Taking down the tower
1st November 2010 – 5.52 pmThe tower is coming down. Peacefully, though. Most of our ships and other assets are already in empire space, now it is time to start unanchoring defences and modules, shipping them out of w-space in to temporary storage. My Crane transport ship is already sitting in a station somewhere in The Forge but the corporation's Bustard transport ship remains, and I use that to scoop some unanchored defences. I have shot a few ships performing a similar service before and I try to learn from their mistakes. I bookmark the location of the defences, and warp to the planet and back instead of slowly crawling out of the shields under normal power. Once at the defences I scoop them and warp out, returning to again sit inside the shields. There is no drama.
We have a route to high-sec empire space scanned, taking us through three intermediate w-space systems, and a Buzzard covert operations boat is seen lurking near the exit wormhole. A single scanning boat may be no threat but we aren't going to take silly chances. I board my Malediction interceptor and head out to loiter on the wormhole where the Buzzard was seen, hoping to deter or repel any incursions. But no ships are seen, and my time can now be better spent taking the remaining assets out to empire space.
I drop the Malediction off at the tower, its small hull suitable to be hauled inside the hangar of an Orca, and move my few remaining ships to a space station. My Tengu strategic cruiser, Onyx heavy interdictor, and Sacrilege heavy assault ship all reach empire space without a problem, my bare pod coming back the same way. But when I pilot the Bustard out, laden with tower defences and some planet goo, an unfamiliar Tengu waits for me on the wormhole to high-sec. It's no problem for my exit, as I can simply jump in to Concord-policed space, but it is still a threat.
The inhabitants of the class 2 w-space system we've been using as a thoroughfare must have woken up. A Hurricane battlecruiser warps to the wormhole as well, joining the Tengu, but they seem to bore easily, warping away after a few minutes. I take my pod back through the wormhole to find a Tempest battleship now holding station, which I evade easily, but a scout reports that it jumps through the wormhole and returns. Maybe the inhabitants want to collapse the connection to prevent our passage. Getting in and out, even with ships on the wormhole, should still be relatively easy, as jumping out is simple and returning in a pod will only be a problem if a warp bubble is present, which one isn't. But taking a Guardian logistics ship out shows me a third issue, that of the wormhole shifting.
It is possible to move wormholes, a little bit at a time. The nav-comp can get a ship close enough to a wormhole to register zero separation but will keep its distance from the actual centre. But a pilot can manoeuvre her ship to sit directly on the centre of the anomaly. After a short while the wormhole will reject the stationary mass and quietly shift in space, and this can be repeated. It is possible that the C2 capsuleers are exploiting this phenomenon to confuse our bookmarks. I drop out of warp in the Guardian not at zero metres but five kilometres from the wormhole. I only have to move a little to jump, but any further and the Tempest waiting there could have got a few shots off. It also seems like a long way to have moved the wormhole manually, and maybe they have found a more efficient way.
The Guardian is the last ship I have to move, and taking my pod back to the tower is straightforward. All I have left is my Buzzard covert operations boat and I will keep that in the system for now, as it keeps me in the system. It's a shame I have just moved out all my combat ships as a colleague is kicking off a fight at the high-sec wormhole, engaging a Brutix battlecruiser that is now there. The fight starts well but it seems the Brutix is acting as a sacrifice, as the dreaded heavy interdictor appears, an Onyx inflating its warp bubble across the wormhole.
More of our pilots go out to have a bit of a scrap and an energy neutralising Armageddon battleship is destroyed, but we lose a Vagabond cruiser. The pilot too is lost, waking up in a new clone, a victim of the warp bubble preventing easy escape. An Iteron hauler of ours is lost as well, but not carrying anything important, and the fall of the ships seems to signal the end of the encounter, the locals warping away. And whilst we have control of the wormhole we rush our Orca industrial command ships out to empire space, full of ships and assets that we'd rather not lose. One Orca pilot not having the updated bookmark to the shifted exit wormhole causes a bit of excitement, landing a bit too far to jump out immediately, but ultimately no danger, getting to empire space safely to end a productive evening.
6 Responses to “Taking down the tower”
Seems like allot of PvP fun all the moving associated with the taking down of the tower and moving stuff to high sec.
The tactical manipulation of a WH for PVP tactics which results in the situations you so described in details has to be one the most interesting things i've ever read as well also understood.
It never cease to amaze the amount of things i learn and keep learning PvP wise that each in its own way by not knowing or being aware of can result in PVP loss/death.
Getting so many assets out of the system presents more opportunities for capsuleers to intercept us, and it certainly seemed like we weren't short of PvP engagements during our relocation.
Moving the wormhole is indeed an interesting tactic for wormhole combat, and I would like to know if that was really what these pilots did, or if another mechanic was in use. I'm not sure what else could have made our bookmarks point to the wrong point in such a short time.
Last night in a Corp conversation with one of out C1 POS PvP dweller the conversation came up that he was able to move his static WH over 15km. Having read your details of it here i inquired a bit more since this is somewhat a facinating tactic.
From what he detailed he was able to shift the WH center fairly fast by not only sitting on the WH center but that he was in his pvp ship and inflated a bubble right in the center of the WH and as the cycle ran the WH gradually shifted. He said the shift occured within the time the cycle ran so it occured fairly fast and got it to move over 15km.
We got into the discussion and someone else that was in a WH immediately went and tried it and confirmed it as well with the bubble. So i guess using a HIC bubble makes it happen faster vs just a ship which if it works that way probably allot slower. Hope that helps.
That's some good information, AD, thanks. Maybe I'll try it out myself to see what can be done.
I have tested this, and in short, bubble doesn't as such have direct wh moving power but it does indirectly contribute.
To elaborate:
It apepears that wh is a point, but it registers 0m distance if you get to within 3km of that point (or in other words there's 3km wide '0m away' sphere around it).
Now, if you stop your ship within that sphere, (your speed needs to go down to 0.0m/s exactly), and there are no other ships moving within the sphere (not entirely sure here).
Then after about 5 seconds (seems to vary) the wormhole will shift, directly away from you, to such a distance that you will be exactly at 3km boundry.
So if you are 2km from center it'll move 1km away, if you are 100m from center it'll move 2900m.
Now, why bubble matters.
As i said you need to come to full stop.
Most ships take a relatively long time to go from some 2m/s to 0m/s, even istabbed frigs.
But for some reason active bubble reduces your mass by 80% (which probably has to do with modifying ab/mwd speed, it also reduces ab/mwd thrust by same percentage).
But you keep your original thrust (i think, alternatively it's just cause of inertia modifier), which results with ship that has mass of about twice that of a frig, but with original thrust, and inertia modifer of a cruiser (which is lower than that of a frig).
So, HIC with bubble can come to full stop much faster.
I have moved wormhole by 160km by moving inside it, stopping, moving, etc.
After i warped out wh returned to it's original spot. (actually it was bit weirder but too long to explain and it doesn't matter i think)
Then i moved it by shorter distance, and it seemed to stay there till DT.
Also i didn't notice any sort of 'gradual' shifting of wh, nor did wh ever move further than 3km in one shift, and i always had to stop for it.