The Wormhole Conundrum

Keepstars are huge extra large citadels of which only one exists so far. Wormhole dwellers alliance Hard Knocks built the first and only one in a C5 wormhole system, an amazing accomplishment not only for the cost of the BPO, materials, and construction, but also the danger in transporting from high sec to the wormhole and then build the citadel in space. Kudos to them. Fort Knocks Keepstar will always be remembered as the first.

But it does create a bit of a conundrum.

You see, this impressive feat of engineering creates a structure with massive stats and defensive capabilities in an area of the universe that is notoriously easy to defend with determined pilots. And the extra large citadel is designed to combat against fleets of capitals and super capitals. In essence, as long as Hard Knocks has pilots the citadel is extremely difficult if not impossible to destroy since an opposing force would have to work around the clocks for a long period of time against hostile residents to build up the military force to even challenge the doomsday wielding structure.

The irony that the area of space never initially intended for long term occupation and pilot safety now has one of the most unassailable player owned structures in the game is not lost on me.

While I like that wormhole space has evolved from the initial vision of CCP designers into something wholly emergent I have concerns that wormhole space is going to eventually because a series of next-to-impossible to dislodge large and extra large citadels where pilots are only evicted from internal drama or burnout. This is the exact type of stagnation FozzieSov was created to disrupt in null sec.

I suspect CCP will live to regret allowing extra large Keepstars deployed in wormhole space as long as there is no efficient way to bring a large fleet quickly.

Guest Post: Your Hypothesis Is Not Correct

Originally a comment by Axloth Okiah on my Hypothesis on Wormholes post.

As a "professional wormholer" pretty much on top of the whole foodchain (ie. diplo and leadership of one of top alliances), please allow me to correct some of your inaccurate assumptions.

The biggest one is that there is some preferential space one needs to "break ïnto" in order live in wspace. Your text suggests that we somehow block off entry to these systems - in a similar manner to sov-holding alliances in null which prevent newcomers from taking root. By this you probably mean C5 and C6 systems where capital escalations are possible.

But in reality, there are dozens of free and unoccupied systems like this and even bigger number of semi-inactive and poorly defended ones. The infamous "fortress systems" with 10+ POSes and tons of capitals are at most 10% of the total. In this respect, situation got even better for "newcomers" with Hyperion and number of good systems went up because of the wh-effects and C4 static rebalance (Black Holes for example used to be basically uninhabitable, now they are actually good and desirable).

There is simply no way and, perhaps more importantly, no incentive for us to prevent others from settling in. There isnt any competition for resources going on because escalations are same everywhere and most of publicized evicitons happen because of grudges and enmity. Coming into wspace is in practice extremely easy. What is hard is actually living here longterm which is a result of shit POS design and shit corp role management that make growing, recruitment and ship security a total nightmare. Start-up groups often dwindle and die because they cannot sustain any growth as result of pressure from the environment and game itself, not because of other wormholers trying to remove them.

The income is not that stellar either. Prices of salvage have been dropping for a long time, which unfortunately disproptionately affects lower-class wormholers. On top of that, all of the income must be divided among the membership, so bigger groups earn less. While 3-men farming groups earn a ton of isk, average membership of professional wormholers earn less then hisec incursioners while facing significantly higher risk (regardless of Hyperion release).

In the end, the current slumber is nothing new and is a result of overall eve slowdown and less players logging in - it will hopefully pick as the summer ended. Similar concerns about wspace dying and groups being too big, evil and entrenched crop up every couple months, regardless of whats really going on. But its been the same and roughly cyclical in nature for several years now as strong alliances form and then disintegrate into smaller ones.

So... I think your hypothesis is not correct and hopefully I managed to explain why ;)

Hypothesis On Wormholes

I've been listening to the excellent Down the Pipe podcast ever since it started in November 2012 so it provides an excellent perspective on the state of Wormhole space from pilots living there for the past two years.

Things have changed, and I don't mean just recently. There has been a malaise sneaking into wormholes for the past year and the recent changes in Hyperion release have exacerbated the issue into stark contrast from two years ago.

From an outsider's perspective of both wormhole space and null sec space, I'm going to put forth a hypothesis that I've been thinking on for a week or so that might be completely wrong... or might not. Here we go.

Hypothesis: What is happening in wormhole space right now is a microcosm version in both scale and time of what has been occurring in null sec for years, and can be predictive of what is coming in the next year in null sec.

Now to support my position.

About two years ago wormholes appearing to be booming with large corps and alliances battling it out constantly for resources (i.e. good systems and the sites in them) or for fun and profit. Then about a year ago I noticed a change in the winds that perhaps might have been there for a while but was definitely becoming apparent through blog posts and podcasts like Down the Pipe. Wormhole space was becoming less vibrant and started to, dare I say it, stagnate. The entrenched forces in the C5 and C6 class wormholes became larger and richer and the barrier to entry to these lucrative systems became higher.

Let's be clear, wormholes with their different rules and systems with special effects and no local or stations already have a large barrier to entry for the common pilot, add on to that large numbers of professional wormhole pilots guarding the entrance way to the best space with fleets of capitals and T3s and hundreds of pilots at the disposal, and new groups are dissuaded from attempting to break in.

This creates a cycle wherein to access the riches available to these powerful entities a pilot or group of pilots must join the existing organization. These powerful and growing alliances start to strangle out smaller groups that cannot compete financially and the overall population begins to drop and activity starts to dwindle.

Then along comes CCP with changes.

Before we can talk about the effect of these changes, let's talk about the paradigm of wormhole space which is that the risk is a lot greater (i.e. no stations, dangerous rats, no local to warm you of other pilots, no easy entry and exit, etc) but is compensated by high rewards. This dynamic was fine early on in the wormhole timeline since Apocrypha but over time the rewards remaining mostly constant while the risk decreased as pilot proficiency for the ins and outs of the region improved. Eventually groups mastered wormhole space and became experts at controlling the holes into and out of their systems to the point where sites could be run in rather extreme  safety by the professional wormholers for the same rewards. And let's be clear, these are some of the best rewards in all of New Eden at the end of the day. Listen to Down The Pipe episode 39 and sit agog when they talk about what ships they use to run their PvE content.

So, back to CCP's changes. Its obvious that the thrust of the changes were to decrease some of the control the of holes that the professionals had acquired in order to break down some of the walls that the professionals had erected around themselves. As wormholers themselves will state, the risk was subsequently increased as it was harder to close holes, and harder to close them safely, AND there are more of them, while the rewards had not changed at all. The fact that compared to most of all other space the rewards in the best wormholes are still miles above is lost on these professionals who only see their comfortable and known situation being disrupted. I don't blame them too much as any of us would balk at similar types of changes in our preferred area of space. Personally, I don't think CCP communicated the intent behind the changes well enough.

Regardless, the impact of those changes will require months to play out. Will there be an exodus of players from wormhole space as the changes to higher risk and less hole control and stagnation caused by the invested professional organizations drive them away? Or will these changes plus future changes trigger a wormhole renaissance where new players/returning players adjust to the new tactics and rules? We should know over the next year.

* * * * *

In null we are at the part prior halfway in the changes to space phase. On the horizon is the promised sovereignty mechanics changes and the "new space / building stargates" promise. Once these changes are done, null sec will face the same question that faces wormhole space right now: Is it the beginning of a new age, or the final long decline of the old one?

It is an Arms Race

On Down the Pipe podcast episode 11 they get to talking about wormhole politics and how there seems to be a growing trend of (a) corps uniting together to fight enemies and (b) larger groups kicking out smaller groups in the C5 and C6 wormholes, even if those smaller groups are PvP oriented.

At one point someone said (and forgive me, I didn't write down who as I listen to podcasts in my car) "its like an arms race" in reference to how if a group calls upon allies (i.e. batphones for help) in one fight, then the other side will think they need more pilots (or wants more pilots) because they know a bigger fight is in the offing. Thus the impetus for the the creation of larger alliances and coalitions.

Let's be clear: it is an arms race.

The arms in question are not ships or guns or technological improvements, it is simply a measure of fighting pilots. This is exactly what has happened to null sec, which I've written about before.

I think part of the problem facing wormholers is that the population of that space at the high end sites has become saturated. There are no more free C5s and C6s to move into and setup shop, you basically have to evict someone. And because some of those corporations and alliances in that space have been building up assets and defenses (including capitals) you are forced to go in hard and that means needing to be part of a larger, usually already established group to assist in the eviction... sounds terribly familiar does it not?

What's the answer? I don't know for sure. I have not lived in wormholes enough to even begin to propose solutions, but I suspect that a deathstrike class of ship to negate the powers of massed capitals is a good starting point.

Another idea I had was that perhaps its time to look at wormholes themselves and make them less predictable and manipulatable. They were supposed to be mysterious and hazardous to use... hell people weren't supposed to live in wormholes full time for that matter! It could be time to upset that apple cart and put more emphasis on the hazard of the space and less on the politics of neighbours.

Project Hades

So yesterday I talked about how my universal alt was causing problems as I sought to send her off to wormhole space. Well, here is post where I describe the reason I'm trying to ship her off to unknown space.

My low sec planetary colonies were doing well after I mastered the art of colony layout for efficiency, but I wanted to increase volume of production without adding a second character with colonies. I would have liked setting up shop in null sec but didn't want to break my alt's neutrality to null sec politics so that high sec remained safe, nor did I want to deal with hostile gate camps at crucial pipeline systems.

The perfect solution appears to be wormhole space: null sec resource volumes with possible easy access to high sec with diminished threat of gate camping. Working with my long time former mentor Nhi'Khuna from Drone Mutiny blog the search began for an appropriate wormhole system.


What Defines Appropriate?

My goals are to produce POS fuel for my corporation and alliance. I did some spreadsheet calculations and came to these rough numbers:

In essence, the ratio of needed POS fuel items was roughly equal to the ratio produced per cycle (ignoring the different cycle times as you go up the chain, some fine tuning will be required as time goes on) so I am quite confident that a system with Plasma/Lava planet(s) along with some Gas and Barren would suffice, with Storm filling in for Gas in a pinch.

My associate located an excellent C2 wormhole with a static high sec exit that suits our purposes perfectly, with a plasma and lava combo and some gas and barren to fill out the needs. He's started colonization and I'm working on moving into system this week as the stars align and I get some time.

Dicey Negotiations

Of course, the system is not unoccupied already. A small corp is living there and is hesitant about working with us, but have agree on paper to a non-aggression pact. That doesn't mean we'll be safe or even safer, but its better than pure hostility. As long as we don't infringe greatly on their resource gathering which appears more directed at harvesting sleepers than planets, we should be OK.

Eve Redux

Over at Massively.Com Brendan Drain posted an article rhetorically asking if wormholes have revitalized Eve. Its a good read and covers a lot of points I had considered writing up myself: new null sec space to access from high sec and low sec, new exciting PvE encounters, no major alliances claiming up all the space... it has definitely provided a huge exciting boost to the options players have when they log in.

Don't get me wrong: Eve was very vital prior to the advent of Apocrypha, but the addition of new dynamic non-claimable 0.0 space has been nothing but a good idea.

* * * * *
Sorry for the short post; I am beat. Twin B.... oh what the hell, I already told you their names... Sean has a terrible cold making it hard for him to sleep so SWMBO and I have been trading off hours throughout the night comforting him and trying to get him to sleep. Poor 11 month old doesn't know what is happening to him and makes him very sad.

Wormhole Classification

I knew someone, somewhere, would not stand at rest and lest wormholes not be classified in some coherent manner such that pilots can figure out what they are getting into. After all, 0.0 space has its true security rating to determine the quality of rats even if its not displayed in the game itself.

Sure enough, here we go. Heck, they've even got a map. Allow me to explain...

Some pilots working with the data and eve client, and perhaps some help of friendly devs in IRC channels have determined that there are nine classes of systems. Classes 1-6 represent the wormhole space systems, and class 7, 8, and 9 represent high, low and null sec respectively in k-space.

The six classes of wormhole systems go from easiest difficulty at 1 to hardest at 6. Each of the general descriptions from wormholes covers two classes: Unknown means 1 and 2, Dangerous Unknown means 3 and 4, and Deadly Unknown means 5 and 6. Obviously the difficulty of the Sleepers and the resulting rewards vary depending on the class of the wormhole.

So far so good?

Well there is more. If you look at a wormhole you will see it has a name like K162 or N110. These names are not random. A wormhole of a certain name will always lead to the same class of space. If you are running around High sec and find a wormhole named Z457, if you look at the handy chart in the map linked above you will see that it leads to a class 4 wormhole system (better put your mouthguard in).

Note: there is the line about the K162 wormholes that is not clear. What I think that means is that if the wormhole's name is K162, it leads to a system of the same classification that you are currently in, so its not always set in stone.

Update: Looks like I was wrong about K162 wormholes. From the Scrap Heap Challenge thread, 5th page:

"If you read the map K162 are exit wormholes. There are two kinds of wormholes, ones that spawn inside the wormhole system itself and lead to wherever(therefore making an exit wormhole(k162) on the otherside) and those that spawn in known space and lead into wormhole space(these have the designation)"

End Update

So this chart allows you to look at a wormhole name and determine at a glance if you are entering easy Unknown space or slightly harder Unknown space. Not a huge deal for a prepared gang perhaps, but very important for a solo pilot looking for some easy anomalies.

You'll also notice on that map how the w-space systems are grouped into distinct regions. As soon as someone figures out how to tell the constellation and region IDs of a system, expect them to start mapping systems to the locations. Eve players are obsessive like that.

P.S. The white systems on the map, before anyone asks, are Jove systems. No, there are not any wormholes that lead there.

Planning An Expedition

With the war against Caerelleum Alliance over and a couple visits to w-space under my belt, I'm starting to think about a longer sojourn into the unknown.

A single ship is not sufficient for an extended stay in w-space. A well piloted Marauder might last a couple days but even its considerable cargo bay will run out of space or ammo. So I've accepted that I need my alt to accompany me in something with cargo space... but that rules out the Covert Ops. So how will we do probing effectively? And what if there are others in the system that need killing? If I take my Cerberus which works well against low end Sleepers, it totally gimps me in taking on anything in PvP except the ill-prepared or AFK.

In the end there are two ways to go. Either Kirith in the Dominix and Derranna in a Prowler with a probe launcher is my team, or I go all out and use the Orca.

Mobile Base One

The advantages of the Orca for w-space expeditions is plainly obvious. Kirith can do probing in his Buzzard covert ops frig, and then once safely ensconced in a wormhole system I can use the Orca's ship hanger to store the Buzzard and grab the Cerberus. Hostiles in system, switch to a PvP interceptor or Falcon. You can even modify the ship's fitting in space. Hell, I can even put an assembled battleship in the cargo bay and eject it when in W-space and have Kirith kit it out right there.

To protect the Orca while in space a cloaking device is highly advisable but the other two high slots could be a Warfare Link for shield resistances and a probe launcher for emergencies.

Best of all, even with a battleship in the cargo hold there is still enough room for something else, like say a POS tower.

Immobile Base Two

I know the logisitics of keeping a tower fueled in w-space. But what if the tower was a temporary structure with nothing but a slew of guns for defence? And the Orca can carry a few weeks of fuel?

While risking an 80 million or so tower to a passing gang intent on destroying might seem like a lot, consider the defence it provides the Orca and others using its facilities. A bolt hole to hide from roaming gangs; a place to go AFK from; a place to swap ships or to probe from. For the extra protection it gives to the 600 million + Orca the price tag of 80 million and a few days of fuel seems worth it.

And if I select a Class 1 or 2 w-space system (more on Classes of w-space systems later) that frequently connects to high sec, its feasible that I might be able to get regular refueling runs anyways. If not, just tear down and store in the Orca until I can.

Admittedly there are risks to that plan, but I'm a smart guy and know how to alleiviate many of them with careful use of alts and such.

Summary

Even if the expedition is a complete and utter failure, it looks like a lot of fun and not at risk from easy destruction by low sec denziens like a low sec tower would be.

So look out wormhole space, here I come!

Geek Weekend Part 1 - Adventures In W-Space

I logged in Friday evening and checked out what was going on. Turns out some of my corp mates grabbed a wormhole from home and were lost in space. Well, not really; they had found a new exit but it was 21 jumps from where I was. I decided against the travel to where they were and opted instead to have Derranna look for a wormhole of my own to inhabit.

After one jump I found one and unlike the one from last week this one actually went to regular unknown wormhole space. Score! I grabbed Kirith and a Dominix and went jumped into the unknown.

Wormhole #1
After securing a safespot I set Kirith out to find some cosmic anomalies and see what could be done. I found one with some frigs and cruisers and I went to work... only to realize I grabbed the wrong Dominix. In my haste, I jumped into Brooklynn, my PvP ship with a bit armour hitpoint tank but no self repair. I was able to kill the first wave and start into the second, but I had to warp out with a battleship remaining and wasn't able to go back since my armour was low and not going back up by itself.

Annoyed, I jumped back into k-space, went to base, and got in Hudson with his Large Armour Repairer. Back to the wormhole, saw it was still up, and back into w-space. I sought out a new site and went to work. Hudson did less damage than Brooklynn did since it only fit four Electron Blaster IIs instead of 6 but the damage repair was handy and being able to salvage on the fly was nice. No drone problems as I managed to keep the aggro on my ship. I warped out after the first wave was done as I had other plans to attend to. I warped my characters to the wormhole and wisely jumped the non-probe ship out first; good thing as it collapsed the wormhole behind it.

Kirith docked up but Derranna logged out in wormhole space.

Later on Friday evening I logged in and decided to get Derranna out of w-space. My corpmates from eariler in the afternoon were lost in w-space looking for an exit. I was worried I would suffer the same fate.

Trying out Deep Space probes I found I was able to narrow down a signature to a wormhole pretty quickly. Although Deep Space Probes can't get to the 40 points of strength that Core Probes have at 0.25 AU, they have higher strength at equal ranges and thus allowed me to identify the Unknown signature sooner.

Derranna came out in High Sec in Khanid Kingdom space, a 17 jumps away from where she started.

Wormhole #2
Saturday evening I decided to look for another wormhole so I could try out my Cerberus instead of the Dominix. A few systems later Derranna had a hit and scanned it down. There was a neutral Cerberus sitting on the wormhole, and I debated holding off on jumping through. As Kirith arrived I decided to throw caution to the wind and send Derranna through to investigate. There was a drake on the other side but nothing else on the scan so I got cocky and drove Kirith and his Cerberus heavy assault ship into the wormhole as well.

On the other side the Drake did not lock and I warped off safely. A few minutes later the drake disappeared from scan allowing me to get to work.

I was quite surprised to find only one cosmic anomaly in the system. I figure the rest had been cleared out, or maybe this system was shortchanged in the random distribution. Whatever.

I warped in and found two sentry guns accompanied by a frigate and a cruiser. As the heavy assault missile went to work I carefully monitored my shields and managed my tranvseral to limit incoming damage as much as possible. Soon the enemy was gone and the second wave spawned, this time 3 frigates and 2 cruisers. Again the HAC held up under the onslaught. Finally the last wave spawned and I was faced with what appeared to be two battlecruisers and two cruisers. My shields never dropped below 50% and my heavy assault missiles tore them up.

The Cerberus passed inspection at this site. The only downside is that is had no tractor and salvager so I had to send Derranna in afterwards to clean up the mess.

Of course, the good times couldn't last. While I was salvaging the wrecks I picked up a hit on the combat probe and I immediately safe spotted while I determined what was out there. One battlecruiser. Hmmm, as I launched more probes to narrow down his position he talks in local.

"Hello, anyone out there?"

Ah, the plaintive cry of the fearful.

I checked his corp info and his age; he is a 2009 character so is probably not a big threat to my Cerberus even in his Drake (I've narrowed him down to 75+% so I can see the ship type) but I worry he might be bait for a trap instead of just a foolhardy noob. I debate the options as I warp in on him cloaked; attack, or carry on as I was, or hide?

Deciding not to chance it, and it was getting late, I decided that discretion was the better part of survival and logged. If I had the Dominix with warp scram I might have risked the attack, but the Drake could too easily escape from my PvE Cerb.

* * * * *
I logged in a bit Sunday to look for an exit out. A scan revealed several ships in the system so I launched the probes to narrow them down and see what was up. I eventually nailed down a Hurricane battlecruiser and warped in at 100 to see what he was doing... and as the warp bubble collapsed I found myself pulled to within a few thousand meters!

CRAP! WARP BUBBLE!

Thank the eve gods I wasn't unlcoaked by the bubble, wormhole, or Hurricane. I turned around as fast as my ass could carry me and got out of the bubble's range, warping off to safety.

"Maybe I'll wait until the weekend is over," I say to myself with nervous sweat still on my brow.

Next up: Dawn of War II