Dying wormholes end scouting
30th August 2014 – 3.51 pmThe previous sites have gone, two new signatures and two good anomalies have appeared. Can I clear the anomalies, and maybe get closer to ending my cathartic analysis of Oblivion, or do we have an extra wormhole? Scanning resolves a pocket of gas, one wormhole, and a second wormhole. Oblivion will have to wait.
The second wormhole is a K162 from class 3 w-space, but is wobbling away at the end of its life. That somewhat restricts my options in this direction, particularly when I have no idea how much longer the wormhole will last before imploding. More importantly, did whoever come through this connection also hit our static wormhole, opening that over twelve hours ago and almost forcing me to stay at home?
I warp across to our static connection to see that, thank goodness, the wormhole is stable and healthy. Maybe it will enter its end-of-life stage soon, but even if it does that still gives me a few hours to go scouting, which is plenty of time. I jump through. Updating my directional scanner from our K162 sees four cans and not much else, and really not much else with the ever-disappointing discovery scanner showing me that all the anomalies and signatures are in d-scan range. There's no activity in C3a.
I launch probes and perform a blanket scan, which offers extra information over the discovery scanner. I already know the five anomalies are all ore sites, and that there are five signatures. My combat scanning probes also tell me that the signatures are all chubby, giving me all gas sites or K162s, and that there are no ships and no structures. No activity, no occupation. I'll scan the signatures, which won't take long.
Gas, gas, gas, and a wormhole. It looks like I'm going to low-sec, and low-sec Tash-Murkon, by the looks of the U210's colours. I exit C3a to be in Sagain, but I won't repeat the obvious pun, and launch probes to poke the rather impressive-looking eight extra signatures. Well, impressive-looking until interrogated, as they are all combat sites bar two wormholes, one of which is weak and thus outbound.
Two wormholes is better than none, and I warp to the chubby one first. It's a K162 from more class 3 w-space. I can dive in and check out this system before warping and perhaps opening the other wormhole. It's not like finding outbound connections offers a particular advantage any more, sadly. Finding your ship spat over six kilometres from the wormhole when entering a w-space system isn't a positive sign either, which is what happens when I enter C3b.
D-scan is clear and there is again not much to see, with a few anomalies and just two signatures. There are no ore sites this time, just combat anomalies, giving weirdo occupants—if there are any. Nope, no structures again, according to my probes, and of the two signatures one is chubby, one is weak. The chubby signature is the U210 I entered through, meaning the other one is definitely not a K162. It could be an outbound connection, but it's much more likely to be a data site and a waste of time in scanning.
Back to low-sec and across to the other wormhole, which lead to class 5 w-space. Whatever, I continue my w-space scouting and enter C5a, updating d-scan to see a small bubble somewhere, just not on the wormhole. A black hole lurks in the distance, making me suspect that I won't find occupation here either. A blanket scan reveals a messy system, with twenty anomalies and eighteen signatures, and although there are no ships there are plenty of structures. Unfortunately, the structures are all concentrated on the planet within d-scan range, and all I'm seeing are remnants of an off-line tower. There is no active occupation.
I've found nothing so far, hardly encouraging me to continue, but I've got probes launched and I am okay to give scanning another go. I don't care to list close to twenty results, but I would like to point out all the data sites that take too long to identify. A bit of gas eases the scanning burden, and I end up with two wormholes for my troubles. The second is only a K162 from null-sec, though, which takes me to a system in Deklein where a ratting Dominix battleship can only be found inside a tower's force field after I appear.
I return to C5a and warp to the static wormhole for my last chance of finding activity, only to drop next to an H296 connection to further class 5 w-space that is close to death. I didn't risk an EOL wormhole in our home system, I'm certainly not going to risk diving in to deeper C5 space for potentially nothing. The constellation is ended. It's been dullness in scanning tonight, but at least I was out here doing something.
9 Responses to “Dying wormholes end scouting”
Are you still finding that distance from wormhole is still inversely proportional to use? (old rules of more use = closer)
I thought that the new wh mechanics were now merely mass, how close to collapse (closer to collapse = further distance) and arbitrary randomness
My journal still lags behind current events by a few weeks, and Hyperion is yet to hit Tiger Ears.
I have noticed the new mass-based jumps, and it's all a bit of a nuisance that doesn't seem to help anything except in discouraging pilots to take exploratory peeks through wormholes. Why poke your noise through to this system if you'll only have to burn back to the wormhole? They are not stargates and should not be like stargates.
Unfortunately it's highly unlikely that such change Elk be rolled back.
Oh well.
So it goes.
discouraging pilots to take exploratory peeks through wormholes
It might discourage the use of peeks from highsec wormholes. And I suppose more generally it discourages peeking in non-cloaky ships. But how much of that ever goes on? Not a lot.
For cloakies, it encourages roaming, because now you will never again appear within decloak distance of the wormhole. That alone makes you nigh untouchable, but wait, there's more! Now you often appear 5000m from the edge of the wormhole, making it that much less likely that anyone hanging around is in range of you. So, less chance for a lucky decloak, less chance that even if you mess up your cloak command that the enemy is in scrambler range.
Me, I have stopped worrying much at all about being caught on a wormhole, to the point that I rarely wait out polarization on any hole. This is kind of nice, actually.
I know I haven't seen anything of the kind for a while, but I wouldn't be surprised if this change prompts players to get their HICs out again and plant them on wormholes with an interceptor and some boats that carry drones. Get a big bubble inflated, set the drones to assist the ceptor, and get the ceptor flying towards anyone who tries to cloak.
Sure, maybe you can pulse your MWD and cloak on your way back to the wormhole—as trying to get out of a bubble would be much further, even with these changes—but you could feasibly be caught, scrammed, and webbed before getting back in to jump range.
No longer will this kind of wormhole camp need to rely on good awareness of when their prey immediately jumps back through the wormhole, and need the reflexes to chase them.
I realise this is conjecture, but when I poke through a wormhole and realise I have several kilometres to cover, from a stationary start, to get back in to jump distance, I start to flashback to appearing in similar situations inside a bubble with a handful of ships on-grid. Even in the old days, getting clear wasn't straightforward, and the first decision needed to be made was to make a run for it or risk polarisation. Now, you won't have much option to risk polarisation by jumping back, and if you do it is much more obvious what your intention is.
Hmm, two very different opinions. You drive a T3 and I drive a frigate.
In a frigate, I am very rarely beyond jump range. And if I am, it's still very close; I think the maximum is 500m beyond it. Even heavily webbed I could make that with a microwarpdrive pulse. So I don't feel like my options for back-jumping are significantly worse.
Meanwhile, I feel my options for pushing through a camp are significantly improved. I start further out, for one thing, and I never start in decloak range.
Yep, you're no doubt in a much better position scouting in a frigate, at least for scouting and surviving. You can dive through the small wormholes without faltering, and even losing the frigate won't hurt too much.
I think even T3 should usually manage to get back to wh on MWD, especially if you manage to hit MWD and cloak right after.