesec of -0.60. In W-space, however, under some conditions only certain types of wormholes to certain types of destinations may spawn. For example, the C247's we found tended to link to lowsec using U210 wormholes and gave us multiple entry points in the Black Rise and Khanid regions.
Nyphur has decided to keep a scanner alt in this system, and is essentially selling it. The system was fantastically kind to us, and is a viable home for even longer stays. If you’re interested: http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1037476 |
Cailais
Amarr
Nasty Pope Holding Corp
Talocan United |
Posted - 2009.03.30 22:13:00 - [ 5]
A very interesting account and a good read.
C.
|
Benco97
Gallente
Terraprobe Dynamics |
Posted - 2009.03.30 22:55:00 - [ 6]
"Benco97's account of Wspace life;
Day fourteen, 18:34.
"Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Wormhole, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav" *Message repeats*"
Seriously though, Pretty good stuff you've got there. |
Turiel Demon
Minmatar
Celtic industries
|
Posted - 2009.03.30 23:08:00 - [ 7]
Confirming the 'hub' type systems. We've been set up in a class 4 which consistently gives us the same type of WH to tier 2 systems. Shame it's pretty much been a massive waste of time due to that, but we'll know to look for a higher grade system for the next venture  |
Dmian
Gallente
Gallenterrorisme |
Posted - 2009.03.30 23:17:00 - [ 8]
 Originally by: Cailais
A very interesting account and a good read.
C.
I'm of the same opinion, very interesting. |
Hanns
The Second Sons
|
Posted - 2009.03.30 23:26:00 - [ 9]
Originally by: Benco97
"Benco97's account of Wspace life;
Day fourteen, 18:34.
"Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Wormhole, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav" *Message repeats*"
QFT |
LordSkully |
Posted - 2009.03.30 23:31:00 - [ 10]
Edited by: LordSkully on 30/03/2009 23:31:27Maybe we can get everyone in Dodixie to move there.  |
Crimsoneer
Gallente
Noir. Academy
|
Posted - 2009.03.30 23:35:00 - [ 11]
The fact that you can know the mass limit of a WH so precisely that you can artificially collapse it is a bit disappointing... it seems to defeat the purpose of the thing.
Still, great read, and thanks for the info. |
Thetys
Caldari
Evoke.
Ev0ke |
Posted - 2009.03.30 23:53:00 - [ 12]
very very interesting report, thanks for posting |
Pan Crastus
Anti-Metagaming League |
Posted - 2009.03.30 23:57:00 - [ 13]
Pally LFG W-Raid, can tank and DPS!
|
eFart
Minmatar |
Posted - 2009.03.30 23:58:00 - [ 14]
Originally by: Hanns
Originally by: Benco97
"Benco97's account of Wspace life;
Day fourteen, 18:34.
"Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Wormhole, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav, Grav" *Message repeats*"
QFT
what abut ccp 2 remove astroid belts from 0.0 and keep em only in hi and low sec and wormhoes so peeps hav to scan **** out and dont ***** about grav sits on forums allthetime |
Anopheli
Pillowsoft
Total Comfort |
Posted - 2009.03.30 23:59:00 - [ 15]
Edited by: Anopheli on 31/03/2009 00:10:46Edited by: Anopheli on 31/03/2009 00:10:18 Originally by: Crimsoneer
The fact that you can know the mass limit of a WH so precisely that you can artificially collapse it is a bit disappointing... it seems to defeat the purpose of the thing.
Still, great read, and thanks for the info.
At the time we weren't quite certain. The values that were dredged up for wormhole statistics came from a dump of the Singularity database before release, and include notes on things like mass regeneration, which got stripped out before the final release. The main time we tried doing this purposefully was when a wormhole set spawned linking NewThelan->J113543->Irmalin. Irmalin is a hellish little system in the corner of Khanid loaded down with a mix of pirates, griefers and gate campers. And lots of them. Really, Local in Irmalin looks like Rancer during Ginger Magician's days, and is about as friendly. Because the only thing that had gone through the hole were a pair of CovOps, we knew within a good margin how much mass was left. A wormhole that had been used for a bit of back and forth traffic is going to be in a lot more vague of a range. Unless you get everyone to somehow log each time they pass through - which is going to happen sometime after people remember to bookmark all wormholes, which will happen sometime after hell freezes over. New Thelan was somewhat more forgiving in the way of Grav sigs. There were usually only 3-5 at a time. Since we didn't use them, they didn't despawn quickly, and they were bookmarked. This made it really easy to find a new outgoing wormhole, often within about 5-10 minutes of one dying. |
Majestik
Gallente
Freelancing Corp
Confederation of Independent Corporations |
Posted - 2009.03.31 00:28:00 - [ 16]
Cool. |
Marlenus
Ironfleet Towing And Salvage |
Posted - 2009.03.31 04:04:00 - [ 17]
Originally by: Crimsoneer
The fact that you can know the mass limit of a WH so precisely that you can artificially collapse it is a bit disappointing... it seems to defeat the purpose of the thing.
I am of the opinion that this was a mistake / oversight by CCP, to be fixed later. I'm hoping they make silent changes and then laugh like hell when the whining breaks out: "Hey, the wormhole didn't behave like the chart said it was supposed to!" Overall there doesn't seem to be as much randomness to the w-hole behavior as was indicated in the original dev blogs. |
ToG
Amarr
Pillowsoft
Total Comfort |
Posted - 2009.03.31 04:14:00 - [ 18]
Edited by: ToG on 31/03/2009 04:16:31 Originally by: Marlenus
Originally by: Crimsoneer
The fact that you can know the mass limit of a WH so precisely that you can artificially collapse it is a bit disappointing... it seems to defeat the purpose of the thing.
I am of the opinion that this was a mistake / oversight by CCP, to be fixed later.
I'm hoping they make silent changes and then laugh like hell when the whining breaks out: "Hey, the wormhole didn't behave like the chart said it was supposed to!"
Overall there doesn't seem to be as much randomness to the w-hole behavior as was indicated in the original dev blogs.
We collapsed wormholes long before we knew about the limits of wormholes. The idea was you had a 50% of getting stuck outside and if you did, you just went to the next class 3 system. What i mean to say, not knowing the limits won't stop me mashing up wormholes i don't want. What had to be the best fun by far was the variety of systems we appeared in, as well as the opportunity to gank random ships we scanned down and have them into hull before they see us on scan. |
Nyphur
Pillowsoft
|
Posted - 2009.03.31 04:19:00 - [ 19]
Originally by: ToG
We collapsed wormholes long before we knew about the limits of wormholes. The idea was you had a 50% of getting stuck outside and if you did, you just went to the next class 3 system. What i mean to say, not knowing the limits won't stop me mashing up wormholes i don't want.
What had to be the best fun by far was the variety of systems we appeared in, as well as the opportunity to gank random ships we scanned down and have them into hull before they see us on scan.
It's true, before we worked out the techniques and found the mass limit table, we had a dedicated collapsing guy follow us. If he got trapped in the other system, we made sure he was furnished with the bm to the lowsec/0.0 wormhole in the class 3 system. It was just a matter of scanning down a new entry point and flying him to it to get him back in. So if they do add some variance (and I think they should), manual collapsing of wormholes will still be fairly risk-free. |
Rin Marcosad
Gallente
Pillowsoft |
Posted - 2009.03.31 07:24:00 - [ 20]
As an aside: Cheers to our dedicated wormhole engineer, wherever the hell you ended up. o7 |
ToG
Amarr
Pillowsoft
Total Comfort |
Posted - 2009.03.31 15:39:00 - [ 21]
Originally by: Rin Marcosad
As an aside: Cheers to our dedicated wormhole engineer, wherever the hell you ended up. o7
He was an alt of a friend and in said friends words, "Hes about 45 jumps from anything thats moving and doesn't want to kill him" |
Nyphur
Pillowsoft
|
Posted - 2009.04.01 02:26:00 - [ 22]
We just found the class 6 we've been looking for. We'll post some stories on how we get on in about a week. This could all go horribly wrong, resulting in the loss of a lot of expensive ships but we made enough on our first expedition to cover the losses and we're excited about being in a class 6. Who knows.. maybe we'll get lucky and this will turn out to be a hub system too :). |
Zel Nughat
Amarr
Nughat Corp
|
Posted - 2009.04.01 04:55:00 - [ 23]
Thank you for sharing all this. Good luck. |
Lord Eremet |
Posted - 2009.04.01 12:00:00 - [ 24]
Nice story. Makes me want to go out there as well. |
Durindana
Gallente
Lafayette Sex Lions
|
Posted - 2009.04.09 21:56:00 - [ 25]
Originally by: Anopheli
Irmalin is a hellish little system in the corner of Khanid loaded down with a mix of pirates, griefers and gate campers. And lots of them.
that makes me crai, I lived there for a long time farming lvl3's in a 'rox when I was a nublet. RKN has several top-quality agents there iirc. Anyway, on-topic: great account, OP |
ollobrains
5th Front enterprises
Chain of Chaos |
Posted - 2009.04.12 08:47:00 - [ 26]
the so called random spawn theory is in fact a tightly controlled predictable database spawn thang. so Kind of defeats CCPs randomness theorm |
Jim McGregor |
Posted - 2009.04.12 09:17:00 - [ 27]
Standing by for nerf-bat to wreck havoc...
|
Anopheli
Pillowsoft
Total Comfort |
Posted - 2009.04.12 09:21:00 - [ 28]
Originally by: ollobrains
the so called random spawn theory is in fact a tightly controlled predictable database spawn thang. so Kind of defeats CCPs randomness theorm
It does not appear to be. New Thelan is somewhat of an exception to the rule. Likewise, I am aware of one single lower grade system that behaves predictably. The basic premise I've been working with, and that the database I'm building supports so far is that spawns are in general, random, albeit biased. That is, probabilities have been adjusted so that certain systems spawn certain content with different likelihoods. One of the general misconceptions that is quite widespread is that the w-space system's difficulty is directly related to the K-space system in which it spawns in. This could not be further from the truth. We have found a high rate of C1-3 w-space connections forming in rather low sec systems (-0.5 ish). Likewise, we have found one C6 spawn within a 0.9 system, and our own C6 at one point formed a link to a 0.7 sec system. So there is a great deal of random behavior, but it is constrained by certain restrictions, and biased by different probabilities. This is not that different from most other spawn mechanics in the game. The present theory that I've arrived at, and ironically Gaius has arrived at a similar one, is that there is a organization within W-space. The purpose of this is probably to prevent the system from becoming completely unmanageable with purely random connections. There are systems that link exclusively to W-space, there are systems that link to K-space with extremely high probability, there are those in between, and there is a certain measure of 'depth' to W-space, such as our present system which tends to be as many as 5 W-space systems away from K-space. |
Anopheli
Pillowsoft
Total Comfort |
Posted - 2009.04.12 09:23:00 - [ 29]
Originally by: Durindana
Originally by: Anopheli
Irmalin is a hellish little system in the corner of Khanid loaded down with a mix of pirates, griefers and gate campers. And lots of them.
that makes me crai, I lived there for a long time farming lvl3's in a 'rox when I was a nublet. RKN has several top-quality agents there iirc.
Anyway, on-topic: great account, OP
Thank you very much. Irmalin at the time we connected to it had no less than twenty people in it, all with -8 to -10 sec ratings. Killboard searches spewed out nightmarish amounts of ganking. It made the system seem quite like a Amarr version of Rancer. |
Jane Indy |
Posted - 2009.04.12 10:12:00 - [ 30]
you can't scan out all the sites with one type of scanner? |
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