Avoiding trouble
16th July 2010 – 7.50 pmI have scanned, but not everything. I have a colleague coming out to check the local w-space systems with me, maybe we can find something interesting happening. I engage the warp drive of my Buzzard covert operations boat and head to our home system's static wormhole to continue today's exploration.
The neighbouring class 4 system is empty, as is the C6, but jumping in to the next C4 shows scanning probes visible on the directional scanner. I warp to the wormhole leading to the connecting C4 and spy an Anathema cov-ops moving away and cloaking. My colleague checks the wormhole leading back to the C6 and reports it as clear. The Anathema is cloaked and could be anywhere, so I leave it behind and jump onwards.
I enter the C4 and, on orientating myself, am a little taken aback to find my Buzzard surrounded by a Tengu strategic cruiser, Curse recon ship, and Myrmidon battlecruiser. Surprised, but not panicked. I calmly wait for the session change timer to expire, making sure I hold my cloak, and jump back. Moving away cleanly on the other side there are no flares of activity from the wormhole, so no ships are following me. I loiter for a while at a safe distance monitoring the connection but no ships come through.
It is possible that the Anathema is a scout looking for targets, particularly when I am reminded that the fleet I jumped in to doesn't look like one created for Sleeper combat. With this fleet lurking it isn't safe for us to fight Sleepers, even if we had enough pilots to do so, and the lack of pilots also means we cannot engage the fleet directly. Instead, I look for a peaceful early night and head back to our tower to sleep.
3 Responses to “Avoiding trouble”
Good thing you didn't panic jumping to the other side of the WH meeting that waiting fleet there. As well I'm also a bit somewhat unclear exactly how the session change works jumping through a WH.
I'm aware of the timer jumping through and then trying to jump back through. However unclear like in empire space if upon the session change going through a WH if you remain "cloaked" for the duration timer unless you actually move just like in empire space. I'm really unclear about that. As well how far away jumping through a WH do you generally appear from the WH? I'm also unclear on that. In empire you can appear like 12-15 km or so away from a Stargate cloaked on the session change.
The few times I've jumped through a WH it's been uncertain to tell exactly how far from the WH I usually appear, sometimes closer to the WH that other times. Few times seem I'm sitting right inside it and if immediately try to cloak I'm closer than 2000 km and get the interferrance note every time try to cloakup. Other times seem I'm farer away. As a result I'm unclear which often results in as I can trying to grab the WH bookmark and quickly trying to move away and cloak because I'm assuming I'm actually visible and exposed while uncloaked. Can you clarify for me which is actually the case on session change through a WH? Since I'm wondering a bit when you jumped through the WH you did with fleet right there how was it you weren't seen or noticed though I'm assuming the fleet on the other side probably did see the WH fare indicating someone came through though unseen in your case.
As I understand it, the session change cloak holds for at least as long as the session change timer, and in my experience the cloak generally holds for quite a bit longer than the timer. Also, it seems that nothing can break this session change cloak. Whereas damage or proximity to other objects can de-activate a ship's cloaking device, the session change cloak is absolute.
I've jumped through quite a lot of wormholes and my experience suggests that the distance you are from the wormhole after a jump is based on a probabilistic bell-curve. More simply, it seems that you are likely to appear between 1·5 km and 4·5 km from the wormhole after jumping, although it is possible that you'll appear closer or further away.
I have once—and only once—appeared over 5 km away from a wormhole after a jump, which is the only time I wasn't close enough to the wormhole to jump back directly. So it is possible to appear further away from a wormhole than the jump distance, but it rarely happens and is not like the distance after jumping through a stargate.
The fleet I jumped in to no doubt saw the wormhole flare, as you suggest, but they couldn't do anything about my presence until I chose to break the session change cloak, or it wore off naturally. Because the session cloak held until after the session timer expired I was able to remain stationary and invulnerable before jumping back safely. And I was close enough to the wormhole that I only needed to break my cloak to jump.
Thanks for the feedback on that understanding the session change mechanic as it applies to WH's. That is quite interesting as well but very good mechanic to be aware of and understand in the response. Thanks again.