Watching a wormhole collapse
7th June 2010 – 7.02 pmThe fleet is safely home, but we'd rather no one follows. The decision is made to collapse our static wormhole, with the hopes that any repercussions from earlier will be minimised. It doesn't look like the capsuleers we attack are actively looking for us but it is better to be safe than sorry. And on that note I suggest that perhaps we ought to see what the capsuleers in the C5 connecting in to our system are up to before we pilot Orca industrial command ships to our wormhole. A scout warps to the K162 wormhole and jumps in to the C5. Shortly after he jumps, an Onyx heavy interdictor, Ishtar heavy assault ship, Hurricane battleship, and even a Thanatos carrier warp to the wormhole. It looks like it was a good idea to monitor our neighbour's activity before trying to collapse our wormhole with expensive and slow ships.
A ship jumps in to our system and holds its cloak. The stealth bombers we had earlier are still primed and mine is now sitting off the wormhole watching for activity. A Dominix uncloaks after a while and starts moving, but only back towards the wormhole where it jumps again. Maybe our neighbours are not adopting a threatening stance but a defensive one, with combat ships sitting on their side of the wormhole to protect the battleship as it too starts to collapse the connection. It looks like our measure to ensure our safety has been misinterpreted as a hostile act in itself. I am apparently not one to disavow people of their negative views of me, which generally turns out to be futile anyway, and think about making an opportunistic attack on this Dominix.
The stealth bombers are co-ordinated again. Each pilot has a copy of the bookmark to this wormhole, allowing us to individually pick a celestial body to 'bounce' off to approach the wormhole on a different vector. This is a quick way for several pilots to warp in to range for a bomb launch without decloaking each other. The bombs may not have time to reach the target in the interval between it decloaking and returning through the wormhole, and if we can catch it before the session change timer elapses we can continue the damage with torpedoes. As soon as the wormhole flares we are to launch, catching whatever jumps through in the explosion. And there's a flare! Bombs are launched, but I only hit the wormhole and its signature. I am scratching my head right up until the Dominix decloaks and jumps back, apparently unscathed. I am sure that damage decloaks ships but perhaps the session change cloak works differently. We need a secondary plan.
The next idea is to scatter as many ships and drones around the wormhole in an attempt to decloak the battleship by proximity and then to shoot it before it can jump back. I return my Manticore for the Malediction interceptor, hoping to fly fast enough around the wormhole to cover more range. The Dominix comes back again, easily avoids being decloaked and jumps home. There is an awful lot of volume in a five kilometre radius sphere of space where a battleship can hide. The operation is ultimately futile, but a better understanding of the mechanics involved is gained, as well as seeing how keeping nasty ships on one side and sending a calm pilot to make the jumps can be an effective strategy to collapse a wormhole. Everyone returns safely to the tower and I settle down to rest for the night.
2 Responses to “Watching a wormhole collapse”
I wouldn’t have known if a ship could be damaged while still cloaked from a jump but I do know they can’t be decloaked. You could be right up their tail pipe and still not see em. Its one small venue of safety CCP gives capsuleers so that they can load grid prior to being attacked. Thus I imagine you can’t be damaged period. However, whether or not you actually load grid, in 30 seconds after the servers say you should’ve loaded the system, you will decloak and will thus be targetable. This is where the lag comes into serious play and is the reason for many of the slaughterings in nullsec. Servers are claiming the person has loaded grid and the 30 second timer is up….when in reality that person is still seeing darkness.
Excellent, thank you. It is this kind of useful information that saves iskies and effort going in to futile endeavours, whilst also enabling capsuleers to exploit the knowledge to stay safe.
And, luckily, w-space doesn't get quite as crowded as null-sec, so we shouldn't get the terrible lag problems.